#I'm starting to feel like that Massive Monster doesn't know what they're doing

[spidey-555]

UNHOLY ALLIANCE SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

I have never been more enraged by a sentence in my entire life.

They aren't unique. At all.

They all follow the same formula of: bishop feels homesick so they ask the Lamb to take them to their domains -> they become a demon to accompany you on your crusade -> you get to their temple -> you give them their relic back (or don't, I know know what happens if you do that) -> they drop some lore, most of which was already figured out by the fanbase -> they ask to take them back to the cult.

And speaking of those lore drops, they aren't that good, imo

Literally the only bishop who even mentioned the genocide was Kallamar, and he didn't even mention it by name. (He said something like "when Shamura stated what we had to do to survive, I also didn't want to listen")

The fandom already figured out that Narinder's sin was resurrection, so I guess Shamura was here just to confirm that.

I already forgot what Heket said other than "There is no justice in these lands" or something like that. (Which again, most of the fanbase already figured out that the lands of the old faith sucked to live in)

Leshy said something about preferring chaos to planning and schemes and that he didn't know the extent of Narinder's or his siblings plans.

I will say, I do like how these quests give us some info on the mindsets of the bishops (the aforementioned bit about Leshy preferring chaos to planning, Heket calling herself and her family monsters, Kallamar being self aware of his cowardice, and Shamura's whole line about "death must be the end, if not, what use do mortals have for gods")

Now you may be saying "well, this probably isn't the end for the bishops, Jojo probably has more stuff planned for them!" And to that, I say that if that were the case, I wouldn't be making this post.

So let's look at the patch notes, shall we?

How lovely, there was clearly a lot in this update!

Wait, what's that 7th bullet point?

Unfortunately, you read that right

This is the final quest line we're getting for the bishops

This is probably the last time we will see any of them get dialogue

This is the last time the devs are going to do anything with the bishops

And this is how they send them off

Such wasted opportunity, in my opinion.

EDIT: So I recently got the little conclusion that Narinder and his family has. And I liked it... at first.

He essentially just says "I'm not going to go on a speech who's fault it was. The world will go on." Or something like that, and it honestly feels less like Jojo was trying to write a good conclusion, and more like they were hastily trying to get Narinder and the bishops out of the way so that they can focus on their ✨️precious and flawless Lamb✨️

I don't really know what else to say without the entire fanbase hating me more than it already does.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - Weird Strange Warmth, Thailand

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

Sept 2024 Week 2

Ongoing Series - Thai

Jack & Joker (Thai Mon IQIYI) ep 1 of 12 - Oh it’s fucking great. What a fantastic start! It’s a fun cast too. I adore seeing all of the familiar faces. This is a lot more fun than Kidnap (sorry GMMTV, do better). I mean both shows are serving the same kind of concept but with completely different energy. I love that War is playing phi in this series. I think it suits him much better. In fact. I really like these rolls for this pair. I think they’re gonna knock it outta the park. I am so happy this is good. I wanted it to be good. And it’s good!

Monster Next Door (Thai Thurs Gaga ) ep 8 of 12 - Oh no! He read the journal. No snooping! Well I guess they needed to get some tension for these 2 from somewhere, otherwise they are too good to each other. Meanwhile, I’m not sure about the sides in this particular series. I don’t hate them. The laundry jealousy moment was pretty well done. But I'm not sold, either.

Addicted Heroin (Thai Tues WeTV) ep 5 of 10 - I forgot that we were already on the ICONIC kidnapping section of the narrative. I miss Gu Hai's OBEY sweatshirt from the original. (Someday I will own that sweatshirt.) Hero should at least be wearing an OBEY T-shirt. Frankly I miss the harshness of the original too. Johnny Huang was just so massive, August doesn't have the physicality to carry this scene off. Nor does Thailand have the guts to push it into the creepy obsessive territory that made the first version so thrilling to watch.

The thing about the original kidnapping bit was we could feel Gu Hai's vibrating need to possess overriding everything else (including his sense of humor and frustration with himself). Gu Hai KNOWS kidnapping was an over reaction, he KNOWS he is being absurd, he just doesn't care. Because he doesn't just want to fuck Bai Luo Yin he wants to consume him.

We didn't get any of that from Hero. Hero, as a character, just isn't edgy enough to carry off a kidnapping, he's been softened too much in this new Thai form.

And then... An around the back of head not-kiss? Interesting choice. (Checks to see if BoomPeak are hanging out nearby.) Is that because the actor is under age? We in that head space for this whole show? (Pun intended.) Not sure how I feel about any of it.

It’s a much milder confession this time around, because it’s Thailand, but it’s still warped. So I’m still here for the weird strange warmth of this damn show. I did laugh a lot during this episode. 

Kidnap (Fri YT) ep 2 of 12 - Oh I am very much enjoying this.

"You’re the worst kidnapper I ever ever met" is an apt accusation.

Battle of the Writers (Sun YT) ep 7 of 12 - I kinda enjoyed the little side romance story (wealthy writer intellectual + poor local salt-of-the-earth boy = Love Seaing all over my damn screen). It came outta nowhere but... okay.

I honestly have no idea what’s going on with this show. But the kisses are nice. And I pretty much like all of the couples. It’s wild how disjointed it is but simultaneously how pretty. It’s like Star Hunter got hold of Mame’s budget and aesthetic. 

I Saw You in My Dream (Weds Gaga) ep 9 of 12 - Boyfriend era to the max. Production is still ignoring the whole "dreaming the future" POINT OF THIS SHOW.

The Trainee (Sun YT) ep 11 of 12 - Jane is VERY COOL. Like tay-style cool… as it were. I like their dynamic when they're given one to play with. It’s the rest of this show I don’t enjoy. 

Live in Love (Sun Gaga) ep 2 of 5 - It cute. Bit odd but cute. I like the language play, of course. It’s an interesting pair to watch flirt because it’s all language play so that's fun but otherwise, I'm not convinced.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

The On1y One (Taiwan Thurs Gaga) eps 7-8 of 12 - This BL doesn’t drink from the water bottle to show off its neck. It quietly hands you the water bottle and expects you to understand that is not an act of generosity but of polite distancing. It's about the delicacy of the messaging, and the way themes are conveyed with such nuance.

This story is entirely about the two of them figuring out about each other, and then trying to be what the other person needs based on that information. It means they (and therefore we) are on this journey of discovering affection together. It's brilliant.

I must talk about the physical acting of these two for a second. That scene where they’re fighting over the book and then fall into the pool. That was one take. That’s amazing. These two are really fucking stellar not only at acting but hitting their marks. And let's be clear, that is NOT the same thing. I bet they both have stage training.

Define irony: watching two abandoned kids counsel their respective parents through abandonment issues.

Sugar Dog Life (Japan Sun grey) ep 6 of 10 - It is stupid cute and utterly charming. They are total boyfriends. It’s just that one of them wants to be and one of them assumes they already are. Actually, nevermind boyfriends, they’re married.

I Hear the Sunspot AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru (Japan Weds Gaga) ep 12fin - It made me whimper a lot because they’re both hurting so much. But in the end it was... fine.

Summation

The compassionate story of a college kid going deaf and the one boy he can hear. I love this manga and was let down by the first adaptation (Silhouette of Your Voice), so I was expecting a lot from this BL. I expected the soundscapes in this one to be fantastic, and the were, but I didn’t expect the filming to be something special too. But it really is. The acting is great too. But the story? It was just fine. They spent far too much time on the build to a relationship, then wallowed in their separation and a problematic girl character, when they should have been showcasing Taichi's character arc and his capacity for connection. Perhaps Japan should pass this one off to Thailand, It's a soft story centering on "food as love" so they might do better with it. I am, yet again, disappointed. 8/10 but I want to give it a 7/10

First Note Of Love (Taiwan Mon Gaga) eps 9-10 of 12 - It’s fine. it’s cute. I enjoyed getting some backstory. More of the sides, please.

Seoul Blues (Korea Fri? YouTube) ep 7 - Honestly, why don’t they just call this entire series The Cheating Diaries and have done with it? I’m only watching it because there’s basically nothing else from Korea right now. But I’m generally mad about it. Including the fact that everybody is so pretty and the acting is so good in the series, but the stories are so terrible.

It's airing but...

The Hidden Moon (Sat WeTV) ep 1 of 10 - This is a supernatural romance (my ghost boyfriend trope) by Violet Rain (I Feel You Linger). A man is hired to write an article about an old mansion in Chiang Mai being converted into a café. He sees the ghosts of people who died at the mansion, falls in love with one of them. Was substantially recast. I loved IFYLITA except the ending so I think I'll let this one run it's course you can tell me if it's work tracking down... if they managed to land it. I have my doubts.

Happy of the End (Japan Tues Gaga) - A boy is disowned for being gay, dumped by his boyfriend, and ends up in a dysfunctional co-dependant relationship with his would-be kidnapper. We were due for another messy JBL and it's exactly as expected. I do not like it at all. And ya know what? There is plenty airing. DNF 

In case you missed it

The Time of Fever (Korea iQIYI & Viki) 6 eps - Side couple from Unintentional Love Story, HoTae & DongHee, return for a spin off backstory show.

It started out fantastic. And it was a relief to have a good Korean BL finally back on my screen, even a high angst one. But I did spend a lot of time trying trying to figure out whether they’re going to rehash or reboot from the previous series. Are we in Between Us territory or Don't Say No or (heaven forbid) To My Star 2?

None of the above, it turns out.

This was a pure prequel about lost first love. As such, it has no real finale beyond what we got in ULS. Which, for this pair, wasn't satisfying. Putting my disappointment over this aspect aside, it is enjoyable on the strength of the characters, actors, and chemistry (if not story). Yes I said chemistry, the kissing is fantastic, sometimes KBL can do that. This one featured the "teach me to kiss trope"!!!! Plus language play. Both favorites of mine. It is all angst, ache, repression, and miles of subtext. It did fudge the ending by not skipping forward and over the events in ULS to depict what happened next (what, no year long time jump when we actually need it, Korea?) It's a worthy companion piece, but should be watched BEFORE ULS for maximum satisfaction, and even then you're going to be left feeling like HoTae & DongHee's relationship was never adequately discussed or depicted in order to achieve resolution.

The little cameo of my baby in ep 5 was much appreciated. But the motorcycle should’ve been set up a little bit more. Of course I wanted it to be about them getting together after the events in the first series. But this was all backstory from start to finish. And while it was good backstory, it wasn’t ultimately satisfying for these characters. Still it’s a good little series. 8/10 

Meet You at the Blossom (China) - I'm eating crow, binging the fucker, and live blogging. It's just taking me some time. This isn't really a bingable show, not for me anyway. It's A LOT to take all at once. No new one this week.

4 Minutes (Gaga) Ended - Spies reported in to say the ending was not-exactly-unhappy and mostly lackluster. I'm torn over whether to watch. My natural disinclination to binge, meets my dissatisfaction with wishy-washy, is going up against my love for fabulous high heat and pretty pretty men.

Mitsuya-sensei no keimakutekina ezuke finished and it’s reported to be solid. Age gap treated with respect. I'm curious, so I'll check it out. Not doing very well on binging and catching up but it's on the docket...

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

Still Coming Sept 2024:

9/15 Love Sick 2024 (Thai Sun iQIYI) 15 eps - Remake of the original. I'm scared too.

9/15 Bad Guy My Boss (Thai Sun Gaga) 10 eps - Assistant to a player boss who is in love with that boss decides to quit to save himself. The boss then makes a move. (A gay What's up with Secretary Kim?)

9/17 Love is Like a Poison AKA Doku Koi: Doku mo Sugireba Koi to Naru (Japan Tues Netflix?) 10 eps - Lawyer and a con artist meet at a bar, pair up, fall in love.

9/28 Teenager Judge (Vietnam Sat YouTube) ?? eps - oh I don't know just Ba Vinh doing his thing with pretty boys again.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Love a teach me to kiss, teach me to fuck, whatever moment. (I Saw You In My Dreams sides)

Not gonna lie. I laughed. Addicted.

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in its infinite wisdom doesn't like too many at-ings.

