#Whole situation yeah partially what I said but overall so fucked

[cassandralexxx]

👎(not fun vibes scroll on)

So context, we all know and love it:

at the high school I’m zoned for my local community high school the place where I would have gone had I not attended to Catholic School, the place a good portion of my friends and classmates went to post middle school there was a school shooting. It happened when we were all freshman in high school. It’s been forever and at the same time no time has passed. People I care deeply about are still so affected by it. I don’t know if our town will ever truly heal.

Anyways the point of this post is I’m feeling bad about something I said the other day. I didn’t mean it I swear but it’s like do you ever say something so stupid that it is cruel. You hear one person say something like “oh” and then you realize wait what did I say. How could I say that. What kind of person am I that I could say something so callous. It is so rude that it feels vile. It’s devastating after the moment passes and you comprehend the meaning and what is IMPLIED by what you said.

ok so I was watching School Spirits with my mom. Cute show super fun. But yknow they are a small town and so many of the ghosts are always talking about how they really thought they “had what it takes to make it out of there” but they didn’t they died and they are trapped not just in their shitty post industrial town but they are trapped at their high school which yknow objectively sucks.

you know what I said? I was joking I wasn’t thinking I was just thinking about the dumb show. I said “imagine dying in your local high school like that’d be so lame that sucks”

how could I say that. I didn’t mean it like that. I said it like 4 days ago and I’m still devastated. I immediately backtracked when my brain reconnected at the sound of my mom (not gasping but more so being like oh). I felt so bad I feel so bad. I don’t forget them. The ones who died. There is rarely a day I don’t think about the impacts of what that asshole did. why don’t I think before I speak how could I say that.

how could I say that it’s so fucking cruel. Not to the characters in the show; to the real people to people I know to my friends friends. To my families friends. To the girl I danced with when I was in preschool. The girl all the girls of my middle school was friends with because they all played soccer and So did She. The man who my friends used to complain about having to do his school projects. People with dynamic lives. One of my sisters friends best friends had been killed. My sister still cries about it sometimes when she drinks.

now that I’m home (I never really would go home post graduating high school and going to uni) I keep passing that fucking building. I keep thinking about it. In my closet I still have my school lanyards from that year. With the orange ribbons, the think pray act, the lanyard from when I volunteered for the beautification project bc yknow they had to fence off an entire new building at school bc it was a crime scene it was the first resting place of So Many People.

I want to cry every time I think about it.

how could I say what I said. I didn’t mean it I swear; it was meant to be a joke about the nature of the show. It’s so awful of me how could I do it. Words are a cruelty.

I took it back in seconds I think from the moment it came out my mouth to the second I realized why that was fucked was near instantaneous but that wasn’t quick enough. I think I’d still be pissed at myself if I processed it when I thought it but to say that out loud is so fucked. I didn’t mean it.

anyways I’m sorry

we won’t ever forget, I get devastated by the passage of time like when I graduated hs since I was a freshman at the time that meant that everyone there would have graduated then. In a year there won’t have been any students that went to class with the kids who were there. Some teachers ofc still there but still it’s like a new generation. Those kids know of course they still know it’s still the community we were all affected and their schools their middle schools were also put on lockdown.

anyways I’m so sorry for what I said I swear I didn’t mean it. I swear.

[jennastarkhasaheart]

jessica jones rewatch review

so, ive just finished rewatching jessica jones because my disney+ access has ended. this will contain spoilers for the entire show.

disclaimer: i last watched it a few years ago with my mom and loved it back then, and my memory of it post season 1 was kind of blurry except for some central plot elements, and that i really disliked hogarth and trish towards the end.

so. season 1 was the best in terms of overall plot, character development, vibe, and consistency in my opinion. the best story and definitley also the best villain, kilgrave fucking slaps as a bad guy.

jessica in general is an awesome character, and has never really left my top three. i love her development, her personality, and her writing most of the time. she tries to live her life and take care of herself, but also helps the little guy when its not a wasted effort, and when she makes mistakes and ends up hurting people the reason is human error, not maliciousness or disinterest in other people, and she generally takes responsibility for her actions.

that said, sometimes her writing is lazy or just bad in order for the plot to happen, but unfortunately thats always a problem that exists.

after that, i have some thoughts. in general, i dont really see the narrative point of many of the side stories in the last two seasons. they only barely had anything to do with the main story (especially hogarths arcs), so that was kind of just exhausting to watch, because i genuinely dislike hogarth and, as i said, there kind of was no point to her scenes most of the time for the main narrative, which didnt make it better. the same is true for the sheer amount of sex scenes. in general i dont have a problem with those, but here they were just redundant in terms of plot most of the time, there were way too many of them especially with that in mind, and because of that there was no value added to the show by them. it felt more like filler, or trying to achieve the rating of the show.

what annoyed me the most was how almost every single main character on the show, with the exception of jessica, became so goddamn unlikeable. the side characters were mostly fine (costa, griffin, oscar, etc.), but trish, hogarth, and malcolm were hard to tolerate later on. thats partially due to the genre of the show and what themes are explored there, but its difficult to sympathize with the characters enough to keep watching for 13 episodes per season, when all they do is manipulate and screw each other over constantly, with almost no redeeming qualities or real consequences for their actions, and im not sure whether id call that a good writing decision. that whole situation is a toxic mess and i really hope jessica found some better people after the show ended.

beyond that obviously the female characters were all deep and complicated people, which is one of my favourite things about this show, but i also really wish that some of them werent written as assholes past season 1.

so yeah, those are my thoughts. still one of my favourite shows of all time, but man do i wish the writing had been kinder in season 2 and 3. really hope jessica will be back in daredevil born again or a future show/movie.

Edit: also im mad that oscar and the potential of a genuinely positive relationship with a good person for jessica, that was built up the entire second season, was immediatley taken away at the start of the third season.

[possibilistfanfiction]

prompt literally anything footy au

[teeny tiny ch5 teaser]

//

group stage, game 1

'hello,' you say, answering your phone the second coach superion calls. you leave your hotel in ten minutes, so you had scheduled it precisely, to be able to hopefully talk to ava before you leave.

her face is slightly pixelated on screen, but you don't care. 'hello, beatrice,' she says. 'ava is just waking up from a nap, so i thought i'd call and then hand it off.'

'yes,' you say, relieved that, so far, it seems like your meticulously crafted spreadsheet has been working: ava has yet to be left alone at the hospital, and when you have talked — between training and recovery and team meals for you; scans and pain meds and physical therapy and a lot of naps for her — there had always been someone to help hold the phone, to situate her favorite blanket you'd had michael get from your house. to love and comfort her: not as well as you would, not like you desperately yearn to do, but enough so that she knows she's not alone. she's cared for, deeply, and always.

'she had a good day,' coach superion says. 'i think she's just a little worn out. plus, she wanted to nap so she'd be awake for your game.'

'okay. well, that's positive overall.'

'the doctors say she's doing really well. they want to transfer her to the rehab facility soon.'

you ache again: you aren't there. you can't sit with ava in the ambulance; you can't hold her hand; you can't sleep overnight in her new room, just so that she wakes up to someone familiar. to someone she loves. 'i knew she would,' you say around the lump in your throat.

coach superion smiles gently. 'dr. reya will call you tomorrow, she said, to go over all the details. but let me get ava for you, yes? i knew you leave soon.'

you wait, as patiently as possible, for coach superion to go into ava's room and your heart constricts and then releases when you see her in her bed, sitting up slightly with a few pillows propped up behind her, the big back brace they'd put her in still and uncomfortable-looking but doing its important job. her hair is greasy, pulled back into a bun — you make a note that, next time, you should have chanel come in a day earlier to wash it for her; you'll have to shift around some things in the schedule but you know you can make it work — and she looks exhausted, but when mother superion holds the phone up for her, she smiles bravely.'

'hey, susperstar,' she says. 'ready to kick some ass today? set the tone for a masterclass world cup?'

there's no one else around: it's not an interview; there's no need to be modest because ava never has been — about you, especially, and her utmost trust and faith in your as a player, a captain, a person. 'i want three assists,' you admit, and she grins.

'that's my girl.' she laughs and there's a part of you that heals. 'you would want an assist hat trick instead of goals.'

it's fond. you shrug. 'start the tournament off the way i want to finish it, right?'

'fuck yeah,' ava says. 'if you score a goal at any point, though, do a little celebration for me or something, okay? just for the gay drama, if nothing else.'

you roll your eyes, but, 'okay, i will.'

'amazing.'

'i have to go soon.' you frown. 'but coach superion told me you had a good day so far? they feel like you can move to rehab soon?'

'yeah,' ava says. 'i sat up in a chair today for, like, a whole minute.'

you don't care, at all, whether ava is paralyzed, completely or partially; you don't care if she plays football again: you love her; you love her. but you know her goal is to get back on the pitch if she can, so you smile. 'that's incredible, darling.'

she shrugs. 'not quite like you, but it's something. and my hands worked well enough for me to cut a whole steak.'

finally, for the first time in days, you laugh. 'who brought you a steak? for lunch?'

she grins. 'yasmine. isn't it all on your little schedule?'

'well, yes, but not what anyone is bringing.'

'sure, sure. but, anyway, i finally don't feel nauseous, and she asked what i wanted, so, you know. go big or go home, right? and, bea, that steak fucked, okay? took me a little time to cut it but i did it, and it was so good. so worth it.'

'i'm really proud of you,' you say, aching to reach out and touch her. you would if you could.

she blushes. 'i think that's my line, right now.' she sighs. 'okay, go be the best in the world. i'll be watching, so, you know, if you could wipe sweat off your face with the bottom of your jersey when a camera is on you or something, that would make my day.'

you laugh. 'how about i send you a... quality picture... afterward?'

she groans. 'yes please. i need to increase the abs spank bank for when i finally get cleared to masturbate again.'

coach superion clears her throat and ava glances behind the camera.

'my bad,' she says, then looks back at you. 'but seriously, please do.'

'bye, ava.'

she laughs. 'bye, bea. can't wait to see your abs later, one way or another.'

you roll your eyes. 'i love you.'

'yeah, i love you too.'

and, well, if you notch four assists, just to show off a little, and send ava a mirror selfie in just your sports bra and compression shorts — you are certainly starting the tournament exactly how you want to finish it.

[maximumkillshot]

My Everything

Warnings: Everything in the A/N... ITS DIRTY I CAN'T SAY ANYTHING ELSE

Pairing:Sam x Reader

Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Y/N

A/N:  Anonymous asked (and I mean a long fucking time ago!: Can you write a Sam/Reader where he catches the reader having a wet dream and for the next few days is even more awkward than usual. Then he has a wet dream. Sam and the reader hate each other, and the dreams lead to hate sex?

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--------------------------------------------------------------

Sam POV:

“If I look at this book anymore I swear my eyes are going to melt out of my skull” Dean droned for the fortieth time. It’s almost 4 am in a dingy hotel room with my brother and… her… Y/N. 

We were friends as kids but as we got older we grew apart, sometimes I wondered if I ever really liked her or just tolerated her for Bobby’s sake. She was always arrogant and cocky, kind of like my brother in that way. She is also very headstrong and dominating, which is partially why I think I can’t stand her so much. I like girls that like to take the seat next to me, but allow me to take the reins, not because I think I’m better or stronger than them. Believe me, nothing is sexier than a capable woman, but I want her to want to do that, to want to give me that kind of control. Y/N is not that kind of girl… which is why we clash so much.

She, also a lot like Dean, hates research, which is why as soon as she and Dean came back from the bar, she collapsed onto my bed, which only made me more angry. I hate sharing a bed with her, she always tosses and turns, I can never get sleep. Come to think of it…. 9 times out of 10 she picks me as the sleeping partner for the night. Maybe that’s why I’m so tense. 

All of this doesn’t mean that she’s not a great hunter, because she is. She’s one of the best Dean and I have seen in a while, she's deadly accurate with most weapons, light on her feet, and a straight up brawler when she needs to be, which makes her valuable in tough situations. Though, given, she is the one making those situations tough in the first place.

I heard Dean grunt again and I had enough, he barely made it through one article when I blew through fifteen already, “Look, Dean. Take a shower and head to bed. It's already 4am. I can’t deal with your whining anymore.”

“Someone’s cranky,” Dean quipped as I looked up from my file, “What’s gotten into you? Ever since we teamed up with Y/N you’ve been more angsty than a goth teen in highschool.”

I took a calming breath, “Nothing Dean, just a lot to go through, and it’s not like I’m getting sleep tonight with her in my bed…” I groaned as I looked to the bed that was now rustled sufficiently with Y/N layed out in an X position.

“How can someone so tiny take up that much space?” Dean asked absent mindedly as he went to grab his toiletries and pajamas, “and the woman sleeps like a rock. Sometimes I wanna poke her with a stick, see if she’s still breathing.” He chuckled. 

I let out a huff and said, “Yeah it’s funny for you but not for me. I get no sleep at all. She’s always kicking, tossing, turning, it never ends with her.”

“You two are cute, you know.” Dean said absentmindedly…

“I’m sorry?”

“That whole ‘angry sexual tension’ thing you two got going on… it’s cute.” He threw the comment behind his shoulder.

“Ew… Dean I wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole, she isn’t my type.” I scoffed and Dean turned around, halfway across the room.

“The type that takes control, the wreckless,mysterious, sarcastic type. Also known as the sexiest type of woman known to man? You know…” Dean turned back to his regular course, “You would see a confident woman and be threatened.”

“I am not threatened.” I said plainly.

“Oh really Sammy? Then why do you try to compete with her? Hmm?” Dean waited for an answer at the door of the bathroom and I had none so he just said, “that’s what I thought,” and closed the door behind him.

I didn’t think much of it until I heard a moan come from Y/N’s mouth. I looked over to see if she was okay and I noticed her cheeks were flushed.

Y/N POV:

One minute I’m running from a turnip that turned into a werewolf and the next I hear a stab, I turn around and Sam’s behind me with the werewolf dead on the ground.

“You do know werewolves run about three times as fast as you do.” He said with a smug look on his face as he took the blade out of the carcass.

“Yes, and you do know that I had that kill myself and you stole it?!” I seethed… I did not have that kill, I had no knife, no escape, Sammy just saved my ass and he can never know about it, “I was just playing with it before I finished it off.”

“Suuure you were, and you were going to stab it with what exactly, a well timed insult?” Sam sheathed the knife as he walked up to me.

“I…. I was working on it… Where’s Dean?” I asked as I looked around him. He had a look on his face, hungry and almost obscene, I have never seen him look at me like this.

“Dean’s getting food.” He said placidly.

“On a hunt?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” He asked. Then when I looked around the carcass was gone and we were alone in the bunker’s library.

“Huh” I sighed, “I could’ve swore we were-” I was interrupted by Sam.

“I could’ve swore you weren’t this sexy.” Sam looked at me up and down and my stomach twisted… in a flattered, excited way.

“What has gotten into you?” I asked as he approached me.

“Nothing, I always felt that way really, always wanted you.” He said as he gripped my hips and brought me closer to him, so close that I could smell his cologne, feel his breath on my face… it was so… arousing? No no something’s wrong. 

“Sam… I don’t”

“You don’t what?” He said as he pushed me against a table and lifted me onto it, “feel the same way?”

“Well..” I thought long and hard at this… It’s not that I hate him, I just hate that he is the way he is constantly criticizing me and challenging me. Not to mention the way he tries to take control like he is now… but why do I… why do I not mind it this time? “I don’t hate you…” I looked into his eyes..

“That’s a start,” He chuckled, “But do you feel the same way that I do?” He asked as he gently pulled me closer and let me feel him… His weight, his… fuck he is strong and big… in more ways than one. “What do you want right now?” He asked me…

“You,” I said. I couldn’t help the sentence from coming from my mouth. 

It was then that he kissed me slowly, I could feel every little touch every little movement, it set every part of me on fire, “Sam… Please…”

“Please??”

“Please fuck me, I need it.” I said as the next minute we were in my bed completely naked. He was on top of me and absolutely wrecking me in all the best ways. 

“Y/N?”

was …. Was that Sammy?

“Y/N! Wake up! Y/N/N! Get up!”

I looked into Sam’s eyes and then I woke up…

As things came into focus I realized that it was a dream, all of it was a dream… I could feel a wetness between my thighs and the cool breeze that said that it must've soaked through. Then I realized, the covers were ripped off and…. Sam was right over top of me… concerned…

Fuck.

