#Uhhhh anyway I guess the moral of the story is that I did that just because I wanted to an because nobody could stop me

[bunnieswithknives]

hey in ur peri animatic: (https://youtu.be/OCqlRuDaXYU?si=K52WDu_vw9rg7chz) that I have been permanently obsessed over since today and have watched about 20 times by now so much that I have drawn & posted stuff based on it what was that partial bug form peri had?

I haven’t watched either of the show btw so if it’s explained in the show please tell me plsssss

OK, SO the bug thing is not technically canon to the series. It's based on my own headcanons for fairy biology, but i do have justifications for it!! Fairies have very strong shape-shifting abilities, so it would make sense that the form they show to humans isn't necessarily their true form(not to mention extreme that mimicry is very common in insects). And you want to know the visible traits almost every fairy has in common? Being very small with Insect-like wings.

The fact that their humanoid form isn't their true form in actually confirmed in the show! Cosmo and Wanda are revealed to look like biblically accurate pseudo-angels in the museum episode. (I say pseudo angels because the Flaming Sword of Eden is only debatably sentient and I don't think is considered an angel. Ophanim are also debatably not angels because they don't have wings (sorry for the angel tangent I like angels))

So wouldn't their true forms be angelic then? Well, yes. But I like bugs so. Also I have more headcanons to justify myself. I like to think that they have both a true-true form (incomprehensible to the human brain, probably exists mostly in a dimension invisible to us, that looks how we imagine biblically accurate angels), and a fairy form (which is visible to humans but is naturally very insect like and tends to scare people). So, in order to interact with humans, they have to learn to shapeshift into a humanoid form but will occasionally slip if they get too relaxed/aren't careful, hence the mandibles coming out when he yawns!

The reason they struggle so much more with human forms than the animals or objects they typically turn into is that, well, they aren't trying to convince those animals or objects. The more human they try to look, the harder it is to keep up convincingly. If you turn into a really uncanny squirrel, only other squirrels will notice. If you turn into a really uncanny human, they form a lynch mob and burn you at the stake.

[pepperbox]

What are your thoughts on the Trigun reboot?

the big tl;dr is that i'm enjoying it a lot!! there are a couple things that i'm like, not suuuuper thrilled about but overall: it's a yes from me!

(for clarity, i was a huuuuuge fan of the '98 anime and watched it with my mom as a kid! i read trimax later in life and adored that, and now the og anime is like. fine?? but comparatively falls flat for me now as an adult in my 30s. i've rewatched the anime only once as an adult but i've reread trimax uhhhhh three times in the past year alone lolol)

i'm gonna bullet point this bc that's just how my brain works best:

i love the animation! there have been a few instances where it felt off, but overall it's been a feast for my eyeballs

I'M SORRY BUT I LOVE THE NEW VASH DESIGN transmasc icon, he's perfect. i am absolutely not biased, ignore my undercut--

also it updated his look for the 2000s?? the broomhead was a Look in the 90s but it's so dated now i'm SORRY LMAO

also who out here is making hair gel on this fucking desert planet, i s2g,

the inclusion of roberto at first i was kinda ??? about but i quickly adjusted to him, esp as he started throwing soon-to-be-dead-mentor flags all over the fucking place. he cracks me up but i'm legit just waiting at this point for him to die to further meryl's development and to pass the torch derringer on to her

i do hope millie makes an appearance for meryl (so they can be girlfriends, as is only right) but her absence really doesn't break trigun for me bc uhhhh y'all, her and meryl have relatively minor roles in trimax and straight up disappear for like, volumes at a time

also i really hated her random romance with wolfwood in the 98 anime even as a kid and i will never forgive it for that

but ymmv!!!

i do think the pacing is a bit fast and i wish they either had longer episodes or more episodes to let it breathe a little! not entirely plot-wise because i actually like the reveals so far we've gotten because it's keeping even long time fans guessing for what's coming, but just for the relationships between the characters

like i would like more casual interactions between the four protags, and more vash & wolfwood getting to know each other before we jumped right to them butting heads so aggressively over morality and killing

but i do love that it also heavily showcases the consequences of vash's actions (or inaction)

because as meryl pointed out during the nebraska fight, he isn't actually doing anyone a kindness, he's just running away from pain

i am also sad that they took wolfwood AND livio's tits by the looks of it

rip 😔

also i am. not thrilled about elendira? i was really excited to see my wife on screen but instead they did that to her :(

ANYWAYS

i am curious about where the story is going to go!! because lost july hasn't happened yet but we're walking towards it, but when?

is it going to be mid-season? is it going to be the end of s1 if we're getting more than one season? will there be a time skip?

will [redacted manga spoilers] arrive?

will we get to see chronica and domina??

there's still SO much to cover, but i know they're mashing some things together (like jeneora rock was a couple different settings smashed into one, and it seems like the gung-ho guns and the eye of michael are even more woven together??) so we'll see but

I HAVE QUESTIONS

BUT YEAH like!!!! i am enjoying it a lot overall!! i have a few gripes with it but i am so fucking happy to be watching trigun again, and as much as i would adore a 1-to-1 trimax adaption like they did with fma, i am really enjoying it being a retelling because i genuinely don't know what's going to happen!! it's fun!! i'm having fun!!

also there's a really emo thought i had about all trigun adaptions just being different lives for everyone and they're just caught in a loop

history doesn't repeat but sometimes it rhymes

but!!

i also love the fact that it's screaming that it's a passion project. that people who love the source material are all working on it, with nightow. they're bringing back VAs for both japanese and english versions, fans are animating and voicing it, it's amazing and shows how much love is going into this series, and i'm so glad to be able to experience it again

[sketching-shark]

Why do people defend six eared macaque lol I don’t think he actually deserves to have a redemption arc after everything he’s done in monkie kid and the og novel lol.

WATCH OUT BECAUSE I'M ABOUT TO BE MEAN TO A MONKEY ON MAIN but hhhhhh I'm guessing it's partially a result of the current culture-wide obsession with/insistence on redemption arcs no matter what & the way that redemption arcs are increasingly used as a stepping stone to get two characters who hate each other into a romance.

In this particular case I also think Monkie Kid so far only showing Macaque's side of the story in regards to his relationship with Sun Wukong & its depiction of the monkey king as a deeply flawed individual whose actions could easily be interpreted as him just being an unthinking fumbling dumbass who never grew out of his unthinking fumbling dumbass ways also lends itself to fandom-ish tendency to brush aside the bad actions of the blorbo d'jour so that their eventual inclusion into team good guy seems less jarring. Like if Macaque sucks but SWK actually sucks even more then in context Macaque has the moral high ground & as such he can't justifiably be called out for anything by SWK or can't be called out by any other character unless they're also going after the monkey king. And indeed in Monkie Kid we've had SWK get yelled at by many character for being stupid & destructive & I don't remember that ever happening with Macaque outside of Qi Xiaotian's "What's wrong with you?!" after the shadow simian had just uhhhh kidnapped & mind-controlled his loved ones before forcing them to beat up Qi Xiaotian while he watched and laughed (X_X).

I've also seen a number of people argue that Monkie Kid and Journey to the West should be considered two completely different stories and fair enough to some extent (like yea SWK probably shouldn't have the past of smashing tons of humans and yaoguai into "meat patties" in a children's cartoon lol). Buuuuuuut I do suspect that a lot of this stance is about justifying a rewrite so that Macaque could be an innocent monkey before getting involved with SWK rather than dealing with the violence he deliberately chose to inflict on the Mt. Huaguoshan monkeys & SWK himself in the og classic. In addition, I do think that, especially for a western audience, a lot of people simply DON'T KNOW about what the Six Eared Macaque did in Journey to the West. Like I've said before that one of my current favorite parts of being in the online JTTW fandom is seeing people go from "oh people are exaggerating about the monkey king's trauma" to "oh dang actually the monkey really did go through it" after they've read some of Wu Cheng'en's work, but my general sense is that at present many people know about these characters through Monkie Kid more than through Journey to the West, and as such aren't aware of the stuff LEMH pulls or even that his entire thing was making himself SWK's doppelganger in an attempt to murder-replace the monkey king and get all the glory for completing the journey for himself. Any translation of a work often means that a lot of context will be lost, and I think that can be particularly true when you're only aware of/been exposed to a child cartoon manifestation of a character, especially if you don't have access to at least a good translation of the work they originally came from.

ANYWAY those are my general impressions about the matter, and I still maintain that lego show Macaque would be best served by either staying a shifty dude or having a "redemption without forgiveness" narrative arc in which he does decide to become a better person but does so without being forgiven by team monkie for everything he put them through. If anything such an arc might help him start developing into his own character rather than forever remaining the jerk violently obsessed with getting one over the monkey king.

[sun-daisies]

on today's episode of "why do men":

this same man has come in multiple weeks in a row, I think he's one of the bartender's friends. but he keeps sort of chatting me up which I mean is fine whatever everyone does that when you work in food service it's a funny lil game you play where we're all a bunch of actors making small talk out of nothing (and as a recovered introvert who really does not know how to small talk, I play this game VERY well) but anyway we were absolutely slammed today and I was the only one on so im running around like crazy and this man comes in and sits down and ive got like armfuls of empty glasses and beer bottles that im trying to wrangle and my brain is in a million directions and this man decides to compliment my hair (I didn't hear him at first, I have shit auditory processing so I had him repeat himself oops) and like I've got some fun lil braids in today so im like whatever thank you I make some sort of stupid joke about it, whatever.

later on I finally am done with everything and I sit down to roll the silverware. I'm at the end of the bar, I felt like spreading everything out and not working cramped on one of the high top circle tables, but this man is sitting a couple chairs away from me. he had made some comment last week about "oh, they don't hire anyone to do that for ya? that looks like a pain in the ass to do" and so this week he kind of laughed and was like "back at it again?" and when I played into the joke (as I do) he asked to try doing one and wouldn't really take no for an answer, so I handed him one and ran through how to do it thinking he'd be one and done.

nope.

he proceeded to continue rolling silverware after I politely told him like "hey, I got this, relax and enjoy your drink," cracked some joke about how "the princess is so much better at this than I am" (which ew wtf dont EVER call me that again" and asked me AGAIN how old I was, if I lived nearby, if I worked anywhere else, etc etc.

I just- idk man the pandemic did some crazy shit to some ppl I guess.

my fav part is that the first time he asked me how old I was it wasn't a question. I'm famously someone who looks really young - I'm short, small, I have long hair and a very youthful face ig idk, but people consistently think im in my teens. he looked me dead in the eye and thought I was 26 (which like, no, he didn't, there's no way. because someone else piped up and was like "I was gonna ask if she was even allowed to serve alcohol")

anyway, moral of the story is "why do men." that's it. just "why do men."

bonus: I had a table full of old men and one of them pointed out one of my tattoos and when you are a small girl with tats and an old man notices that, it goes one of two ways - they either have some sort of sexist comment about it or they wanna show you THEIRS. this man goes "is that a color by number on your arm?" and when I sort of laugh and go "nah, I'm gonna leave it just line work" one of the OTHER men pipe up and go "I've got a huge one on my back, wanna see it?"

if we remember correctly im amazing at small talk and have never missed a beat in my life, im practically a stand up comedian. so my dumb ass is caught so off guard that I hesitate, and sort of stutter out "uhhhh maybe not here"

I just- I hate myself jfc

[fisherrprince]

ask dump (big long)

1) ABDBHTDND YEAH THEY DID UM, they did the ”no THANK you..! etc etc BUT IM WEAK” song too! Wild how that is now. points at them hey I know those guys

2) OHHH….. THIS HITS……….. I like missio sometimes but this is a nice chorus also: Vanitas… yeah I, like, always love music recs. they can be hit or miss but it’s only fair with how much music I find and then immediately go what if I showed everyone

3) how many does he have in there now, eleven? Twelve??? He signed up for one mouse and he got eleven human children or at least nine to ten human children, two young adults, and two regular adults who aren’t going to be helpful—

4) aaaaaaaaa thank you!!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

5) MMM I haven’t thought extensively about cowboys for a while… it’s been mostly space up here for now, haha. I like my space murder. But that’s not to say I haven’t given them some fond passing thoughts! Two bros sitting in a river 5 feet apart cos they’re covered in mud and smell awful and one of them is very loudly blaming the other for the plan that involved hiding behind a barn (actually the last thing I wrote in my notes is a mini totally unfinished drabble of hiding in Lea’s bar but the “great hiding place” Lea has is in his floor)

6) gosh I Have to wonder if it’s a case of destiny/universal “the nature of humanity is that every so often someone invents homestuck again” or if we just, like, had common knowledge of the book of prophecies. Or not even the Book, maybe, I have to assume that knowledge/observance of the Foretellers phased out pretty quickly, but prophecies left unfulfilled would linger for generations probably. Or maybe they’re even old stories, a tale of seven masters of the past drawn in to a chess game, or the game based on the old fairytales, or the numbers 7 and 13 are ingrained in local culture … see, because obviously Xehanort implies that this prophecy/old masters stuff ISNT common knowledge, but Eraqus CERTAINLY knows about it and it’s in all the architecture/local myths… ok but then also, if we’re to take the opening chess game as more than just clever symbolic narrative bookends, everyone’s symbols ARE right there. I just kind of registered that’s probably what you were talking about. In which case our questions are still there, how much did the common populace know and how much did eraqus know? Did he like, end up with three apprentices who had very distinct chess symbols as keychains and go uh oh john or what—

hey why’d you do this to me. I’m a tired college student in scala on my sixth response paper about the prophetic legitimacy of foreordained keybearers versus the self-imposed creation of destiny as following common legend and I’m arguing with some guy named Einar about how you can’t just fake a prophetic fulfillment by claiming to be the Crown piece in chess. You can’t just KIN A CHESSPIECE, Einar.