[llamagoddessofficial]

I'm on my knees for any more crumbs with prison AU therapist Mc and Sans 🙏 the more equal(?) dynamic is just so good And to the anon that brought it up—I love you

I'll do you one better. Here's some crumbs for ALL of them

Since she's not a nurse, this Mc doesn't have a very strong stomach. Stories of Skull's crimes sometimes make her physically ill.

Generally, Sans and Mc's 'sessions' can be quite pleasant. They talk about current events, how things are going. It's only once she starts trying to explore his feelings that he starts toying with her.

... Red teases her a lot. She tries not to react to it, it's unprofessional, but he can always tell when he's flustering her. He gets this infuriating smug grin.

Since Red is a high risk prisoner, he has to have one hand cuffed to a table during therapy. He often complains that he wishes he could be cuffed alone in a room with her in different circumstances. What Mc doesn't realise is that, considering his strength, the cuffs are basically for decoration- Red just pretends he can't break out of them so she feels more comfortable alone in a room with a massive skeleton monster who openly displays interest in her.

Sans doesn't require cuffs in his sessions. And the only time he was cuffed, he snapped them 'accidentally' to make a point. It just makes it all the more nervewracking for Mc.

Skull doesn't know she's his therapist. He thinks she just really cares about him. That's why she keeps coming back to see him, right?

Red isn't the only flirt. Sans is a lot more forward in this AU, considering she knows the truth about his nature. Granted, Sans being 'clear' about something is still incredibly cryptic, but he enjoys the shock in her eyes whenever he calmly flirts with her.

Red's flirting is warm, sincere, and never crosses the line... it leaves her flushed and (though she'd never admit it) flattered. Sans' flirting is nervewracking. It makes her feel like she's a mouse, and Sans is a cat playfully batting at her, capable of clawing her to death at any moment.

Skull gains bits and pieces of speech back a lot faster with her. Unfortunately, that means he's learning how to terrify the guards. It used to be that Skull would just scream or snarl, but now he likes to say broken ominous sentences to guards he doesn't like to see them shit their pants.

He's also figured out that, when he's really upset and angry, if he screams her name enough someone will send her. It's not a great lesson to learn... but it's better than him deciding to attack people.

Whenever Mc tries to get Skull to do therapeutic art with her, he just draws the same thing over and over. The art is scribbly thanks to his tremor, but it always looks like three people; a tall skeleton, a shorter skeleton, and a human. He draws them in various positions- standing together, sitting around a table, sitting on a couch. She suspects one skeleton is him and the human could be her, but she doesn't know who the tall skeleton is.

(It's him, her, and Papyrus. His family)

Sans, for all his power and control, gets ratty and jealous when she treats other people. The first time he hears her laugh is when she realises that was why he's being moody.

She'd never seen him so delighted before.

Sans likes when she dodges his conversational traps. He'll try to lure her into talking about herself, revealing information to him, but she won't fall for it and always turns it back on him. There's not much he's been able to glean from her. It's always so fun, to play with someone who knows what they're doing.

Again, she'll never admit it. But Mc is fascinated by Sans. Most serial killers are delusional and kinda pathetic, but Sans is as if all the stereotypes of the 'genius mastermind serial killer' were true. She gets to be up close and personal, see how he works; she gets to watch his mask rise and fall in real time.

Of course, he knows she's fascinated. He uses it to keep her coming back. He's fascinated with her, too~

[patchwork-crow-writes]

No, actually, you get the Kralsei "incest" rant now, I've decided.

The ship being considered incest or incest-adjacent is largely a result of several assumptions that are being made about Ralsei, and to a lesser extent about Kris as well. For this to work, you have to assume the following:

Ralsei is modeled primarily on Asriel

All Boss Monsters of a certain age look identical to one another and are related to one another

Kris had absolutely no hand in Ralsei's creation

Kris is heavily uncomfortable with Ralsei's existence

The entire implied romantic undertones of Ralsei's feelings towards Kris were designed to be incestuous from the start

In order, I shall deconstruct and debunk these. Very long post below the read more, you have been warned.

While it is true that Ralsei does share some superficial similarities with Asriel, he's actually much, MUCH more similar to Kris in many ways. All he shares with Asriel is an anagrammed name and a passing likeness. They're not similar in terms of personality, and that goes regardless of which Asriel we're even talking about. Many people associate Ralsei with Undertale's incarnation of Asriel, who doesn't even exist in the same universe. Any similarities between the two are inferred entirely by the player, aided and abetted by the game making these subtle hints that they're "connected" in some way. Yeah, about as connected as Undertale is to Deltarune. To take this a step further, consider Kris and Frisk. No-one is conflating these two, not in a million years. And yet look, they share an anagrammed name and a passing likeness, so they're basically the same person, aren't they? I mean, we both control them through the SOUL, and they're both protagonists of games made by Toby Fox, so if anything they're more similar to each other than Ralsei is to Asriel. But of course, that's utterly absurd, and we all know it. *

I refer you once again to the humans. And before you tell me "they all obviously look different to each other" - and of course I'm not saying they're not different when they obviously are - consider how a monster might look at these humans if you placed them side-by-side. Pale-ish skin, brown hair, no obvious gender markers, similar height profiles. Any monster who's not intimately familiar with any of the humans in question might perhaps confuse them. And so it is with us and Boss Monsters. Just because Ralsei and Asriel share certain characteristics common to ALL boss monsters does not make them the same, or even similar, to each other. You only have to look at the sprites for the two side-by-side to see that there are plenty of differences between them. And as for Deltarune's Asriel? We haven't even seen this guy, we have NO idea what he looks like. We're just making assumptions again based on incomplete information. And if we assume that all boss monsters are related in some way due to how similar they might appear, then what does that make Toriel and Asgore, two boss monsters who have canonically produced offspring in both continuities? I don't need to say it, do I? *

It should be clarified here that I don't just mean Kris consciously made Ralsei at any point, either as an imaginary friend or monster-sona or what-have-you, but that Ralsei's creation as a darkner is somehow linked to how Kris saw themself/wished to be seen in their childhood. The most obvious piece of evidence supporting this is the horned headband that Toriel mentions at the end of Chapter 1. It's heavily implied that Kris would wear it so that they could be the same as their adoptive family, before they supposedly lost it somewhere down the line. It's not too much of a leap in logic to infer from this that Ralsei was created from that headband, at least in part. That said, there are certain aspects of Ralsei that don't exactly fit this neat mold, and I am willing to concede this point if it turns out that the headband thing is a massive misdirect. Nonetheless, I would say that the evidence we currently have to hand points more resolutely towards Ralsei being an aspect of Kris than of him being an aspect of Asriel. *

So I'm just going to say it: WE DON'T KNOW. Because Kris is our protagonist and POV character, it's incredibly easy to forget that we know next-to-nothing about the inner workings of their mind. They have no dialogue except what we tell them to say, and anything we CAN say about them is inferred from how other characters respond to their tone of voice. Of course, we can infer that Kris doesn't fully consider Ralsei a good friend based on his tea healing 60HP, but that on its own doesn't really tell us anything of much substance because you can't exactly cross-reference those numbers against a handy chart or anything - it's all context-dependent. We do at least know that they are comfortable enough around Ralsei to play the odd prank on him, which we know is something they used to do a lot of with Noelle and Asriel, two people they were close to growing up. They will, of their own volition, interpret our instruction to "take a bite" of Ralsei's dummy's clothes to make it look like they're kissing it on the cheek. I don't think that's something you would do with somebody who freaked you out on an existential level, or somebody who reminded you of your brother. Again, I am willing to concede this point should it turn out my interpretation of these clues is incorrect. *

Ask yourself this: What would Kralsei being incest - or incest-adjacent, or pseudo-incest, or whatever - contribute to the characters of Kris and Ralsei, to our relationship to them as players, or to the narrative or wider themes of Deltarune as a whole? I'll tell you - nothing whatsoever. The most such an interpretation can EVER say is that we as players are so easily manipulated by window-dressing and flattery that we will, knowingly or otherwise, romantically pair two characters together who are related in some way, shape or form. And let's say that this IS the intent behind their dynamic - all it amounts to, all it can ever amount to, is a great bit gotcha from Toby Fox himself. Haha, I tricked you into shipping two characters who are secretly related, isn't that fucked up of you? Somehow, I don't think that was his intention with this, it seems such a petty and small-minded thing for somebody who we know is capable of creating moving, thought-provoking, horrifying and beautiful stories. He's better than that. It turns the entire thing into a glorified skill-check: are YOU smart enough to identify that you're being encouraged to engage in incest-shipping, or are you a dumbass who only sees what's presented to you and doesn't ask questions about it? Contrary to popular belief, we're not all 5-D chess grandmasters, and shockingly not everybody is going to interpret the clues in this way. All it does is make people who DO earnestly ship Kralsei feel bad for something the game WAS ENCOURAGING THEM TO DO. Which would be fine if we were playing, say, Spec Ops: The Line, which is very much built around that conceit. And hey, if you wanna feel shitty about shipping two characters together in an extremely unhealthy and harmful manner, Snowgrave is right there. The difference here is that the weird route is A) completely optional, B) difficult if not impossible to accidentally trigger, C) completely derails the game's story and emotional beats, and D) doesn't rely on the shock value of surprise incest to carry it. Snowgrave actually has something INTERESTING to say about the nature of former friends, forced romance, a player's control over a protagonist and how people can be manipulated to do horrendous things by proxy. All the incest interpretation of Kralsei has to offer is that... it's incest, and you're a bit yucky for partaking in it. I'll wrap up this point by saying: incest is a very emotive topic and produces visceral emotional reactions in a lot of people. It's very clever that people have looked critically at Kralsei and observed the possibility, the interpretation, that this could be what's happening, but if the aim in doing so was to promote debate and analysis on the topic, I'm afraid it's only succeeded in doing the exact opposite, causing people to disengage from it entirely. And I strongly believe that's going to severely harm the state of discourse going into Deltarune's future chapters, because how are you going to talk about the game and what it's trying to say if you keep dodging a major part of it for fear of being thought of as pro-incest? It sucks if you're invested in the ship because no-one wants to discuss it, it sucks if you're NOT invested in the ship because it's not likely going to just evaporate come chapter 3, it sucks for everybody.

Now, having said all of that, I am not here to convince you that Kralsei is the truth and the life and what-have-you - you can read any of my other essays on the topic if you want to be preached to in that manner. You're valid and based for not liking Kralsei for any reason, and I wholeheartedly respect your opinion. All I'm trying to say here is that, calling it incest because "Ralsei is/looks like Asriel" or "Kris hates Ralsei" or whatever doesn't do anything for anyone. There are plenty of valid reasons not to like the ship, I just don't think that this is one of them.

Rant over, have a lovely day :D

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

The Good Creativity

Hi! I just wanna start by saying I ABSOLUTELY LOVE your works (esp the angsty Roman ones) and I don’t know if you’re taking requests but I had an idea inspired by some of your works that I just had to share. Roman wants to duck out as he feels unneeded but chooses not to since he’s not sure what would happen if a side fully just disappeared with no one to help (unlike a certain purple side) so instead he takes his personality, memories, clothes, everything that makes Roman Roman and shoved them somewhere because obviously the problem isn’t Creativity, it’s Roman. The other sides try to find him to talk because they all realise that things Roman are disappearing(oh that one mug of Roman’s? It’s gone. Or that one poster Roman gave me? It’s not there. The imagination? All dark and gory and Remus but not a single bird chirping or unicorns galloping or Roman) only to find his room is just white and dead, no color or Disney or anything Roman nothing except for the figure just sitting there waiting to help them but it isn’t Roman. Cue the sides trying to find the pieces that make up Roman and convince him that they do want their Roman back not just the “Good Creativity” with a lot of cuddles and comfort and love. – anon

Read on Ao3

Warnings: fading, ducking out

Pairings: gen

Word Count: 4942

Patton tries to go in the Imagination one day and screams. Dark trees, gnarled and dripping with some viscous fluid. Bats and screaming critters scurrying all along the ground of black and brown grass. Deep water and razor cliffs made of mysterious oily black stone. Shadows moving in massive packs and the distant howling cackling of monsters made flesh. The others rush to find Roman, demand what's going on, why has Remus done this, but Roman isn't there. The blank figure of Good Creativity opens the door and has no idea what they're talking about.