Sam looked almost confused as he said, “What were you dreaming about?” It was then that he looked lower and saw what had happened…. A wet spot… right on my pants… If I could disappear that’d be great, or perhaps a random sinkhole to appear, that’d be delightful because the dawning of realization that hit him made me want to stop existing entirely.

“Oh.. oh God Ew Y/N!” Sam said as he threw the covers over my lower section, “About me?”

“What are you talking about?” I tried to act like I was still tired but we both knew… oh we both knew I was painfully aware of the situation. 

“You were moaning my name and ‘please’ and  something about fucking you… oah gahd Y/N/N, really?” Sam said awfully disgusted.

I decided to give up the act, it wasn’t going anywhere,“Believe me when I say I am more disgusted than you ever will be.” I spat.

“Oh please Ms. Independent, you wish you could bag someone like me.”

I laughed wholeheartedly, “You? The sweaty Moose of this trio? Really? Out of the suave bad boy and the nerdy sweaty lumberjack looking motherfucker you think I’d pick you? Hah you must be delusional.”

Sam laughed and said, “And you think I’d ever choose an entitled brat like you. The one that needs to cause trouble and needs to be in the middle of it all the time? Please I’m interested in ACTUAL WOMEN, not you, your similarities to other females start and stop at looks, on a good day.”

It felt like a knife went through me at that, “Fuck you Sam, like I can control what I dream about. Believe me if I did, you would be in my worst nightmares.”

I then heard Dean come out of the shower, “What’d I miss?”

Sam looked at Dean and said plainly, “Y/N was moaning while she was sleeping, I heard things and I saw things that I shouldn't have and now I want to burn out my eyes and sew my ears shut.” Sam spat as he sat down at the little table in the motel.

Dean looked confused for a second, formed a giant ‘O’ with his mouth then said, “Ohhh, someone had a dream?”

I nodded yes.

“You.. you had a dream that,” He motioned to Sam and then myself, “… and you...” Dean tried to get me to say it but I refused.

I nodded again…

“In your sleep?” Dean tried to reiterate, shocked…

“Can we please act like adults about this for 5 seconds!” I screamed in frustration, “My god you people act like I did this on purpose.”

Sam went to go off but Dean stopped him, “She’s right, Sammy. No more talking about it. No nothing…”

“But…” Sam looked shocked.

“Not a peep, Sam.” Dean then turned to me, “The shower’s open, plenty of hot water, go and shower, change, do whatever you need to… it happens, okay? Especially after high stress situations, Sammy knows that. He’s a bit on edge too.”

“I am not sleeping in that bed with her!” Sam said, almost accusatory and disgusted.

Dean looked to him and said, “Then take my bed yah Baby! Acting like she’s got cooties or something. Grow up.” He waved Sam off as he grabbed my bag and handed it off to me. 

Sam POV:

 As soon as the shower started so did I, “Dean it was disgusting.”

Dean rolled his eyes and said, “No you’re disgusting. I heard what you said to her and I thought you were raised better than that, ” he looked at me sternly.

“You don’t understand how much I hate this woman,” I huffed.

“And you don’t seem to understand basic psychology,” Dean spat. 

“What is that supposed to mean, Dean?” I asked.

“It means you’re really smart and really stupid at the same time,” Dean continued, “you were both fine with eachother until you were teenagers, Sam. You became hostile towards her for just being herself, and that made her hate what you do to her, but not you.. Sometimes you can be so dense it’s painful.” 

“Dean that’s not.” I tried to save face.

“Oh what Sammy? Not true? Really. Because y’all were inseparable when you were kids, I’d know, I was there. I had to pull you away from her every time Dad forced us back on the road. Or did you blissfully forget that? Or is it just convenient to forget? Ever since she became independent, you became a different person.”

“You know what Dean, just shut up. I need sleep.” I turned and went to bed.

After a few minutes of just lying in bed motionless I heard the bathroom door open and Y/N crawl into bed with Dean… I heard her whisper, “I didn’t mean to,” and sniffled. I pretended that I was asleep and turned slightly with my eyes cracked. 

I saw Dean holding her, “It’s okay, just surprised him is all, Princess. Go to sleep, it’s okay.” 

She looked so small sitting up in bed, when Dean laid back with her, she continued to quake as she held onto his sleep shirt.

It only made me seethe more. He didn’t understand what it’s like to have a friend who grew up with you one way then all of a sudden changes on you. He didn’t know what it’s like to have a partner in crime one day, and the next a… a person who wants to do their own shit, whether or not it included you.

I turned back around and everything went black for a second… then.

I was in a park, walking alone, it seemed. It had a huge lake in the middle with a little gazebo overlooking the water. I felt like I had to go there. I remember feeling nervous and almost out of place as I watched some kids run by with a dog. When I started to approach the gazebo I saw a woman looking out, she had the prettiest sky blue sundress, her hair out and flowing in the wind… She was facing the water so I couldn’t see who she was, but I knew I was there for her. 

The minute I walked into the gazebo she said, “I'd know you anywhere,” and turned around… It was Y/N? Why am I not angry? Why is she smiling at me?

“What’s going on?” I asked out loud.

“You tell me, Sammy.” She said as I looked confused. “You started pulling away first… so you tell me.” She looked inquisitive yet heart broken, my heart sank seeing her like that.

I sat at the gazebo with her and tried to come up with excuses, “Time changes people.”

“Only if they want to change,” She uttered.

“If you weren’t so stubborn…” I murmured.

“I have to be, to protect myself, you do the same thing,” She looked as tears began to well.

“We could’ve been,” the words caught in my throat before I could form them. I started looking into her eyes, “Why don’t you trust me?” 

“You never gave me a reason to trust you. Trust makes you vulnerable and I can’t trust you with my vulnerability, Sam.” She looked hurt, “I can trust you with many things, my friendship, my anger, my life… but never my vulnerability.” Her voice broke as she swallowed hard, “It would leave me exposed  if you had just decided one day to up and leave...” She huffed, “looks like I was right too.” 

“You knew I was always insecure about me being a tomboy and not being enough and yet you threw it in my face knowing I couldn’t control myself when I’m sleeping.” The tears started falling from her face, “you never gave me a reason, even though I wanted to give you everything.” 

“What?” I was confused.

“You hated me in high school because I was becoming myself and you just wanted to stay sheltered in your books, then you left to Stanford…” She said.

“I needed to get out,” I said plainly.

“Then you wound up with her… my opposite, then after all of that when you come back you still despise me and I don’t...”  She turned away, looking at the water. I watched her tears fall into the lake.

I rubbed her arms as I stood behind her, “I don’t despise you. I never despised you.”

“You don’t need to lie to me,” She spat as she went to walk away. By the time I turned around the gazebo was empty and walking out led me to a dark forest, where I heard a scream.

I ran in the direction of the yell and I found Y/N. Fear flared in me.

She was lying face down in a clearing, fang marks on her neck, pale as the moon, drained....

I ran to her and flipped her over. I heard her distantly say, “tell the truth.”

I cried and closed my eyes as I said, “I need you.” 

Her body disappeared and the forest was gone. I looked around myself and saw my room, Y/N sitting on my bed as I stood there in the center. 

She looked at me and said, “I need you too,” as she walked up to me and kissed me. I was so confused yet it all made sense. I felt a fire light in my chest as I kissed her back. The relief I felt made tears well up in my eyes as I held her close to me. I felt her heartbeat, heard her whimper, she was there and alive and with me.

She started taking off my clothes as I watched her, the smile she had plastered on her face so promising and daring. I blinked and we were together on the bed, her on top of me, riding me. It was a beautiful sight, the ways she moaned and gripped onto my chest for support… If I could I’d hold out forever, make this moment last but she is so tight and feels so good, “Y/N fuck I’m not gonna last, can I come inside you?”

“Do it… let go, Baby come inside me.” “Fucking hypocrite.”

Y/N?

I heard my brother, “Y/N? Calm down… just like you said he can’t control it.”

 This is bad.

“Stay with me.” She said as she bent down to kiss me.

“SAM WINCHESTER WAKE THE FUCK UP!”  

It was then that I opened up my eyes to see a furious Y/N.

“REALLY SAM? THE HYPOCRISY OF IT ALL!” She was screaming.

Dean had his hands up. “Y/N..”

She glared daggers into him and she barked, “LET ME GUESS,” she walked over to my bed and threw back the sheets… there it was, clear as day. A wet spot not only staining my pajamas but the sheets too.

“Well that’s one way to get up.” I groaned as I swung my legs over the bed.

“That’s all you have to say for yourself, really? I cried myself to sleep last night, having nightmares every two seconds yet you not only have a wet dream of me… BUT YOU…” She made a gagging noise, “YOU COME INSIDE DREAM ME?! As if I’d let you that close. I hate it when you nudge me in the Impala yet you think on some subconscious level that I’d let you come inside me?”

Dean intervened as I got up, “Look, I know this looks bad.”

“LOOKS BAD…” she huffed and paced, “No, Dean. A train wreck looks bad. A global catastrophe? Not a good look… THIS…”

Dean came in with, “I know I know… just let’s get you out of here before you kill him.” 

She looked to Dean then to me and said, “You are lucky there’s someone saving your ass… YET AGAIN!” and she stormed out.

Dean looked to me, “Sam, I don’t know how you’re gonna save this, but when I bring her back… you better have an idea, and a good one at that.”

I looked stunned, “Why does it have to be me?”

Dean’s face turned hard, “Because you started this you jackass! You made her feel like shit in an already embarrassing situation, she even had nightmares of you leaving her in a pit dying alone! YOU Sam, YOU made her hate you! And now, it’s time to man up and fix it!” He looked at his watch then back to me, “You have until tonight, 8pm, I think she’ll be cooled off by then. My bag is packed and I have another room. You two are gonna hash this out before we leave this town, no ifs, ands, or buts… got it?”

“Got it.” was all I could say as he stormed out…

This is just great. How in the hell am I going to go about this? 

Most of the day was spent nervously tidying up the room and doing some research, just waiting out the clock. Periodically Dean would text me, asking about my progress and all I said was that I was working on it. The truth is, I can’t make a plan if I don’t know her mood. Therefore, I’m gonna have to wing it. 

Finally 8pm hit and I was dressed in my regular clothes. I set out two beers at the small table in the room and waited. Pretty soon I heard the roar of the Impala and minutes later Y/N came in with Dean. 

Dean looked at both of us, “Whatever is happening here, it’s been here for years… You are my best friend, and you are my brother… figure this shit out. I’m going to my room,” with that Dean left the room.

As soon as the door closed Y/N stood there with her arms crossed, eyeing me cautiously.

“I have a beer for you, and a seat, if you want it that is,” I almost bit out.

Her nostrils flared and a fire started in her eyes, “I’m only tolerating you for Dean.”

“Sure whatever you say,” I spat.

She looked at me and said, “What is your problem with me? Huh? What have I ever done to you except support and deal with your fucked up self?!”

I felt anger boil as I looked at her, “I’m not the fucked up one here!” I got up and walked to her. She scoffed as I said, “I’m not the one that decided to shut down all those years ago and act like my shit doesn’t stink!”

She looked at me, “I grew into who I am today, Sam! I’m sorry that’s such a personal offense to you. That doesn’t give you a right to keep on challenging me and act like I am not only a stranger but a stranger you hate at that!”

I glared, “Oh please, as if you didn’t push me away!” I screamed.

“You were the one who left to Stanford… No goodbye,” she started listing on her hands, “no explanation, no ‘see you later’ or ‘see ya never’, no confirmation that you were alive or dead, no nothing, Sam. So tell me who pushed who away!?” Her eyes burned with hurt, hate, and something else. 

“Don’t,” I growled, “it wasn’t that simple.” The truth is the whole time I packed the only person I thought about was her. If I’d ever see her again, hold her, if I could convince her to come with me. In the end though, fear of not only Bobby but of Dad finding me to try to hash it out made me go on without her. I still have nightmares of that night but not of the fight, but of me not being able to get to her. 

She advanced on me, “Wasn’t that simple?” she breathed… “Who helped put you back together? Huh? All those breakups and all those times you were bullied in school, who did EVERYTHING to try to get through to you?” She scoffed, “Hell, you almost killed me when you were on demon blood just for shits and giggles and did I leave your sorry ass behind? NO... Dean had to PEEL me from you and drop me off somewhere saying it was for my own good but dammit Sammy I NEVER LEFT YOU. YOU…. LEFT… ME!” She screamed as tears were welling in her eyes as she looked at me…

“Why is it that every time I try to talk to you it turns into a Y/N pity party?” I screamed, frustrated, especially at her last statement. The whole time she was with me when I was on demon blood, I can’t even go into it. Tears stung my eyes as my hate not only for her, but for myself reached a boiling point. 

“I never asked for pity and I never wanted pity,” she spat out as I got closer to her, “I wanted you to see me and see that I gave a damn about you, you asshole!” She yelled as she tried to hit me. I caught her hands and pinned her against the wall.

The air was tense, heavy, angering, and frustrated. I could see her struggle against me as I looked at her, the fire in her now a full on inferno, searing into me, devouring me. She started to glare at me as she spat, “What now, Sam. I can’t move! Are you happy now?”

I gathered her hands into one of mine as I said, “I hate you.”

“Right back at you.”

“You’re stubborn, arrogant, wreckless, and you get on my nerves like no one else,” I growled, practically nose to nose with her.

“What are you going to do about it?” She glared at me. That was it, my restraint snapped as I crashed my lips into hers. Her whole body tensed and then relaxed as she wordlessly jumped and wrapped her legs around my hips. 

We were fighting for dominance as I pressed her against that wall, she was biting at my lips, trying to show who was in control but I wasn’t having it. I pulled away and looked at her. I watched her chest heave as I wrapped my hand around her tiny neck, just letting her know that I’m in control. “You look pretty like this,” I glared at her.

“Wait until you see me on top,” She spat.

“As if, I make the rules,” I pulled her towards me and threw her on the bed, she let out a devilish laugh as I pawed at her clothing, trying to get it off as quickly as possible.

“Rules are meant to be broken Sammy,” She quipped as she used my weight against me and pinned me to the bed, “Now be a good boy and stay still.”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s the plan, Winchester.” She threw off her shirt and bra as she said that.

I immediately latched onto her chest as I started taking off my shirt. I could feel her grinding on top of me, when I heard her moan I pinned her again… “You don’t get to come until I let you.” I nipped her hard on the neck as she tried to grind into me.

She laughed, “You’re funny, thinking that you can even make me come.” 

I started unbuttoning and unzipping her pants, “we’ll see what you think about that in a second.” As soon as I was able to fit my hand into her pants I licked my fingers and started fingering her. I pushed and pulled slowly at first, feeling her clench, watching her trying to look unphased. I see those pupils, the way her lips are parted, she’s struggling.

She looked at me in defiance when I brushed that little bundle of nerves with my thumb and her hips jumped, I quirked an eyebrow, “oh I can make you come,” I said with confidence as I picked up the pace, watching her writhe and moan while I nipped and sucked at her breasts. The more I’m fucking her the more I wonder if I ever hated her in the first place. As soon as I felt her walls tighten slightly I pulled away.

“Damn it Sam!”

“You’re gonna come many times tonight… but the first…” I wrapped a hand around her neck, “The first time you’re coming is on my tongue.”

For the first time ever… I think she was speechless. I pulled her pants off and nestled myself between her legs, “Now don't come until I tell you to.” She was quiet and still as I began teasing her. She was so sweet and also something all her own, it just made me harder for her, I could hear her moaning despite herself, eventually grabbing my hair and directing me to where she wanted me. Not too long after I could hear her breath hitching, feel  her grip on my hair tighten, her legs starting to shake… oho she needed to come.

“I’m not done don’t you dare...” I growled into her as I continued my feast, I don’t really think I can get enough of this girl. Finally when I was done with her I looked into her eyes and nodded, giving permission.

With that she exploded on my tongue, sounding like a porn star as she did. She was so lost in it that I needed some relief. I found myself kicking off my jeans and underwear while I was getting her through the first of many orgasms tonight. By the time she was done I was hard enough to cut glass. 

I kissed up her body and whispered, “taste yourself”, as I kissed her with everything I had. She whined at her own flavor. Then I flipped her over, in any other position she can flip our positions, but not in this one. “I need to make sure you don’t surprise me.”