7) ABGDJGD TY..!!! To be honest they also live in my head rent-free! Some of them need to start paying rent because I’m supposed to be in school getting Better at storyboarding—

8) hard same hey thats just bc magnet is uhhhh. The best spell? Aside from mine spells

9) SEE AGAIN I DONT KNOW bc for one Sora obviously isn’t ENTIRELY unique, if he’s able to be diagnosed so quickly, but this “holding your nobody and two to four other people in there” kind of thing probably has never been seen before. But for another, Roxas and Xion have copied a keyblade. Just like — a keyblade? Copied entirely? Wild.

anyways keyblade manifestation is a mystery to me and I’d love to see it explored because what we know the Lore is, is this: they were fashioned after the likeness of the x-blade. They can be bequeathed to others (shown to not necessarily mean that exact keyblade is passed down, probably this means the ability to wield can be bequeathed). They can be WILLFULLY given. They come from the heart, they are not welded out of steel. They are…. questionably sentient, or maybe just sapient, or somehow are picky about who holds them. Side note khwiki is telling me things I Did not know about the whereabouts of Ven’s heart during 358 and also the ability to wield two which requires more than one heart obvi but which is named synch blade??? always question the wiki but these have sources. Anyways. Keychains can swap their forms so they have a Base and Custom Skins mode. There are three kinds, Light (common), Darkness (Michael mouse??? Not his bbs one the rod one which I GUESS is a counterpa Iiiiii am getting off trackaaaaa), and Heart (which I’m guessing is just the x-blade, maybe the gayblade, and the kh1 keyblade of heart??). Um. What was my point here. OH yeah I was just gonna say Bro Wild. This is completely a mystery to me. Does every keykid’s base form keyblade look different, and we were all just given cool keychains? Are there some kids who melded unique keychains? If I were connecting dots wildly and with reckless abandon I’d say yeah and also you cannot just suddenly one day wield one, you HAVE to be bequeathed, but as soon as that happens it sparks the creation of your own personal heart sword. Every keyblade is manifested independently — those wielding a family keyblade have the ability to summon their own, if necessary, but the family sword is taking up that space in their heart and theyd have to get used to making their own. since, it seems, keyblades (summoned) will die and solidify if their bearer dies, but keyblades (unsummoned) will either disappear or summon themselves somewhere else and retain a small piece of your… essence. A legacy keyblade, I feel, would be a little something like feeling every past Avatar and you are the avatar, but you can’t talk to them. They’re there tho. Also I think that having an exceptionally strong heart would be not only a moral requirement for ensuring the keyblade’s duty is upheld, but also a physical requirement! youre carving out a bit of your heart to make room for a sword. Weak hearts should not do that even if they want to.

aye… how was that longer than the scala answer? You got me on tangents again in these essays I

10 (submission from licilou22)

NGDBFDBFSHGDHFDHGDA 😎👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 WHEEZING

[liberons]

so anyways have a weird pseudo-meta on the 239894 ways levi’s character could’ve been better used story-wise

tbh i do believe yams had it in him to write a nice, tight, cohesive story where everything could’ve fallen in place well enough -- at least to the point where actions made sense with reference to established character personalities and arcs within the story. i have no issue with regression, but you can’t make it half-assed or just. entirely left-field and leave it at that and ok moral of the story i’m like, 90% sure come from being far too invested in the fandom as an author. NEVER change your story because of someone else’s opinion when it’s SERIALISED y’all.

SECTION  I .     KILL  HIM  OFF  !

let’s be honest !!!  this is the most obvious !!!  we get it he’s popular, you’ll get backlash, yaddi yadda ya girl’s tired.

(  i .  )   why didn’t eren kill him.

why

remember what levi was actually established to DO early on? the whole “i’ll take care of eren if he goes manic”? his WHOLE NARRATIVE PURPOSE? would be great if we, you know, played with that At All.

how fucking FRIGHTENING would eren’s final form be if it just fucking nipped levi in the bud? if levi, completely fine and uninjured, stayed true to his word and lead to handle eren, just to be fucking annihilated? eren has like 60 fucking titans inside him INCLUDING the activated founding. I THINK IT’S PRETTY FAIR TO REDEFINE HIM AS BEING FUCKING OP NOW.

just define some real form of tension come on.

this could’ve also just. so naturally shifted the tension in mikasa’s direction. literally everyone instinctively has mikasa jotted down as second-best-next-to-levi, both in and out of canon. it would make sense for other characters to just eye awkwardly in deciding mikasa ‘has’ to be the next one to try through the framing bias that presents. 

right now it’s like it’s not even her choice but everyone decided it would be for no goddamn reason. why does mikasa need to be ok with killing eren at all??? why cant one of YALL do it????????? and like mikasa kills him but then presents absolutely no real conclusion in doing so. we get 0 insight into what’s really going on in her head and WE DONT EVEN GET TO SEE IT !!!!!!!!!!

(  i i .  )   zeke if yOu’Re goNnA do it dO it RIGHT

to stay more true to canon, here’s way better ways zeke could’ve actually been rid of him that aren’t. regressing and dumb lmao:

zeke’s still a war chief, he’s had YEARS of troop strategy / planning up his sleeves. why didn’t he use turning levi’s squad into a means to set up some real traps because what’s he gonna do to a bomb, huh? Fight it?

or better yet, spike more than just levi’s squad and just have swarms and waves of mindless titans coming in to provide that distraction.

or have more help?? there’s all the yeagerists at your disposal and not ONE can secretly set something up with you?

overall like zeke should know levi’s skill and levi shouldn;t have to assume zeke’s not ?????????????? “willing to die”??????????? WTF????? AREN’T YOU WHY WOULDN'T HE BE?????

god anyways

zeke kills levi u know what that sets up? the fact that he’s pretty fucking clever and powerful on his own???? so now when eren & zeke team up to cause the rumbling, regardless of zeke’s original intent, would make them Far more horrifying to the rest of the crew; 

tbh i feel like this should mean moving the ‘reveal’ of eren’s betrayal to the very end of the manga when eren explains everything through path visions bc at least it keeps his moral grey area more.... grey. 

we know by the end that he betrayed zeke so it’s like ok So Yes He’s Doing Summ For The Greater Good But What and at least this would balance the scales of mass murder a lil by not snipping all the men i fucking Guess lmao god

(  i i i .  )    RUMBLE HIM

step on him 

but really he can just??? die during the rumbling???? point blank??????????? why were there not more major character casualties lmao boi

if the colossal titans are just far too many and far too boring, all the previous titans on eren’s back is so delicious and should’ve been drawn out im not sorry about it.

where’s the 349873 iterations of character x character teaming up and slowly getting better at absolutely Slicing these bastards? WHERE ARE THEY? 

i want my warriors x stray marleans x survey squads just dedicated to keeping the 9 titan iterations out of eren’s neck.

he could’ve finally killed zeke here too but i’m gonna get to that whole thing lmao god.

we've also established him getting wounded when others are involved (à la leg injury helping mikasa) so have him??? sacrifice???? to help others like finish his empathy arc

let him sacrifice himself by keeping the titans back while armin blows up idc

and for all of these — it doesn’t even have to be a quick death. let him lose a body part and die of blood loss. let his organs fail. let him get infected like yo not every death has to be in 3s flat.

SECTION II .     OR  DON’T  !

like. let’s just say there’s absolutely no way your publicist is gonna let you kill this character. you love him too much / he’s become a weird self-insert. ok sure. YOU CAN STILL DO SOMETHING.

( i .  )  why does he just. not grow.

he’s five three but does his heart have to be?

anyways fr he’s literally a huge fucking asshole and he doesn’t grow out of it. no one ever point out that it’s terrible. the biggest blacklash he gets is historia punching him like pew. and it’s not even addressed why she did that. it’s just like haha, yep.

can we get him some uhhhh??? clear empathy ???? some actual growth?? like we know he went from the guy beating eren up Excessively to forcing historia to be queen to giving armin the colossus, and then back to just slicing zeke up uselessly and caring about one (1) thing. like he was clearly on a path somewhere.

like first of all, holy fuck get over it. it’s like he had a manic episode for 4 years just obsessing over killing zeke when the game changed buddy??? it’s been established that the issue is No Longer zeke why are we so hard on this. his entire character just becomes kill monkee because his arc is DONE so if we’re going to keep him around find something else?? or CONTINUE to develop him.

make him grow his soft skills as a leader. make him learn how to stick around his team and know exactly how to fall back. 

if he’s injured, make him LITERALLY stay back and learn how to handle those he has to keep back with him.

make him struggle keeping morale. 

make him argue with some of the non-paradisians, or even those from paradis that are like what the FUCK and just learn to offer his perspective.

if he’s so obssessed with zeke maybe uh?? address that with someone???? talk it out with your therapist buddy you’ve clearly not come to terms with the fact you let erwin die and he has no reason to be so caught up by that and if he does like lmao ok let us see and understand it???

( i i .  )   do something with the ackermans

that’s it that’s the post

idek what else to put here i want this fucker dead

[slutabed]

(I hope this isnt rude sjsksjss) but I was reading your scrubs stories on ao3 and can I ask what kind of eating disorder your hc jeff as having?? bc I can’t really tell (the story is still good!!!! I was jw)

Not rude! Thank you and thanks for asking and I’m sorry this is going to turn into a novel bc I get v emo about ED jeff i could talk about him forever. I’m just going to put this under a read more for obviously triggering topics lol.

So I’m convinced 85% of why Jeff Winger exists is to act as a vehicle for my own projections, lol, but I think it actually makes sense for him in canon to have EDNOS (although I think that term is outdated by now lol and actually goes by OSFED, other specified feeding or eating disorder).

I guess more specifically I would say his behaviors (in my fic and canon) indicate EDNOS but can fall under the labels of orthorexia with binge eating or restrict/binge tendencies. Orthorexia (to my understanding) is kind of an obsession with the purity of food or an obsession with “clean eating,” so like:

cutting out carbs and processed food

making fun of abed for his cereal and the sugar in his Special Drink in season one

in his fantasy world the vending machines are full of meat instead of processed snacks lol

all those hardboiled eggs

(in my fic) a hang-up about the morality of food/categorizing food as Good and Bad

I have EDNOS and fall into orthorexia habits pretty frequently and I see a lot of that in Jeff. But I also see Jeff as having binge eating tendencies (which like hello after years of bulimia, binge eating is my own personal demon these days so I give him that too so we can suffer together lol). Plus:

once he starts eating junk food when he’s living with Abed you see him at the ice cream station and then opening up the vending machine and grabbing snacks, and like there’s nothing inherently wrong with having dessert and snacking!!! but the way that he’s doing it seems way more like bingeing than snacking esp given that he’s already kind of in a downward spiral at that point anyway

when Leonard says he ate all the macaroni he turns to Britta and says “I did eat all the macaroni. It’s messed up that he knows” and like...for Jeff who doesn’t really eat carbs to eat “all the macaroni” (esp just because that’s like my #1 binge food yes I’m projecting yes shut up) again just points to that part of it for me.

Uhhhh yeah like I said sorry this turned into a novel. Idk a lot of people HC him with different EDs and they could all probably fit but yeah this is equal parts my analysis of him in canon and my own disordered eating habits projected on him but yeah. I never want to make it seem inauthentic or like I’m glamorizing or making a caricature of EDs in my story so feel free to call me out if it ever seems like that lol, like I said Jeff Winger is a vehicle upon which I project my own insecurities so. Yeah. Hope that explanation helped lol!

[im-gettingby]

30 Days of Carry On

posted (and written by?) @captain-aralias

(I’m doing most of these at once because I said so. it’s long so under the cut)

1. Favourite major character

I literally thought — Simon no Baz no Penny no, Agatha!

I guess I will pick Simon, since I relate to him the most — or at least, my connection to him led me into the fandom.