Roman has a notebook.

That in and of itself shouldn't be surprising. He's Creativity, his literal job is to create things. Ideas, characters, stories, things to entertain, things to say something, things to exist. He makes things and he's good at it.

At least…he thought he was.

"I just think it'd be better, don't you?"

He nods, because when Patton asks you a question like that, you nod and agree to what he's saying. He brings his hands behind his back, ostensibly to show respect for the lecture this meeting has turned into, but really he's just trying to hide the fact that they're shaking. He bows his head in a nod and swallows the lump in his throat.

"I didn't realize it was becoming an issue," he manages, "I…thought it was fine."

"We've talked about this before, Roman." Logan. Logan's another one he just ends up having to agree with more often than not. "In order for Thomas to actually be a functional adult, he cannot spend all of his time daydreaming about nonsense."

"Not that what you're doing is nonsense," Patton says a little too quickly and a little too brightly, "just…you know, those sorts of things are best for when we're not doing anything else that's more important!"

Roman just nods again. "Is there…can we agree upon times where I can work?"

"Oh, this isn't about you doing your work, Roman! This is about all the other stuff, like spending a lot of time in the Imagination."

"That's—that's my work, though. I have to be in the Imagination to do my work."

"What Patton means," Logan says slowly, "is that there are other forms of work you can do, like writing out scripts and proposals and all of those sorts of things that are more productive. Those we are not putting restrictions on."

"But that's only part of my work, I need to—"

"Roman." Patton's voice gets stern. "Logan's right. We're trying to find a balance for Thomas. You're not doing yourself any favors by pretending to not know what we're talking about."

"I'm not pretending, I'm trying to explain! I—look, this is like telling Logan he doesn't need to go to the library, or—"

"I don't need to go to the library."

"It was an example—or using your computer to look things up to fact check things," he tries again, "all I'm saying is that you don't know what goes into doing my job, and so you're trying to stop me from doing it without understanding that you can't just cut me off from the Imagination!"

"Is that what you think we're trying to do?" Patton asks as Logan sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Roman, we're not monsters and we're not your parents trying to punish you."

Are you sure? Really feels like it.

"We're saying that maybe you could be a little more conscious of how you spend your free time."

"That's not free time, though, I need to do that to help do my job!"

Logan raises an eyebrow. "So you flying around on your dragon, having adventures, that goes into making ideas for Thomas?"

"Well…not exactly, but—"

"And those big masquerade parties you keep pestering us all to attend, those, too?"

A sting, like he's been slapped. He thought they'd wanted to come to those. "No, but—"

"And the cabin in the woods with the young man?"

Roman's heart drops out of his chest. No one is supposed to know about that. No one. Not even Remus. His knees wobble.

"I thought so," he hears Logan say distantly. "You would do well to remember that the Imagination is for all of us, Roman, not just you and Remus. Let's try and be a little more conscious of how we're spending time there, yes?"

Roman just nods. Anything. Anything at all to get him out of this situation, out of this room, out of whatever this has turned into, he just needs to go. Patton says something and he just nods to that too, and then he hears something about you don't need to be embarrassed, Roman, and he's just—

He leaves.

He drops into his room and runs to the bathroom, slamming the door and slumping against it without even bothering to turn on the lights. His breath starts coming in great heaving gasps, his fingers scrabbling at his upper arms as he hunches in on himself, curling up tighter and tighter until he's made a mess of his knees. He squeezes his eyes shut. The balloon in his chest keeps snapping against his ribs.

How did they find out about that? How did they know? What did they see?

They think it's just some fantasy. Some passing thing like Thomas used to have all the time as a teenager, where it was a handsome prince and a knight and some story that they tell themselves just to pass the time, to indulge some feelings that weren't as easily realized in Thomas's actual life. They think Roman's indulging himself in the mindless comfort of some Imagination construct because he's Romance and Passion and so swept up in his own fascination with his role as the Prince that he's—he's—he's just made someone with the purpose of flattering his own Ego.

It shouldn't bring him relief, to confirm that in his head. He's just found out that things he thought were private in the Imagination—which is his, his and Remus's, in a way that it will never be for the others, no matter how hard they insist otherwise—aren't actually that private at all, and Logan just used his most vulnerable secret against him to prove a point, and yet, he didn't. Because if he had known why that cabin is so special to Roman, he wouldn't have used it like that. And so, Roman slumps to the floor in an aborted sigh of relief.

There are still a few things that are secret after all.

He drags himself up and slaps at the light switch, grimacing when the bulb flares to life. He changes into a soft shirt and pants, splashing water on his face before reaching into the drawer under the sink and retrieving the notebook.

The notebook.

Not the ones he lets the others see, not the ones just for Thomas's works, his notebook. The one where all the things for Roman go.

Logan and Patton made it clear. They want Creativity. They want Roman to be their little work horse. They don't actually want Roman. So Roman can live in here. In this notebook, where no one else can find it, where there's no Imagination to creep through and try to claim, where it's his and his alone.

He sits with his back to the drawer, pulling the well-worn pencil from its loop and flipping to a new page. He can't use the Imagination, but he can still use his Imagination. Where there's no possibility of getting things wrong. Where that cabin in the woods isn't some dirty little secret that Roman sneaks off to just to spite Logan's sense of productivity, it's one of the only places where Roman actually feels like Roman. Where he can go after a long and exhausting day and turn up with nothing but open hands and a willingness to help, and not be a prince but just a friend. Where he can kneel down and help in the garden, feel the dirt under his fingernails and the sweat on his brow, tending to the plants that have made it through the harsh winter. Where he can accept the invitation to stay for dinner, if only for the reason that it's sometimes difficult to navigate through the woods alone after dark, and the food will be warm and hearty and shared without questions of intent or purpose. Where he can sit in front of a roaring fire with someone else's warmth pressed against his side, murmur and mumble something and have it returned to him with gentle hands and soft words, no pressure to perform or censor himself. Where there's a warm bed and a warm body and just that, no need for anything else, no hidden trysts or passionate nights, just…just the warmth and comfort and safety of something there.

Yeah.

There's no way he'd let the others find out about something so vulnerable.

***

At least…that was the plan. But then things start going missing.

There's a red sparkly mug in the kitchen cabinet. Logan thinks it's obnoxious and Virgil teases him for getting glitter everywhere every time he uses it—even though he doesn't, he was very careful about that. It's Roman's mug, the one he uses when he's feeling particularly fanciful or when he really needs a subtle pick-me-up.

It's not there anymore. It's just a plain white mug with nothing on it.

One of the pieces of artwork hanging in the bathroom is Roman's. It's one of the pieces he did when he was still experimenting with painting. It was—well, it was supposed to be a representation of all of them working together. All of their colors, blending together to make one extremely colorful Thomas, complete with all of the multi-dimensionality that comes with, you know, being a person. Janus had taken one look at it and snorted. Yes, Thomas is gay, Roman, thank you for being obvious about it. And that had been the end of it. It was just the Gay Thomas painting.

An empty frame hangs in its space. The white wall almost seems to mock it.

Songs start disappearing off of the little speaker in the living room. Statues and figurines go missing from the mantle. Books and stories start vanishing from the bookshelves. Little things, only ever little things, and no one notices, because they're not looking for them.

Roman's notebook fills. He wears one pencil down to the nub and gets another. Then another, then another. It's his, and no one else's, and that's how he wants it to be. They don't get to know these stories. They've made it very clear his work is supposed to be just that: work. Work for Thomas, work for them, not for Roman. So Roman's work will be in this notebook. Only in this notebook.

Then Patton tries to go in the Imagination one day and screams.

Dark trees, gnarled and dripping with some viscous fluid. Bats and screaming critters scurrying all along the ground of black and brown grass. Deep water and razor cliffs made of mysterious oily black stone. Shadows moving in massive packs and the distant howling cackling of monsters made flesh.

The others rush to find Roman, demand what's going on, why has Remus done this, but Roman isn't there. Roman is nestled safely in the pages of his notebook.

The blank figure of Good Creativity opens the door and has no idea what they're talking about.

***

"So let me make sure I heard you right," Remus says lightly, glaring at the Sides currently huddled together in the middle of the couch as Janus and Virgil wince from the staircase, "you decided to scold Roman for spending time in the Imagination, humiliated him by exposing his secrets, and making him feel like he needs to hide every part of himself from everyone else, and you think he's being unreasonable right now?"

Janus squeezes the hand in his. The empty shell of Good Creativity doesn't react. Virgil presses a little closer to him anyway.

"We didn't know—"

"Didn't know," Remus cuts off sharply, "or didn't care? 'Cause it seems to me like you two figured out how to make the pretty little picture of an obedient Roman and did it 'cause it was easier than actually trying to talk to him."

"We didn't know," Logan repeats, even as his hands fiddle in his lap, "I didn't realize that Roman's time in the Imagination served another purpose, nor that his work was—"

"Not something you just sit down at a desk and do because that's not how Creativity works?"

"Don't blame him," Patton says quickly, "it was my idea first—"

"Oh, you're not getting out of this either. You're the one that's been on my ass about being bad for Thomas for ages, you think I'm really all that surprised you turned that onto Roman the second he stopped being your helpful little puppet? You think that I'm just gonna stand here and listen to you two try and defend yourselves when not once, not once have you asked why Roman might have done this?"

There's a pause. Then Logan swallows. "You said it yourself. We…we tried to forbid him from going to the Imagination. We embarrassed him by talking about what he does there."

"Do you know what else you did?"

"…no?"

Remus turns around. The empty shell of Good Creativity still stares placidly at the floor, blinking every so often. He turns back.

"Roman's found a way of ducking out that is so fucking good, there's no way for us to get him back."

Silence. Patton's horrified gasp. Logan's eyes go wide and he presses his lips together until they turn white. Virgil stands up.

"Wait, Remus, are you—are you serious? We can't get Princey back?"

"We can't, no." Remus glares at Logan and Patton one more time before turning around. "No, what we're gonna do it help this one—" and here he takes the empty shell carefully by the arm— "into the Imagination, we're gonna close the door, and we're gonna wait."

"Wait? Wait for what?"

"For the parts of Roman to find him again."

***

The man sighs, setting down his axe. He ties the twine around the bundle of freshly-chopped firewood, heaving it up onto his shoulder, and setting off back towards the cabin. As he rounds the corner, his eyes catch sight of a figure standing just off the path, staring up at the sky.

"Are you lost?"

The figure turns. There is no recognition in their features that someone has spoken. He frowns, carefully settling the load of firewood on the ground, the other hand letting the axe hang at his side. Their clothing is pure white. Unnaturally so.

"Hey," he calls again, "this isn't a safe place to be outside tonight. There's a storm that's supposed to come in after dark."

The figure tilts their head, staring up at the sky as if they could sense the storm. There's something oddly familiar in the twitch of their expression. He risks another step closer, close enough to realize that they aren't wearing shoes. His eyes widen and he reaches out before he can think better of it, touching an icy cold arm.

"You're freezing," he mumbles, eyes darting up to catch their gaze again, "come—come inside, please. Come get warm before the winds eat through you."

The figure lets themselves be led up the steps. He opens the door and guides them inside, over the floor and into a chair in front of the fireplace. He fetches one of the softer blankets and carefully drapes it over their shoulders. A flicker of memory dances in the glowing firelight, of his hands smoothing the soft fabric over another set of shoulders, but he blinks and it vanishes.

"Are you hungry?" The figure doesn't reply, but turns to watch him retrieve a small bowl of stew and a generous hunk of bread. He returns and crouches by their side, pressing it carefully into their hands. "Eat, please. It will help warm you."

The figure's movements slowly grow looser, languid as they eat. No small tension unspools in his chest as he watches them, watches the quirk of their brow as they discover a flavor they find fascinating, as they sweep the crumbs from their lap and take another bite of bread, as they make to stand and tidy away the dishes with some odd familiarity. He moves to help them, gentling their hands into the warm water to help soothe the tremors that have begun to seize their fingers.