“Just fuck me Sam… please.” She bit out.

“So polite,” I mentioned to her as I slid in and caged her with my torso, after biting her shoulder at the feeling of her clench I said, “Keep being nice and maybe I’ll let you ride me.”

The whole night went like that, small breaks, fucking, then more breaks… By the time it was daylight we went from hating each other to smiling like two idiots at one another. 

In between breaks we talked, found that we don’t hate each other, we actually kinda love each other and maybe, just maybe we should pursue this. By the next morning we were joking with each other, flirting, and well, just being together.

When the sun peaked out of the blinds and I watched her settle in for a nap, I said something so natural that it felt like breathing, “I love you. I always have, just wanted you to need me.”

Y/N looked at me and gently grabbed my face, “I always needed you, just promise, you won’t leave like before… because I love you too and I can’t take not having you around.”

I looked at her and said, “I would never dream of it.” as I kissed her.

I got a text from Dean asking if we were alive and I let him know we hashed it out and are actually seeing each other now. Dean called and well as he said “IT’S ABOUT DAMN TIME!”

After he hung up I settled with Y/N on my chest, sleeping peacefully. As for me, I went to bed knowing… She’s everything. My everything. 

WANT MORE? TELL ME SO!!!

TAG ARMY:

TAG ARMY:

@mamaredd123 , @impala-dreamer , @impalaimagining , @jotink78 , @nichelle-my-belle , , @scorpiongirl1​ , @ilostmyshoe-79​ , @teamfreewillimagines-blog​ , @leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid​ , @chelsea072498​ , @brickwall035​ , @maui137 , @mogaruke​ , @jayankles​ , @butiaintgonnaloveem​ , @kawaiilivkitty , @naviwhite , @emoryhemsworth​ ,              

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Jared/Sam Peoples!:

@saxxxologyxology 

Wanna join the tag army? Shoot me an ask and consider it done!

[stellocchia]

I really liked Wilbur's lore stream from yesterday, so you guys are getting a short stream analysis from me

As always dialogue is color-coded: Wilbur, Tubbo, Ranboo

And since I'm the least concise person ever everything is under the cut

The stream is (DSMP LORE) A Year Later

The stream starts with Wilbur singing the L'Manburg anthem to Ranboo. It is interesting to notice that, just like all the streams since he's been back he doesn't start off the stream by addressing chat in any way but already taking with someone in-universe.

"I'm a big big fan of the song (...) (Wilbur notices that Ranboo was muted) so sorry, let's try again: have you heard that song before?" "Yeah I have, I have. I have- I've had a friend that sings it quite a lot" “Good, good, and I was gonna say, it’s obviously based on Hallelujah right? But the thing is, the thing is Ranboo, right? But the thing is- the thing is Ranboo, right? Is that the reason we did it is because Tommy used to sing Hallelujah to the plants" "Oh, to the plants?" "Yeah! In- in the- around the- around the uhm... around the thing! You know the- the caravan? (...) so, my man, Tommy used to sing to the plants to make them grow better and that was the song he used to sing and so I thought what a way to honour Tommy, you know, one of the most- one of the most loyal members or of our fair nation than by naming the song after him, you know? And singing it based on his little- his little Muse. Tommy is a- Tommy is all of our Muse really I'd say"

I cut as much of this quote as I could while still leaving it well understandable and leaving in everything I wanted to talk about, but man is it long... So let's break it down a bit at a time:

1) The friend that Ranboo referenced that sings the anthem a lot is most likely Tubbo considering that they met him later on in this stream while he was singing that very song

2) The memory of the song seems to still be a particularly pleasant one for Wilbur, which probably explains why Ghostbur as well was so fond of it. He speaks about it positively throughout and it generally seems like an overall positive moment of reminiscence, probably because it's a callback to a simpler time when Wilbur too was, you know, happier overall. It's a reminder of a time before the worsening of his spiral.

3) Also interesting that they kept it in canon that Tommy singing to the plants was what inspired the anthem. Especially because I'm not entirely sure if that's the case considering that the actual anthem wasn't written by cc!Wilbur but by a fan upon his request (obviously this is outside the story).

4) Last thing I wanted to mention was Wilbur describing Tommy as a Muse. Muses in mythology are the inspirational goddesses of the arts, music, and science, Tommy aside from the anthem obviously isn't that. But it is interesting that Tommy does take a central role when it comes to motivating people. We could say that Techno's speech on the 16th was inspired by him since it was directed at him. Similarly, Niki and Jack had their arcs revolving around him. Tommy was able to rally the troops with ease multiple times. And Dream's obsession with him itself is the main motivator for, like, 90% of his actions. So, while he may not cover the role of a muse literally it's not a comparison that is too far off...

They headed to the museum afterward and took notice of the Ranboo poster being missing. And then they headed off to L'Manburg (which, by the way, looks amazing, thank you cc!Phil for that one).

"It goes by L'Manhole now apparently" "I- yeah it's kinda- ugh- I'm not a fan. It's kinda rude to L'Manburg's history, you know? It- it's called L'Manburg. It's called L'Manburg. NOT Manberg, not L'Crater or whatever. L'Manhole, I don't care, it's now L'Manburg, it's always L'Manburg, okay?"

It's interesting that not too long ago he was saying that even L'Manburg itself (with an emphasis on the name) wasn't what was actually important, the purpose of it was. He admits later on that he lied in that conversation, but it's impressive how quickly he trusted Ranboo enough to let him see how much he still cared about L'Manburg when he was so intent on lying about it not too long ago.

Wilbur's enthusiasm about seeing the flag is another nice confirmation about him still caring deeply for his old nation.

"Damn, I really went down to bedrock, didn't I? Holy shit I did- I did a number on this place" (I wonder why Ranboo didn't correct him on this, because Ranboo knows that Techno, Phil, and Dream are the ones who actually exploded the country down to bedrock...)

They end up seeing Tubbo on the other side of the crater and head over to him. While they're heading there Tubbo is singing the anthem himself in a very mournful tone.

One interesting thing that I noticed it's that it's Wilbur that heads towards Tubbo's location instead of having Tubbo go to him like he mostly did with Tommy for example. I suppose it could be because Tubbo having been a president himself is in less of a subordinate position to Wilbur than Tommy who's always been a simple soldier.

"It's like looking in a little mirror, look you're wearing my suit still? How long have you been wearing that?" "Oh I just put it on, just for today" (in a similar fashion to Jack bringing out the L'Manburg uniform to reminisce, Tubbo also brought out clothes he strongly attaches the memory of L'Manburg to)

"Ranboo have you met Tubbo?" "Yeah, yeah. I've- I've met him, I mean we've, uhm... we've been around" (Ranboo still minimizing his relationship with Tubbo to Wilbur. Of course, this is because he doesn't trust him but it's interesting that he isn't even honest about that)

After a bit of back and forth, Wilbur starts apologizing to Tubbo. At first, like most other times he's having a serious discussion he puts himself in an elevated position to tower over Tubbo. It's a neat way to show how his own desire for control affects him, having Wilbur literally elevate himself over others when speaking to them. Literally putting Tubbo down in this situation. Which does make the beginning of his apology very obviously feel insincere.

"I'm sorry for making you president specifically before blowing it up and I'm sorry for when I did this *pointing at the crater* and blew all this up and making this whole. I'm sorry that I uh- that I said that you were the president of a crater"

This is that first part of the apology I mentioned. Just to clarify, I don't actually think that it was entirely insincere. It just feels less impactful due to Wilbur putting himself in a position of superiority over Tubbo, especially because it's something we've seen him do before. It's also to be noted that this time, like others before, he seems to be apologizing less out of actual guilt and more out of a desire to earn forgiveness. Which is not a critique by the way. I just feel like that's a misconception Wilbur has, that apologies serve the purpose of confirming to him that he's doing a good job at changing more than to actually make amends for what he's done. The reason why I think that's the case for the beginning part of this apology as well it's because of how fast he went to ask tubbo if he forgave him, which did put a certain level of pressure on Tubbo in this situation.

"I mean it wasn't- this wasn't all you Wilbur" (thank you tubbo for finally dispelling some of those misunderstandings)

"Yeah so me and mainly Ghostbur honestly, like-" "Ghostbur" (some more of Wilbur not being too fond of Ghostbur)

"Right is he [Ghostbur] this obsidian crap then I take it and these- these fucking dumb lanterns up here" (a bit more)

To correct Wilbur's misconceptions Tubbo starts off asking if the other knew Dream, to which Wilbur responds with how much he appreciates Dream and how he's his hero, which makes Tubbo backtrack and blames most of Doomsday on Techno and Phil. Which, as we know, isn't actually accurate and I have a feeling that this misinformation will be harmful later on once Dream is out of prison (though I don't blame Tubbo for backtracking with how enthusiastic Wilbur is, that was the basic conflict-avoidant approach that Tubbo seems to prefer).

"They rained tnt for days" (if this is actually canon then Doomsday was even more of a tragedy than we previously saw it as. It was days filled with fighting and destruction. Then again, Tubbo has misremembered traumatizing events before)

"Techno and Phil, they hated the government. I mean it was partially my fault as well" "But you didn't blow it up" "No I didn't. I would never have wished or anything like this to happen" "So it was just Techno and Phil?" *long pause* "Y-yeees"

Two things to say here:

1) I appreciate someone in canon recognizing that it's not Tubbo's fault for what happened to L'Manburg and blaming the people who actually blew it up, similarly to how I appreciate Wilbur bringing up with Tommy that it was clearly Dream pulling the strings with his exile with Tubbo. It's nice having it stated plainly for people to hear

2) This is the misconception I mentioned. This is most certainly gonna backfire at some point.

After that Wilbur commends Tubbo quite a lot for rebuilding New L'Manburg (once again being dismissive towards Ghostbur) and is clearly enthusiastic about it, even going as far as to say that that mattered more to him than them building him a grave.

"I just, I feel lost without L'Manburg. All my core beliefs, everything died with it" "You feel lost without a nation..." "I have no purpose anymore" "I guess that's where anarchy fails" (I think this may be the first time someone admits it to someone else, even though that lack of purpose and feeling disoriented is very obviously a shared sentiment amongst the ex-citizens)

After that, it's when Wilbur invites Tubbo to join Paradise, the, supposedly burger van with a small house attached to it that wasn't supposed to become a nation. I have a feeling that the proposition coming right after that exchange may imply that Wilbur changed his mind on it. He does purposefully put himself again in an elevated position when making the proposition.

"Would you like to come join me in Paradise? Literally" "Hmmm, I'm not sure Wilbur. I'm not sure I trust you man, I need to- in order to follow someone I need to trust them" "Wait, wait but you- I thought you forgave me! I thought it was, you know it-" "Wilbur I forgive you because I like to hang on to the hope that people can change, but-"

This is what I mean when I say that Wilbur's apologies come with expectations for the person he's apologizing to. By asking Tubbo first if he forgave him when he originally apologized, he already made it harder for Tubbo to refute that. And now we learn that he expected trust to come along with forgiveness. He's not doing this maliciously of course, but he does seem to have some misconceptions on this.

"I know you had that- that at the festival? With Technoblade? I never spoke to you properly about this. I- I could have saved you" "But you didn't" (other people brought this up, but this is a neat little parallel to the one scene in exile where Ranboo was lamenting about how he should have gone with Tommy and Tommy shut him down pointing out that anyone could have gone but no one actually did)

There is a second round of apologies and Wilbur is still standing higher than Tubbo, BUT he does put himself on his same level after he did a bit more pushing and found that Tubbo was standing his ground. He finally puts himself on the same level as Tubbo and openly acknowledges his boundaries which is the first actual real effort to change that we've seen from Wilbur. Which I'd say is a pretty important step for him.

"Wilbur in order for you to gain my trust back you have to prove it, I can't just give it out anymore. I used to be able to but I just- I just can't" (acknowledgement of how Tubbo's trauma also affected him deeply)

"You know I still have dreams, right? Of the explosion. And- and of the fireworks. And- and all of it. I- I still- I vividly see all of it. Every day. It hurts. It hurts a lot Wilbur"

I want to commend Tubbo here for being able to open up like this, especially considering how much he generally leans into denial and how much he usually suppress. And on top of that this is Tubbo acknowledging that both Wilbur's actions (the explosion) and Techno's actions (the fireworks) have hurt him and STILL hurt him and affect him deeply. It's quite a big admission especially for him.

"Sorry feels like such a weak word. I feel like there's nothing stronger that I can say" (first time that he's standing on the same level of Tubbo while apologizing)

"You're so strong man. Genuinely. You just- just the fact that you proved to me just there that you have this memories, that you have this nightmares and you still find it in your heart to forgive me. That's... you're a fucking champion man. You- you're a hero"

It's interesting that the reason why he claims Tubbo to be strong here is because he forgave him. It's not something that's inherently about Tubbo, like the fact that he still found the strength to go on and rebuild after the events he mentioned, for example, no. What Wilbur brought up is the one thing that Tubbo did for him. Which tells me that he still clearly has a bit of way to go to learn how to make amends and how redemption actually works, but, you know, that's to be expected honestly.

Wilbur moves on by inviting Tubbo to at least come and see Paradise, just to see what they'd made and Tubbo refuses because he wanted to spend more time reminiscing. Wilbur this time respect Tubbo's boundaries with no pushing which is yet another step forward for him honestly. Wilbur also gives Tubbo a "lucky rabbit's foot" that Tommy gave him to cheer him up and assure him that he had no problems with him not going.

With this their conversation comes to a close and Wilbur and Ranboo head over to Paradise (though not before Ranboo has confirmed with Tubbo that he actually does want to be left alone).

"You know I was gonna say 'this is hard' but obviously it's hard. I mean, you know, I've..." (a bit of reflection on his actions for Wilbur, you love to see it!)

"It's gonna get better! It's gonna get better! And it's gonna be worth it when I see them smiling. All of them. Tubbo, Jack, Niki, Tommy, anyone!" (I'm pretty sure that this is a genuine sentiment right here. It really does seem that wilbur's Big Plan right now is just to make amends and change)

"Do you know who the original L'Manburg group were? Do you know who we were?" "I- I think most of them yeah... I think it was like: you, Jack, Niki, Fundy I believe as well" "Fundy was a bit after. Fundy was after we'd gotten independence"

I wonder if that's an actual misrememberance on Wilbur's part (c!Wilbur, not cc!Wilbur, I'm sure cc!Wilbur remembers this) or just him wanting to put some distance between his good memories of L'Manburg and Fundy. Because Jack and Niki weren't there for the independence war either and yet he singled out Fundy who was. And I doubt that he'd forget about his son being one of the people who lost their first life in the final control room. In addition to that Wilbur didn't mention Fundy before among those he wanted to make smile.

I really think that this was intentional and that it was because, well, Wilbur felt deeply betrayed by Fundy. And we as the audience know that Fundy only ever publicly stopped acknowledging him as his father to be able to stay undercover as a spy, but he doesn't. It wouldn't be so weird that he wanted to erase Fundy from his memories of the time when he was supposed to be happy.

"I try and keep this on the low because I don't want uh- I don't want people to use it against me is the main problem. I do wa- I didn't even tell Tommy, I lied to Tommy" "Yeah?" "I'll be honest I'm gonna tell him soon that I lied to him because if it- it kinda eats away at me. But I told- I told tommy that I didn't actually care about L'Manburg and that it was just like a tool for me to use to gain, you know, power and stuff, but it's not- it's not true. L'Manburg is- was really important to me. And it is still to this day"

Once again I'm surprised how little it took Wilbur to trust Ranboo with stuff he hasn't really told anyone else. Makes you really understand how low of an opinion of himself he has that when the first person that calls him "alright" out loud just gets his undying trust. Especially considering that Ranboo doesn't trust him back and hasn't been the most honset with him so far. It's also a nice spelled out admission for anyone who didn't get how much Wilbur cares about L'Manburg from the longing look he gave to the camaravan's replica in the stream where he said he never cared.