2. Favourite minor character

I think we all know this one 🐑🐑🐑

I have written many a treatise on Lamb Rights. I’ll spare everyone now

3. Character you relate to the most

Oops— I already answered this, kinda. I relate to them in different ways: I relate a lot to WS Simon because he has abandonment issues and “kid who was told he was extraordinary and then grew up to be ordinary” issues. We also both have a “fix all the things for everyone” complex, too.

Baz — It took me a while to get into Baz’s head, but I would say, I relate to him because of his intense emotional world and tendency to see the world through an intensely romantic/tragic lens. But also he’s a Pisces. and I’d never do that like a Pisces does. (Sorry, not sorry.)

4. Which character would you like to go to lunch with?

SHEPARD obviously. I don’t feel the need to elaborate.

5. Favourite non-Snowbaz ship

Ooh! Probably Lamb/Baz or Simon/Shep or just...literally anything. Like, I will read anything as long as it’s well written. The weirder the better. (Within...legal and moral limits.) in my other fandoms I’ve been a big multishipper and there’s not a lot of options for that in CO - which is fine - but wholeheartedly support rarepairs :D

6. Favourite non-romantic OTP

So, obviously Simon/Penny and Baz/Penny are great ones, but I think the nearest & dearest to my heart is Simon/Agatha. The kind of siblings/unwillingly dating/weird exes dynamic and the way they both shaped each other’s lives is just so interesting. And while Simon & Penny are closer, Agatha and Simon represent their aspirational selves to one another. And the way that they were both tied to one another along with their gender roles/places in society and both broke away at the same time is just...mwah

7. Favourite Baz outfit

I honestly dress kinda like Baz. Anything involving a printed silk shirt or a floral brocade suit, so like, all of them? I love WS Baz, his fashion sense is so thoughtful yet fun. He’s so expressive with it — in the sense of both being guarded, being sexy, and playing with masculinity/femininity.

8. How do you feel about Wayward Son?

In case it wasn’t obvious, I absolutely love it. I mean, from a writing/narrative standpoint, I don’t think it’s the most elegant or engaging book ever written, but it’s just so raw and fresh. I don’t see many examples of an author trying to do what Rainbow did, which is build a complex emotional AND plot-driven story with so many characters and so much lore. I’m very excited for AWTWB.

9. Favourite scene from Carry On, besides Chapter 61

I like what the book does/sets up overall. Honestly probably the first scene, where Simon walks to the bus stop & takes the train and just thinks about his life and makes lists -- I love Simon. I know Rainbow said she thinks that bit is boring, but it honestly says so much about his character in a short time. (and he’s an extremely complex character!) Also, Baz’s dramatic entrance. Also, the chapter where Baz says “and I’m hopelessly in love with him” because it’s just so dramatic, and it comes out of nowhere

10. Favourite scene from Wayward Son, besides Chapter 41

Baz and Lamb’s journey across the Strip - vampire lore, jealous Simon, Baz getting to be his own character— it’s beautiful.

11. Remind us about something in canon readers might have forgotten about

Ahahaha um. Simon says he thinks Baz’s cousin Marcus is fit. That’s pretty funny.

12. What are your hopes and fears for Any Way the Wind Blows?

I don’t have any hopes because I don’t want to be disappointed - and that’s not a cynical thing, I just want to go into it with an open mind. (I’ll take a break from fandom and reread the books beforehand so I’m (more of) a blank slate) I guess just...interesting emotional journeys, whatever that ends up being. There’s a lot that Rainbow has to do in the book and I don’t think any one person could get through all of it -- that’s why we have fanfiction.

Fears? I don’t know. I think just...the series ending. Even though I’ve been in fandom for less than a year I just really love this fandom & the thought of that kind of eroding away is sad. But also I don’t think that will happen immediately, and change is a part of life. I’ve never related as much to Cath as I do now :’)

13. An unpopular/cracky opinion you hold

unpopular: Lamb is the best character; I don’t want Simon to get his magic back; both Simon and Baz should have other romantic options.

14. Something from your head fanon

Hmmmmmmm well. Just mean things about Baz really. Like that he’s weird looking, not that great at football, and actually has kind of garish fashion sense. (which is a self-roast as well - see above.) I just feel like Simon/fandom put him on a pedestal, and Simon’s an unreliable narrator re: Baz anyway. So I like the idea that Baz is this average looking kinda strange nerdy guy who is everything Simon has ever wanted in life.

And before you tell me that Baz was hot at Watford and Agatha was into him, have you ever been to a tiny boarding school? Standards get weird 😂😂😂 and Terry being into him — come on. The guy’s a violent pervert.

also - back to Watford being a tiny school. Baz doesn’t have much competition to be the star of the football team. (also, does anyone except Simon even think that he is?)

16. Favourite location other than Watford

Vegas!

17, Favourite location in Watford

I’m pretty bad at Watford lore/geography bc again, I’m way more into WS. Probably the floor in the Cloisters where everything happens the same way, just a day later. There’s a fic there, but I can’t wrap my head around all the time travel implications enough to write it.

18. What would be your favourite subject at Watford?

Any potions-esque subject because I loved chemistry lab. Latin because I loved Latin in school. Uhhhh I don’t like history class, so not that — maybe a literature course focused on the derivation of spells.

19. What would your magical implement be?

Ooh! This is a good one. I’d like to think it would be a weird body piercing. Or a belt a la Gareth. Maybe some kind of traditional south Asian jewelry, like a nose chain or mang-tikka or something. maybe a hat. like, imagine your magical instrument being a fedora and you just have to...wear a fedora all the time.

21. Favourite canon spell

Hm. Kiss it better? Candle in the wind?I should try to think of a non-horny one. honestly they’re all so cool and clever - I love the magic system in CO/WS.

22. What would your eighth year spell at Watford be or do?

Maybe something from a poem I love. That would probably be pretty but not very functional. Or a healing spell.

23. Who would you want as your roommate?

Agatha is uptight, Penny is passive aggressive, Simon is a slob, Baz is both uptight and passive aggressive.

Definitely Shepard.

24. Favourite item of merchandise, official or unofficial

My @subparselkie sticker

25. Favourite book cover design

WS. Oh, another unpopular opinion - I don’t like the kevin wada cover of carry on. their faces look so weird and the colors don’t work for me. I own the version with the blue and yellow cover art instead

26. Do you want a movie? If yes - any fan casts for the movie?

Probably wouldn’t want a movie! Because I am way too possessive of these books/this version of the story. And I am historically extremely disappointed by adaptations — I get upset with the smallest of changes 😂

27. If they made a movie, what scenes do you think they’d cut that you’d be furious were missing?

See above. A LOT haha

28. If you could ask Rainbow Rowell one question, what would it be? (If you have already, you can share if you like)

What is Lamb’s full name????? Is it actually Lamb Lambert Lamborghini the third???

What is Rainbow’s relationship with sheep and goats. Why are there so many references to them

29. Have you read any of Rainbow’s other books?

Only Fangirl

30. How did you get into Carry On and/or Carry On fandom?

I read fangirl & the pages at the end mentioned carry on, so I read that, and enjoyed it but I wasn’t obsessed. Then I read WS spring 2020, reread it a bunch of times, reread CO, freaked out about the cliffhanger/cool vampire stuff/unresolved sexual tension, had pandemic cabin fever, got on AO3, and the rest is history.

As @annabellelux knows, I wrote my first (published) fanfic after reading her amazing fic Drop The Game. and the first fanfic I read was @captain-aralias’ Greener Grass. I was so obsessed that about a month later, I searched through the AO3 tags for it, because I couldn’t remember the title or author but kept thinking about it.

[bramblepaws]

i played TLOU recently and had mixed feelings on it, though all-in-all i feel like it was a solid game

(spoilers)

as far as the gameplay went, it felt like it was trying really hard to appeal to 2 COMPLETELY different groups of people -- capital G gamers who like shooters, and people who are here to play games just to enjoy stories and loot/craft. the game would just switch back and forth between these like clockwork. 

as a person who falls in the second category, i found it Really Annoying. just as i was settling in to enjoy an exploring/crafting/story bit, i would see a bunch of bottles or bricks lying around, and go “aw goddammit now i gotta shoot at things.” i enjoyed fighting the zombies when they were spread out and you were supposed to get through them by majority sneaking / using things you’d just crafted. but any time i had to fight soldiers/hunters/scavengers felt like i was just gritting my teeth and getting through it as quickly as i could. and the times that they threw a BUNCH of them at you with very little chance to hide and sneak? really Not Fun IMO. 

i kind of wish that they had set the game up with two different playmodes -- one where it’s more about Being Good At Video Games, and one where you’re just here to have fun. they let the Gamers skip the cutscenes. why not let me skip certain shooting parts!! i wouldn’t even skip all of them, just a handful that felt like they were a waste of time when i could be doing something more interesting. 

that being said, i REALLY enjoyed the parts of the game where i was wandering around looting and crafting. finding notes, finding pendants and comics, putting together nail bombs that i could strategically place later -- it was all really fun. 

as far as the story went... all in all, i thought that the story was solid. 

i have some level of fatigue with the whole post-apocalyptic “everyone is out to get each other, the dregs of humanity are mostly super fucked-up morality-wise, and you’re going to have to mow down hundreds in order to Be One Of The Good Ones.” maybe i would have felt differently if i had played this game back in 2013. but after TWD and every other post-apocalyptic story that’s come out in the last ten years, it feels EXTREMELY overplayed. and it felt completely bizarre to be shooting Real Live Human Beings by the dozen when the virus had already wiped out so much of humanity. 

but putting that aside, i had a lot of fun with the characters that were set in front of me. all of them felt fleshed-out and interesting. i ADORED ellie and joel by about 2 hours into the game. they did a really fantastic job of cultivating the bond between them, making it realistic in a life-or-death situation, and providing interesting character development for each of them. they also just did a fantastic job with the dialogue and the voice acting. 

that went for the side characters, too -- i REALLY liked sam and henry and marlene. unfortunately, really did Not like what they did with them. the uhhhh race thing was something that really stuck with me, in a bad way. it felt like the game was Trying to be diverse, but when they keep murdering off the black characters it Doesn’t Look Great. i knew that they were going to do that with Sam and Henry specifically from the moment they showed up, and kept catching myself hoping that the two of them would just run off at some point so i could pretend they were okay. i wish the game had been a little more self-aware about the tropes they were stepping into, and had ALSO been more genre-savvy to keep me guessing about the fates of everyone. 

the twist with Joel NOT being dead did catch me off-guard, however. i thought it was a really good move! and having ellie consistently get herself out of her OWN situations, and save joel just as much as he saved her, was really good writing IMO. i cared about her So Damn Much by the end of that game. 

i feel like the ending was..... mmm.... rough, but not necessarily bad? i wish that they had gone out on a slightly different note. choosing to save ellie at the expense of a potential vaccine was a good choice, but i wish they had emphasized The Themes of the game more. like accepting the past and moving forward with it, rather than ignoring it. or like creating connections being essential in life, even life as hard and messed-up as this. something a little more concrete, maybe.

anyways, that’s all! i probably would have liked it a bit better if i wasn’t godawful at shooters. overall thought it was a solid game -- felt like a book i couldn’t put down when the story was progressing. i would die 4 ellie. 

[lstandsforlarry]

I just love how Death Note is seen as this intricate masterpiece of media that is serious and profound, shedding a light on the everlasting discussion of righteousness vs. injustice with brilliant morally grey characters that warp our perspectives of who is good and who is not.