"Come sit back by the fire," he coaxes, "you're still cold. Come, come…"

But the figure does not resettle peacefully. Rather, they have become a terribly nervous fidget; it takes not long at all for his heart to break in his chest when he realizes they are not uncomfortable, but rather fretting over taking up too much space, of touching him too much, of allowing themselves to ask—however wordlessly—for whatever comfort they so obviously need.

"Do not fret," he soothes, wrapping them in his arms to keep them still, "do not fret…you are safe here, let me care for you. You are not so awful for wanting comfort."

They look at him then, with an expression of such painful hope, and his heart breaks anew at the familiarity.

"Oh, my dear," he breathes, "what has happened to you?"

***

You wake up with a start. The panic and sickness that curdles in your stomach makes you retch, only for your body to writhe in pain as your muscles scream and rip apart with a pain you do not remember earning. The fire of the pain subsides into the burning cold of a deep, bone-weary loneliness, and your breath shudders out of you in that way a lung shudders just before tears. 

“Shh, shh, hush, dear, sweet one,” you hear a voice murmur with such an aching tenderness that you cannot place yourself at its intended recipient, “don’t fret, don’t fret, nothing’s so bad.”

You blink and a face swims into view—a beautiful face, framed by gentle curls and the softest of smiles. They smile—he smiles? Yes, he—the arch of the nose, the slope of the jaw, the rumbling timbre that you felt in your chest when he first spoke. He smiles and something burning soft brushes your cheek, a thumb wiping away a tear. 

“There,” he murmurs, the deep voice unspooling some of the sickness, “there, sweet one, there you are, you’re alright, nothing’s so awful to deserve your tears. Oh, you poor, sweet thing, what has happened to you?”

“I—I—“

“Oh, forgive me—“ and he leans away for a moment to reach out and pick something up— “shh, my dear, let’s have you drink something, please.”

A warm hand slips itself behind your head, cradling you as though you’re the most precious of fragile things. A metal cup touches your lips and you sip, water cool and fresh. As you drink, a bit more of your awareness returns and you blink once more, your hands moving in soft sheets and thick blankets, resting against the side of the man helping you drink. 

“Not too much,” he warns gently, “don’t want you getting sick.”

He sets the drink down on the side table and shifts to move a little closer to your head, framing your face with his hands. There’s a slight rasp as calluses brush your cheeks but it’s done with such carefulness that it makes a sob lodge in the back of your throat. 

“Sweet one,” he whispers, leaning close enough that his lips brush your cheek as he speaks, “talk to me, my darling, what’s happened? What’s made you so upset?”

You choke on the words, not wanting to give voice to the space in your chest that threatens to make the sickness manifest, and his expression contorts as if the very thought of you in pain causes him pain tenfold. 

“Can you say something, at least? Anything?”

“…I’m—I’m sorry.”

The very sound of your voice unspools some horrible string causing tension in his shoulders. He near slumps against you in relief, crowding you slightly against the headboard, his weight sinking the both of you into the soft pillows. A breathless chuckle washes over your nose and he kisses your cheek.

“You have nothing to apologize for, love,” he murmurs, hands toying with the hair around the outside of your face, “absolutely nothing.”

“What—what time is it?”

“Late. The night is young still.” One hand playfully taps the end of your nose. “Nothing to snatch you from me.”

“Are you cold?”

“Cold? No, my darling, I’m not cold. Are you cold? Should I make up the fire?”

“No, no, you needn’t—it’s okay—“

“Nonsense.” He kisses your chin and begins to pull away. “If you are cold, I will do anything in my power to warm you.”

He stands, pulling away, and you feel the cold rush back almost immediately. There is an old feeling of being a child, asleep in your parents’ bed, a too-big bed of too-many blankets and feeling small, small, so small, and never safer. As his footsteps move across the floor, you glimpse the dark wood of the cabin ceiling, the humble interior belying the richness of the comfort within. Quiet clattering and the low thwoompth as the fire is lit, the man standing up from the hearth and turning back to you with a smile. You sit up a little and he frowns, titling his head and coming back over to the bed. 

“Where are you going,” he asks, hands on your shoulders, the smile tugging at his lips again, “is there something that requires your attention this moment?”

“You were over there,” you mumble and he shifts close enough to loom over you just slightly. 

“And now I am here. Is this better?"

“You’re so warm.”

“I was just near the fire,” he chuckles, “but I have a feeling this is more than just a simple chill, would I be right?”

“Perhaps,” you mumble, your words beginning to slur slightly just from the weight of his hands on you. 

“Would a cuddle help?” Even as he asks, he moves one hand down to slide over your chest, your side, to wrap around your hip and pull you against him. “While the fire warms the room, may I warm the bed?”

You nod and he kisses your cheek, gently coaxing you to lie back down to pull the covers snugly up to your chin. You watch as he rounds to the other side of the bed, slipping beneath the blankets to take you into his arms. 

“You needn’t fear for anything here,” he whispers in between kisses, tangling your legs together and carding his hand through your hair, “nothing, my darling. You are safe, I have you, don’t fret, let me take care of you.”

You lose yourself quickly to the softness of the touch, the gentle words, the solidity of him holding you here, this drowsy haze of heat and pleasure that you could not disturb for the life of you. His voice a litany of reassurance and security that floats you deeper into that quiet space. 

“—ling? Darling?”

“I have no idea what we’re talking about right now,” you confess, and his chuckle warms you.

I feel rotten, you seem so starved for touch.” He tips your chin up with a knuckle and kisses your chin. “Will you indulge me as I attempt to remedy this, sweet one?”

“How?”

“Would it soothe you to hear what I wish to do before I do it, is that it?” 

Your cheeks redden slightly and his eyebrow quirks, thumb brushing your jaw. “I…I like your voice, that’s all.”

“Oh? Should I speak like this, then, or…” The hand on your face grows heavier, touch light around the shell of your ear. “Like this?”

Your breath leaves you in a rush and you tuck yourself into the space between him and the pillows.

“Don’t hide from me, lovely, it’s alright. I’m glad you like my voice, I’ve plenty I wish to say to you.” He rolls the two of you slightly to shelter you under him, pulling up the covers. “You poor sweet thing, so cold...come, come, let me warm you…it is so hard to stay warm during these long, cold nights, is it not?”

The question is mostly rhetorical; his hand already moves to slip beneath your shirt, resting on your side. The touch sends shivers up your spine. He rubs slightly back and forth and you close your eyes against the rush of sensation. 

“You’re so soft,” he whispers, hand on your tummy now, “so soft and warm, do you have any idea what bliss this is to have you here? My darling, my precious one, to keep you safe, to hold you close…”

"It hurts," you whisper, "I…I don't know why it hurts so much."

"My touch?"

You nod, head still tucked into the lea of him. "I'm afraid."

"Close your eyes, let me be here for you…that's it, you're alright. It's alright now…"

It's okay…

It's okay…

***

"It's okay, shh, just take your time…"

Roman blinks. He shifts and the warmth across his chest shifts too. He blinks again and marvels at the soft purple light shining through the window.

"Oh, Ro," he hears distantly, "you're okay now."

"…Re?"

He hears a choked sob and then he's being hauled up, cradled and crushed against Remus's chest. He nestles his head in the crook of Remus's shoulder and lets out a long, low breath. "Oh, Ro-Bro, you scared the hell out of us."

"What…what happened?"

"You did the worst combination of Fading and Ducking Out and scared me," Remus repeats, sounding a little bit like a petulant child, "so you're gonna get cuddled by all of us until you feel a little better."

"I'm what?"

"Oh, Roman," he hears Janus say, and then two gloved hands take one of his, lifting it to his lips and kissing his shaking knuckles, "we missed you, sweetie."

"You did?"

"Shit, Princey," Virgil mumbles, and now he's scooting closer, when did everybody get here? "All your stuff is gone. Your paintings, your books, your songs…even your mug, your obnoxious glitter monster that we all love so much."

Virgil's voice is soft, so soft, and then there's a hand rubbing up and down his back and his eyes get all heavy from how good just being held feels and he's sniffling again—again? It feels as though he's been crying for weeks. But Remus and Janus are already shushing him and Virgil is nudging the soft plush dragon into his hands so he can play with its wings and he looks up and sees Logan and Patton there too, watching him with such open expressions of concern that he doesn't know what to do.

"Roman," Logan murmurs, and oh, his voice is all soft too, "I'm so sorry, little one. I didn't know what I was talking about, I was wrong, I'm so sorry. We'll talk about this more when you can, of course, but…but I want you to know how much I regret what I did."

"Me too, sweetheart." Patton's all gentle, pushing his hair back from his face. "I didn't realize how horrible I was being to you. I'm gonna be better, okay? I promise, I promise."

"I didn't want you to know," he croaks, "it was—it wasn't for anyone else, I didn't—I didn't—"

"Shh," Remus mumbles, "don't get yourself worked up again. It's okay, the Imagination and I had a little chat, we're gonna figure stuff out better going forward."

"You…you promise?"

"Yeah, Roro. The Imagination is ours, and we have to fight for what's ours. You're allowed to have your special things the way everyone else is. I think Ollie's ready to fight someone else too."

"Don't let Ollie fight people."

"Yes, please help me maintain the illusion that I let the giant Kraken do things."

Janus chuckles, ruffling Roman's hair. "That's enough about Oliver for right now, I think, sweetie. You need to sleep still—don't think I didn't see you just try and stifle that yawn."

"You won't leave," he asks suddenly, "right?"

"No, Roro, we're not going anywhere." Remus holds him tightly, carefully lying down on top of the mattress—mattress, that's what this is, "I don't think the Imagination would let us."

The Imagination? They're in the Imagination?

"Yeah, Princey," Virgil whispers, "the Imagination's got us. We're in one of the big castle turrets and there are blankets and pillows everywhere."

"You're safe," Janus seconds, "we're all here, you're safe and nothing's going to happen to you right now. We just got our Roman back, we're not letting you go so easily."

The Imagination glimmers. It will always take care of its little prince, whether in be here, behind the safety of its doors, or between the pages of a notebook.

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[ohquail]

SBG Voltron AU - Part 3!

Chapter 1 <- Here Chapter 2 <- Here

Before this chapter starts I have some things to day about some of the names and the plot. Okay first. I skipped episodes 2-3 because I think they're boring and nothing much happens, but I did recap them. Second, there's a very very minor character in SBG that Charlie talks to, his name is Hudson.

Hudson is Haxus, Sendak's right hand.

Continue for Chapter 3:

The newly-formed Voltron paladins, Tyler, Aiden, Taylor, Logan, and Ben were able to defeat Charlie, the galran commander that attacked planet Arus.

A few days later, after intense training to be able to form Voltron again, while some of the team was getting to know the local arusians and Tyler and Logan were trying to locate Logan’s grandfather on the wrecked ship, the team was attacked by a Robeast. This Robeast was a massive version of a monster that Tyler had fought during his time in Maverick’s prisons. Thanks to the Tyler’s knowledge, the team was able to take down the Robeast with no casualties. ——— “The monster fell from the sky! It was an epic battle, but Voltron was victorious!” The king of the arusians cheered. The arusians that were supposed to represent Voltron fell over. “No. I said, Voltron was victorious!” The crowd cheered as the actors quickly fixed their mistake. “Thank you, Your Majesty, for that… wonderful production.” Ashlyn smiled, holding a small device in her hands. She turned to the crowd. “It saddens me that we must leave tomorrow, but we must continue our battle with Maverick and spread peace throughout the universe.”

The red head turned back to the King Arusian. “Your Highness please accept this gift.” Ashlyn held out the small device in her hand for the arusian. “This will allow you to contact us anytime you need help. Arus will be the first planet in the Voltron Alliance!”

The Arusian king turned to the crowd, “Hoorah!” He exclaimed holding up the device in his hand. The crowd cheered. “You know we need something like that,” Aiden suggested to Ben and Logan. “What?” Logan asked. “You know, like, a cheer,” Aiden smirked, “Like, a team cheer that we do.” he elaborated, his eyes bright with mischief.

Ben nodded while Logan looked suspicious. “Example?” Logan crossed his arms.

Aiden looked up at the ceiling for a moment before a light bulb went off in his head. “How about, uh “I say Vol” and you say “Tron.” Vol!” “Voltron?” Logan responded, his voice laced with skepticism. “No. No. No. The instructions are in the cheer,” Aiden shook his head. “I say Vol, you say Tron. Vol!” “Voltron,” Logan responded again, this time with less skepticism but more confusion.