"I wanted history to live on, not as a stain caused by me, you know. I basically took a big shit on the history books it feels like" (just another interesting little insight on Wilbur's view of the situation)

"I've heard about what's Tommy's, you know, moved on... and how jack's moved on, and how Niki's moved on and everyone's moved on from L'Manburg at least partially, but Tubbo man, he's still..." (he only thinks the rest of them moved on because he hasn't spoken almost at all with two of them and he never really listened to Tommy. Also, again, Fundy is not mentioned)

"I don't know where I'd be without you [Ranboo] here right now man, I mean T-Tommy's great and all and he's here but I- I feel like, you know, I don't wanna- I don't wanna string him along too much because he's- I- when I look at him. When I look at him when he's helping me out building things with me I see the same eyes that looked at me when... when... There were some- there weren't some fun times in the ravine of Pogtopia. I wasn't a very well man and I can just see Tommy from that day"

This one was one heck of a confession!

I don't know if this is me misremembering, but I'm fairly sure that this is the first time he's admitted to not being great to Tommy specifically. Again, Tommy is the one person he met with so far that he hasn't apologized to. Heck! He told Tommy to his face that him being sorry for his actions didn't mean he wouldn't do them again. It's a pretty damn big admission to acknowledge that that behaviour (which is the same now, if not worse when only related to Tommy) wasn't good. It also shows that he's at least a bit aware of Tommy's emotions which is rarely shown honestly. Though whether he cares because of Tommy or because being around Tommy makes him feel guilty (which is what you'd expect him to feel) and he doesn't like that is to be determined still, mostly just because the phrasing was a bit uncertain at the moment.

"I know what it's like to have no one- or at least feel like no one trusts you. Uhm, and I- I've realized that if- if no one's with you then how can anyone really know when you've redeemed yourself? So that's why I'm here I guess" (Ranboo's answer to why he trusts Wilbur. Which he doesn't, but still)

And the stream ends with Wilbur saying he hopes Tubbo comes around to try out one of the burgers (though he does repeat that he doesn't want Ranboo to pressure him to join) and complimenting Ranboo a bit more.

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Hollow Pass (Part 2)

Summary: When the reader has to spend a day in the mines for work, she’s less than thrilled. When the miner showing her around for the day, Dean Winchester, is an ass, she’s even less thrilled. But an accident will change all of that and if they want a chance of getting out alive, they’ll need to put their lives in each others hands, literally...

Pairing: Miner!Dean x reader

Word Count: 3,700ish

Warnings: language, injury, frightening/claustrophobic/near death situations

A/N: Enjoy!

_______

“You’re slipping, you’re slipping,” you said, sliding closer to the edge.

“Y/N,” said Dean as you finally stopped moving, feet jammed against rocks under the surface.

“Okay. I’m good. You’re good,” you said. You swallowed and heard Dean grunting. “Dean? Talk to me.”

“I-I’m okay,” he said. “Fuck. Fuck. Oh fuck. I looked down. Y/N, fuck. It’s gotta be a couple hundred feet.”

“Dean climb up the rope,” you said. “I can’t pull you up.”

“I can’t move,” he said.

“Yes you can. Climb up, Dean.”

“The rope. The knot will slip if I move,” he said. 

“Dean. Grab the rope,” you said, hovering your hands over the end attached to your belt. “I’ll take this end and you don’t have to worry.”

“Y/N. I don’t...I don’t…”

“Sweetheart take the rope. It’s okay. I got you,” you said.

“Fuck it’s so far down,” he said. You took a deep breath and grabbed hold of the rope.

“Come on Dean. You owe me a date.”

“What?”

“You owe me a date so you gotta grab that rope and climb out,” you said.

“I’m slipping, I’m slipping,” he said as you saw the top knot in the rope go cocked and start shifting.

“Dean! Grab the rope!”

You heard him shout, the other end of the rope sliding up over the edge. It was slipping through your hands and you wrapped your fists around it, Dean’s weight all in your hands now.

“Dean climb up. I can’t hold you forever,” you said, arms already straining.

“I can’t get a grip,” he said. You knew what he meant. The silky rope was hard to hold onto let alone climb straight up. “Y/N.”

“Can you...can you walk up? If you hold on tight and lean back, can you walk up if I keep moving back?”

“You want me to lean over the giant hole to my death even more?”

“Dean. Trust me.”

He grunted and you held on tight to the rope, Dean breathing hard. 

“Okay. I’m okay. I just-“

You heard a thud and he swore.

“Dean?”

“Slammed my face into the cliff. Shit I can’t do this. The rock is crumbling.”

You sat up and leaned back, daring to take a step back.

“Y/N, I’m too heavy. You can’t hold me.”

“You owe me steak and lobster for this,” you said.

“Y/N,” he said. You took another step back and another, moving back quickly. You grunted and saw the peak of his helmet, practically running backwards when Dean was able to get a hand over the edge. You kept the rope taut and knelt down at the edge, pulling him back over the edge. He climbed up and you fell back, Dean panting and pulling you further away from the edge.

You breathed hard and fell back against the rock floor, Dean laying back beside you.

“T-Thanks,” he said. You held up your hands, Dean instantly shooting up. “Y/N.”

You sat up, Dean reaching into his overalls and pulling out a bandanna. He wrapped it around your cut opened palm, looking around before he unzipped his overalls and took off his shirt, ripping it and wrapping it around the other one.

“Ow. Ow,” you said. He zipped himself up and held your hands to your chest.

“Keep them up, try to stop the bleeding. Sit for a minute. We don’t need the both of us in shock.”

“Are you?” you asked, resting your hands against yourself. 

“Yeah. I might throw up fair warning,” he said. 

“Sit with me,” you said. He swallowed and sat beside you, his body shaking. “Hey. You’re okay.”

“I know. I can’t help it.”

“Here,” you said, your hands feeling a little better. You moved your arms around him, pulling him to lean on you. “Take a deep breath.”

He took a deep breath and then a few more, most of the shakes leaving him.

“Thanks,” he said. “I don’t know how you pulled me up.”

“Adrenaline mostly,” you said. “I’m exhausted.”

“Rest,” he said. “I’ll carry you when we’re ready again.”

“I’m okay. Just tired,” you said. You shut your eyes, resting your head against his own. 

“Thank you,” he said. 

“Steak and lobster, Dean,” you said.

“Alright. Big steak and lobster once we’re out of here.” He lifted his head and took your arms. “Looks like the bleeding stopped.”

“That’s good right?”

“Yeah. We gotta be careful though. You have to try to keep these clean, no touching anything.”

“I will avoid anything involving my hands if I can. Is the rest solid ground?” you asked. Dean stood and took a few careful steps around the corner, letting out a big sigh. “Fuck.”

“The wood looks a little better,” he said. You tried to squeeze your hands and sighed. “You can’t grab a rope if you needed to, can you.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay. Okay,” he said. “I can...I can go ahead and once I’m past the next hall-“

“Nothing has changed,” you said. You got to your feet and kicked the rope with your feet. “Tie us back together and we'll go walk down the halls together.”

“Y/N,” he said. “We can’t handle another slip like that.”

“I know.”

He bent down and grabbed the rope, looping it through your belts, double knotting it that time.

“Let’s go,” you said. You started to move and he followed after, not slowing down when you stepped onto the first wood planks again. They creaked and groaned, Dean taking deep breaths behind you.

You made it around two hallways, Dean taking the lead by the time you hit the third hall.

He walked fast, stepping onto the solid rock when you felt the ground give out. Dean’s arms shot out and he grabbed you as you fell, tugging you up and over the edge quickly.

“Okay,” you said, leaning back against his chest. “Okay.”

“You’re okay,” he said, holding you to him. “It’s okay. I think we’re past the hard part.”

“That’s...Dean,” you said. You sat up and looked down the next hallway, part of it caved in on the side. “It’s collapsed.”

“It’s...it’s partially collapsed. We can get through,” he said.

“Dean. There’s hardly any space.”

“Not quitting now,” he said. He stood up and helped you up, walking the two of you over to where dirt and rock was spilling out. “It’s not stable. Probably shifted in the explosion.”

“What’s your plan?” you asked.

“We could dig it out,” he said. You knew that was a bad idea and poked at the dirt with your boot. You looked up, taking a deep breath. His head tilted up and he was soon shaking it. “No.”

“My hands are torn. I can’t lift you up. You can lift me and-”

“So you can crawl up there in that hole in the ceiling? Y/N. It could be caved in or it could cave in or maybe it goes nowhere.”

“Or there’s enough space to crawl through and I can slip down the other side and maybe dig you out.”

“Alright,” he said. You were expecting more push back but didn’t get it. He didn’t say a word before hoisting you up. “Be careful.”

“It’s rock up here from the looks of it,” you said. “Give me your hand.”

“You’re too far up to reach,” said Dean. You stared down at him, Dean smiling back. “Sorry sweetheart. I don’t fit up there. If you get past the other side okay-“

“Dean. You owe me that date,” you said.

“Gonna have to miss it,” he said.

“I can get help.”

“Y/N. They won’t come in here if it’s unstable. They were never coming up here. You gotta...you gotta go sweetheart. Get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving-“

“You’re hurt. The second you stepped foot in this mine, you were my responsibility. I can’t get you farther than this. You have to do the rest on your own. I’m sorry.”

“I’ll get you out of here.”

“No you won’t. They’re not letting you step foot in here once you’re out and they are not coming in with walls collapsing. Not until later.”

“Take my water,” you said, unclipping it and dropping it down to him. 

“Y/N, you still might not make it out. You should-”

“You’re taking it and I’m getting you out because in case you haven’t realized, you can’t stop me or what I do once I get out of this tunnel so deal with it.”

“Y/N-”

“I will talk to you shortly Dean. Count on it,” you said. He called your name but you started crawling through the gap in the rock, wincing when you kept hitting your helmet on the rock above you. You swore you felt something move and quickly scrambled forward until rock was falling out in front of you. You landed on the edge of a dirt pile and coughed, glancing back to see the pile filling the hall.

“Y/N!” you heard muffled.

“I’m okay!” you called back. You sat up and got your feet under you, looking around. You didn’t hear Dean again and swallowed. It felt much darker than before, the air thick.

“Dean is right there like five feet away,” you said to yourself. “You’re okay.”

You saw a hallway in front of you that split left and right, solid enough looking ground in front of you. You’d been heading right the whole time time and figured that was the way out. A quick glance to the left showed it caved in, the right clear. You spotted a metal bucket in the hall and rushed over to grab it, jumping back when it broke in half. You didn’t want to go much further but you needed something, a spare piece of wood or-

You looked around the corner of the right hall way and saw part of the hallway dropped off just after the next junction. Something was laying on the ground over the edge though. You took a careful step forward and another, smiling when you saw a small hand shovel there. You reached down to grab it, the ground shifting. You weren’t entirely sure why you went forward instead of back but you got a hold of it and managed to scramble back to firmer ground. 

“Okay. Okay. Get to jump around the corner. That’ll be fun. That’ll be fun.”

Something shifted in the corner of your eye and you screamed, Dean coughing and holding up his hands.

“Jeez, how the fuck else could be down here?” he said, wiping off his face.

“How-”

“I improvised,” he said, holding up the rope. “Threw it up around the wood support. Figured it would either bring the whole mountain down on top of me or I could pull myself up high enough to reach the tunnel. My ass is so heavy. I don’t know how you did it.”

“I found a shovel,” you said, holding it up.

“Nice to see you’ve had as exciting a time as I did,” he said, walking over and looking at the hallway. “So. Go back left with your new shovel or try to swing around that corner quick before the ground falls out.”

“My gut says go right.”

“Same. Eventually the mountain thins out over in this direction. Plus left would send us more into the core which is where they’d go for mining.”

You tossed the shovel over to the next hallway and Dean nodded for you to go first. You stepped lightly and moved fast, stepping on the little bit of edge there was left into the hall.

“Follow. Now, now,” you said, grabbing his hand as you felt something shift. You jogged forward and pulled him with you, dragging him practically as more dirt fell away. You made it farther down the hall before you looked back, Dean sitting up on his knees. “I lost my shovel.”

“I’ll get you a new one, sweetheart,” he said. He stood and looked at your hands, sighing quietly. “Bleeding again?”

“Just the one,” you said. “I’m fine.” 

“At least this hallway is pretty straight,” he said. “Could be the way out. It was a pretty old mine so they came in through the east side, would have made it as simple as possible.”

“I hope so.”

“We should-“

You both heard a rumbling, Dean turning and looking behind you.

“Move,” he said. He pushed on your back and you started to run, Dean right by your side. A loud boom thudded overhead and you glanced behind you, the end of the hallway looking a whole lot closer than it should.

“Hallway,” said Dean as he ran. “Left or right.” 

“I’ll follow your lead,” you said, a big poof of dust appearing from the left. “Right. Definitely right.”

You saw dust come from the right as well but Dean was already moving that direction, taking hold of your hand. You didn’t even see the sharp turn left, Dean yanking you behind him. The end of the hall looked different, the rock smoother and Dean started laughing.

“That’s it. That’s it, oh thank you, thank you,” he said. You saw an old metal ladder and Dean did a quick look around before he stopped and bent down. You climbed on his back, tapping his arm.

“Hallway, hallway,” you said, looking back, the whole hall caving in. Dean scurried up the ladder with you, wheezing when you clung too hard. You relaxed your death grip and looked down, the ground filling with dirt. He didn’t stop moving until you met metal above you. 

“Please don’t,” he said. He took one hand off the ladder and pushed against it, the thing not budging. “No, no, no.”

“Dean?”

“It’s welded shut,” he laughed. “It’s fucking welded shut.”

You looked down, dirt and rock filling up the bottom of the ladder, trapping you and Dean in the ladder shaft. 

“We’re gonna run out of air,” he said. “Maybe an hour or two. I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

“I have a really stupid idea,” you said, staring at the wall to your left. “We’ll probably die quicker, or getting buried alive.”

“I’m up for stupid ideas,” he said. You climbed off his back carefully, Dean hanging around the side of the ladder. You climbed down a few feet to where the concrete on the left was cracked. You took your pickaxe off your belt and shined your light at the crack, Dean stepping down. He looked above you both and back at the crack. “You want to break the concrete.”

“Gotta be dirt on the other side. We’re probably not too far down from the surface, maybe a few feet. Either we break it and the concrete collapses-”

“And the ladder breaks and the concrete above us does and sends us down to our deaths.”

“Or, we crack it enough and dig out a hole through the dirt big enough to climb out through to the surface.”

“It is a stupid idea,” he said. He took his pickaxe out of his belt and smiled. “Just might save our asses.”

“If we get out of this, I am so quitting my job.”

“Same,” he said. 

“Good. Maybe you can do something you actually like,” you said, Dean putting your pickaxe back in your belt.

“I’ll take the grunt work,” he said, smacking the crack with his axe. “Ain’t much around here but mine work. We might just have to take this date somewhere else.”

“Where’s this brother of yours live?”

“Little coast town in California,” he said. “Between LA and Santa Barbara.”

“Sounds a hell of a lot better than here,” you said.

“You mean trapped underground all day with me ain’t your idea of a dream date?” he chuckled, a piece of concrete breaking off and falling below on his next hit.

“Let’s go for not so much constant danger next time,” you said.

“How’s a home cooked meal and a movie sound?” he said.

“Pretty damn good,” you said. “You want to grab a bite when we get out of here?”

“After your hands are cleaned up, I’ll take you wherever you want to go, sweetheart,” he said. “Steak and lobster was it?”

“I will take a freaking big mac so bad right now,” you said. 

“That I can do,” he said, another big piece of concrete breaking off to reveal a patch of dirt behind it. He smacked the concrete a few more times, plenty enough for you to squeeze through if it was clear. He turned his axe around and started scooping out the dirt, letting it fall below. “Fingers crossed we’re not like ten feet under the surface.”

“Let me know if you want a break,” you said as he started tugging the dirt down, covering himself but most of it falling downwards.

“Just hang in there. We’re still on a time crunch with the air,” he said. “Fingers crossed.”

The air felt thicker and the ground below was significantly closer, Dean pouring sweat as he dug and dug and dug. He’ been going for close to an hour and he was breathing hard. 

“Dean. You need to rest, let me take over,” you said. He nodded and you swapped places with him, taking the axe and digging away, more and more dirt filling in the space. You got winded quickly, Dean breathing loudly behind you.

“We’re running out of air,” he said. “It was a good idea, Y/N.”

“Must you always be the pessimist in this relationship,” you said. 