But when you dive deeper into it, it’s just Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata being like “Yeah, no idea what we did there, it’s just supposed to be some kind of story I guess, it’s not that deep seriously and uhhhh, the background to this character? Pff, beats me, never thought of that, anyway here is Brandonarlyson Knickerfuckeroutbacksteakhouse!” WHY DOES THIS STUPID SERIES HAS TO BE LIKE THIS I

[macklives]

alright, im actually kind of in the mood to unpack some stuff regarding karkat's character and the way alternia works actually, so i dont mind giving this a go. and while act 5 isnt completely finished yet (so this is an analysis post for act 5 up until page 2305), there is still more to explore, and im pretty sure i have a lot more to read regarding both karkat AND alternia. until then, i will give a general layout as to what i know so far and how i can expand this in a psychological way (especially considering i did my psych exam so my mind is FRESH from studying)

alright, starting with what seems to be the deal with the hemospectrum, theres a total of 12 blood colors. HOWEVER, one of those blood colors is a "mutant" blood which is unwanted in troll culture as it is, well, "mutant", meaning whoever has this blood will get brutally slaughtered. hurrayyy. im guessing it is even lower than aradia's rust blood, as she is allowed to live but is the lowest on the hierarchy triangle. meaning karkats blood is not even ON the hierarchy triangle and simply buried underground where they hope he stays. so its not exactly pleasant to be living in a society where everyone is trying to KILL you or at least keep you away from everything.

from what i remember, troll reproduction is a vital aspect in their culture, that everyone is forced to mate and drones will come by each house to collect the genetic material. this is mandatory apparently, and if someone were to object, they will be “culled" as quickly as they could say no. alternia seems to be really keen on the whole "blood and carnage" thing, which means their probable solution to anybody breaking the law, is to kill them on sight and just leave them there to rot - regardless of who they are and what families they comes from or have. trolls are free to kill whenever or whoever they please without any governmental repercussions. which means revenge upon revenge happens without any policy.

however this is very important when looking at karkat, because karkat may not be able to do the whole reproduction process (not that we necessarily want him to, im saying this in terms of how its mandatory for every troll and there will be a time when the drones WILL come for karkat). but as he is already a mutant and if they were to "collect" from him, they would find out his blood regardless of how he hides it. they will either cull him for saying no, or cull him for his blood. karkat, in this sense, is doomed regardless. which makes his character much more interesting.

and keep in mind alternia kind of sucks, because from the looks of it, trolls are constantly tested throughout their lives to prove themselves to society that they are allowed to live and survive. but ONLY if they are the strongest among them. alternia wants to become this fearful planet where the weak die off and only those proven worthy can stay to grow up and slaughter more of their kind until the world is nothing but blood thirsty strong murderers. im not too sure who is governing alternia but they can suck a dick if they think this is how good morals work. alternia only really has one way to solve things which is to kill those who question/fight back, OR to kill those who CANNOT fight back essentially. which puts all the trolls through a double edged sword where they cannot do anything but follow the guidelines given to them by troll's society and government, and try to survive as much as they can until then.

if i remember correctly, when it comes to the law side of things. if you look at it from terezi's introduction where she explains prosecutions with her plushies (lemonsnout ect ect i forgot the term for them lol), she said "you are guilty until proven innocent" which is the polar opposite of "innocent until proven guilty” used in OUR own society today (tho i guess we are by far the "good guys" in this situation, but we are far different than how trolls live their lives). anyways, what this means is that everyone dies regardless unless theres literal proof that they have not done the crime. even so i wouldnt put it past them to do nothing about their case even WITH proof. terezi even goes to say that technically there is no way to deal with the law on alternia, and most of crimes get solved through death. she even demonstrates this by how easily she hung the "suspect" and flipped a coin to determine his fate. however, even with the coin landing on the side of safety, where the suspect were to be released, she said "im blind remember i cannot see this coin" and essentially "killed" him. while terezi may have just been playing with her plushies, theres something we can take from this which dictates how their actual court cases are actually solved.

NOW, vriska (yes ik pls bare with me here, i will not make it about vriska but i do have a point here), from the last few pages i saw, can basically kill her friends in an instant, without any remorse. i can tell she sees this as the most "necessary" solution for her problems. i wouldnt say its for survival, but she does do it as a way to provide some sort of safety on alternia. she is a higher blood, and apparently the high bloods are known to kill whoever they please as long as its convenient. and since trolls have this whole fad of "killing the ones who cause you trouble so the problem is out of the way", she is wired to think its the only solution when threatened or when you dislike a person. 

god, she killed aradia because she wanted "revenge", because she wanted to get back at aradia for tormenting her with ghosts EVEN IF aradia did so because she threw tavros off a cliff in the first place. this may have worsened their friendship, KEEP IN MIND THEY WERE FRIENDS, but NEITHER, and i mean neither terezi/vriska/aradia, had any remorse if the other dies as long as there was a reason. in the story, vriska didnt care what happened to tavros because she disliked him, therefore becoming pretty bias over his fate. because of this attempt at killing, aradia didnt care what happened to vriska either, and neither did terezi. terezi sold her out to one of the most powerful beings on their planet, solely because of their revenge cycle. as long as the troll in question did something "malicious”, then that plays a factor in their morals. vriska gave no second thought to killing both of her friends (or at least attempt to with tavros), terezi also tormented john in act 4 which led to his “doomed timeline death” and sold vriska out after she realized vriska wouldnt change. so no fucking WONDER karkat tries to hide who he is, he's overly cautious to not let it slip out because even the people he calls friends could backstab him at any given time considering theres LITERAL EXAMPLES OF THESE TROLLS HAVING DONE SO.

to karkat, he sees this as dangerous, which is why he even CALLS vriska dangerous to begin with. she might not even hesitate to kill him herself or maybe sell him out to the drones, because 1. she may not want to be a witness to something society actively seeks to destroy and 2. she cares more for her survival than karkats. EVEN if they were friends (re: aradia and vriska and terezi). so it just shows. 

on that note, i find it funny how karkat indirectly distracted vriska after she baited him with the question of his blood in a past conversation, which prompted karkat to monologue about troll romance. he was, yes, VERY interested in this topic to start with, but it was a nice little bonus for karkat as to not be found out by the one person who would most likely kill him even if it wasnt on purpose. however, we do not know how this will play out IF she does find out, we just know karkat is in the right to be scared of the theory.

and, alright i do have to mention this, while karkat may have been an angry fucker to START with, who spites the world and throws out insults every chance he gets, i feel he does this as more of a survival instinct as well. he doesnt care what he says to people no matter what they rank on the hemospectrum. they dont know his blood color so he feels he has some sort of immunity, but he just needs to keep it hidden. it also may just be his personality, as he IS a character who was given specific traits and andrew went along with it without so much thinking about plot. yet if you look at this from more of the metaphorical route, think about it with uhhhh lets say the perspective of how dogs work. for example, when you put a chihuahua next to a doberman, a doberman is more of an excited, energetic dog whereas a chihuahua will rain hell down on anybody who so goes near them. sometimes this is to make up for their size, to seem as menacing as the larger doberman, as they have nothing else to fend themselves with. another way to look at it is, if you see a bear (i forget if its black/brown or grizzly) you make yourself seem like the bigger person by scaring it off with sounds and eventually it will leave you alone. these sort of tactics work in the sense of survival. this is sort of what karkat could be doing, he uses insults and a defensive shouting to not really "hide" himself, but to have some sort of way as to not be found out if people start to question. someone asks him "hey karkat whats your blood" he goes "FUCK YOU, FUCK OFF, END OF STORY" which could make a person go "yo sorry dude forget i ever asked". so this could be a factor as to why he is so crabby, however on the other hand, he is crabby because that is also his character. andrew probably thought yo cancer = crab = crabby. however i do like how he is perceived and the whole "mutant blood" really made me do a double take on how he views life himself. he has to always hide who he is or he will get physically killed. alternia would take joy in finding out he does not belong there because lets face it, alternia is a bitch of a planet.

this also brought me to ask the question, why does karkat want to be a leader if hes so scared of what would happen to him if he were to be found out? which then, at first i said lol this is just karkat, he wants to a leader because he just wants to be the leader, he likes when things go to plan and that he the most say in their sburb plans considering he thinks everyone else is a "dumbass". to which, i then thought about it more and went ouch what if hes a leader because he knows hes not valued enough in society, that he somehow wants to feel some sort of importance in the world, so he wants to become a leader. i imagine younger karkat, not knowing why his blood is so undermined, finding out he is not wanted and suddenly on the most wanted list without having even DONE anything. even TAVROS said he was on that list, but only because he was weak and had no back-bone, here karkat may have been strong but no matter what, he was to be culled BECAUSE of his blood. something he cannot change no matter what. imagine a little kid knowing he will die at any point because of who he is (rlly sounds familiar if you think about it). so of course, he hides himself from the world, but do you think for an instant, little angry karkat wants to simply be FORGOTTEN about? i doubt that, he wants to be heard, he doesnt necessarily want to be rejected as he knows he will be, so while he does hide his blood, he wants to have a voice no matter what. when being a leader, people dont reject you, they LISTEN. they all may not want to because karkat is just a fucking ticking time bomb, who can lash out at any second, but i feel theres now a reason why he has this superiority complex. he wants to sort of become the person he knows he never will become (if you put it into that perspective). so thats kind of why im giving him the benefit of the doubt here.

i would also like to point out a sort of.... comparison?? not with the dogs but with unwanted children in a family household. this doesnt necessarily apply to karkat, but sub in family household with society and it might as well. (on that note, a warning/viewer discretion, if you have any problem with this kind of discussion, i wouldnt read further into this paragraph and skip to the next one) alright, the unwanted child psychology basically deals with the process of a child which is neglected by their parents, and/or know that they were never wanted in the family. i read an article a while back when we were discussing this in a lecture, we were browsing multiple people's perspective on the matter, and one said "An affective relationship may be suffocating to [the unwanted/neglected child]: it’s a defense against intimacy of which they know nothing. Normally they fluctuate between egotism and deep feelings of inferiority. They don’t understand what a balanced and healthy self-esteem looks like." it explains how the child who grows up in an unwanted home admits great emotion deprivation, because the child's bonds of affection are extremely fragile, and this can lead to both egotism and feeling like they are inadequate. and it really strongly shows karkats personality. we havent gotten that much from him in general, but considering how he uses this egotism to cover up the fact that he may be doomed, really shows the similarity. i liked this short article so i want to give some points to take into consideration, specifically this part: "It will be very difficult for unwanted children to build healthy relationships of affection in their adult life. Love is a foreign language to them. They don’t know how to decipher the codes and much less how to build them. It’s very hard for them to need and to be needed. That’s why, more often than not, they completely shirk their conflicts with peers and superiors, or do nothing but generate them. They speak incessantly about the broken relationship that marked their arrival in the world. A person with such a background will need help to get through those abysses of love that live in their heart. The most important step is that they recognize that their discomfort doesn’t depend on who they are, but the circumstances that led to their being." it may not be 100% tru for karkat but theres a small portion of it that can link back to karkats view on life and how being this mutant can really change who he is as a person. and i hope you can see the similarity between karkats character and this form of psychology. yet i also do not fully know the depth of karkat vantas. however i do hope it continues to build up in this way, as it would be both interesting and make us feel more for him as a person.

alright, i think if i write any more i will never stop aghjsk, which is a bit too much for a sunday afternoon, basically to sum up this post, trolls are violent and karkat will be killed if hes found out, even by his friends if it comes down to it. so karkat cannot really trust anybody, hes alone and imagine the thrill he had when he saw jack cut his hand to show the bright red blood? that he finally has someone LIKE HIM. imagine when he finds out about the kids. so i believe in his growth, while he needs to get a better vocabulary, i do get why hes so defensive all the time. because hes both scared and unwanted. and he wants to make up for it.

and i guess with all that being said, you can tell i now have a slight soft spot for the kid lmao

[katierosefun]

author interview tag game

thank you for the tag, @pandora15! <3

Name: caroline

Fandoms: mostly the clone wars, but i also have some marvel stuff, and waaay back in the day, i wrote some doctor who and merlin stuff!

Where you post: primarily on ao3! i mostly just write on tumblr when i’m accepting prompts from like...ask games or something.

Most Popular Oneshot: real

Most Popular Multichap: to these memories (this fic only recently hit 1k kudos, and my heart?? w h a t)

Favorite Story You’ve Written: def. to these memories because a) longest fic i’ve ever written, and b) oh, the hours i logged into writing this fic, and c) oh, the outlining that went into this fic...i’m very proud of myself for completing the fic, and of course, i credit this to everyone who showed their lovely support for the story. :’)

Fic You Were Nervous to Post: uhhh definitely too far just because it’s...rather personal. i sometimes say that there’ll be a scene or two or just straight up a line or two that’s plucked out of my real life, and i think it’s inevitable for writers of any kind, including fic writers, to isolate their real lives completely from whatever they’re writing, and?? this fic is probably the most personal for me because of that. i remember kinda hem-hawwing about posting it, because i was like whoa, maybe this is a little too personal? but then i steeled myself and was like, “okay, well, would this have lifted my spirits when i needed a story like this??” and then decided to post it.

How you choose your titles: i def. toss and turn between titles! there’s a few fics of mine that are straight-up song lyrics (no surprise there), but to my surprise (as i was looking through my catalogue of fics just now), i realize that a lot of my fics are usually just words or two about what i think might have been extremely important to the story. (or captures the overall tone/theme of the story, anyways.)

Do you outline? for multi-chapter fics and relatively long one-shots with lots of moving parts, i’ll outline. but for shorter one-shots and prompts, i’ll usually just stick with the image that compelled me to write the prompt/one-shot in the first place! (and then kinda write around that.)

Complete: uhhhhh, i’m gonna answer relatively for all my clone wars fics, because in total, i have 74 completed fics. (make that...75, hopefully in a few minutes or hours!) but out of clone wars fics, i have 46 completed fics! (and again, hopefully 47 in a little while.) a part of me is lowkey hoping that i’ll get up to 100 total fics by the end of this year. a part of me highly doubts it, but given how much i was able to write over summer break, i’m...intruiged if i wind up somehow writing another twenty or so fics by the end of this year. (asfsf my wip list is long enough to fill in for another twenty fics. caroline finish all your wips challenge.)