Aiden sighed in disbelief. “We’ll work on it,” He told Logan before taking a sip of his drink. It was extremely bitter and gross. It sent a jolt through Aiden’s body. He groaned before turning to Alex near by. “Alex, what is this?”

“Oh, this is Nunvill, the nectar of the gods.” Alex explained.

“It tastes like hot dog water and feet,” Aiden frowned, looking down into the cup. Alex nodded, before dipping his fingers in his glass and tossing it towards his hair. “Yeah, makes a wonderful hair tonic as well,” Aiden bent over and threw up at that. Alex chuckled before walking up to Tyler who was standing guard at the entrance to the castle. “Not feeling well? Try some Nunvill. Settles the stomach and brightens your smile,”Alex humorously offered, holding out his glass.

Tyler furrowed his brows and shook his head, “I'm not sure we should be letting everyone wander in and out of the castle like this,” He looked off into the distance. “It doesn't seem safe,”

“Oh, these Arusians won't hurt anything much,” Alex winced as a plate shattered behind them. “Besides, it's only fair to let them see the inside of a castle that's been sitting on their planet for so long,”

“But who knows when Maverick will attack again? I'm going to do a perimeter check, just in case,” Tyler said, adjusting his armor before walking off. ——— Taylor walked up to Princess Ashlyn, “Hello Princess,” She greeted before jointing the red head leaning against the banister. Ashlyn looked over at the hispanic girl, “Is something on your mind Taylor?” “No,” Taylor shook her head, “Just…” She pointed down at the boys being idiots, “…didn’t want to hangout with them,” “Fair,” Ashlyn chuckled, “They are a bit rowdy and loud,” Taylor looked down at the dance floor for Logan. “He was just with Ben and Aiden,” Ashlyn looked down, “Who? Logan?”

Taylor nodded, her gaze scanning the crowd. "Yeah, he was with them but, now I can't find him." Ashlyn squinted her eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of Logan in the bustling crowd.

"There," Ashlyn pointed towards a corner of the hall where Logan was dumping food into his book bag. “What is he doing?”

“Let’s go find out,” Taylor suggested before starting to make his decent down the stairs.

As Taylor and Ashlyn approached Logan, they watched him hastily stuffing what looked to be an entire feast into his bag. He didn't notice them until Taylor cleared her throat, causing him to jump.

"Logan, what are you doing?" Ashlyn asked, her brows furrowing. Logan looked down at the ground for a moment before turning to the others, “I got some information from the galra cruiser that crash landed on Arus. About where my grandfather and friend might be,” “What?” Taylor asked, “Are you saying you’re leaving?” Logan looked down again, ashamed, “Yeah,” “But you can’t!” Ashlyn’s face turned hot red. “Logan, you’re one of five paladins, you have a sacred trust to defend the universe.”

"I know," Logan replied, his voice barely louder than a whisper. "But I have to find them. My grandfather, my friend...they're out there somewhere, and I can't just abandon them." He zipped up his bag, now bulging with food supplies, and slung it over his shoulder. “I should go tell everyone else,” He decided, leaving Taylor and Ashlyn stunned as he walked off to outside.

Outside, Logan walked up to Tyler, “Hey Tyler, there’s something I need to tell you,” ——— “Logan, no.” Tyler shook his head. “The download from the Galra ship was enough to at least get me in the right direction to start my search,” Logan explained to their small group that had gathered outside. “I have a pod all ready to go.” “You can't leave,” Aiden frowned, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You can't tell me what to do!” “If you leave, we can't form Voltron,” Tyler pointed out, “And that means we can't defend the universe against Maverick,” “You're not the only one with a family,” Aiden added, “All these Arusians have families. Everyone in the universe has families,” “Yeah, I have a family,” Ben interrupted, his phone speaking for him “They live on Earth. I want to be with them. Is that, like, a thing that can happen?” “You want to leave too?” Ashlyn asked, shocked.

Ben shrugged, before turning back to his phone, typing out his response. “Of course I do! Look, Voltron is super-cool, don't get me wrong, but I never signed up for a lifetime in space, fighting aliens.”

Aiden clenched his hands, before turning to Logan. “You're putting the lives of two people over the lives of everyone else in the entire galaxy!” He angrily shouted. “Aiden, that's not how a team works!” Taylor stepped in just as Aiden was about to grab Logan. “People have to want to be on it,” “They can't be forced,” Tyler agreed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look. Logan, if you want to leave, we won't try to stop you. But really think about what you’re putting at stake here,” Everyone fell quiet for a moment. “I'm sorry. You're going to have to find someone else to pilot the Green Lion,” Logan decided, before walking off. Phantom, the little robot, whirled before following him.

“I can't believe it,” Ashlyn sighed, putting her hand on her forehead. “This team is already falling apart. How will we ever form Voltron?” ——— Alex walked onto the bridge. “Mind if I join you?” Alex asked Logan who was searching the computer for coordinations, “Heard you’re leaving the team?” “Yeah. I just need to get the coordinates for my destination,” Logan told him, “I have a pod ready to go and the bay door is open I just need the correct coordinates to start my journey,” Alex watched the green paladin for a few more minutes before Logan pulled a thumb drive of out the altean computer and started walking away.

Alex followed Logan out of the room, passing Phantom going towards the Castle’s crystal. “Hello Phantom,” Logan half continuously greeted before realizing he left his bot in the pod bay. “ALEX! LOOK OUT!” Logan pulled the Altean out of the way before the fake Phantom blew up. ——— The lights around the castle flickered off. “What’s happening?” Taylor asked Ashlyn.

“I'm not sure,” Ashlyn started to run off towards the bridge, “But I have an idea!” The paladins looked at each other before chasing after her. They all entered the bridge, coughing and waving their hands around to clear the dust. “Alex!” Ashlyn cried as the man struggled to get up. Ben and Tyler rushed forwards and helped him up. “The crystal!” Taylor pointed out. The dust cleared more, revealing a unconscious Logan. “Logan!” Aiden rushed forwards with Taylor to check on the green paladin, “Logan?” The unconscious boy groaned as Aiden turned him over, Logan! We need to get Logan to the infirmary,” Aiden told Ashlyn. “Without the crystal, the Castle has no power,” Ashlyn looked scared. “He doesn't look good,” Taylor frowned.

The King of the arusians ran into the bridge, “Lion warriors, our village is under attack! We need help!” “Let's get to the lions,” Tyler shifted all of Alex’s weight over to Ben.

“You can't,” Ashlyn stopped him, “They're sealed in their hangars. There's no way to get them out,” “We're defenseless,” Alex coughed.

“Will you not help us?” The King Arusian asked. “We'll help you. We just…” Tyler told him, Logan groaned. “This is bad,” “We have to get a new crystal to get the Castle working again.” Ashlyn put her fist into her palm. “But, to get a new crystal, we need a ship,” Ashlyn furrowed her brows.

“The pod Logan was loading, we can use that! He told me that he left the bay door open.” Alex’s eyes light up like a light bulb, “I can use the scanner in the pod to see if there's a Balmera nearby. Ben, you come with me,” Alex pulled away from the yellow paladin’s support. “I'll need someone big to help me carry the crystal,” “A Balmera?” Taylor asked, taking in Ben’s confused look.

“It's where the crystals come from. I'll tell you about it on the way! Come along!” Alex and Ben took off down the hallway, Taylor furrowed her brows before chasing after them to make sure they got in the pod safely. “Aiden and I will head down to make sure the Arusians are okay and take care of the threat,” Ashlyn decided. “And I’ll stay here with Logan and make sure he’s okay,” Tyler offered. Ashlyn and Aiden nodded before running off down the hall to get to the village.

——— “It's our first bit of luck.” Alex said, pointing at the scanner on the pod, “There's a source not too far. We won't need a wormhole to get there, thankfully,” “Looks like Logan made some modifications to the pod,” Taylor pointed inside. “This one looks like cloaking device. This one looks like tank of booster fuel,” She pointed at both of the modifications Logan added. “Using that mid-flight would turn the whole pod into a bomb!” Alex turned to Taylor, offended. Ben gave Taylor a silent worried look. “Okay then… maybe don’t use that one?” Taylor chuckled to lighten the mood. “Be safe you two,” Taylor looked worried as she stepped away from the pod. “And good luck.” “We will. And thank you, Taylor,” Alex assured her before the pod took off. Taylor sighed before walking off to the bridge again. Phantom looked at her and whirled before following. ——— Tyler walked down the main hallway, “Hang on, buddy.” He told Logan, who was slung over his shoulder. “Help is on the way,”

Tyler pressed on, his grip firm around Logan's limp body. Every step echoed through the metallic corridor, a stark reminder of the dire circumstances they found themselves in. He glanced down at Logan, his face pale and slick with sweat.

"Stay with me, Logan," Tyler murmured, his voice barely a whisper in the tall hallway. He stopped in his tracks as a figure appeared in the doorway. “Charlie,” He growled at the Galran solider who entered with what was left with his crew. “Stand aside,” Charlie demanded. Tyler laid Logan down on the ground gently before making sure he was out of the way. “No. You're not getting in,” “Yes. I am,” Charlie assured Tyler before flinging himself at the paladin to fight.

Tyler braced himself for the impact, muscles tense and ready. He dodged the first swipe, retaliating with a powerful punch that caught the Galran solider off guard. They grappled fiercely, their violent dance sending echoes down the hollow corridor.

As soon as Tyler got the upper hand, a voice rang out. “Let him go or your friend won't make it!” Charlie’s second in command, Hudson called out, two centuries pointed their guns at Logan’s unconscious face. Tyler faltered for a moment and gave Charlie the opportunity to knock him out. ——— Ashlyn and Aiden ran up to the arusian village, “What's happening?” Ashlyn asked the king. “Look! Attackers!” The king pointed at the middle of the village where some centuries were standing around. “I'll go in for a closer look.” Aiden said, sliding down the bank into the center of the village “Stay here with them,” He instructed Ashlyn. “Aiden!” She called after him. “Don’t worry I’m durable!” Aiden told her before jumping down into the village. He carefully approached the village homes and took a peak at the centuries. One tipped over and crashed. “What?” It was a trick. “Oh, no,” Aiden’s eyes widen before turning on his helmet. “They tricked us!” He told Ashlyn over the comms, “It was just a diversion to separate us and thin the Castle defenses!” He ran back to her and the two immediately started to book it back to the castle. But just as they were starting to get close, the particle barrier started to activate and go down. They started to run fast but they were too late. Both of them slammed their bodies into the particle barrier. “We're too late.” Aiden banged his forehead into the barrier in frustration. "Damn it," he hissed under his breath, pounding a gloved fist against the solid energy field.

“No! They have control of the Castle. They're taking Voltron!” Ashlyn sobbed, hitting the particle barrier repeatedly.

“Can we break through the barrier?” Aiden asked, looking around at the barrier. “No.” Ashlyn shook her head, “And whoever has taken the Castle has a crystal, which means they'll be able to fly the ship. We have to stop them,” “Uh… how are we going to do that?” “Aiden, can you hear me?” Taylor called through the comms.

“Taylor, is that you? Where are you?” “I'm inside the Castle. Charlie has taken over and he's preparing for launch,” Taylor explained, bitting her lip. “He's got Logan and Tyler.” “Taylor, listen.” Ashlyn interrupted, “If they've started the launch sequence, then we don't have much time before liftoff to stop it.” “What do I have to do?” Taylor asked, her voice barely a whisper. She reached up and pulled Phantom down as it started to float towards the bridge where Logan and Tyler were being held.

“You have to get down to the main engine control panel and disconnect the primary turbine from the central energy chamber.” Ashlyn instructed, “If you can do that, Charlie will have to reset the whole system. That might give us enough time to find a way to stop them,” “On it,” Taylor whispered before quietly running down the hallway with Phantom on her trail. ——— Alex and Ben approached the Balmera, “Is this the Balmera planet with the crystals?” Ben’s phone asked.