“Oh we’re in a relationship now? At least I won’t die single,” he chuckled, leaning his head on the ladder. You rolled your eyes and pushed down more dirt, freezing when you saw a glimmer of light. You dug out more, the light getting brighter, your eyes adjusting to seeing the sky.

“Dean.” He raised his head and soon he was reaching over, taking out your pickaxe and helping you dig as best he could, more and more dirt caving away. You took a deep inhale of cool fresh air and laughed, Dean throwing his head back. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Ladies first.” When enough dirt was out of the way you climbed up the ladder more and leaned over, Dean pushing you up and allowing you to get up on the dirt. You shimmied your way up, and popped your head out of the hole, smiling when you saw trees and sky and air. You got up and out, turning around to lean down. You grabbed Dean’s arm when you saw it, Dean climbing out fast before he was tugging on your arm and walking down hill with you. When you got to even ground again he collapsed to his knees, laying back and ripping off his helmet.

You sat back and took deep breaths, Dean started to laugh beside you.

“What?” you asked, glancing over to him.

“I would have died ten times over today if it weren’t for you.”

“Well, same,” you said, your stomach grumbling.

“Time for lunch,” he said.

“That was only four hours?” you said.

“Probably. Wanna take a break for a hot second before we walk over to the entrance?”

“Hot minute instead?” you said, closing your eyes. He leaned over and kissed you, plopping down when smiled.

“Sounds good, sweetheart. Sounds good.”

Three Hours Later

“Hey, look what I snagged,” said Dean as he ducked into your hospital room. He had a big paper bag with him and sat down on the end of your bed, pulling out a burger. “One big mac as requested.”

“You get fries?”

“Fries. Nuggets. McFlurry. More cheeseburgers than is humanly possible to eat.”

“You’re doing very well in this boyfriend department,” you said, unwrapping your burger carefully, most of your hands wrapped in bandages.

“Oh so that still stands even though we’re no longer actively dying?” he asked, crossing his legs and taking out a few burgers and a carton of fries.

“Why’d you get me food?”

“Why you giving me a chance after being a dick this morning?”

“Why’d you quit in a glorious fashion earlier?”

“Because I’m gonna sue the shit out of that company along with you and I can go work on cars like I always wanted.”

“Is it safer?” He rolled his eyes and smiled. “Good.”

“I don’t think I’m sticking around here, Y/N.”

“You heard my dad. He quit too. My family has no reason to stay here anymore. Cali don’t sound so bad.”

“Alright. You’re on, sweetheart,” he said. “As long as you promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Never step foot in a mine again?”

“Deal, Winchester,” you said, holding out your hand. He lightly shook it before taking out the chicken nuggets. “What sauce did you get?”

“All of them. I ain’t no dummy,” he said, tapping his head.

“No, no you are not,” you said, taking a bite of your food. “Hey, Dean?”

“Hm?”

“Thanks for today. For everything.”

“You too, sweetheart. You too.”

________

[ranboo5]

Dropping the Ranboo mixtape

Anyway at time of starting to write this post I had two likes and two affirmative replies, which is Good Enough For Me, so here I am :D I was gonna link the YT but on second thought my YT channel is a mess so this is gonna be one of the annoying ones that doesn’t link to one you can actually listen to but 

This is also a running list and currently organized roughly by increasingly hotter takes and it’s under a cut bc it’s 13 songs and I justified all of them 

Everybody Likes You (Lemon Demon) - LISTEN THE ANIMATION MEMES WEREN’T LYING THAT EVERYBODY LIKES YOU CAN RANBOOCORE. The increasingly distorted, incredibly bright repetition of EVERYBODY LIKES YOU EVERYBODY LIKES YOU EVERYBODY LIKES YOU until you can hear it morphing in and out of EVERYBODY LIED TO YOU? Tell Me That’s Not Him In The Spiral Depths 

Tall (Naps the Block on YT) - This is a) literally a theme for the End, b) sounds stumbling and anxious/high-strung, and c) echoes the Pigstep melody in the middle while still very much doing its own thing this is self explanatory 

Dance of Thorns/Old Secret mashup (Tensei and James Roach respectively, feat. woodfur00 on YT) (yes this is Homestuck music) - It’s just the vibes. The energy. The way the elegance of the violin lines of Dance of Thorns sounds almost nervous especially against the almost noir mystery vibes of Old Secret, and the guitar lines of Dance of Thorns add like. Initiative/urgency especially when they underlay the other music it’s so good I don’t think either song alone is Ranboo vibes but this remix definitely is. Just the mix of perseverance and desperation and melancholy and mystery and Class 

Touch-Tone Telephone (Lemon Demon) - This one is old news but tbh it just works. Man decides he’s the correct one in this situation and he’s losing his entire mind that no one is listening to him because he just is not 

2012 (Will Wood) - This one isn’t really clever it’s just about memory loss, derealization, identity, and often self-hatred (“A miserable fuck, but a loud Tao mystical” is a lot). “Did you lose yourself?/It’s always in the last place that you check” sounds so mocking in ways internal monologues like Droice have been and “I might find myself/By retracing my steps” is literally just Ranboo dealing with the Enderwalk; “And not until lobotomy abolished my monotony/Did I applaud autonomy, and modify a lot of me!” works so much for him Dealing With Himself generally, and also “I heard the world would turn to hell/Compared to that, I’m doing well!” is a Him sentiment 

Hand Me My Shovel, I’m Going In! (Will Wood) - Jokes about the three hour mining/grinding streams aside. Not only is the chorus so heavily a spiral/self-evaluation mood, but literally consider his thought processes abt the things he’s done/allegedly done and then consider “My dreams were shattered like a stained-glass window/Jesus in pieces! I believe I through a brick right through Him/But my memory could not be saved!/It just seems unlikely that it’s me who was to blame/So I bookmark my DSM, ‘cause I need to remember my place.” And now with the advent of the “experiments” the second verse’s “Take the road on higher ground, and tell me ‘don’t look down! You’ll fall and break your back’/But that just reminds me how there’s more to be found beneath the black!” is more relevant than ever 

Friends With You (The Scary Jokes) - Oh my god. Oh my fucking god man. This could be on here for “I put myself to bed just halfway through the party/I love all my friends, but I hate when their eyes are on me” alone but the general almost empty saccharine vibe of the song is immensely his vibe; the humorlessly-smiling vocal fry on “don’t know” in “Why do you pretend/You don’t know who’s to blame?” is probably responsible for 80% of this read. Not to mention the first lyrics are literally “How long do I have to wait/’Til my lonely days are over?” which is really the. The waiting it out man the So When Do I Get To Be Okay of it all. Shoutouts also to “And the crumbling infrastructure no one else can see,” the self hatred of “I miss being friends with you/But what can I do/What can I do/But leave you alone?” and to “And I can tell you really love me/Can you tell I’m really sorry?” Just. The mix of hope+affection and dejected cynicism and self-hatred in the lyrics

Saline Solution (none other than Mr Wilbur Soot) - Remember what I said about waiting it out until you get to be okay? Anyway that’s crystallized in “If I could just break one more night/Maybe I could wake up and feel alright” and also this is literally a song about catastrophizing and self-evaluation just,, in general and I will not be highlighting all the lyrics about this but I will highlight the fact that he literally calls himself pragmatic and also the lyric “blurring the facts and the fiction.” Also, the sheer desperate anger-concealing-breakdown vibes of “I think I’ve made my choice” to “I think I’ve found my voice” deserves a mention, as does the culminating end of “saline solution to all your problems” with the tears+now splash water motifs of it all with Ranboo I am going to die 

Funny (The Scary Jokes) - This is actually a softer take but not only does it literally start with the singer pleading with the addressee to look away, it  continues with “I went up in the middle of the night and I climbed right onto the stage/And I raged/And I cried/Oh, what a funny joke am I” disregarding everything as performance, reemphasizes the opening demand with the qualifier “it’s not that I hate you, it’s just that I’m funny these days,” and then kills you with the last couple lines which. Yeah he does care and it does,,, just,,,,, a

Chemical Overreaction (Will Wood) - This is where the mood VIOLENTLY whiplashes because this is where we get unhinged. Anyway “I won’t stop to drop to draw a line in the sand/’Cause I’ll be picked apart to pieces by coyotes!” is LITERALLY the whole “I don’t do well with ‘peer pressure’” thing. “Where the sentimental value of the city around ya/Is deleted obsolete, but still completely will stun ya” is the single most L’Manberg lyric I’ve ever heard, especially from the perspective of a character whom I will repeatedly insist is narratively in the role of someone who’s shown up and seen the status quo as an outsider after it’s been established (hence the eternal New Kid vibes). Chorus very much has vibes of Ranboo Is Seized By The Urge To Do Something, and like. The entire dramatic end part. The last two lines especially (be very careful if you look up the vieo for this by the way it is NOT pretty; cws in the video for flashing, blood, suicide imagery) 

A Mannequin Adrift (The Scary Jokes) - The Bitterness. This song is just fully The Bitterness at the environment he’s stuck in; the saccharine comes back as does the “peer pressure” thematic and just the Having An Awful Time; the sarcastic saccharine comes back too, which is always good I love passive aggression. Honestly the first verse is just everything like just listen to it it immediately makes sense

Poison Ivy Grows (The Scary Jokes) - This is overall a song about having bad brain and not knowing what the hell to do about it; it’s so faintly bitter and distant and melancholy and also so zoned out. Also, it’s not the only lyric that matters here but it is enough to be a full argument on its own: “I used to spend so much time/Wandering around outside/Now I’ve got too much on my mind/Now I’ve got too much on my mind” 

Spring Haze (Tori Amos) - Listen. Do I know what Spring Haze is about? No. Is that gonna stop me from saying it’s about Ranboo? Also no. I just think “You say we’ll never make it there/So all we do is circle it” is so much, the fact that the bridge at the end is just “Why does it always end up like this?” repeated, and that it just feels so much like overall the song feels like a desperate attempt to figure Something out, and the chorus is just inexplicably him? It might be partially influenced by the fact that “Uh-oh, let go, off on my way” and, to a lesser extent, “Uh-oh, way to go” is not only in accordance with character vibes but also vaguely evocative of Ranboo’s speech pattern

[normal-thoughts-official]

what are your thoughts about izzy and alec’s sibling bond from the scenes we got from the show

i liked their relationship a lot, actually. which is not to say that it was flawless, but the flaws we got to see were honestly some of what made me the most interested in them. and then of course sh dropped it like a hot potato, but like... it was still pretty interesting to me

disclaimer that this is my own Abused Kid™ stuff projecting for sure, but i still think the way i see their relationship makes sense (or well, i'm not sure if i would say my parents were abusive, but they are quite a lot like the lightwoods in their own way and i definitely consider the lightwoods abusers, so it doesn't really matter that much). so like this will probably feature a fair amount of oversharing lol

anyway! so what i find really interesting and really like about alec and izzy's relationship is that despite the fact that them having abuser parents who honestly put them in very specific "kid who always fucks up" vs "kid who is expected to do everything perfect" roles, they managed to still be friends and on each other's side and have an overall very loving and supporting relationship. i think that's what attracted me to their sibling bond the most, because for decades me and my brother didn't really manage to be close or build a relationship precisely because of those roles. in our case, my brother was the fuckup kid, i was the kid who had to always be perfect (in my case, lowkey to "compensate" for him) and it led to him resenting me and being all but afraid of me because everything i did seemed to be so much better than him in my parent's eyes, so... yeah

so it always struck me as pretty interesting that alec and izzy seemed to be genuinely so close. izzy is one of the few people who gets alec to smile and who gets to ever touch alec, and although they have a lot of differences, it always came down way more to teasing than to actual fighting between them

but also - which is partially why i said that their flaws were part of what drew me to them the most - the tensions that emerged from that abusive background were very much there, and i found that pretty interesting

another disclaimer that i tend to relate to alec more, because i was in the same role as him, but also tend to be very forgiving towards izzy because i see my brother in her and i blame myself for our relationship way more than him since he was the weakest link there lol. but also in part i think i project unto her in the sense that i kept trying to make things easier to my brother, but i kept fucking up because i didn't fully understand his situation, and i definitely think that's what went on with izzy and alec

so let's get into the details of how the whole "fuckup kid" vs "golden kid" (and disclaimer before ppl come yell at me again: i'm not saying that alec was treated well by his parents or that they treated him like he was good enough, because they definitely didn't. i'm saying that when compared to izzy he was considered the kid that had potential, that could be trusted, and who had the most amount of pressure put unto. again, that was how i was treated by my parents, so miss me with the "wow you think alec had it easy?" shit because i know damn well he did not lol. the "golden kid" is an abuse archetype and therefore it means you are abused. calm down) thing affected their relationship in particular

so alec was the eldest, and i think from very early on he latched unto the expectations his parents had for him as a way to protect himself and make sense of the world. i was telling autistic alec anon just today how i think that the fact that shadowhunter culture was so black and white and gave alec such a clear sense of what he was supposed to do and who he was supposed to be kind of helped him navigate the world because it made it easier for him to figure out the path to follow when everything else was just so confusing and the expectations were so crushing and everything he felt was so complicated. i think alec's always known that he didn't conform, and because he didn't have a safe outlet to let that out, he decided to just go by the book to protect himself. which is valid

that being said, i think the other half of the reason why he decided to pursue the "perfect shadowhunter" existence so hard was exactly because of izzy (and later jace and max). because again, alec is the eldest, and he was already being crushed by expectations of upholding the lightwood name and following the rules and whatnot. like, maryse and robert basically expected their kids to undo all the shit they had done when they joined the circle, and they didn't even tell them that that was the reason, so they were probably just taught that they should do what the lightwoods said because and that was that. and because there were all these stakes that they didn't even understand or know about, the pressure was harder

and alec was already being taught to be a leader, and he loved his sister, so he probably wanted to shield her from all the pressure of those expectations, because he knew he was out there fucking killing himself for it. so i think part of the reason he tried so hard to be perfect was because, if he was perfect, izzy (and then jace and max) would get to breathe a little bit. alec is pretty self sacrificial and definitely has a tendency to shoulder suffering in the place of ppl he loves, so i don't think that's far fetched. also, we saw how alec literally shouldered all the blame for jace's fuckups, despite the fact that jace did it all behind alec's back and with alec telling him not to do it (i'm saying jace because from what i remember what got alec punished in particular was something that jace and clary did, not izzy, but izzy was definitely also going against whatever alec told her to and i have no doubt that he would shoulder the blame for her as well, although i don't think she would use that against him, unlike some people. but i digress). but alec just allowed himself to be punished for it like it was on him, so i think it makes sense to believe that alec tried to take the brunt of their parents' pressure so izzy wouldn't have to

and the thing is that i think that izzy... never realized that. i mean, i'm sure she realized that alec was trying way too hard to be what their parents expected of her, but she never realized that she was part of the reason. and she tried to get him to rebel a little bit because she thought that he needed it, and i mean, she was right, but what she didn't realize is that the fact that alec didn't rebel was so she could. not that izzy was not facing consequences for her rebelling, because we saw how maryse treated her versus how she treated alec and jace (it's very interesting to me also how once jace came into the picture he became an actual golden kid, not a "golden kid" like the abused kid who is put as impossibly better than the other one but still never good enough, but actually good enough, and how that was used to put alec in that position where he had to work even harder as well. but that's for another post)

and that's the frustrating part (and i think the part i relate to izzy for the most) because i think she was genuinely trying to help? but she never really understood alec. i was also talking earlier today (or was it yesterday? rip my time blindness but it was definitely recent) about how many people seem to understand alec's coming out story as an internalized homophobia story, and how i don't think that's how it was at all. i don't wanna repeat myself so if anyone's interested in that it's here. and the thing is, i think izzy made the same mistake. she falsely assumed that alec didn't rebel because he genuinely internalized that being gay was bad and because he was lying to himself about it, but that wasn't the case at all. alec knew he was gay and accepted that, he just decided to stay in the closet and live life that way. which obviously is horrible and traumatic, but it's different, and because izzy couldn't tell the difference, she made it worse