In Progress: okay, so officially, time, wondrous time is in progress and online. but in terms of the works in progress on my laptop...i have...*mutters, counting* fourteen official wips. (ten of them are one-shots, and the other four are longform fics. one of them, i’m hoping to release next week (!!!), and another, i’m hoping to release hopefully around mid-december. uhhh so fingers crossed??)

Coming Soon/Not Yet Started: oops, i guess i kinda already answered that question, but eh, might as well! the one coming out next week (hopefully!! caroline get your shit together challenge!!) is titled most ardently, and it’s an obitine au based off pride & prejudice because i cannot and will not shut up about obitine being the period drama ship out of star wars okay--

and then the other longform fic that is very overdue is called getting lost in a big galaxy, which is a fix-it of sorts taking place after season 5. anakin’s gone missing, and obi-wan winds up going on a galaxy-ride road trip with ahsoka (who, remember, has left the order) to find their idiot. this is honestly my excuse to just write more obi-wan and ahsoka content. hopefully, that’ll be posted in december!! (despite the fact i...originally meant to post it in august oOps.)

and then there’s this other longform fic which...might be coming in early 2021 called red, underlined, which is essentially...uh. everyone’s a stressed out law-school student, and anakin might have accidentally murdered professor palpatine, and now anakin, obi-wan, ahsoka, padme, and rex are all trying to find out what the hell to do with themselves because they’re all in on it. (def. influenced by how to get away with murder except without the criminal justice professor to lead them through the ropes. so more chaos. kind of a dark comedy vibe, if anything else? anakin no is major theme in this one. uh, i mean, maybe anakin was justified in murdering creep palpatine because our gang’s gonna find out what was going on in the background, but either way! lots of “holy shit are we good people are we bad people what are we doing”. lots of questions about morality! ethics! law school student study nights with anakin sprawled out on the floor and obi-wan wearing glasses (which he pushes up the bridge of his nose whenever he’s about to lecture anakin that no, that’s not how that statute works, dumbass) and ahsoka just bringing snacks and rex catching paper airplanes and padme being the one to supply everyone with very neat flashcards. this fic is gonna be an absolute beheamoth, and i’m estimating about 45 chapters? like...130K+ words? help? yeah idk either this really blew up in my head

and then...this stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing job, which is...office x tcw au. only not? it’s very, very loosely based off the office, but not really. obi-wan moves in as a new manager of a company, and we’ve got anakin being like “lol new guy i’m gonna mess with him”, and ahsoka being the one who’s both like “please don’t mess with our new boss” but also being like “actually, wait, lemme help”, rex being in hr and being like “i don’t get paid enough for this”. (also there’s some parts that are written like actual interviews like you would find in the office, so there’s this one bit where uhhh

Obi-Wan flicks his eyes to the cameras in silent question before turning back to Ahsoka. “Well, if you need to call maintenance, then I hardly think you need my permission—”

“Thanks!” Ahsoka says quickly, and she’s about to disappear from the doorway when Obi-Wan stands up.

“Wait, Ahsoka, what exactly—”

Ahsoka re-appears at the doorway. “Oh, right,” she says. “Um—maybe just stay away from the men’s bathroom for a little bit.” She pauses.

“Actually, just stay away from them for the rest of the day.” She hovers by the door for a minute longer, and then she adds quickly, “And maybe also avoid the breakroom. Everything’s fine!”

And with a perfectly not-fine smile, Ahsoka disappears from the doorway.

Obi-Wan stares at where Ahsoka was just a moment ago, and the he turns to the cameras in disbelief. “Did she just—” Unable to finish his own sentence, Obi-Wan starts out the door. “Ahsoka?”

The camera follows Obi-Wan out of the conference room and into the breakroom. There are only muffled shouts—Anakin’s shouts, and then Rex’s, and then Ahsoka’s frantic “no, sorry, everything’s fine!”, and then Obi-Wan’s loud, “What is going on in here?”

surprise y’all just got a snippet i’m sorry can you tell i’m weirdly into this au?? i need to rewrite some scenes but uh there you go

Prompts: for the most part, yes! i have some stuff in my faq about prompts that i’ll probably turn down (mostly anything that’s...above a certain rating/really, realy heavy themes that i just don’t think i can tackle with justice or with enough education on my end). i can be a little slow with prompts, but i’ll get to all of them in time!

Upcoming Work You’re Most Excited About: uhhhh i have too many that i’m excited about. literally i can write a mini essay on every single one of the fics i’m working on? but uhhh i guess since i already talked about all my major longform fics above (asdfasdfsd didn’t mean to do that, i’m so sorry for everyone who had to scroll past that word-vomit), i guess the one i’m most excited about releasing is the post season 7 obi-wan-and-ahsoka-finally-talk-about-how-they-miss-each-other-also-sorry-for-fighting-with-you-i-know-you-were-just-trying-your-best fic. (not a whole ton of spoilers for this one, but uh. i’m looking at some of these scenes and making frustrated sounds because there’s this one particular instance where i’m like, ahsoka. ahsoka just talk to him just ta lk to him but then lol no talking :)) also maybe some h/c? lowkey sickfic might be involved in this somehow? might have accidentally served as a precursor to to these memories? help? this fic just ballooned. caroline keep your ideas contained challenge!)

No Pressure Tags: @lightasthesun @soplantyourownflowers @ohhellokenobiand anyone else who wants to join!

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 126 Thoughts

Doctors hate him.

Local man faster at finding new fingers than modern medicine.

It’s nice that we never have to wonder which parts of the story Isayama finds interesting. Clearing out all the titans after a hundred years? Dull. Uninspiring. Have a beach day laced with sadness. Announcing the identities of the Armored and Colossal Titans? We got a fight to get to, chop chop.

We have several groups of people who all think this is a terrible idea but have internal disputes and distance issues that interfere with them collaborating and making a feasible offensive?

-looks for the fast forward button-

Like. Part of me -- a very considerable part of me -- finds this hysterical. In a good way.

I have spent the last... more months than I feel like counting slowing writing my way through a oneshot only I care about. It is taking a long time to write, in part, because of pacing. I am very worried about making sure the pacing of the story stays steady, so all of the beats land right.

Some of the additions such care requires are not my favorite things to write, but for the good of the story feeling like something I can say with confidence I’ve put my best effort into, they’re necessary.

So I’m in flabbergasted awe, here, that someone is out in the world, getting paid to skip everything they evidently find too boring to actually spend time on.

The worst part is it’s really hard to even fault the logic.

Presenting our resolved conflicts!

Is Connie going to kill Falco???

Making Falco and Gabi’s island getaway even more traumatic for the dozenth time even though they’ve had all their character development for it??????

Is Armin going to get make it in time to stop Connie from committing a murder that will definitely happen????

Will Gabi hate everything all over again!?@?!12?

The answer to the first question is no.

It has been no since the concept was introduced.

Even Sasha’s dad is all, “Yeah, it’s probably fine that Connie kidnapped this child.”

Is Jean on Floch’s side now?

No, he’s had that character development already.

Is Mikasa on Floch’s side now?

No.

Is Mikasa doing anything at all or joining Reiner in his depression nap on the floor?

Mikasa joined a rebellion but didn’t have a depression nap on the floor because she was given a bed and also only like five people can sleep with all the rumbling going on.

Will she find her scarf?

Who has her scarf?

Is it the last person seen with her scarf?

Is it the last person seen with her scarf who idolizes Mikasa and first met Mikasa when she was wearing that scarf?

Who also idolizes Eren, who gave her that scarf?

Does Louise have the scarf?

scarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarf

Mikasa found her scarf.

Louise found it first.

As with most things lately, Eren was a bastard about it.

Mikasa has her scarf.

Is Annie going to reunite with the gang and cause shenanigans?????

Sure, why not?

Is Reiner being left in some building somewhere with food no one is making him eat going to result in something bad for Reiner?

Nope, Armored Titan. Plot included.

Is Reiner ever going to wake up?

Yep.

Are the two volunteers with names in any real danger?

Yes, but Floch’s probably not likely to shoot them now.

Is Falco going to find out that his life got even sadder while he was asleep? :(

Yes.

Are the people of Paradis going to get used to their new Titan overlord just like they got used to the walls, leaving the majority to figure this is not their problem and creating the kind of moral squalor that led to their new Titan overlord completely losing his shit in the first place?

Yep.

Does the plot’s chronic abandonment of Hitch imply a good future for her?

Totes.

Are any of the conclusions to these events surprising in a way that would require more buildup to provide understanding of what is going on?

Nnnnnot really?

Fantastic, let’s not waste time on it. We’ve got a volume to end and a badass crew we want looking pretty.

(Also, Levi still really wants Zeke dead.)

It’s really important that all of these high stakes that the audience is so concerned with are dealt with so we can move into the final arc without any lingering thoughts about things that might get in the way of actually writing the final arc.

I think the worst victim here is Connie’s subplot, because things move too quickly for the emotional weight to come home. At the same time... Connie was never going to kill Falco. There’s only so much suspense you can put there when half of Connie’s thoughts about killing Falco are how maybe he shouldn’t be killing Falco.

Armin’s inclusion and the callback to Serum Bowl likewise doesn’t have much meat on it. Armin feeling inadequate is nothing new, and his complicated feelings on who receives Titan powers are likely always going to be complicated. The only conflict to really resolve here is the physical one of getting Connie away from Falco before some dumb accident happens.

That conflict happens, and squared away it gets.

More, “You betrayed me, Mr. Kru -- I mean Connie, :( :(” doesn’t actually benefit the plot at all. More time given to Falco to react to something the audience has known for months doesn’t really benefit the plot at all. Less time with Gabi and Falco being sad little munchkins arguably does benefit the plot, with how many times they’ve been called on for that role.

Connie cooling down and being pals instead of perpetually angry was going to happen at some point. Throw it in with the rest. Armin needing someone to lean on without melodramatic childhood bonds fits right in. Throw it in.

Did we need Louise?

I would argue I wanted more of Louise, but my opinion seems to matter very little in these things

Mikasa needs Louise. Louise is someone Mikasa inspires into following Eren down the wrong path. Louise is the mouthpiece that tells Mikasa that Eren, who promised to wrap her scarf around her as many times as necessary, wants nothing to do with it anymore.

Louise is someone Mikasa protected, and she’s dead.

One last nail in that awkward coffin.

And I guess we just don’t like children anymore and Falco and Gabi have all the survival tokens, so yeah, throw Louise on the pyre too.

What else, what else... oh, more Floch and speeches. Because he’s still allowed to talk. More happy voices about how no one has to worry about dying anymore because everyone who would think of killing you is going to be murdered.

Uhhhh. Annie could conceivably be there, right?

Yeah, sure.

Annie’s here now.

We all are agreed that was always going to happen, right? No problem?

Public executions in front of an angry mob?

For one morally bankrupt religious nut and one Good Boi who deserves the chance to punch Floch in the face a few times before shooting him?

Yeah, pile that on. Make it really clear that if Eren was going to destroy the world, he might as well have taken out the island too, since we’re doing the whole party anyway.

Give Onyankopon a really solid moment, too. Someone in the chapter has to represent that genocide is bad. Well, Connie sort of implied that already. But Onyankopon has been screwed over the most for doing absolutely everything right, so he deserves the chance to point out that everything is fucked and also fuck you this is terrible you were supposed to be better.

Then like, uh.

That gives us a cast, right?

We’ve got Jean, Magath, Pieck, Yelena, Onyankopon, Hange, and Levi on one side, and Reiner, Annie, Falco, Gabi, Connie, Armin, and Mikasa on the other.

Fourteen!

One over thirteen!

That’s like lucky, right?

Can we do the plot now?

Can we, can we, can we?

It’s amazing.

It’s abominably paced, but oh wow is it incredible. Need everyone on the island who has an interest in stopping this in agreement? Well, here’s a chapter for you. Now they are. Now we can actually maybe like. Do stuff. Against Eren.

Good luck figuring out how, but we’ve at least got everyone assembled now.

Except Historia.

Because you know, fuck the Queen.

...Does anyone on the island remember they have a Queen?

This is a serious question.

Like no, this is amazing. It’s like, well, we could have a bunch of chapters slowly building up to this point while everyone starts counting Wall Titans in the background and wondering when we’ll get on with actually fixing this massive problem instead of just detailing it further for the hundredth time.

Or.

Or.

We could just admit that we all basically knew this was coming, so we can skip to the good stuff. Good? Good.

Only we make sure to draw it all out so there’s no argument over how it went down and no one does anything dangerous like apply imagination while a hasty time skip patch job takes hold.

Because that’s probably next chapter.

SHOUNEN POWERS ACTIVATE.

Team Fuck Zeke vs. Team People Die When They Are Killed And We’re Not About That (right now).

Pray tell, do any of you have the power to do literally anything about this?