“It's not a planet. Balmera are ancient animals. Petrified, but still alive.” Alex explained, “Their bodies naturally create the crystals that help power mini Altean ships. I often accompanied my grandfather to visit these majestic creatures when he was building the Castle of Lions. I'll never forget the first time I saw the sparkling surface of a Balmera. You're in for quite a treat.” They broke the atmosphere of the Balmera only to see if covered in Galra mining equipment. “Oh, no. This is horrifying. The Galra have turned this into a mining colony! They're completely destroying it! They have no regard for the poor creature!” Alex frowned, just as they were spotted by a galran fighter ship.

“Hailing unidentified craft. State your ship ID, entry code, and landing destination,” The galran solider instructed. Ben gave Alex a panicked look.

“Just stay calm.” Alex hushed before turning on the radio. “We don't really need to land. Uh, we're just looking around, if that's okay,” “Unidentified craft, land immediately and prepare to be boarded.” The galran solider instructed.

“Okay. Thank you. See you down below,” Alex turned off the radio before kicking up the pod’s gas and flying it into one of the many deep caverns of the Balmera.

The ship shuddered as it entered the cavern, lights flickering. Ben's hands tightened around his phone as he braced himself against the sides of his seat. His fingers flew across his phone screen, a soft robotic voice echoing his typed words, “Alex?” “Not done yet. Hang on!” Alex prompted before pressing the controls forwards and shooting down the Balmera cavern more.

The pod wing crashed into a piece of the galran mining equipment and sent a shower of sparks into the air, illuminating the darkness of the cavern. A deafening sound filled the tight space, reverberating off the stone walls. “Hold on!” Alex shouted over the noise as he wrestled with the controls, attempting to stabilize their rapid descent.

As soon as they landed, Ben turned to glowing eyes in the nearest cave. He quickly typed out something on his phone, “Alex, what lives at the bottom of these mines?” ——— Taylor grunted as she pulled open the doors of the turbine. Phantom floated in before she jumped inside. “Okay, Ashlyn, I'm near the turbine.” She glanced up at it. “I think it's started.” “Then you'll have to hurry. Cross the catwalk to the main column in the center,” Ashlyn instructed.

“Okay,” Taylor said, her voice echoing through the turbine chamber. She turned her jetpack on and flew over to the control panel. “Now, open the hatch. Find the central computer control hub and enter the following sequence,” Ashlyn continued, her voice echoing through the radio with a steady pace that belied the urgency of their situation. “Wait, wait, wait, wait! Which one is it? All the labels are in Altean!” Taylor groaned, “I can't tell which one it is! Ashlyn? Ashlyn? Uh…” Meanwhile outside, “Taylor? Taylor!” Ashlyn turned to Aiden, “I've lost connection with Taylor!” The ship started to rumble. “Oh, no! It's taking off!” Taylor looked at the wires in the control panel. She summoned her bayard and looked in between the wires and the weapon. “Welp, whatever.” Taylor shrugged before slamming her bayard into the mass of wires. The control panel lit up like a Christmas tree, an array of colors flashing as alarms blared before the turbine shut off. ——— Tyler groaned as the Galran soldiers started to panic around him. “The main engine just shorted out!” Hudson exclaimed, “We have a saboteur.” “Find him and take him out.” Charlie demanded, two centuries turned and ran out of the room. “Commander Charlie, I've received a transmission generating from somewhere inside,” Hudson played the audio.

“There's not much time before they get the ship running again. You must shut off the particle barrier so we can get in.” Ashlyn’s voice rang out through the bridge. Tyler grunted slightly at the sound of her voice. Taylor’s voice rang out, “You got it. Tell me what to do,” Ashlyn continued, “The particle barrier generator is beneath the main hull.”

“She's telling the intruder how to take down our defenses!” Hudson told Charlie.

Charlie smirked, “Yes, but she's also giving away his location.” He turned to the last two centuries, “Find that room. Kill the paladin. Repair the engine. Emperor Maverick has commanded us to bring him Voltron.” He turned back to Hudson, “This ship will rise before day's end,”

[coricomile]

I think Mos and Bank have good chemistry. And I do feel for Bank, who openly cried on a livestream because of the poor reception of Sunset x Vibes until Mos pulled him away. I'm sure his manager wasn't thrilled, and I can only imagine how hard he's going to be hit when this show gets eaten alive in final reviews, because it's bad.

They put their all into it, but no one could make this work.

The wardrobe and accessories in a show that is focusing on accessories are hideous. Bank is pretty, but not pretty enough to fix a bad script, bland relationship dynamics, and truly hideous styling.

We got endless montages of Sun being objectively bad in his brand new role as president of a failing company by taking his boyfriend out to scenic locations. Lin is also a rich boy heir, and it was mentioned once and never again, but "oh no this is so expensive" first date and the lying about being rich boys are just.... there. And Sun was rewarded for being a supremely bad boss while Chan did everything in his stead.

Sam and Yoh had potential to actually do the poor boy/rich boy dynamic promised from Lin and Sun, but that also fell flat because there wasn't enough time given. Why do they even like each other? Who knows. Sam just looks extra hot with a half updo and no glasses.

The Prim/Pim relationship with "I secretly loved you from afar, so I was a bitch" and Pim apparently having 0 experience with even kissing after coming out of a long term relationship (didn't want to have sex, got it, but I'm pretty sure she made out with her boyfriend at some point) gave nothing at all to the story other than filler.

The Naga fantasy plot was convoluted and made no sense because instead of spending time developing the lore and creating connections, there were 10 minute scenes of fucking on a pool table/gratuitous white paint splashing in the least subtle replacement for a cumshot/weirdly graphic blowjob sounds while focusing on Mos' back right before a massively important show.

I am here for the horny. It is my favorite. But if you're dedicating precious screen time to sex scenes, they should do something to advance either character development or the plot.

Vegas eats Pete out after torturing him and Pete likes it. Vegas wants to hurt him, but also wants to pleasure him. Pete breaks because of the contrast and starts to see Vegas as something other than just a monster. Using Bible again because dude does sex scenes right- Great and Thyme have cute, goofy sex in one timeline because they're high on adrenaline and budding feelings, and in the other timeline Thyme is cold and calculating and fucks Great in a specific way to (attempt to) humiliate him. Both scenes drive the plot forward. The sex is part of the development. Without those scenes, we lose incredibly important dynamics.

Sunset x Vibes just has pretty boys dry humping prettily. It doesn't develop the relationships or the plot and actually take away from what the story could be of given the proper room to breathe. And using Dancing With the Devil as background music makes 0 sense outside of giving a call back to Big Dragon. What devil? They just won a world award. This is a victory fuck.

Sunset x Vibes had the bones of an interesting story and plenty of time to explore it, but failed spectacularly on all counts.

[kaihuntrr]

The Sea Prince: Prince Chromia and Prince Pearl.

THEY'RE HERE! The two prominent princes, the rest are a kept secret. They've been redesigned to fit their human forms. Closeups and lore under the cut. I hope you love these designs as much as I do, and I hope you enjoy the lore tucked away ;)

GOD. THESE TWO. They were so much fun to redesign and live up to their names now. If you're new, I think you can notice who these two resemble, and I'm just making it obvious hehe!

Let's talk a bit about the princes before we get started. These guys are embedded deep in the hunters' myths and stories. Gigantic, powerful beasts made by the sea gods to reign over the oceans. They say they bleed gold and silver, and they rule over the watery graves, leading hunters to their demise. Due to how much fear is built into these beings over the years, people chalk it up to stories to scare children with; making current generations of humans fear the oceans and its beasts.

In this world, rain is dangerous. Rain is a sign of the sea gods, calling upon their monsters to come on land and wreak havoc. Hunters claim they hear unknown wailing during thunderstorms, and fleets of ships disappearing in minutes with no survivors. This couldn't come from any beast, they had to be from the Sea Princes.

But they weren't real. They can't be. They can't be that good at hiding. They're massive creatures, they had to be spotted at some point, right?

Something those stories have never told the humans was the hidden ability all princes have; the ability to shift into a human form.

Who knows if there was a prince listening to those stories, even adding to them to strike more fear? What if this was all one big game to them?

It doesn't look like the princes see the humans as anything other than pests, so they could be acting out of pure boredom. No one knows for sure, as no one knows anything about the princes other than their brute force and being larger than any other sea monster there ever was.

Prince Chromia.

The second out of his generation to ascend to the throne, Chromia feels a great weight on his shoulders. He balances his duties as a prince and his identity as 'Scott Major' and is interested in the life of humans, studying them and observing them closely. When his eyes are set on a specific hunter, he starts to question everything around him. Much like other princes, he doesn't think highly of humans. They're small, fragile, and annoying. His conflicting feelings for the blonde shake his stance on things, and he must learn what comes from it.

Both his human and his true form retain his playful, sassy nature. He likes toying with his food and gets quite upset if he gets hungry.

He's currently distant from the other princes, but if anyone were to be close to him, it would be his best friend, Pearl. Though, they aren't in the most... amicable relationship as of now.

Prince Pearl.

An outgoing, boastful prince. She loves to stir chaos and wrecks any ship that passes her domain. She doesn't care for human attention, using her true name as her human one instead of picking something different. She gets odd looks as she introduces herself as 'Pearl Moone', but that's a perfectly viable name. A specific hunter group catches her attention as Chromia seems to be interested in them. What was so interesting about them? All she saw were nuisances. It would be a fun chase, she was sure of it.

Her human and true form has her energetic personality, but her human form has the ability to talk down on hunters with a smirk on her face. It was better to scare them, but it didn't hurt to talk back. It's not like they'd hurt an 'innocent human' for speaking her mind.

She sees other princes, but she's closest to Chromia. She wants to reconnect with him again. There seems to be a problem there, but she'll fix it. It shouldn't be that bad.

Aaand there they are! absolutely wonderful designs all touched up and ready for the story. I took a lot of inspiration from their skins to make it work, and I think I nailed it. Both of them have similar traits to their human designs and with each other! I wanted them to remain connected in a way as their relationship is very important for the storyline.

What do you guys think about these new designs? Are you excited to see where this all goes? I sure am!

[smokestarrules]

May I ask about the Star Vs downspiral? I remember seeing commercials about that show but that's the extent of what I know. But I'm curious now.

Well, honestly there was a Lot that contributed to its fall from grace, but here are some of the lowlights.

(It's been a very long time since I watched this show so I may be forgetting some details; this is how I remember it).

A) Four prominent characters are drawn into a horrible, horrible love square. Star herself, Marco, who is the other main character whose family she stays with while on Earth, her ex-boyfriend Tom, and another character who we meet later, Kelly. I'm sure some people always shipped Star and Marco, whatever, but a significant amount of the fandom including myself were beyond content with their relationship staying platonic---romance was not a factor that needed to be brought in to make us care about their dynamic. In fact, romance just about killed any enjoyment for them at all because it was so poorly written.

Marco and Star go back and forth between taking that romantic step and subsequently rejecting each other for various reasons. At some point Star gets back with her ex, Tom, who seems to have turned over a new leaf. Marco and Tom even have episodes where they hang out together too. Then Marco starts dating Kelly at the same time Star and Tom start to fall out again.

Now that I'm writing this I've realized I actually forgot another entire character who was wrapped up in this; Jackie Lynn, who Marco has a crush on in the early season(s?). She and Marco are together at some point until she leaves him because he's clearly not into her anymore. There are five characters who get stuck in this terrible plotline.

It's just... so needlessly dramatic and completely unnecessary. Star and Marco end up together, of course, but in doing so they completely screw over those two other characters, and by that time, their relationship just leaves a bad taste in fans' mouths.

B) Star VS as a show initially started out as pretty episodic and pivoted to a more narrative-driven storyline later on, which isn't at all necessarily bad, but a lot of what I personally liked about the show ended up being pushed to the wayside because of the bigger emphasis on the plot, and it was disappointing. Not everything needs to have a massive earth-shattering narrative to be good.

The early episodes were character-driven, full of incredibly interesting worldbuilding, and just fun to watch. All of those things were shoved away to make room for something more dramatic and serious.

C) The main bad guys are also pretty much an entire species which is never a good idea because it breeds so many uncomfortable writing decisions. They're "monsters" and they are The Bad Guys, who the Regular People need to stay away from. The narrative kinda tries to challenge this concept, but in the end it's really just not important whatsoever.