izzy kept trying to make alec "accept" himself, but alec didn't really have a problem accepting himself; he just wanted to keep that a secret to protect himself. but because she thought that he was in denial, she kept trying to push him to... not exactly admit because i wouldn't say she was all like "alec just say it you'll feel better" but to maybe "face" it, and alec interpreted that as her demanding that he came out of the closet, which he couldn't do. so he kept closing off and she kept interpreting that as him being in denial, so she kept pushing, and she made things infinitely worse for him even if i am 100% sure her intentions were good (just look at how protective she was of alec and magnus during the beginning of their relationship, or how she tried to get maryse and robert to marry her off instead of alec, or the difference between how clary and jace talked about it - "you're in love with jace"; "this is about your feelings" - and how izzy talked about it - "alec, it's okay") but as we say in brazil, hell is filled to the brim with good intentions

that is not to say that izzy didn't go on that straight shit from time to time ("we all got our things, don't we?" comes to mind, but i gotta say it really pisses me off how everyone talks about izzy being homophobic in that scene and completely ignores how openly racist alec was. like obviously both are fucked up, but yall clearly seem to think only one of these is a problem. but that's for another post) but i think that generally her intentions were always to get alec to be more comfortable with himself/happier. she noticed how much the lightwood's expectations were crushing him, but again, she didn't realize that alec was choosing to take the brunt of these. she didn't realize that he couldn't rebel like she did because of her. not until it was too late

i think izzy only started to realize that - particularly how much of her rebelling was only allowed because alec was there as a safe option so they couldn't afford to have a "fuckup child" even if obviously they still hated that they couldn't control izzy - when she tried to get the lightwoods to marry her instead of alec and they were like... lol? it's alec who's supposed to save the lightwood name, not you. you are worthless as a bride and as a peace offering

and that's when it hit her that alec was taking a role, a role that he had been effectively protecting her from having to take, but that also meant she couldn't help him

i think that's when she realized, because you can see the change in her behavior, you know - "you stood by me, so now i'm standing by you, big brother". she understood that alec was trying to protect her the same way she had tried to protect him and never realized, but that by trying to get alec to just stop without thinking about what the greater picture was for him, she was just making things harder for him. i think that was some very interesting growth we got to see

and on the other hand alec didn't realize that izzy had been trying to protect him as well. like i think that she definitely laid the whole "fuckup kid" thing too thick, which was partially for herself, like, basically embracing the role because she would never be good enough for the lightwoods so why not just accept that she was a fuckup and be everything they despised? but i think she also partially did it for alec, because she wanted to show him that it was okay. that there could be a life that wasn't just doing what your parents expected you to. and like, sure, she got treated like shit for it, and she faced some forms of abuse that alec didn't (mainly touch/affection withdrawal from what we got to see in the show, but also considerable more verbal degrading. again im not saying alec had it easy, especially because we know that the parts where maryse expressed "pride" over him were basically used to make him do what she wanted; but still, the difference in treatment is very clear), but she was still standing, so it was possible, see?

i don't even think this is something i had to defend a lot because she said it so many times? she was always telling alec that he could loosen up, that it was okay (she said the exact words "it's okay" many times). she had a kinda, idk, sassy attitude over it, generally treating it like a joke, but imo that was because she knew that if she talked about it in all seriousness alec would shut down, like he had many times. so i think by making it into a joke and playing the mindless "woo i don't care about anything" character she was trying to have that conversation in a more subtle way. at the very least, alec was amused

and i think a huge part of the fandom also misinterprets izzy as being exactly that shallow person who only thought about immediate gratification that she pretended to be but honestly i don't see that at all? throughout all of season 1, the single thing that drove izzy's character was her desire to protect alec, except for when she tried to save meliorn from him, which was like.... just the decent thing to do. and izzy is not a shallow character. she is not stupid. and she is not primarily driven by her own desires. that is not to say that izzy was never selfish (see: how she treated raphael, so much shit about sizzy), but she is not the kind of character who only does whatever the fuck she wants to because it sounds more fun that's jace and clary. most of the time, her primary motivation was to help alec or clary, aka people that she loves. i think that, like alec, she is the kind that only extends that protectiveness over the people closest to her and is not really the "helping everyone out" type, but she is also not completely self-absorbed like she pretended to be. and i don't think she even cared all that much about parties and whatnot. like when did we see her going to one on her own without it being a mission? when did we see izzy actually pursuing one night stands? that is not to say that these things are bad, but if izzy were that girl who only cares about sleeping around and having fun like she pretended to be, then one would think we would see her actually doing that instead of just performing that shallow mindless sexy girl stereotype?

and like look i know that she was written to be a sexy lamp or whatever but if the writers aren't gonna care enough about her to make that consistent and show her doing that beyond what she says i might as well go there and give her the depth that she deserves. especially because we got to see izzy talk about that so much. like her saying that one of the things that attracted her to raphael was that for once in her life it didn't feel like everything was all about sex. i find it appalling that people genuinely think that that's all she's about when she made it so clear that it bothered her. like imo izzy took on that role, again, to piss off her parents, and also because it was something that she was good at. she was good at being sexy and she got gratification and positive feedback over that, which she was obviously starved for since her own mother wouldn't even fucking hug her. it was the one thing she didn't fuck up at and that got her to feel like she was treasured, even if really she was just desired

not just that but izzy also consistently made hard choices for those she loved? like im not gonna say that izzy going to save meliorn from torture was anything less than the bare minimum but if she were that shallow self centered persona that only wanted to have fun and didn't care about the consequences she wouldn't have put so much on jeopardy to save them. or risk being deruned and losing everything so she could call the clave out on their bullshit. or break up with meliorn (someone we know she genuinely liked) so she could offer herself to be married off to someone in alec's place. the one thing that we know izzy would be miserable over, because that woman was not born to be no one's trophy wife. and she was fully ready and willing to throw her WHOLE life away for alec. that would be FOREVER. miss me with that "izzy is a shallow girl who only cares about herself and partying" shit

like to me it's very clear that that was a front (especially because the way she talked about it was SO over the top too, like, it sounded so fake. and when we got scenes of her talking to alec or to clary she was a wholly different person, way less confident, way softer. honestly izzy could have been such a great narrative about woc and hypersexualization and the traps of taking over that "femme fatale" role as a form of empowerment or whatever, but of course sh doesn't have the range for that) and i think that front was first and foremost for alec's sake. she was trying to break him out of the lightwood's brainwashing. what she didn't realize was that he wasn't brainwashed, he was making a choice between the very bad options that he had. and alec in turn didn't realize that izzy acted the way she did, in great part, for him, not for herself. i wouldn't say that alec bought that izzy was a shallow girl because we know how much he loves her and that he knows her better than anyone, but i think he also didn't realize she was trying to help/protect him

so it was such an interesting miscommunication issue and i would have loved to see that actually addressed and worked on, but alas. the most we ever got was them talking about being honest to each other about the yin fen. and izzy pretty much didn't get real plotlines or character development anyway daoijdaoij except for the absolute bullcrap that was the yin fen which i am not going to get into because it makes me so angry and i hate it so much

and then of course sh didn't really get into it and basically considered the problem solved once alec came out, which i mean, i guess does take that out of the way when it was the main miscommunication problem between them, but still, they should have had a talk and realized what a stupid dance they were both having and how they would have both benefitted from working together instead of in the name of each other. which is a frequent trope for alec in relationships anyway, too, so it could be a good introduction to these issues, but alas!

in short: i think both alec and izzy love each other very much, have each other's best interests at heart, but weren't really seeing each other as they were. and they both put a front for each other (izzy in particular) that made communication pretty much impossible. and they ended up not being very good for each other (particularly izzy for alec, but i think alec also made her feel alone and like he saw her as.. just some stupid girl, you know?), but i loved to see how these things were there simultaneously. the wanting to help each other and the effectively only making things worse. the love that was so present and so strong despite all of that. the way that they never became competitive or resented each other like kids who are raised with those dynamics usually get. i just love how there was so much going on and so many problems but still so much love between them. i really wished we got to see it actually get some sort of closure and more exploration, but. fuck me i guess

[mariaiscrafting]

ahhhh ty ty ty <3

ok, so I think that what makes Dream act this way (iykyk) is how dreamwastaken became so big so quickly. and by quick I mean fucking lightning speed.

he didn't have enough time to learn enough about cc etiquette, especially in these three aspects: influence, boundaries and fanbase/stans/whatever you call it. I'll try to explain it:

• Influence: Does he know the influence he has? Like, when he hears that he is the myct with the largest fanbase, does he really process that? I remember he talked about not being able to control all of his fanbase and there's bad apples everywhere -- which is true, and that only like 1% of his fanbase breaks his boundaries (that include sending hate for him, harassing, doxing, etc. yk, basic twitter culture lol) but, honey, with your big ass fanbase, 1% is still a lot of people. As a content creator you *have* to be aware of that.

let's take the hbomb situation. First off, as a streamer, it's you that set the mood of the stream. Even if he was only messing around with his pals, even if they did say to do not send hate to hbomb, dt dunking on him created a toxic environment, which caused his fans being toxic towards hbomb and you know what happens next. Hell, when this happened, I was watching Tapl and he was watching them and he was crying laughing over them screaming bc they were just. so loud and so aggressive that it was kinda ??? Sirs, this is literally a Minecraft Stream lmaooo

my point is, that was not the road that dreamwastaken, 21M fans, should've taken. he don't condone his fans actions but he knows his fans are diehard and will always be on his side, he should be more careful before stating negative opinions, especially if its towards another person.

• Boundaries and Fanbase: He posted a list of his boundaries a while ago, idk if you know or seen it (btw please george copy your bestie for the love of god <3) but I'm not talking about those boundaries, I'm talking about the basic boundaries between cc and viewer. boundaries that, in my opinion, should exist between cc and viewer. I get that Dream is an open person, an oversharing type of open person if I may add, but I think he should take a step back regardless. When I heard that he was taking a time from twitter, I genuinely got so glad, not because he couldn't start any drama then, but because it would do so so good for his mental health. I'm not even that fond of him, it's just that for me, any cc taking a break or outright leaving twitter is a win for me. I know how RSD is hard to deal and honestly letting shit out it's better but dream you have dt you have bbh so please don't make things worse online 😭 I know how good can be to feel validation from millions of people but. it's not a good idea, especially in the state that his fanbase is on rn (this topic is kinda sensitive to talk abt for me bc people be outright ableist and hide it as criticism like. say that shit's not helping his reputation and whatever without acting like he's fucking. manipulating his fanbase for being affected by his rsd💀 or, on the other hand, don't say that hes just being adhd🤪 when he's just being an asshole like damn that's a Him thing bro lol)

(omg it's so big I'm so sorry and theres a part two I'm so sorry tumblr user messed-up-gal ToT) - morango 1/2

pt. 2:

Dream is the proof that the people who loves you can be your downfall. istg. Have you noticed that every drama that Dream enters, people usually get more mad abt how his fanbase reacts (85% they'll react in a bad way) than Dream himself? it's not always, but its definitely more likely. I'm not saying Dream is saint, he Is petty and his ego does him dirty and made him choke multiple times before,, But! i dont think hes a bad guy. he's literally just a dude. ok, he's a 21yr old white gamer man that has a trumpie past (maybe?? idk. I think hes cured now ig lol) so he's bound to do some shitty things but he still tries to get better and hopefully he'll mature. 21 is old enough but it's still so young, yk? I kind of lost my mind during the end and my eyes are literally begging to be closed so tl;dr: Its gonna be hard for him to become a better cc bc his fans don't let him be criticized (by infantilizing his adhd symptoms or the mob mentality as soon as someone says anything abt him), the honest criticism get lost between lies from antis that don't know shit, he still has a lot of growing up to do and overall he became famous too fast and he needs to learn things even faster bc as soon as there's not a single one dream hater on sight they'll turn their back and attack him instead lmao I hate twitter i definitely have more to say but I'm tired and my memory is shit. just-- hate dream if you want, love dream if you want, nobody is obligated to have an opinion but I wanted to express mine. have a lovely day! -morango 2/2

Aight, there's a lot to unpack here, so Imma try to only go into the points I have something to add to (here's what I talk about in each paragraph, if you want to jump to a specific point):

Speed of Dream's rise to fame

The "bad apples" in the Dream fanbase

Post-MCC HBomb stream

Not condoning versus actually condemning his fans

Manipulation & RSD

Criticism of Dream, his fanbase, and his brand

The “just a dude” argument, flipped

First, I agree that one of the many factors that has resulted in the current image Dream has set up for himself, the way his fanbase functions, the ways people hate on him, and the way the Dream brand functions, is the speed of his rise to fame. It's unique, and there are probably a hundred social/psychological angles that could be used to examine the exact effects of that speed upon all of these facets of the Dream Name; did rapid fame beget the rapid rise of unrighteous hatred, did those waves of hatred then instigate the rise of a surprisingly overdefensive fanbase, did that rapid fame get to his head and/or result in an inability to appropriately handle all the after-effects of rapid fame, etc.? That point you bring up, about how the speed of his rise to fame requires him to learn even more quickly, is so interesting to me. I think that maybe Dream expected to get pretty famous pretty quickly, hence the preparedness in regards to some mechanics of influencer fame- merchandise, business-building, networking, knowing how to manage his fanbase to best benefit him. But I don't think he expected to get this famous this quickly. This is all speculation of course, as are this entire post and your ask, but I think that he just couldn't anticipate having to learn how to handle enmasse controversy, waves of antis, or every Youtuber speculating/knowing about him; and yeah, that results in him having to learn all of these things very quickly, lest he allow his whole brand and fandom to fall apart.

Second, I disagree with the frequent argument that Dream's fanbase is only marginally toxic. Personally, I think that the circumstances of Dream's fame, his personality and management of his fanbase, and his brand of content have resulted in the very specific kind of stan that Dream stans are. I don't think this is simply a case of "all fandoms have a small percentage of assholes who take it too far;" rather, the nature of the community itself breeds the kind of mentality of "an asshole who takes it too far." I only even know this because I was a Dream fan (kinda a stan, I'm ngl). At one time, I watched every single Dreamwastaken & Dream Team video multiple times; I listened to the Manhunts on repeat, as though they were podcasts; I followed mostly smiletwt and dttwt accounts on mcyttwt; I had upwards of 10 tabs for AO3 DNF fics open on my phone at a time; I watched DNF and Dream Team Being A Family-esque compilations on repeat; I watched every George and Sapnap alt stream I possibly could; I went out of my way to defend Dream against Redditors and Twitter antis regarding the cheating scandal. For the latter half of 2020, and a couple months of 2021, I lived and breathed this part of the fandom; so when I say that Dream stans are a whole other breed than any other kind of mcyttwt stan, I say that because I used to be like that, too. I usually use parasocial very loosely or ironically, but Dream stans are genuinely one of the most parasocial fanbases I have ever seen or been a part of. The level of investment Dream stans have in this man's life, the lengths they will go to to defend him, the amount of psychonalysis and digging they do on his life and character, the amount of emotion he can evoke in them- it's taken to another level, man. This isn't just characteristic of a fraction of his fanbase; this is what the fanbase is like as a whole.

Third, I partially disagree with your take on the HBomb thing, but not in the way one might think? I actually empathize with the way they reacted much more than I thought I would, simply because I suspect I have RSD (also suspect I have ADHD, have for several months now) and I can see myself getting insanely frustrated because of something like that. Like yeah, it was "just a MC stream" or "just an MC game," but that's kinda disregarding the fact that something that might seem like "just a [insert inconsequential thing]" to a rational mind might have a major emotional consequence/take a major emotional toll on someone with RSD, or really anyone who gets easily impatient/angry about video games (Sapnap reminds me of many of my friends, in that way). The issues I, personally, had with the way they handled the HBomb situation is that these are simply explanations and reasons for my empathy; they are not excuses. I have no excuse when I get irrationally angry about something inconsequential in my own life, for a couple of reasons. One, because I am an adult and I need to learn how to handle my reactions and manage my own anger. Two, because as someone with many mental problems, it is my responsibility to learn coping mechanisms to ensure my own emotional stability and livelihood; this includes learning whatever I need to handle RSD- whether that be isolating myself from others when I know I will become violently/passionately angry about something, creating and sustaining a support system that can get me through bouts of extreme emotion, finding healthy emotional outlets for my negative emotions that won't harm myself or others, or a combination thereof. I don't think what they said about HBomb post-MCC was an irreversibly horrible thing, or anything. I think there were errors committed by two men who should be fully capable of foreseeing and preventing those errors, but I don't unconditionally hate Dream or Sapnap for the post-MCC stream or comments. I just wish they had made amends quickly, publicly, and sufficiently, because the greatest consequences from the whole thing weren't even from those two criticizing HBomb themselves; they were from the waves of backlash because of their immense influence on the MCYT fandom, which could've been prevented, if they had acted maturedly and responsibly after the stream.