I do wonder if that’s some of why we’re zooming through these points. While I think there’s a slightly legitimate case to be made that extra time on things we all realized were going to go down is not needed (...it... is needed, for like. enjoying things, but you know let’s just not), part of that hinges on the complications they’re about to face.

Stopping Connie from child murder eats up time. Finding Annie takes time. Confirming Mikasa’s scarf reunion takes time. Confirming Levi and Hange are alive takes time. Confirming Magath and Pieck are willing not to murder them immediately takes time.

I don’t think Levi and Hange’s side is too badly harmed from the pacing. It’s fast, but it’s working with the backing of time. They’ve been absent for a while, and catching us up on where they are and what ground they’re standing on proceeds smoothly. Without the rest of the chapter being what it is, I don’t think the starting scene would feel particularly unusual.

Even the rest of the chapter with its speedrunning ways isn’t too terrible once your brain is expecting it.

...I can’t really excuse Annie.

Unless Rule of Funny comes into play. But even then, yeah. Wow.

Anyway, what I’m getting at is that despite our full cast of degenerates assembled, we still don’t have a workable plan in sight. Five of the nine Titans are working together against Eren. One remaining is missing in action, but also generally anti-Eren at this point.

Then we’ve got nine humans.

So what?

One Colossal Titan with a baseball enthusiast destroys the Survey Corps, and only dies due to human error and someone’s willing sacrifice.

Eren’s got more than we can count, and the stegosaurus behemoth he’s using as a body now.

It’s all very nice and good to form a united front of fourteen people deciding to kill a god, but what does that actually mean?

Even if we’re generous, and include Shadis and his allies in the available forces, how does that actually help anyone? Does anyone have a good idea of how to get to Eren, let alone stop him? Has anyone in this group had a single stable conversation with him since he set out on his own?

If we took an extra couple of chapters to settle down all of the live wires this one grounds, those issues would still be at the front of the main plot. Drifting into the side pools doesn’t damage the story, but it does interfere with momentum.

Stories are hard. Balancing a story’s pace between what the completed work will look like and what the audience is currently experiencing is a nightmare.

This story has the largest conflict it will ever probably face, and a bit of a list of things to check off before it can get around to dealing with that. So it goes with the option of speeding through the list and skidding to a halt in front of the main show.

I don’t exactly approve of it, but given that this is what was chosen, it’s hard to turn away the benefits. I didn’t really want to read about Connie’s shenanigans with Falco and Armin turning into more shenanigans when they come across Annie and try to figure out if they have to kill her, then yet more with --

There is a lot going on. Consolidating that into a lot going on, but with everyone on the same side proactively working together... I like where this lands us.

It’s just really, really funny.

I don’t think I have another example of an author not wanting to write something, so just. not. This whole chapter is like, “oh wait I wrote myself into a hole well now I’m just going to erase that hole and move along.”

From a writing standpoint, it’s hard not to find that endearing. Wiping the slate clean is something you can do endlessly in unpublished works, but with published works, once you ink yourself into a situation, that situation tends to demand attention.

These situations got a little. As a treat.

:)

But back to the state of the story, the primary conflict is pretty firmly locked in, “Well now what?”

Ideally, you lace, “Well now what?” in with all the subplots you have going, and then upon their conclusion you have a solid, “What has arrived!” moment, and everything plays together beautifully, but this has chosen not to do that. Except with the emotional resolutions.

Team Fuck Zeke.

Team People Die When They Are Killed And We’re Not About That (right now). 

-underlines the clears philosophies of the teams-

Wait Yelena doesn’t fit in on Team Fuck Zeke. Unless.

But yeah, so now what?

Does all of this friendly bonding help?

I mean. Maybe Magath and all of his highly influential Marleyan politics can land the good people of Paradis (aka the ones not enjoying their coup) a deal with the rest of the world to unite in taking down Eren?

Or something?

(Seriously, how many countries are looking at this and thinking to themselves, “If they hit Marley first, that’s one problem solved”? I do not think anyone has forgotten they hate Marley, they just hate other things (Eren) more right now.)

While we’re at it, maybe Armin and Mikasa shoot beams powered by friendship into Eren’s stegosaurus skull.

The story potentially still has a lot of downtime. Mixing that in with all of the subplots would absolutely be preferred, but doing that while keeping enough of the main story going to keep the tension up regarding the end of the world...

It gets tricky.

I am sympathetic to the difficulty.

Amazing.

What a chapter.

[transbionic-shieldmaiden]

a really long post about my stupid HRT adventure

cw medical stuff, tumors.

context: there was a post about getting on HRT that I read but I decided this was too personal to go in a reblog. donut rebagel, but feel free to reply.

ohhhh man, so like obviously i’m glad other people have had a better time than I when it comes to getting on hrt but i really gotta rant about the issues i had, because I had a hell of a time getting it DESPITE NOT ACTUALLY RUNNING INTO GATEKEEPING. so, story time:

this got long, so have a read more.

So I have executive dysfunction, which I cannot recommend. For me at least it comes in a package deal with a bunch of plasticbrains things I’m very much a fan of (stims! hyperfocus! being trans!), but I’d still very much like to not deal with it. And I also have social anxiety. Which overall is not a great combination of issues for dealing with the medical system.

Case in point: figuring out I’m trans was the catalyst for getting me to actually seek therapy (at MIT medical, which -- sidenote -- is free for students and I can’t recommend them highly enough), but what this actually meant was I took basically an entire semester to make the phone call to get an appointment, which was scheduled for a month after the call*. So far so great.

Anyway, as my therapy continued I kept coming in and complaining about dysphoria and being like “man i wish i could start hrt! but i won’t, because that involves talking to strangers :(” and eventually my therapist was like “so like. regular medical, which can prescribe hrt, is literally one floor below us. i can walk you down and schedule an appointment right now.”

and i was like “uhhhh wait i didn’t actually want my problem solved that means i have to talk to strangers!!!” but like obviously this was the social anxiety talking because i did actually want hrt. so my therapist walked me down to medical and i scheduled an appointment with the one Trans Doctor (tee-em) at MIT medical (like seriously this woman is as far as I can tell the PCP for like half of MIT’s trans population, we stan).

so the way this worked out is I needed three appointments: one intake appointment which was largely informational, one appointment with a physical checkup and a blood draw, and finally an appointment once the blood draw results came in. So I went in to the firs appointment, scheduled the second once it was done, and then MIT medical stole my blood.

And when that appointment was done I...didn’t schedule the third.

Cue several months passing due to executive dysfunction and social anxiety.

So I finally get myself together enough to schedule the last appointment, and I go in...and it turns out I have abnormally low testosterone. And I was all ready to be like “Oh no...isn’t that a shame...how terrible...” but the problem is, low testosterone in conjunction with my other blood metrics...was possibly a sign of a brain tumor.

That sounds worse than it actually is -- the brain tumor in question would’ve been benign, so it wouldn’t have been cancer. It does occasionally lead to blindness however, and low testosterone from said tumor would obviously not be very visible once I was taking spironolactone. So we needed to make sure I didn’t have a tumor before we could proceed with HRT. I was sent to take another blood test, optimized for the time of day when testosterone levels peak, and was therefore in the strange situation of being a trans woman hoping for high testosterone levels on a blood test.

Alas, it seems I was truly too trans for my own good, for it turns out the second test was even lower than the first.

This meant I had to go in for another blood test, and I had to get an MRI. And of course remember that every appointment I make here means 3-5 weeks depending on scheduling, all while I’m engaging in the standard MIT pastime of drowning in psets. Which is not fun when you’re depressed from dysphoria, let me tell you.

The MRI rolls around and it’s in this area of the Boston metro area Where The T Dares Not Go. There’s a bus stop near the clinic, but I have only been on an MBTA bus once and I really didn’t want to miss my appointment. So I hop in a lyft and soon it’s time for me to go in the Big Science Tube.

So here’s the thing about the Big Science Tube. It’s loud, it’s cramped, and in my case at least you get pumped with Contrast Juice which like goes in your brain or something? idk i’m not an MRI tech. I actually found it to be a not entirely unpleasant experience, because it sort of feels like you’re in a cryosleep chamber or something and I’m a huge nerd. But it’s also...massively disorienting. You can’t move, your vision is limited to the inside surface of a white cylinder, the whole thing is making Noise and vibrating, there’s the Contrast Juice sloshing in your brain...Oh, and at least in my case they let me listen to satellite radio while i was vibing in the science tube. Thing is, I don’t generally like radio music, since I tend to like individual songs more than genres, so I picked the jazz station. I figured this would ensure fairly enjoyable music the whole time, instead of a weird roller-coaster of songs I like, songs I hate, and songs I haven’t heard (the vast majority).

While I stand by this analysis in general, I do not recommend jazz as the soundtrack to the big science tube.

All this is to say that by the time I got out, I was extremely out of it and loopy. Oh, I also forgot to mention: I did not sleep well the night before. My sleep schedule is a mess at the best of times, and I was very nervous. So I am...completely off the shits by this point, not to mention extremely hungry and thirsty. They tell you to drink a lot to flush the Contrast Juice from your system, so that works out OK. In theory.

I get out, stand by the bus station for a bit, and conclude the bus isn’t coming. I walk across the street to a McDonalds, figuring I could really use some food and liquid. Which was correct.

...Except the bus came and went while I was in there, and looking at the schedule on my phone revealed I’d have to wait another half an hour for another.

This is where I make a terrible mistake. I look at my map, see that Harvard...isn’t too far from where I am, and Harvard has a T station! Perfect! So I, completely loopy from the MRI, still dehydrated because I haven’t gotten nearly enough liquids from McDonalds, decide to WALK TO HARVARD. It was a 30 minute walk, through unfamiliar territory, and I cannot stress this enough: I. Was. Off. The. Shits.

So I walk to Harvard using my phone’s GPS and whatever brain cells were not full of Contrast Juice, somehow managing to navigate through this random neighborhood and over the bridge without getting too lost or getting hit by a car. As I reach Harvard, I realize that this is a bad place for me to be in my current mental state: it’s bustling, full of standard college craziness; i think there was a guy in a chocolate bar costume which I could not process at the time. Oh, and I’ve never been to the Harvard T station so in my condition I struggle to find it. And when I do get there...well, here’s the thing about the Harvard T station: It’s huge. There’s several floors of underground bus terminals and an absolute warren of tunnels. Perfectly navigable, if you’re sober or know the area.

I am of course none of these things.

Still, somehow I find my way to the train, but that wasn’t even the end of my problems! Because, you see, my dorm is twenty minutes from the nearest T stop! So even once I get back to MIT I still have lots of walking to do. I don’t remember how I got back at that point; I think it involved a lot of drinking fountains.

Anyway, I guess this was supposed to be about me getting HRT? So it takes a while for the MRI results to get back, but it turns out I don’t have a tumor. However, in the meantime my parents have been pushing for me to freeze some sperm cells, so that I can have kids someday. Here’s the thing: I do not want kids. I do not expect to ever want kids. And if that changes, I’d be quite happy to adopt kids. But my parents are offering to pay for it, and the risk-averse part of my brain is like “oh...maybe i should do it...just in case???”

It takes me a month to actually call a fertility clinic. In the meantime, I am struggling in my classes; dysphoria is not conducive to educational success. It was not a good time to be me, let’s just put it that way. Finally, I make the call, and uhhhh it turns out sperm freezing is really expensive? And you have to go in for an intake appointment...then do some tests...and then...

So at this point I say, fuck it! And I get on HRT the next week. In total it took me like...a year to get on HRT, depending on how you count it? And all this without anyone actually gatekeeping me on being an Invalid Trans or whatever. But it’s all good, because now I’m far happier and more together than I ever thought I can be. The moral of this story is: HRT good, executive dysfunction bad, and don’t wander through Harvard while completely off the shits from MRI aftereffects.

*this is the one issue with MIT medical; their services are great but also in high demand. the system is a bit better once you actually get into it though.

[aqvarius]

If the MC from rmd was more mature and if rmd wasn't a love choice story with less episodes, would it be better? Or is there more stuff that needs changes?

yeah i do think so! so i think they tried to emulate hlitf (and mpd maybe? i’m not familiar enough with mpd to be able to say). in thinking about rmd and its future (in response to another ask which i’m still working on bc i lost my whole essay the other day lmao), i kind of theorise that they wanted rmd to be the next Big Title with a full lineup of “ensemble cast” type characters, instructor-student type dynamic (which can then ‘progress’ to colleague level), lots of lore/backstory, potential for lots of substories. the backlash against love choice has been strong in both japanese and international fandom as far as i know so i really think that was a big hindrance in terms of drumming up success for a title that is set up to have a LOT of content. hlitf has always had a leg up bc from the start, it rode off the success of msb and the demand for more public safety content, which is why right from the very start, they tried to push crossovers with hlitf/mpd. the very first rmd substory is a takado/kirisawa crossover, and then they had that extremely gratuitous cameo in ayumu (aka voltage’s king) season 3 in both the ms AND his pov. they keep pushing these crossovers, like with the vip room event which just came to love 365. 