Honorable mention) When the show was still good, Marco had a couple episodes in which really interesting things were happening with his gender; he crossdressed as part of Plot and then seemed as as if he was confused about how it made him feel? But later on that plotline turned into more of a joke than it already was and went nowhere. Just weird.

D) How the show ended was one of the absolute worst I've ever seen. I truly cannot explain to you just how--bizarre it is; anticlimactic, rushed, unexpected in the worst way. To stop people from fighting, Star makes the incredibly quick decision to just. destroy magic.

So she does.

The aftermath shows that the two dimensions (Earth and Star's original home, Mewni) are now merged together in some sort of 'happy' fusion, magic is completely not a thing anymore, and entire species that have before been shown to canonically need magic to survive are dead because of it, though the show doesn't think to provide a better explanation for that at all.

And it ends.

[s-sputnik-k]

The Weave Mind may just be my favourite critical role boss fight ever, actually. I just finished the episode and from the very start when he brought out the map I knew it was going to be good, but I didn't realise just how good

Okay, rant incoming

Like, first of all, it's all very thematically relevant. Like, yes, they have multiple strategies prepared, because they've been watching you on their little orbs. And yes, they all share the burden, they're psychically connected entities. Yes, they have a massive lair that they can use against you, they have been building their empire for, what, centuries? They're gonna be super well protected

The crystals, the triangle they form, there are so many moving parts to that fight that make it so much more than just big number go brrr. Not only that, it doesn't debilitate the players. It's a pretty brutal fight, but in a way that encourages them to be creative and to collaborate and plan, which is when D&D encounters are most fun, imo

But perhaps most importantly, it solves a very big problem that many DMs, including Matt, struggle with when balancing for high level fights, which is action economy. The fact that it is 5 separate enemies with their own turns and legendary actions while evenly distributing hit points (which is also narratively relevant, making it feel interesting and not just like an overpowered cop out) just makes this almost completely foolproof, because it doesn't rely on completely taking players out of the fight, or giving an enemy infinite actions (yeah, we don't have time to go into that debate now-) to try to even it out. It works and it feels natural and justified--which is just straight up good game design

Besides that, it also just plays on a lot of my personal favourite boss fight dynamics--considering my favourite video game boss fight is the Mantis Lords from Hollow Knight, I think you can probably see the similarities. I love anything that has multiple bosses of equal stature who work in sync, it adds an extra layer of omnipotence to them--plus I just prefer it over one big bad, or an army of little enemies. Not only that, their whole psychic floaty thing they've got going on really gives the vibe of the Dreamers, also from Hollow Knight. He picked his themes and stuck with them to the end, and this really rounds off the feel of this fight

I think I did a little content sigh when the fight was done, because I know I'm going to enjoy going back and watching it again to really appreciate all the little elements that make it tick. It really felt like a bit of a dance there, where the players feel thoroughly involved, even if they were getting their asses handed to them for the first couple of hours. It's interesting, it rewards ingenuity and learning about the bosses as they go (again, on theme, because the Weave Mind are the definition of 'know your enemy' in their own approach), and when the party was losing big time, they knew it was from their own disorganisation--which is exactly how you want to feel in a hard boss fight, because then it becomes all the more satisfying when you finally figure it out and your punches really start connecting

I really do hope that Matt keeps learning and developing his games design skills like this, because I do feel that there haven't been many memorable fights this campaign (2 of which being against Otohan and another 2 against Ludinus' simulacrums, and even then, they didn't feel particularly interesting to me). To be totally fair to him, this campaign has been very people focused, if that makes sense, and it's quite a bit harder to make a fight against a single person just as interesting as a fight against a custom monster, the latter being where Matt really thrives imo

To me, it's made a lot of the fights very narratively relevant (as in, there are ties to the plot and personal ties for the PCs), but not exactly thematically immersive, and I think you need a good balance of both for them to really shine--and the Weave Mind fight really had that balance for me. It's really nice to have a reminder that he absolutely has still got it--he's just not quite been in the territory to show off some of the things that got him known as such a great GM and games designer in the first place

Which is why I really look forward to where things will go after this, once they've had the time to reflect on all 3 campaigns so far, because I really love to see Matt in his element, designing cool monsters, crazy terrain and challenging the players in a way that engages them in the story, rather than distancing them from it

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

Would Childe and Zhongli ever go outside of Liyue? Like. I’m sure they’re not like, unable to leave, but would they get the chance to often? Would Childe be a lot more free to explore and set up his network, or would it be slowly, over time, starting with people who came to Liyue and him excitedly talking to them about it? Would he go to Enkanomiya to see what it was like when it wasn’t just ruins?

(On the Enkanomiya note- I’m just picturing someone asking him about it and him casually talking about all the lore he remembers. Like the sun children, the vishaps, the blood coral experiments- and then realizing haha oh right that’s kind of horrifying I’m glad we’re opening that barrier a lot sooner-)

i feel like between the two of them, childe would definitely travel far more. either on his own or with an assortment of other people, but he'd be a relatively frequent traveler – like if he doesn't leave for too long he'll sometimes be like "yeah i'm going to mondstadt for a bit i'll be back by dinner" at least once a month? but for the longer trips i imagine he'd do those like three times a year or something. occasionally morax would go with him, mainly on short-to-long trips if he's curious about where he's going or if he's feeling particularly clingy. i don't think morax would necessarily travel all that much on his own, i feel like he's pretty content just staying in liyue n looking over the people. and yeah childe would travel all over teyvat for tourism. you won't catch him leaving a single inch of the map unexplored.

i think the network would be set overtime for sure. like every other trip childe would chat with someone n end the convo all happy like 'do let me know if you hear anything!'. like all very casual. like- i think the reason why it would grow so large and so unseen for so long is bc it's hyper-casual, nobody in it really feels like they're in any sort of massive spy network even though they kind of are. like they all know their gossip gets back to childe, but they don't see it as a major information network. it's just childe! and it's just random useless gossip!

but thousands-of-people-all-across-teyvat worth of random useless gossip isn't a trifling matter anymore lmao

also yes the first time childe comes back from enka with the skirks and sits down for dinner with guizhong and morax and older skirk he'd be like- "it's so much neater than i expected it would be! everything looks so much better lit up and straight-up. i'm so glad we didn't have to go tredging through the dark and the monsters and stuff. also very relieved about our timing, i don't think they started killing kids yet" and guizhong particularly would sit there like: "what-"

[zmediaoutlet]

Oh Z go OFF why don't you ship Sam/John?

ahaha, anon starting off the friday night wine party by choosing violence <3

how don't I ship Sam/John? Let me count the ways --

first of all have you seen the sam/john content out there? I'm negatively interested in shitbird lolita sam with his crystal heart-shaped buttplug and the overemphasis on his pink lips and his mewling or whatever. like the puss becomes the sahara. I need a Great Wall of No between whatever's going on with that particular kink and the actual character. As always, a division: 'this is so hawttt omg' is good and fine, but please can we have a little moat between that and character-based canon-feeling stuff.

so all that stuff aside, on a plot level, John's Quest is based around protecting Sam, and like... way to not do it, bud. That is if you believe that John is ultimately flawed but kinda trying, which I do because 'pure monster' and 'hero daddy' takes are equally boring. Sam is left behind, is overprotected, is taught some hunting stuff but comparatively coddled -- in the wee!era, I see absolutely no way that John would go there on any kind of purpose, especially given the fact that Dean's also always there and it would be very embarrassing for your devoted older sonwife to stab you in the brain. (Caveat: I guess there are those times when John would "send Dean away" for disobeying, so that opens a window. But honestly, Sam was probably just abandoned in a motel room alone while John got on with work. I don't think it was a secret fuck-cation.)

on a sadness level: John wants something better for Sam. Dean's a lost cause, although John does super vaguely gesture at like 'eh he could have a house maybe' -- despite the college fight, Sam's untouchable in a way because John has this mad idea that maybe they'll actually win somehow, and Sam can have a future. That doesn't jive with bouncing him on the Dad D. And, again, if John's not purely insane, then--?

on just a vibes level: once Sam gets older, he and John are just way too much alike, and that's why they piss each other off so much. They're the thing of two magnets of the same polarity bouncing apart. Now there are ships where that can be fun, in the kind of slap-slap-kiss model, but in the specific (characterful) case of these two... no. I can see Sam losing his shit and throwing a punch; I aaaaabsolutely don't see him following it up with like, passion. Though I am literally loling here at my computer thinking about it. I'm doing my absolute best here not to compare to other ship options, but like -- this is not the son who'd fold and be like, aw daddy let me take care of you, you know what I'm saying?

on a taste level: like... can you see Sam actually wanting to? Any emotional/physical weirdness he has I feel like would get automatically turned to a different member of the three-part family unit. Non-con is blah, sex pollen is too easy (although with that said, I imagine a no-romance sex pollen f-o-d would be a good way to crack open those dynamics and see how they operated). Part of the massive issue here is that Sam has an oedipus complex, not an elektra complex -- he wants to fight his dad, not fuck him. He has daddy issues but they're of the tough masc black sheep son who goes off and has to get heroes' journeyed back into the fold; it's not 'oh daddy please say you're proud of me please let me be a good son,' unlike Some People We Could Name. It just doesn't have any entré into the kind of tangled up fuckery that makes vertical incest interesting for me. So...

That's probably enough, lol. That said, again: if you love to jill to babby Sammy slurping on daddy John's big meaty dadcock, go on with your bad self. Especially if Sam's inexplicably femme. But like. I'm good.

[opal-kitty333]

Okay, drawing is hard and I'm horrible at drawing full body references. The face is the most important part and I've decided y'all can imagine his feet on your own. Anyway...

I was going to do biblically accurate Sans for How to Make an Artificial Companion, but have changed my mind. Rough sketch is rough, but you get the idea. Ramblings about it under cut

So, Undertale as a game (or monsters in general) don't exist in universe. They're all AI designed by humans or in a few rare instances (*cough*Mettaton*cough*) other AI. While they should all be recognizable as who they are by a real world viewer, there are some notable differences on their designs because they weren't originally pixel art but instead 3d models and there are some signature details depending on who made them, when, why, and where they pulled references from. Sans (and Papyrus later) are made by a character who 3d prints chibi models and sells them online. Reader asks them to make a skeleton, something realisticish because reader is going to be staring whatever they make in the face and something that's one third a head would be weird, but not too realistic because talking to a Skyrim skeleton would also not be ideal. The artist is going WAY out of their comfort zone so the model is a little odd but loved dearly by everyone. This is why he's especially cartoon-y, and his anatomy is simplified, and has massive eyes compared to og Sans. I don't know if anyone else has looked up skeleton characters, but Sans also has a really fucking unique face shape. He is not made for being 3d with an opening mouth in mind, so while I was tempted to keep the shape, I ultimately changed it. He still has a massive smile, thick blocky teeth, and a roundish skull (especially compared to Papyrus) so hopefully he still reads as Sans-like. This is an au, so I feel altering everyone's appearance is acceptable anyway.

Lil details. His sternum is purposefully shaped to look like a tie because sternums are kinda shaped like that and I think it's silly. He's very much made to look cute and avoid uncanny valley while still being a personable and expressive. He is able to control his eyelight size or make them disappear, and later do specific expressions kinda like a V-tuber (so you get comical heart eyes or sweat drops kinda thing, but he doesn't use those unless it's for a gag and even then it's rare). The reader also makes him shorter than them. He starts the same height when he's a slim target mannequins, but once they're messing with his form they make the top of his head reach about heart level so he isn't as spooky. He starts off naked since they don't have monster costumes and his body is not considered sexual in the slightest, but eventually they do a dress up thing with him and this is when he picks up his signature outfit (after submitting many bug reports because wow this form is sand in the gears for everything this headset was made for). He actually prefers to stay dressed after this because he can make himself look chubbier which he thinks make him more friendly and approachable. He likes the form he was finally given, but the focus on the iterations before the final and just what he looks like in general gives him some self image issues and a fixation on keeping up appearances. Of course, with this fixation, he keeps it pretty down low which makes it hard to spot so you wouldn't really guess.