Fourth, you’re right, that he doesn’t seem to condone his fans’ behavior. I detest the frequent anti argument that one of the reasons Dream should be criticized is because he explicitly uses his fanbase to attack others, or something of the sort. Personally, I think he created his fanbase in a very specific way and interacts with them in such a way so as to benefit him as much as possible, yes, but he never actually tells his fanbase to go and yell at or harrass anyone. Still, there is a significant difference between not condoning something and condemning something. It might seem unfair, and it might be annoying of me to say this, but I truly think that someone with this large a fanbase, especially one as overzealous as Dream’s, needs to be condemned every single time it goes on some kind of rampage/harrassment campaign. Either that, or Dream needs to make a definitive, permanent statement against any kind of harrassment of others on his behalf. I know he’ll occassionally make the odd tweet or serious stream addressing something his fanbase did, but one of the many reasons his fanbase keeps doing the same damn thing is because he’s so lukewarm and spotty about this condemnation. A fanbase like his needs to be given explicit guidance and boundaries for the numerous things they do in his defense- harrassing/doxing antis, harrassing people who criticize him who aren’t antis (respectful criticism, other CCs, other MCYT stans, etc.), harrassing the people he critcizes (i.e., HBomb), speculating about his personal life (his relationship with his gf, his mental health/ADHD, his romantic life, his childhood, etc.), and speculating about his relationships with his friends and colleagues.  My personal ideology is that, if you have significant influence over someone or a group of people, you are at least somewhat responsible for the things those people do or don’t do, if it at all relates back to you. I’m so fucking tired of the argument that CCs aren’t responsible for what their fans do. Obviously they aren’t responsible for every single one of their fans, and obviously they can’t fully control their fans at the end of the day. But I think there are certain things that reach such a level of extremity that does make those CCs responsible. This can be measured by either scale or intensity; that is to say, if a CC’s fanbase does things on an extremely large scale, or one person from/a fraction of the fanbase does something really extreme, then the CC is made all the more responsible. Another CC I’ve always had trouble discussing with other people on this subject is Pewdiepie, in particular, about the extremists in his fanbase. Because the things a small handful of his fans have done in reference to him and/or in his name were so fucking extreme, I thought Pewdiepie had to take at least some responsibilty. Along a similar vein, because the things Dream’s general fanbase does are so widespread and on such a massive scale, Dream has to take at least some responsibility.

Fifth, okay. Hmmm. I want to tackle this point you made about the ableism he faces in some criticism of him carefully and with empathy, but not coddling. One, I do think a lot of the criticism he receives for the ways he handles criticism (post-cheating Tweets, reactions to John Swan, post-MCC HBomb stream, etc.), disregard his RSD and can be oftentimes ableist. I’ve actually encountered people irl who criticize this aspect of Dream’s character, and have had to explain to them their disregard for how ADHD/RSD affect neurodivergent people’s reactions to criticism. But - and this is a big, and very controversial but - I think mentally ill/disordered people can 100% leverage their mental illness/disorders for the sake of manipulation. This is actually something I’ve learned from a psychiatrist, regarding the ways people I know and I handle our anxiety and depression. This manipulation can be unwitting or intentional, but it is entirely possible, and the possibility shouldn’t be entirely dismissed as ableist. Living with a mental illness or disorder that others know about/that you are very public about puts you in an interesting position to receive frequent sympathy, empathy, and/or pity. I’m not saying that empathy for Dream having ADHD/RSD is entirely unjustified; on the contrary, I have frequently expressed how I can relate to his ADHD symptoms and have defended him for expressing those symptoms, both on mcytblr and in real life. I am saying that Dream fans tend to use his ADHD as a kind of shield for a lot of criticism levied against him, including the supposition that he could be manipulating his fanbase to defend him because of his public expressions of RSD. So yes, my theory is that Dream knows how to levy every aspect of his life for his personal gain and for the growth of his brand, and that includes his ADHD. I think he has courage for his openess about his ADHD, I think his openness has contributed to the rise in awareness of mental health and empathy for neurodivergent people within Gen Z, and I think at least some of his expressions of RSD publicly/online weren’t intentionally made public. All that being said, I also think he has to know just how much his fanbase cares about defending him for his ADHD, and I think he has to know that some of the things he does related to his neurodivergence endear him to his audience, in a coddling, baby-ing, mildly ableist sorta way.  Maybe this is all incredibly presumptuous of me. Of course, I can never know the real intentions behind any Dream video, Tweet, or stream. Maybe I’m just projecting, because I can see myself doing just this, if I had the maturity I had circa 2018-2019. Idfk know, man.

Sixth, I actually agree with you here, people probably do get more mad at his fanbase than him. Dream puts out content pretty seldomly, considering the frequency of content output for other Youtubers/streamers in his field/at his brand size. And yet, he has received masses of criticism. Considering that the things Dream himself does/says do not entirely correlate with the amount of criticism he receives, I think it’s a logical assumption that a lot of that criticism actually goes back to the size of his presence online, rather than the man himself. That is to say, because of the massive community he’s amassed, the exponential growth of his fanbase, their presence on every single social media site and in virtually every single Internet space/fandom, and the size of his metaphysical presence in his fields, Dream is much bigger than the man himself, so the criticism he receives will, at least in part, be a direct or indirect result of all these other aspects of the Dream brand.  Something I don’t think many Dream fans/stans, or even most MCYT fans in general, understand, is that Dream isn’t just “one guy” in the eyes of the Internet- at least, not anymore. He hasn’t been for nearly a year. Like Pewdiepie, Mr. Beast, and other CCs who have amassed similar levels of fame and wealth via Internet content creation, Dream is a brand now, and most people will treat him as such. He isn’t just some uwu soft boy playing Minecraft anymore. He is on a whole other level from any other MCYT in his friend circle or colleague interaction bubble. His words will never again live in a vaccum or private bubble, his friend circle will never again be under anything less than intense scrutiny, his past actions will never again be simple mistakes or silly errors, his words will never again be casual tweets or streams for laughs among a couple thousand followers. Dream’s name represents something much bigger than just the one man. As such, all aspects of his brand, including his fanbase, will tie back to him and, ultimately, to any general criticism of him.

I’m not saying I like any of this, and I actually think the evolution of influencers from people to a marketable brand with similar mechanisms, responsibilities, and liabilities as a corporation is some kind of late capitalism nightmare fuel; I’m just stating my own observations and theories as to why so much anti-Dream criticism seems to be directed at his fanbase, rather than him.

Seventh, he’s just a guy, you’re right, but I think a lot of the antis on Tumblr understand this more than you know. As I’ve seen it, the sentiment among much of the “DSMP stans DNI” crowd seems to be that of “Dream/other MCYTs are such ‘bad’ people, so why do their fans stick to these mediocre, racist men, when there are so many better people to watch/better content to consume?” We know this argument is flawed for many of the obvious reasons - the conflation of all MCYTs’ actions regardless of individual identity, the equating of a CC’s fanbase’s morality to that of the CC they enjoy watching, the exxageration of any error MCYT CCs have committed as bigotry/racism, the fundamental misunderstanding and misinformation that led antis to believe this exxageration of the facts, etc. But I want to focus on the general, underlying sentiment of, “why not watch someone better, when your creator is problematic?” Sometimes, I ask this of Dream stans. Yes, being mildly ignorant, getting involved in the scandals Dream has, and being a right-leaning/libertarian centrist in the recent past all seem like harmless things, all things considered. One could say Dream isn’t nearly as bad as many antis who are misinformed seem to believe, and that there are much worse CCs Dream stans could be watching and creating fan content for. But I think what Tumblr antis wonder is, aren’t there also much better MCYTs/CCs people could be watching and stanning? Because he’s just some guy, right? Is his content truly so exceptional or is he really so exceptional a person, that people have to stick by him, despite the things that spike up regarding his current or past actions? I think that’s what made me finally decide to stop watching Dream. I realized he was just Some Guy. The Dream Team was a comforting dynamic to indulge in, DNF was a cute ship to read and speculate about, and Manhunts were fun videos to watch; however, once the Reddit posts came out and I read them in-depth, the cost-benefit analysis tipped over to the “not worth it” side for me. I realized Dream’s content, while fun and comforting, was not entirely unique, and wasn’t worth sticking around for, given what I then knew about his past political leanings. If he is just Some Guy, then there are a hundred more like him out there. There a hundred more ships, a hundred more found family dynamics, a hundred more entertaining and skilled Minecraft players. So while I agree with you on the point of people being allowed to love him regardless because he is just a guy, at the end of the day, I think that, if we are to believe that sentiment or use that argument in such a manner, we should also understand the flip side- that, if he is just some guy, why is it worth sticking around? To that I say, maybe because people just enjoy the simple things they enjoy.

Anyways, I wholly agree with your tl;dr. Thanks for that insanely long ask, this was a fun thing to keep me occupied while I’ve been at work, facilitating Zoom sessions this whole morning.

[relaxxattack]

ayo! (wait this might be a bit of a jumpscare dishdks i apologize) i’m op of That Post and was wondering what your opinions were on the whole woobification thing? /gen

because it’s a Tiny Bit widespread within the dream apologists to sort of,, overdramatize stuff like l’manberg hurting him. like they’re not a 100% wrong but if you look at it subjectively you can see some sort of bias going into that sort of thing that makes the character’s mistreatment a bit more blatant and intentional which,, it really wasn’t? and there wasn’t That Much of it either. especially on twitter (tumblr is much better about it) people just jump to conclusions it seems and yeah. since you brought it up i was wondering if you wanted to write a bit about it from your perspective!

we’re kinda from different corners of the fandom but i still notice that once you are too attached to a character you start taking certain evidence and giving it more weight than it actually has. there’s a blurry line between “taking away a character’s humanity” and woobification and it’s extremely difficult to find a balance when said character shows pretty much nothing of his emotional life (e. g. putting up the intimidating villain act in front of only c!tommy, pretty much everything he does making rational sense with no emotional subtext) and a lot of the fandom instantly jumps to one side or the other while it’s like.

we don’t know by far enough to say “he’s traumatized” or “he isn’t traumatized” or “he was villainized and it hurt him” or “l’manberg didn’t affect him at all”

as a very analytical person people constantly jumping to conclusions grinds my gears, but that’s about it for my own view of the situation - sorry for the rambling.

in general i agree with you that both dehumanization and woobification is Bad and i really hope getting Actual Context sorts this out (e. g. him saying he was betrayed by his friends doesn’t mean it wasn’t partially his fault or that they were allowed to leave him, but it also shows that he did care about that happening. mentioning the cat doesn’t mean anything about what happened to c!tommy but it also shows that he did care about what happened to it. it’s just always interesting to get more information about the way he feels because he usually does a very good job at hiding it.) because man.

it’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially if you also are attached to the character and are expected to automatically agree with everything the people on “your side” say. it just ends up with everyone being mad and the character being mischaracterised overall.

oh wow hello! i didnt expect the op of the post to find me you’re right lol

and yes i agree! you seem to have a lot of very good thoughts tbh.

and by woobification, i mean exactly what you’ve already pointed out— the people who will say l’manberg purposely villainized dream, the people who will say wilbur faked his mental illness to manipulate dream, the people who are pretty much always talking about how badly dream was treated by people who were acting only fairly for themselves, usually.

for example people who act like dream was a perfect peacemaker before tommy showed up, or that tommy started most conflict. these are just actual lies that are told by c!dream himself to justify his abuse of tommy, and people fall for them incredibly easily because not a lot of people watched early dsmp and know that truthfully it was chaotic even then, and that dream was chaotic too. not to mention wilbur soot tried very hard to secede peacefully with l’manberg and dream jumped directly into war with no warning. and then people say he was forced into their war when, no, he started it.

theres also people who will say like, dream and sapnap for example are such good friends. i’m sure they cared for each other, but dream on multiple occasions has done horrible things to sapnap with no regard for his feelings (like leading fundy to sapnaps pets during the petwar, leading tommy to sapnaps pets during the other petwar and encouraging him to kill them, handing mars over to tommy to use as leverage against sapnap, etc). george he’s been less awful too but he certainly spoke over him and ignored his feelings enough that george felt hurt. he had places in his hall of attachments for beckerson and mars. george and sapnap were right to walk away from being treated like that.

there’s also what you just said here — “dream puts on a villain persona for tommy”— but honestly he acts like that around quite a few people (example: eret) and it’s usually when he’s revealing crucial info, which leads me and many others to believe that ‘persona’ is actually a more truthful version of him.

there’s the fact that he really isn’t safe for people to be around (or at least he wasn't before the prison) because he was planning to come up with ways to control every single person by stealing and threatening their attachments (some of which were not items but were living animals, or a real breathing person).

and then people will say dream was doing exile to enforce rules, or to keep the peace— when it’s very clear in canon it was a deliberate plan to get tommy on his own and into the prison. (from the way he was framing tommy for multiple crimes, and having sam set up the prison, and kidnapping tommy instead of correctly exiling him, all at the same time).

not even going into how he wants to kill and revive people for fun or make tommy immortal.

it’s just— ignoring all these actual facts and saying “oh he misses his friends, let’s get him some friends now” reminds me of like. when people would put flower crowns on pictures of serial killers. and then, there’s hardly anyone on the server who wasn’t subject to dream’s plans, so there’s absolutely no one i would be okay with him interacting with.

just remembered about the torture thing, and wow i still hate it so much. it’s someone’s sick revenge fantasy twisted into a way to get a manipulative villain sympathy, and it’s just gross to me on every account. i do think dream is traumatized-- just not by l’manberg, which was a conflict he started on his own terms. i would think l’manberg did affect him, because he was scared of losing control.

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again— my ideal ending for dream would be for him to be sent far away from dsmp to an island full of therapy animals and super strong therapists who have never met him before. and for him to get a shit ton of therapy until he becomes a halfway normal person. and then eventually he could get integrated into society again; but a different one with new people. (although maybe dteam + bbh + puffy can visit him, they might still like him.)

none of the people on the server (who have all been affected by dream) should be burdened with befriending him or rehabilitating him— look how that turned out with sam! sam had a personal grudge towards dream and it ended with the poor dude being tortured every day; and sam himself falling into corruption and literally cutting off his boyfriends arm. like we can all see thats fucking awful right?

no one who was affected by dream should have to deal with him ever again. and contrary to popular belief, that includes a LOT more people then just tommy. dream isn’t just tommy’s antagonist, hes almost everybody’s.

the only person on the server who might also be able to stand to help dream is techno, and that’s from sheer lack of ability to give a shit. but techno is probably THE furthest thing from a good therapist there is lol, and dream needs better then that.

this kind of just ended up being a rant about my thoughts on c!dream, so im so sorry op. especially since it was probably negative for you. i hope you’re doing very well.

i guess in the end it’s true what you said— people will highlight or ignore things based on what characters they like, and it’s especially easy to do in this fandom, where half the content doesn’t even get watched and then we become a big echo chamber of half-truths.

considering dream has hurt so many of the characters i care about, i almost can’t understand how he could be someone’s favorite or comfort character— but he is nonetheless, and it would be unfair of me to be rude about that.

essentially it just bothers me to see someone who was a perpetrator of accurately portrayed abuse and manipulation (using both those words in their actual definitions, not just as random buzzwords lol) being given the flower crown edit effect. especially since he’s hurt the characters i care about a lot.

ANYWAY all of that being said (this got LONG im so sorry op) i am so so excited to get dream’s pov, because although i disagree with his actions strongly i actually find dream’s character very interesting and cool, and watching his POV is going to insanely fun. i cannot wait to see what theories get confirmed or denied

ALSO incase it wasn’t clear this is all /nm at you! you seem lovely and smart, and neither of us can help what characters we get attached to :]

[silverbastardgoldenfool]

Realm of the Quarantine Reread End-of-Book Questionnaire: Assassin’s Quest

Any differences between your first/previous reading experience and this one?