ANYWAY, the more i think about it, the more i’m convinced that they’re trying to emulate some of the successes of hlitf, so i find it a pretty useful point of comparison to see the things which i find are lacking in rmd. 

so yes i definitely think that i wish the rmd mc was more vulnerable and maybe more romantically inclined and just generally more emotionally mature? i’ve said i wish she made more mistakes but i when i think about it more, i do see some parallels between dr mc and hlitf season 1 mc in that they go into a new learning environment with a certain set of values that get challenged. so i am willing to acquiesce on that point i’ve made before about her errors, since i do think that her values and the choices she makes because of those values get called into question (coming off the back of reading matsunaga’s routes, i do see this happen). also i’ve said this before but just to reiterate, i do also think that there’s a tone shift in the translation that to my perception (re-?)characterises the mc as being blase which i feel comes at the expense of genuine emotional connection between the reader and the heroine. however, i do also think that this tone perception thing is very subjective bc it reads as being quite american to me which is something that (1) is foreign to me as a non-american and (2) gives me a feeling of incongruence bc i’m very aware that this is japanese media. either way, i think in a long form title, there is potential for her to grow/develop when it comes to emotional maturity and romantic development, which leads me to my second point...

ANYWAY, the biggest (writing) issue that i find with rmd is its lack of romance FOR SUCH A LONG ROUTE. generally the main point of otome games is the romantic aspect, which i find to be super lacking in a game where romance is literally right there in the title. so one of my favourite things about hlitf is that we have the whole “meeting him” route before the “falling in love” route, and that generally each season is split into two halves in which the first half feels complete as a route on its own, but its strengths in setting up plot and character/relationship development become highlighted in the second half of the season (i know i talk about this a lot but kaga’s season 2 is the PRIME example of this). hlitf’s “meeting him” stories all tend to have abysmal ratings (which.... i pretend i do not see it) because of people not getting that they’re just introducing the characters and setting up their dynamic first. because of this, we essentially get a (relatively) slow burn romance that takes 20 chapters (or in tsugaru’s case.... 60 chapters lmao, or we’ll say 30 bc he has shorter chapters) to get to fruition. 

so romance md has 30 chapters to get the job done, which SHOULD mean that there should be better pacing to get to the relationship stage, right? rmd does a similar thing to hlitf’s split routes where there’s generally one “introductory” case which introduces a moral dilemma, which then ties into a second case. in hlitf, the introductory case in ms1 serves to introduce us to the love interest’s personality and way of working as well as helping the two characters become closer by spending more time together. then it links to ms2 in that it tends to lead into wider criminal activity that may or may not be related to the love interest’s primary negative characteristics, and most importantly, the mc is instrumental in helping the LI overcome that issue (e.g. goto’s paranoia about losing colleagues/partners, kaga’s problems with internal corruption within the NPA, soma’s trust issues and devaluing of those around him, ayumu’s unrequited love). so let’s say that a full rmd route is equivalent to ms1+ms2 in hlitf. 

rmd does a very similar thing in terms of plot structure with the main difference being that the medical cases tend to align explicitly with the LIs’ traumatic pasts, where in hlitf it’s a bit more indirect (only goto and soma have had their primary vengeance arcs complete). so why does the pacing feel so off? i think that the reason for that is that there is just so little energy put into romantic development. one thing to note is that the mc has already fallen by episode 10 of ms1, i.e. halfway through the ‘full’ route. the only rmd route that i’ve read where the mc has already caught feelings at that point is hosho’s route, where she realises in chapter 15 (which is why i did write in my review that i thought the pacing was better). secondly, it’s a LOT harder in rmd to see not just the mc’s feelings developing, but the progression of the love interest’s feelings. imo this is because they basically treat her uhhhh the same from start to finish??? she runs her mouth from day one and even during very intimate conversations, so i feel like there is no sense of increasing emotional closeness - it’s more just that we (the third person reader) get to know more about the love interest’s past and i guess we see them becoming friends? rather than seeing two people growing closer with romantic attraction. contrast this with hlitf, where they were never ‘friendly’ and the relationship that starts blossoming between them was always overtly special and romantic relationship and the way in which the love interest softens for his mc is already evident by the end of ms1. this means that we get a whole 10 more chapters for this development to really take its time to get to where it needs to go. this also means that we actually see obvious burgeoning attraction (or special treatment) before we get to any sort of climax confession scene. i feel like the mc’s lack of manners/impertinence familiarity with the LIs from the very start means that it’s a lot harder to see the dynamic between the two of them changing. just compare the way that dr mc and takado talk to each other in ch1 and ch29 vs the way that hlitf mc and kaga talk to each other in ms1 ch 1 and ms2 ch 8. i would argue that the action scene in the collapsing building in takado’s chapter TWENTY SEVEN is about equivalent to the action climax scenes that happen in hlitf ms1 chapter NINE.

(oh and i also think that the whole talking about how physically beautifully they are to their faces from day one also hinders the sense of growing mutual attraction.)

another GIANT hindrance is that a lot of the key bonding moments are actually paywalled behind heart scenes so you really don’t get anything if you don’t dish out THANKS LOVE CHOICE. 

anyway, long story short is that romance md spends waaay too long and focusses way too much on plot stuff and character backstory (if you can even unlock it lmao) and leaves maybe 5% at the very end for romance rather than having a romantic element integrated throughout the story. if i were to try and compare it to hlitf again, i would say that to me, rmd routes feel like if hlitf ms1 was as it is but then there was one extra chapter at the end where it just goes straight to confession without the entirety of ms2′s development. but also like at least 2x longer. like imagine if we had ms1 and ms2 but there was no romantic engagement or indication of any romantic interest from the love interest in 20 whole chapters except you suddenly get one confession but only in the happy ending. actually matsunaga’s doctor ending literally FLOORED me like ???????? it’s literally like imagine if you only got through namba’s ms1 and half of ms2 (to that scene outside the dorms when you know what happens) and THAT’S WHERE IT ENDS LASKDJFLKSJ they finally had some early emotional awareness on the part of the mc and then they had to go and make it ENTIRELY one sided with not just zero but actually NEGATIVE romantic intention from the love interest i’m screaming 

tl;dr: my biggest problem with romance md is that it’s literally SO LONG but there’s no romance 

[theskyexists]

she-ra 4

the reason i stopped watching she-ra is the same reason i stopped watching the dragon prince.

the narrative doesn’t take the situation seriously. instead of leaning into the anguish of war and violence (atla, teen titans) - they make light of it. EVEN when the characters’ guardians are KILLED!!

when Angella died and they spent 2 seconds on Glimmer’s grief at the end of season 3 i was like......actually fuck this. HOW can i take any of these stakes seriously when they insist on brushing them off???

anyway just had to complain about that - especially because the start of the first ep of 4 is them joking AGAIN about something as grim as Glimmer now carrying all the responsibilities of her mother - who may i remind you IS DEAD

but catradora became canon apparently so now i have to struggle through

her aunt, her mother’s sister, is fuckin, joking about cakes, her friends are laughing at the joke. COME ON! how goddamn unrealistic and insensitive. EVEN if they wanna make a point of it - it’s silly! because the narrative PARTICIPATES in making light of the situation. if it was just the characters it would be less jarring

‘we’ll make sure this day is perfect’  WHAT? how could it EVER BE IF HER MOTHER IS FUCKING DEAD????????? AND THAT”S THE ONLY REASON SHE’S QUEEN????? ‘must be hard’ YEAH IT’S HARD - IN FACT IMPOSSIBLE. instead of pretending to be happy maybe you can show some genuine sensitivity. these people are so crazily emotionally underdeveloped my god. what age are they supposed to be? 16? 17? The problem that She-ra has (just like the dragon prince) is that there are no relevant adults. Oh sure there’s a Queen, and some Soldiers, and a Sorceress. But there isn’t a single relevant competent adult around who is concerned with running a bureaucracy or the emotional stability of children

I do like how Catra has overcome her fear of Hordak. but i think i remember being fuckin furious at her for almost destroying the whole world and hurting Scorpia and betraying Entrapta just to spite Adora. vaguely.

the rebellions problem is that they’re all extremely stupid himbos. like literally, in the whole story, only catra and shadowweaver have any smarts, while glimmer gains the ability to think during full moons on wednesdays. meanwhile everybodys is a slave to their emotions - which destroys any brain cells that shadowweaver or catra (or angella or anyone) might have managed. they could literally have killed hordak the entire time but just let him order them around because they’re so hot for acknowledgement

I’m glad Glimmer reflects my frustrations now hahahahaah

‘everyone is already acting like she doesn’t matter’  - yeah dudes, you fucking insensitive bastards

‘im supposed to take care of you glimmer’ - but unfortunately i have the emotional intelligence of a crab! FUCK!

this is another thing about this show that makes me groan. sappy quick resolutions of emotional turmoil through re-affirming the fuckin power of friendship in the first episode of the season.

also couldn’t Adora have done this she-ra stuff from the very beginning

that was badass.....miss glimmer’s other hair though. ok the emotions at that hologram and statue though...

the coolest part of she-ra for me is finding out more how the ancient systems all fit into Etheria and the She-Ras and Hordak Prime etc.

THIS IS A GOOD SPEECH. love this badass.

love Hordak getting put in his place. Love Catra realising she has power - love Hordak reaping what he sows. its unfortunate that she’s a shitty brat who JUST can’t get over her inferiority complex

if i could endlessly teleport i would do what glimmer does

also, glimmer was willing to fuckin murder catra before and she DEFINITELY will be now lol. love that for her.

why did they only introduce adora learning to transform her sword NOW ahahaha, theyve had SO MANY SCENES in which she doesnt have it and then suddenly does - and then its gone again

scorpia is the funniest and most likeable person in the whole show

they really suddenly can’t take five people on with she ra and fuckin huntara on their side??

i remember that little sadistic righteous twist in my stomach when Adora finally was like: FUCK!!!!!! YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! Catra!!!!!!! and the stupid idiot got it

FINALLY A GLANCE AT THE PEOPLE OF ETHERIA AGAIN! i love the party sequences in this!!! the people of etheria are so beautiful! nobody ever comments on the main characters all looking plain human in contrast....

‘and i fell for it!’  yeah cos you DUMB AS BRICKS ADORA

so first they quietly take out the guards....and then literally break open the door hahaahahahahaaha

‘we forgot the bots regenerate’ - yeah cos you DUMB AS BRICKS ADORA

i just dont understand why they insist on making the main characters so DUMB ahahahahaah

Adora and Catra are great at hitting where it hurts. the difference between them is that Catra KNOWS that she’s hurting Adora - she does it deliberately.

wow that could be some pretty angsty stuff constantly leaving her to struggle on the floor while painfully electrocuted. Catra has also moved to kill Adora straight up so many times. im sure she really wants to (but it would destroy her later). But now, Adora swept something at Catra that might have actually killed her. I get Catra though, I would’t want to get beaten by some blonde, blue-eyed, glowing golden kid who always gets to win and do better. this is truly the first time Adora has moved to kill Catra......

does flatterina not have parents who’d be like: uhhhhh maybe leave the soldiering for a couple more years?

catra truly burning all her bridges. hahaha. it’s so satisfying to see her use her anger and power to truly destroy herself - because of guilt!

no other villagers were like - HMMMMMMM this random new kid is here? weird..... i didnt see that coming either.

Adora doesn’t think about what Catra might have even been doing there - cos she’s DUMB AS BRICKS

the interesting thing about this show is that they’re setting up a dichotomy. they’re treating war like a high-stakes game because they have the good side adhere to an aesthetic of ....magic. they will not make the two sides equivalent in any way - which makes questions of morality moot. the show is purely an emotional drama. the horde is an army of brainwashed kids in an industrial wasteland - they fight with tech and guns. but the good guys cannot fight with an army or tech, they fight with cleverness and magic. they’re called the ‘rebellion’ - they HAVE to be underdogs because they have to follow the script of good - even though what’s really going on is war, not a rebellion. That’s why they have a single strike team that do ‘missions’. They are presented as FUNDAMENTALLY different - on the level of identity which they cannot change lest they destroy themselves - and in that way the good guys can never become the bad guys. it is ALMOST meta. think they’re gonna do something with that at one point. i hope

also Netossa has such a super cool design.