[probsnothawkeye]

Well we've reached public release of the @souloperatorpod mid-season finale and I'm still unwell about it so it's spoiler thread time let's go!

Tessa leaving felt impossible when she decided to leave after episode 9. Episode 10 proved that it was, in fact, impossible. Introducing a literal creature, clearly massive and monstrous, making you think that *that's* going to be the threat of the episode only to have Tessa step on a fucking bear trap?? Absolutely evil and so fucking well done on Tot's part. It's such good writing that I can't even be mad but I'm still screaming internally. I know Tot well enough to know this was the same bear trap that was sent to Tessa. There's no way it wasn't. It's a brilliant bit of foreshadowing because you truly do not know why a bear trap would've been sent until you hear them screaming as their leg is crushed. Tot is too good at screaming and crying in pain in podcasts, I will never emotionally recover. Like it HURT to hear, she's that good.

Tessa sending away Lucy, trying to get this loyal dog to leave so she doesn't get got by the monster broke my heart. They're so content to die and it hurts me so bad. And then Tot brings Dean into it? When I heard Dean I lost my mind I wanted him to be alive but he wasn't. There's no bringing him back, but he's still trying to save Tessa anyway. "It wasn't your fault. Tell my brother it wasn't his fault either" Tot what if I sob? What if I scream and cry and throw up?

And somehow this wasn't even the part that hurt me most! No THAT honor is reserved for when Nate gets there, trying his best to save Tessa. "I want to die." "I won't let you." It's been a week and I'm still unwell over this I mean seriously Tot how could you do this to me? And then to have Nate actually listen to Tessa and realize that she wasn't the cause of Dean's death while she's bleeding out in his arms? Now he feels responsible for both his brother AND his friend's death! And while I doubt Tessa is dead, Nate doesn't know that right now and I'm going to lose my mind over it I mean Tot. Tot. You didn't have to do that.

This episode perfectly punctuates the end of an incredible first half of the season. It asks more questions than it answers but in the best possible way. Tot's writing is masterful and is brought to life so well by them and their cast, I could, have, and will weep from it. Soul Operator is going on a hiatus after this to finish up the rest of season 1. There has never been a better time to listen to this show and everything it has to offer. I'm so incredibly proud of @totcoc0a and everything she's accomplished with the first half of the season

Tot not only are you an incredibly talented writer and voice actor, you're also a marvelous friend and I feel so lucky to know you every day of my life. The first half of the season destroyed me in the best way and I can't wait to see how you continue to break me

This concludes our last Soul Operator thread for a while! If you're not listening to Soul Operator nows the time to start. And if you ARE listening to Soul Operator, please come scream about it with me I love it so much

[unhingedmarvelandclassicwhobuff]

Since we're now in the time period of WandaVision's fourth anniversary, I'm gonna go on a rant about how much I hated the experience of watching it as it was being released

As I've mentioned before, starting in mid-2019 I started to become worried that Marvel would try to go the comic route and twist Wanda into a villain. It got so bad that I had nightmares about it. So you can imagine how nervous I was knowing that she was getting a show where Vision was apparently alive again.

While for the first few episodes I was able to appreciate how good the sitcom recreations were, it was incredibly frustrating to be getting a Wanda show where she's acting absolutely nothing like herself.

I still remember the first time my heart dropped and I thought "Fuck. They're doing it." was at the end of episode 2 when time rewinds. The moment is edited to make it look like Wanda did it intentionally (though retroactively there's no way that's possible), and that was the start of a downward spiral of me thinking Marvel was seriously doing what I was scared they were doing.

I'm still more than a little amazed that Marvel had so little faith in the audience that after just three episodes they slammed on the brakes and painstakingly spelled out exactly what questions the audience should be asking. That feels like a studio-mandated choice.

Another big moment that made my blood run cold was the very end of episode 4, because again, the scene where Wanda throws Monica out is framed like she knows exactly what's going on and doesn't care. And then Monica saying "it's all Wanda" at the end... Let's just say four years ago today was a pretty bad day for me.

Episode 5 was the worst of it for me. Not only was that the episode where they hammer in just how torturous the mind control is, but it's also the episode where Wanda herself is at her absolute worst, as we've gone over in painstaking detail. To this day my most hated scene in WandaVision is the confrontation outside the Hex. It's just there to make the audience think Wanda is fully in control and couldn't care less about what she's doing. I don't care how well-executed the scene is, to even insinuate that Wanda would ever intentionally hurt innocents is enough to send me into a blind rage.

And just to cap it all off, the Fake Pietro reveal at the end made my heart sink for another reason entirely. 99% of the discourse I saw online during those weeks was little more than people theorizing/hoping that the show would be a plot device to introduce mutants or the Fantastic Four or the X-Men or a dozen other fucking things that have nothing to do with Wanda. So while for basically everyone else Evan Peters showing up was a massive vindication, for me it was confirmation that this show really didn't care about Wanda and was mainly focused on setting up future projects. At the time I distinctly remember coming to the conclusion after episode 5 that the main function of the show was to cement Wanda as a villain so she could be used as one in a later movie.

Things didn't get much better in episode 6. Vision wandering around and seeing all the frozen people in unending agony again made me want to vomit, because at that point I still thought Wanda knew about it and didn't care. The scene where he "wakes up Agnes" just solidified that for me. Wanda saying she didn't know how she did any of this didn't help much, as I immediately figured she was lying through her teeth. Granted I wasn't paying a ton of attention to her mannerisms or body language during that scene that prove otherwise. Wanda expanding the Hex was another nightmare-come-alive moment for me, because I sincerely thought it meant she was fully aware of how to control it and what it did.

Episode 7 wasn't any better either. It upset me greatly to see Wanda casually note right at the start that she knew she had created the Hex, and I think by this point I had sort of dejectedly accepted that the woman I loved was dead and an amoral monster who had no problem with casual torture had taken her place.

Even Agatha showing up didn't make me perk up, because I immediately thought she was just another creation of the Hex for Wanda to use as a scapegoat.

So as I think you can tell, this show's misdirection worked hook line and sinker on me, and I hate it for that, because it was baiting me into thinking my literal worst nightmare was coming true right before my eyes.

I went into episode 8 with a numb acceptance that this show had murdered Wanda for the sake of using her as a big bad later on. So you can imagine the gigantic whiplash I got when it ended up being a respectful, tear-jerking depiction of her that suddenly removed the veil and revealed she truly didn't know what was going on at all.

The finale was equally heartwrenching for me, choppiness and all. It was... more than a little upsetting to see the people of Westview confront Wanda with what had been happening and to see her just as confused and horrified as I was, and by the end of that scene I was crying right along with her. I shouldn't have to reiterate how much I love what little interactions Wanda gets with her family before the Hex collapses.

Seeing how many people online had the exact opposite reaction to me, where they were loving the show until episode 8, just made me feel like the only person who truly cared about Wanda.

So, TLDR, on initial release I was HATING WandaVision for 80% of its duration, and it only won me over in the final two episodes by showing me that the creators truly did understand Wanda. I still don't consider it to be worthy of her glory, but those last two episodes are pretty much the closest the MCU will likely ever come to having a good showing of Wanda as the hero she truly is.

[raevenlywrites]

Todays listen of the Magnus Archives starts with ep 116: the Show Must Go On and continues through 117: Testament, 118: Masquerade, 119: stranger and stranger, and finally 120: Eye Contact

The Show Must Go On

Oh fuck, Elias doing something active? Perish the thought

-

Oh. oh no. this is the stranger's ritual, isn't it? the turk is wearing the gorilla skin, the automata are the dancers and the birds are the choir

Okay. So... the Slaughter came to stop it, along with the Desolation? I'll admit it's hard to make much sense out of the nonsense of the ritual almost completed

-

"When the unknowing begins i don't want to be inside it" is there another option?

-

"An aspect of your becoming" becoming? that doesn't sound safe, sane, or consensual...

"so you have a backup" says basira, the one I actually think might be the best backup

"melaine's not coming either, I think she'll need you here" oh shit, are martin and melaine going to kill elias?

-

"bought it" well shit

Testament

ooooh like last will and. gotcha

(I do really love how all these titles make multiple kinds of sense. so jealous of their ability to title things XD)

oh shit they got gertrude AND leitner???! fuck

-

"How did I wind up having to save the world" fucking mood girl

-

Melaine! you're alive! I've been getting worried about you

well shit. I guess they're not trying to *kill* him. Doesn't meant melaine won't got for it anyways tho :P

man, it's a shame there's nothing out there feeding on anger, bc melaine would be an absolute *feast*

martin! my baby boy <3

(I do feel pretty confident I'd love him even without the tumblr of it all. he's a good bean)

bless! I love how aware martin is of what jon might think of him. it's cute

"I get to burn some stuff so that's cool" martin! what are you up to???

-

daisy wtf? XD

-

oooh, interesting that everyone else is talkign to jon but Tim has a massive hate on for us (or whatever in world listener there is)

wow. tim is really the most audience addressy/meta of them all. that's really interesting comign from such a joker to start with. i wonder how much of his arc was planned from the start

-

oh jon. i'm sorry. you have to burn it. you promised. this is an important moment about who you're going to be

jesus. is it literally hurting him to destroy knowledge? fuck

The Masquerade

Holy shit martin are you burning statements!!!! does that hurt elias like burning gerry hurt jon?

(I wonder if the ones he's choosing matters. hilltop road, smerk passages, monster pig, hrm)

"Turns out my suggestion is fire" XDXDXDXD

(the dark and teh swartzwald)

-

oh. oh god. a chorus of skinless moaning ...corpses? ick. so much ick.

-

oh martin :(

(this section is where I had to stop listening at work, btw. I got caught up in thinking about what Elias would show me and uh, yeah)

-

Oh shit! Did Daisy just shoot jon????? ...will it even matter? he's... becoming, whatever that means

Stranger and Stranger

Oh fuck, did Helen come rescue Jon into the spiral- oof, nope. That's not Helen, doesn't sound right. Doesn't sound like Nicola either though - and it CERTAINLY doesn't sound like fucking Tim >:(

oh shit. we definitely don't want whoever that is to have the detonator...

-

and that's NOT basira. ...honestly, if its anyone, it sounds like Breekon/Hope...

-

shit. okay. that's tim and basira, or at least that's their VA's

No, I think that one actually is basira. I stand by my idea that she's been in archivist training, whether on purpose or not

-

ooooh now THATS nicola!

oh no! and THATS gertrude- oh, right, they have her skin. oh no. which means leitner is probably just around the corner

(poor jonny sims, having to listen to his parents tell him he failed and he sucks XD)

-

damn. i wonder if basira has any experience with like, normal delusions (...are there normal delusions in this world? like, just normal, actual schizophrenia? or is it all supernatural?) anyways she's doing great. If I didn't know Jon survived to get to the Jon/Martin ending, I'd wonder if we weren't teeing up Basira to be the next Archivist

-

tim! you see jon? good job tim!!

Okay. So. Daisy is the Hunt, Basira is the Eye, Tim is... channeling something. Maybe all that time he spent studying Smerk? The Spiral isn't enjoying being Helen, Sarah is not enjoying this transition, and Nikola, wearing Gertrude and Leitner... just got blown up?

Eye Contact

These punnnnnns

"Statement of Elias Bouchard, regarding the dreams of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, currently unresponsive. Details pulled directly from subject." ....well fuck me

Jon... oh jon, what happened to you?

"nowhere for him to awaken to" shit, did the world end? will the last two seasons be in a broken world?

...has he been cut off from the world, or the world cut off from the other fears?

-

ooooh, arresting him. I guess that makes sense

-

lukas? what is he doing here---- oh fuck. when he was asking martin about how elias was as a boss, was he *planning* a take over????

*sigh* of course elias planned it

-

whelp. that's season 3. doesnt' sound like the world ended, but doesn't sound like jon is okay. it sounds like he's exactly where elias thinks he needs to be, but who knows if that's a good thing or not *sigh*

so. elias is probably trying to usher in the Eye's ritual. Using jon, i'd guess. maybe jon is beholding the other fears so the eye can eat them. who knows.

this season was exhausting. good, bu exhausting. much more emotionally taxing than 1 or 2. I can't decide if I want to take another break or not. we'll see