‘everyone knows you’re needed in bright moon’ - uh. really? i dont know. some random person i’ve never seen before demands you go to meetings. so? is that important? why?

spinerella can literally FLY???????? why has she been in the background this whole time??? hahahaha military inefficiency.

there was an explosion that ripped trees apart - but bo’s alive!! honesty why didn’t they try explosive suicide bots before. they’re very lucky he was still alive to heal

‘could they be tracking she-ra?’ WHAT? isn’t the obvious suggestion - A SPY???? they just assume that the general is right hahahahaa.

i love how double trouble is so meta.

actually, why wasn’t glimmer trained as a sorcerer anyway?

glimmer is upset about her growing magic plants but not her having magic ingredients

why do they present good strategic thinking (for once) as evil influence from shadowweaver

what a fuckin badass. honestly - glad that this show finally utilised glimmer’s extremely op powers like they should be. honestly, she’s much more powerful than She-Ra.

that bit with spinerella was so contrived jfc.

‘by using me as a decoy’ adora says, pissed off. uhhhh YOU went off on your own to get smushed by fuckin bots adora. Glimmer didn’t do that to you. she just used your stupidity.

glimmer really left catra to die. hahahahaa

i like adora best when she’s on her own and being a dork

they definitely managed to foreshadow that Light Hope was evil but im glad they picked up the thread now

am i seeing this wrong or did scorpia have two mums??? but also. where the fuck are they

lolololololol because everybodys dumb as bricks and emotionally volatile they’re incredibly easy to manipulate

‘i cant risk hitting flatterina’ pffft - ALL YOUR ARROWS ARE NON-LETHAL BO. ugh i cant deal with these contrived stakes

I LOVE THIS BADASS EFFICIENT HARDCORE GLIMMER

they’re really gonna spin it like this is a bad development? fuck off. finally some grit.

‘you took things way too far’ - but she got results! dumb as bricks adora

(this may seem harsh but adora is DUMB shes so fucking DUMB!!!! and she has many good qualities (such as an almost innate sense of morality) but goddamn. i guess its good to sometimes have a show about all around dumb characters. i mean, it’s not unrealistic per se, it’s just.....weird.)

the interesting thing about these characters is that you can SEE every single one of them struggling with cognitive dissonance. thats the big story of this show. they see the world a certain way - and then when something challenges that, they fight to the death to destroy or deny or ignore that new information - to everybody’s detriment. and they can’t back down because every step they’ve taken - would turn to sins they can’t live with. it’s interesting and its also a kind of conflict that‘s frustrating if not resolved at SOME point. thats why i love this season for its characters going off the rails. adora aiming to kill catra, catra destroying her last relationships, glimmer growing more and more militant.

they’re all acting like teens - that  is - highly volatile - unable to keep from provoking others or be provoked - but they ARE teens.

‘catra doesn’t care. she’ll hurt people to get her way (implied: EVEN people on her side)’ - we must remember that Scorpia was entirely fine with KILLING the trio (it was Catra that wasn’t at the time).

‘you’re a bad friend’ OH OUCH. Catra - who’s always been treated as a whipping girl by those in power - does the same to those she is in power over. But on some level she doesn’t WANT to be that. she’s just always always been rejected and take advantage of and lashed out at and abandoned by the people she considered important (shadowweaver ---- doing the same to catra that was done to her is so goddamn....it’s the story of this show. the simplicity and banality of damaging and hurting others and that carrying over to harm even more people - is the story of this show and it’s immeasurably frustrating and REALISTIC)

she still flinches at Hordak’s lashing out. but she imprints on him the exact lesson she’s trying to school herself in. If you don’t need anybody - you don’t want anyone - if nobody matters but the mission and winning - then you can’t be hurt. she wants to prove her worth - but she doesn’t realise that inherently means that she’s putting somebody in power over her - again and again and again.

mermista coming  in clutch with the braincells: there’s a spy! I love how this is played as completely implausible and just Mermista nonsense (who i love learning about) - while it’s so obviously true/

i actually love Adora when she’s being serious and heroic, or a huge dork. and she has the wit to RECOGNISE good ideas. but i just don’t understand why Adora is being big b about being used as a distraction. like....why?

i love that the underside of Mermista’s sneaker has a figure. but why the fuck is a common soldier with them (flatterina) and do they really think they can interrogate the whole castle filled with some shitty guards and...what - the guerilla troops they sometimes employ? where do they even live? ah in a tent city. ok

why is the GENERAL in front line combat WITHOUT SOLDIERS???? oh wait. glimmer did that too when she was general. lolololol

i understand why Adora doesn’t trust Shadowweaver and doesn’t want her around most of all - and Glimmer getting buddy buddy with her is hurtful. but...it’s not helpful to needle glimmer about it. but dismissing the guards around shadowweaver however? stupid of Glimmer. unnecessary. ‘what has she done but help us?’ - uhhhh she kidnapped you, corrupted your powers, almost wiped Adora’s mind. I wish Adora had summed up those things instead of leaving them implied.

so perfuma and mermista come across inconsistencies in the stories - but then. forget about it? i just...... UGGHGHGHGHGHGHGH. people really aren’t this dumb are they? they’re just NOT.

‘no more secrets and doing things without us’ - that was a good speech. but like, glimmer is right - she’s surrounded by INCOMPETENT IDIOTS lolololol. but good leadership is corralling idiots, Glimmer. not going off on your own. but she’s already planted the bait about the dining room.

‘we were the only ones who knew about the plan to take back dril’ ---- THEN WHY DID YOU INTERROGATE OTHER PEOPLE AHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHA

‘stop questioning my choices, stop whining about being a decoy’ YEAH FUCKIN HELL ADORA STOP BEING SUCH A FUCKING SHIT. IS THIS REALLY ‘TAKING CARE OF GLIMMER’????

‘all you do is question my authority, it’s exhausting.’ yeah god...it really is. adora needs to fucking BACK! OFF! but im loving these fights because it brings out the grievances. Adora is right to be worried about Glimmer no longer including her in her decisions. and she makes a good point that that’s bad. She makes a good point that Shadowweaver cannot be trusted. And Glimmer makes zero good points - except that it’s been hard for her and has garnered 0.1% understanding from the people around her. Oh they were working together. BUT those were definitely real grievances.

GLIMMER CAN ALREADY DO A CONTAINMENT SPELL LIKE THAT??? godDAMN. castapella completely flunked her responsibilities to Glimmer but shadowweaver did NOT.

hmmm so Solinius was....destroyed. but like, did the people die? like....the people? that’s the important bit isn’t it? i mean, they were under the sea right?

i suppose the problem i also have is that this show will NOT hurry up. normally i love filler stuff but ...the characters are too.....cheery. too flat. their quirks are fun and funny until they’re literally character flaws.

are the horde just literally attacking civilians? jezus. the war crimes. how did shadowweaver ever expect to trick Adora when she was released into the field?

‘you can’t just keep going off on your own!’ - SHE LITERALLY SAVED THE WHOLE FUCKING TOWN. SHE’S THE QUEEN! EVERYBODY SHOULD LISTEN TO HER! lolololol

the problem with Adora’s points is that everything about their dynamics are always so nebulous. why cant glimmer keep showing up to help out? WHY??? she’s the most capable fucking soldier in the field! she’s supposed to have full fucking authority! like, Adora isn’t in the right here. the problem is that her needling is only a symptom of her worries - which is that Glimmer doesn’t trust her any more. but the needling does NOTHING but make her seem like an idiot

i do love this trope reversal here - Seahawk deliberately damselling them to let the princesses save the boys? pffft

love catra getting the consequences for her actions regarding Scorpia. You can’t keep lashing out at people and expect them to stay my dear cat.....

oooohhh Glimmer.... you’re treading close to very hurtful territory. Blaming Adora for the Rebellion failing? for things she couldn’t do anything about? stupid.

really?? you’re really gonna fucking fight-resolution BLOCK ME? are you FUCKING kidding me? edging me for the whole GODDAMN SEASON??? and finally Adora cries at Glimmer going over the line????  fuckin I HATE the narrative decisions in this stupid show I FUCKING HATE THEM FUCK THESE WRITERS GOD FUKCING DAMMIT!!! this has been the whole GODDAMN SHOW!!!!!! ARGHGHGHGHGHGH

i’ve been waiting for a fucking resolution for Adora and Catra the whole! goddamn! SHOW! NOTHING! else matters! you do the exact same for glimmer and adora and now you let it fester again??? because of some no-stakes BULLSHIT? just give me the fucking godddamn PAYOFF for watching these kids be IDIOTS.

this fight on the boat is COOL and really wonderfully animated

really? Glimmer’s response to Adora being hurt and not wanting to be TOUCHED is to be angry herself? what a fucking IDIOT. god i can’t stand this. I CAN’T STAND IT

is this how people act? do they never take a moment to breathe and think and reflect and realise their priorities and take a step back and fucking apologise?

jezus FUCKING! CHRIST!

‘no matter what glimmer thinks of me’ oh that HURTED. oh damn. that’s so relatable. it’s a way to run, it’s a way to internalise the hurt and then prove the things that hurt wrong. the one that hurt you

I know Bo is supposed to be the emotionally intelligent one but he’s also too soft. He should go up to his friends individually and ask them the sharp questions. not - ‘communicate more positively’.

I just like Adora so much better when she’s alone. Her friendships’ positive moments are always so sappy or so....like over-exaggerated, the negative moments always so fucking annoying. Alone, Adora is generally driven, tragic, and cool. the problem is perhaps that i don’t care for the constant fucking drama

god i LOVE Mara so much - she’s so beautiful. and i LOVE learning more about the Old Ones. So they were trying to study Ehteria’s magic.... but then Bright Moon and the princesses were already here. The Magic-Like systems of the Old Ones are pure tech.

wow! even Mara’s transformation is way cooler.

so why was the first one’s tech (she ra) responsive to the magic? why does Raz know about She-Ra? when she ra is first ones tech????

WAIT ONE SECOND. She-Ra is ‘magic’ ??? it’s the SWORD that’s the first one’s tech! She-Ra is Etheria’s magic ! but how if the First Ones chose Mara. Did they steal She-Ra from Etheria?

so what im getting is that. the Old Ones colonised Etheria. Etheria has magic, and when Mara was chosen they made that girl an elite soldier - giving her a first one’s tech sword so she could ‘control’ Etheria’s magic. Then Mara was told to study the magic of Etheria - the ship implying that she’d not been on the planet before. then they created a Heart of Etheria project - which will probably turn the magic into a weapon. this was going to be used against Hordak Prime, im sure. I mean, Mara saved Etheria, but she did doom the rest of the universe to...extinction.... like, judging from Hordak’s strategy, Hordak Prime just literally exterminates planets and repopulates them with his clones....

But why would the planet choose a girl from amongst the colonisers - twice?

OOOHHH that anguished scream. i love anguished screams

why dont they put fucking safety belts in these ships. it’s not like the ship didn’t survive. only Mara got splatted (i guess)

also i love Mara. but damn Adora just got some more shit on her plate. why the fuck was she pushed through a portal again? for a She-Ra chain reaction?

I love madame Raz.

So they didn’t explicitly use it against Hordak Prime. and it wouldn’t have destroyed Etheria back then but it will now...

guh this showmakes it so hard to enjoy catra’s pain.

well they did finally have a good talk about it. I have to say, Glimmer is making good strategic sense - it’s just that this show only rewards harebrained schemes

Catra having a crazy panic attack cos she can’t find Scorpia and she’s completely lost and she knows its her fault. kinda love that for her. my heart

my dear Glimmer, theres a difference between absence of trust and absence of agreement.

they’re bringing king micah back just when angella is dead? oh fuckin lol

the horde....exiled micah? they exiled Micah instead of killing him???

why do they ALWAYS interrupt important conversations? i hate that shit. it’s cheap. it’s unsatisfying.

now THIS is what im here for - that unstoppable WILL!! john gonzalez is right - we watch stories for characters overcomign obstacles. writing, is creating the obstacle course. .....what does that say about me and my life....hmmm.

‘light hope told me everything i need to know’ - uhhh no she didn’t. she didn’t tell you how to harness the energy at all. ugh

how the fuck did double trouble escape. seems to me that they didn’t actually. they were let go....

it’s always so stupid when people try to tell other people: oh no you’ve got no plan - this is too risky! when that’s NEVER a problem

Glimmer is going to activate the weapon just in time for Hordak Prime to use it. And naturally she misses the return of her dad. fuck this

they’re gonna have Hordak and Catra fight? hmm

Double Trouble is right - this IS good for her - and it IS Catra - except for Shadowweaver’s case - she was an abusive bitch

I love Scorpia’s new cool fight music and also glowy eyes

is glimmer going to throw herself into lava??

the unfortunate thing is that Hordak Prime is right on the doorstep and he took over the whole universe or whatever. so they could probably have used that weapon. i mean the Old Ones must have seen something coming. there must be a reason they’re all GONE maybe????

why did Adora assume that all those stars would be destroyed?

THE ANIMATION ON THAT FINAL STUFF WAS INCREDIBLE AND EPIC

how the fukc are they going to beat Horde Prime lolololol.

i guess Glimmer really shouldn’t have done that. but at least she was in time to bond with Catra.