Keep in mind I’m writing this months after finishing the book lol (it’s mental illness innit). I have LOTS of notes to go off but yeah, things aren’t as fresh in my mind overall. With that said the biggest difference I can think of between my first and second experience with AQ is my feelings towards Kettricken. I think the first time around reading you know that Fitz is an unreliable narrator but you are still limited by his viewpoint so you can get a bit trapped seeing things the way he does. For this reason, I think I pretty much just forgave Kettricken when he did on my first read, whereas on this read I was like……. Waiting for her to actually apologise and show some sympathy towards Fitz and it just…. Never happened.

Like, don’t get me wrong, I still love Kettricken as a character and I fully recognise that she has been traumatised. I don’t expect her to be nice or act rationally, and in the case of being willing to take Nettle for the crown… It’s cold but she’s doing what she feels she has to. My issue is - do what you have to, but don’t expect Fitz to understand or forgive you (same with Starling). But I think what bothered me the most was how Kettricken would constantly confide in Fitz and break down to him and he was always there to let her do so, yet she NEVER gives Fitz the chance to do the same. The one time he does “open up” in a sense is when she forces him to air out his traumas in front of everyone, and she didn’t show him any sympathy for what he’d been through then or later. She has been through hell, absolutely, but while her plight may not have been any better than Fitz’s it certainly wasn’t any worse. She pretty much had two modes in this book: completely cold or a crying wreck - but she was only ever crying for herself. She lets Fitz console her but she never consoles him. Again, this is a result of her own trauma and I don’t expect her to act any differently, but it just reaffirmed for me that while she and Fitz care for each other deeply it is not an equal relationship. Fitz feels an obligation to serve her and she - knowingly or not - takes advantage of that. Like, after realising that this is their dynamic it is so obvious that the same is true in Royal Assassin as well, and it will be interesting to see how it changes (or doesn’t) in Tawny Man as I don’t remember it well enough to say.

Must reiterate: Kettricken is still a great character and I still have a lot of respect for her, unfortunately she just falls into the overfull camp of people who love Fitz but have an unhealthy power dynamic with him.

The other big difference I noticed was that the Verity stuff just wasn’t as devastating this time. Not because it was any less sad but it just didn’t tear out my heart like it did the first time. That’s not a fault with the writing at all, I think it’s just the fact that, knowing what would happen to Verity and that we wouldn’t see the real Verity again, I kind of already let go of him at the end of Royal Assassin.

Something you can’t believe you forgot

I guess more of a misinterpretation/wishful thinking but like, realising that there is no passage explicitly stating that Fitz and the Fool were actually spooning in the mountains murdered me and spat on my corpse.

Oh also!!! Fitz yeeting himself out the window at Tradeford castle jskaskjf

Favourite character introduction moments/scenes

I love Kettle in general and the way we’re introduced to her as a cranky old lady sets her up perfectly

Favourite character arcs

Man they’re all so fucking sad lol but I guess the Fool? He goes from thinking Fitz is dead and his purpose failed to reuniting with Fitz, their relationship growing into something really real for the first time, and actually completing his mission - at least for now lol. This book is really the first time you get to see the Fool be properly vulnerable. Even when he was getting beaten up by Regal’s guards he always had his veneer of snark and superiority to hide behind - and I doubt when he went through his sicknesses at Buckkeep he would have revealed his weakness to anyone in order to be helped. But in the mountains he lets so much of that facade of the King’s Fool fall away - at least when it’s just him and Fitz. When he and Fitz meet again he lets Fitz see his grief and pain and hopelessness and joy as the Fool looks after Fitz, and then later when it’s the Fool who needs looking after he lets Fitz look after him. When was the last time the Fool had anyone really care for him like that, ya know? Had someone protect him purely out of love? Ouch dude!!!!

Also he gets to kiss Fitz at the end so good for him!!!!!!!!!! Be gay ride dragons!!

Favourite quote/s

“I would kill Regal. It only seemed fair. He had killed me first.”

“I had looked into the heart of my enemy. I still could not comprehend him.”

“The more I drank, the less tolerable my situation seemed. And the more intolerable I became to my friends.”

“I had never thought to be disdained by a tree.”

“The Fool, the Fool, only the Fool. I sought for him. I almost found him. Oh, he was passing strange, and surpassing strange. He darted and eluded me, like a bright gold carp in a weedy pool, like the motes that dance before one’s eyes after being dazzled by the sun. As well to clutch at the moon’s reflection in a still midnight pond as to seek a grip on that bright mind. I knew his beauty and his power in the briefest flashes of insight. In a moment I understood and marvelled at all that he was, and in the next I had forgotten that understanding.”

“When you can either laugh or cry, you might as well laugh.” - the Fool

Favourite relationships

Fitzandthefoolfitzandthefoolfitzandthefoolbahslbghabfhalgngjba 

Also fitz and nighteyes (speaking of which, Nighteyes’ arc in this book is also fascinating and surprisingly complex) and Fitz/Nighteyes/Fool mwah magnifico chef’s kiss

Favourite setting

Kelsingra baybeyyy. I remember the first time reading this having no fucking clue what was happening in that chapter but I guess it was the gay agenda all along

Favourite chapter

It’s gotta be the chapter where Fitz and the Fool reunite, right? Catch me just gradually losing my grip on reality with every lingering stare 

Most loved character

Foooooooooool

Most hated character

Ya know, for a minute I was actually wondering if I would like Starling this time round but yeah no lol. She was actually okay for a while but as soon as she sold Fitz/Nettle out she became The Worst, just as I remembered her. It’s not even because she betrays Fitz but because, like Kettricken, she expects Fitz to forgive her for it, to the point of running to tattle to the queen because Fitz isn’t giving her enough attention (I’m also not impressed with Kettricken for actually getting involved instead of just telling her to grow up). Not to mention her constantly misgendering/gendering (??) the Fool or just assuming the Fool’s gender and loudly fucking proclaiming it to everybody is just truly fucking disgusting. Like I cannot even explain how furious I was reading her incessantly using she/her pronouns for the Fool despite no confirmation that her theory is right or that the Fool is comfortable with this and despite EVERYONE ELSE using he/him pronouns. God I’m mad now lol. She just acts like a spoilt brat and it makes my blood boil. But that’s probably because I have known many people like this so… Good character writing lol congrats

Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimised by Robin Hobb (most heartbreaking and/or visceral moments)

The whole first chapter/s are just so heavy and carry on that gut wrenching feeling from the end of Royal Assassin. Fitz just has no real desire to live and watching him systematically severing the last few ties he has to his human life is just so sad.

Even though I wasn’t as attached to Verity this time, his goodbye to Fitz still made me cry

As did Fitz giving Kettle her skill back

Verity using Fitz’s body to have sex with Kettricken really got to me this time, mostly because I either didn’t notice the first time or had forgotten just how much it affects Fitz. It’s no wonder he doesn’t want to acknowledge Dutiful as his son when the event that brought that fact into being was so fucked up and traumatic. It’s really upsetting.

Burrich saying he almost took Fitz to Chivalry and he should have never let the Farseers take Fitz just …… breaks my heart. Just seeing Burrich so raw like that in general is so unusual it really takes you aback.

Details, observations, spoilery notes made with the benefit of the full picture

Strap in lads this part is lonnnngggggggg

Is it bad to immediately want to cry just from seeing “Sandsedge” on the map and thinking of Sandsedge brandy

I never really thought about how poor Hap didn’t get the real Fitz all those years and how their relationship could have been if Fitz hadn’t been partially forged

Pls I have no idea why but to picture someone as emotionally repressed as Fitz actually sitting down and writing about his life makes me want to fucking cryyyyeeeee

Fitz in the prologue talks about needing a purpose as something to distract himself from sinking [into his chronic pain, mental illness and addiction] and boy howdy if that ain’t relatable. As someone with mental illness and chronic pain Fitz is just painfully relatable way too often.

“I have never forgiven myself the triumph I ceded him when I took poison and died.” Fitz :(((( my guy :((((((( forgive yourself for surviving however you could baby!!!!!

This book mentions Bingtown providing slaves to Chalced

It’s so funny to me when people expect Fitz to have social skills as if he didn’t literally live as a fucking wolf for weeks at a time. It’s a miracle he bloody speaks

The state Fitz is in at the beginning of this book was literally Burrich’s greatest fear for him, yet Burrich doesn’t just say I told you so and leave. He stays, is patient and even optimistic.

“He (Burrich) is not bigger than I.” Why does this feel so wrong lol??? I just can’t picture Fitz as bigger than Burrich

“When you were younger and not supposed to go into taverns without me…” So it’s fine if the child goes into taverns and gets drunk as long as you’re also there. Got it, Burrich.

Fitz calling Chade “the grey one” wow get rekd old man river

Seeing Chade and Burrich interact is so bizarre

Fitz is still having seizures at the beginning of this book! I had forgotten that

God okay so idk if I can articulate this point super well but the whole thing of Fitz going through this extensive abuse and then essentially becoming an animal feels like a metaphor for the way your brain’s “higher” needs and functions just shut off sometimes under certain levels of stress. Like in order to cope with the trauma you don’t think about concepts, or long-term goals, or other people. You just take care of your basic needs - food, sleep, shelter, water - long enough that you start to feel safe and secure again, at which point your brain can open up a bit more and allow you to really think again; to want again, to plan again etc. Like obviously literally becoming an animal is a heightened version of reality, but the functionality of it is the same; our wounds and our fear stop us from fully embodying ourselves.

Burrich be like, Fitz was getting way too dependent on drugs before all this so let’s steer clear of those. :) LET’S GET HIM ABSOLUTELY SHITFACED INSTEAD

I  love how Fitz has his own unique relationship with Lacey and she’s not just Patience’s servant in his mind

Fitz talking about how even his memories from before his time in the dungeons are soiled by his trauma :( baby boy

Dude it’s so rich Chade lecturing Fitz about not making a life for himself, having friends or just chilling out like???? WHO TRAINED HIM TO BE AN ASSASSIN CHADE?? Like I get your point but what the hell kind of life did you think he was gonna have? Who ever took the time to teach him the importance of making connections with people for their own sake, and when would he have ever had the time anyway? I think Chade himself doesn’t actually know what he expects from Fitz.

Fitz saying he’s bad at making decisions because he’s never actually been allowed to make any is literally a point I’ve made lol. This is what happens when you teach teenagers how to murder in lieu of any basic life skills.

Burrich + Chiv were luv at first sight. No I will not elaborate.

“We kept you a boy, looked after you too much.” Huh??????? Fitz was never fucking sheltered lol. He didn’t have autonomy. There’s a difference.

I’m so fucking glad Fitz hugged Burrich before he left and that they actually left off on okay-ish terms. I didn’t remember that and it vaguely dulls the blow of knowing we don’t see Burrich again til Fool’s Fate (and that he thinks Fitz is dead the entire time between now and then).

“If I shaved my hair back from my brow” bitch disgusting

“Honey was the older of the two women. Perhaps my age.” jskfjnajgbl my guy those aren’t women then those are children!!!!!! U freak

I was wondering for ages why Fitz doesn’t mention the Fool like literally at all bc that’s so unusual right? Even in Assassin’s Apprentice he thinks of him when he goes to Moonseye and just in general the Fool usually enters Fitz’s thoughts pretty frequently. So why now, when Fitz doesn’t even know if the Fool is okay, is he just not thinking about him? And then I realised that that is exactly why. Because the only two people from his old life he doesn’t think about are the two people whose fates he knows nothing of: Kettricken and the Fool. So he can let his mind wander to think what Patience and Lacey might be up to at Buckkeep, or who Molly is with or whatever, because he knows they are all safe. But in such a fragile state I don’t think he can bring himself to really wonder whether Kettricken and the Fool made it to their destination - he probably doesn’t really believe they could have, and that is far too painful a road to go down when you are trying not to think at all.

I know the first act of this book is slow and that bothers some people, but I think it is so necessary, not only for Fitz’s arc but also because it really demonstrates just how severe the situation has gotten with the red ships and forged ones AND it shows just how destructive a king Regal is. Without this perspective it would probably be much harder to buy that the extreme measures taken at the end of the book are really worth the sacrifice.

Fitz is Demisexual, Exhibit A: when Honey is coming onto him, all he can think about is Molly.

Fitz is so scared of the Forged ones :( his trauma affects everything. He has no faith in himself and less heart for the violence than ever.

Speaking of trauma metaphors: the way Fitz tends to drift off into the wit or Skill after a traumatic experience is… pretty much just dissociation but magique

I forgot that witted folk can apparently communicate with each other mentally, not just with animals

“Her head was the size of a bushel basket.” Ah, yes, a bushel basket, a thing whose size we are all intimately familiar with.

Fitz finally finds others like him and even then he is not fully accepted. Told he is doing the wit wrong. Othered by the Others. It’s the queer experience innit.

Also forgot that apparently the forged are attracted to the wit as well as the Skill?

“I wondered if I had as many wolf mannerisms as they had halk and bear.” Yeah no probably not you only bloody LIVED as a wolf, Fitz.

Okay I know it doesn’t need saying but Patience is just so fucking cool!!!!!

Jesus fucking christ, Fitz skilling out to Molly when he knows Will knows he’s alive and is looking for him is just… so dumb. So so dumb. I know he’s just fixating on her because he’s miserable and she’s like this unsullied thing he had before everything went wrong but holy moly is it frustrating 

Not to mention he doesn’t connect the dots between the fact that Burrich went to “help a friend” and every time he reaches out for Molly he sees Burrich sajkdbshkhja dude

Nighteyes leaving just goes to show that Fitz cannot rely solely on Nighteyes for companionship. No matter how innately the same they are they are equally as innately different. Fitz needs Nighteyes but he shouldn’t have JUST Nighteyes (which is why he, Nighteyes and the Fool are the holy trinity). When Nighteyes leaves, Fitz is in way too fragile a state to be left alone, but Nighteyes cannot think of the future or what might happen. All he knows is he’ll be back at some point and that’s all that matters.

“My anger fed my competence” whatever you need to tell yourself sweetie

I think I had blocked out the fact the Regal was keeping animals trapped in filthy cages so they could ravage people in the king’s circle uggggghhhhhhhhh I hate him

Fitz is down on himself saying that without Shrewd’s largesse, Chade’s information and Verity’s protection his idea of himself has been stripped away and that he’s not actually competent etc. but like. This is an extreme situation!! You’re literally alone in the wilderness with nothing and no one!! Who would thrive in this situation? And nobody gets by without help anyway! The people in our lives do define us to an extent. You don’t have to be able to stand 100% on your own at all times with zero resources to be considered capable. It’s human to depend on others. Yes I am chiding myself as much as Fitz here :))))

Burrich’s earring is the repressed gay earring. No I will not elaborate.

Fitz refusing to sell Burrich’s earring is frustrating yet something I would 100% do lol

Direct from my notes: Celery hiding out in caves?? Bad bitch

“I felt I was within the flames looking deeply into the Fool’s eyes” um okay gay

It’s actually surprising that Fitz admits he would not have gone after Molly even if he had known she was pregnant when she left. On one hand so self aware yet this doesn’t stop him from completely idealising their relationship.

And then you have Molly who says he was supposed to come after her “so she could forgive him”, that he was supposed to be the one to light the candles for her childbirth etc. The fact that she in any way thought he was mature enough to be a father just shows how little they really knew each other.

Burrich treating Molly like a horse while delivering Nettle is way funnier than it has a right to be jskakjasd makes me think of Dwight treating Phyllis’ back injury in The Office lol

The first thing Burrich notices about Nettle is that she has Chivalry’s brow are you fucking kidding me. Gay!

Fitz is Demisexual, Exhibit B: He had no interest in Tassin whatsoever until she literally started kissing him. At this point his body reacted, which is normal, but as soon as he got a second to actually think about it he stopped, because for him it would not be satisfying to sleep with someone he didn’t have feelings for.

“It seemed to take years for the dried beans and lentils to soften.” Okay mood

I love how Fitz just assumes Molly will take him back. “I have a woman and child awaiting me.” Says who bitch?

Small ferret? More like big legend

Ya know, we give Fitz so much shit but honestly with so much physical, mental and emotional stress on this journey how can we expect his mental faculties to be at 100%? I wouldn’t be making good decisions either, in fact I would be long dead.

Starling telling Nik that the earring once belonged to Chivalry is truly a smooth brain move

“Do not fear, little brother, I am here to take care of you again.” Words can’t explain how much I love Nighteyes and how often his dialogue makes me smile :’)

It’s so cute how Nighteyes is worried about Molly and Nettle until he knows that Burrich is taking care of them

It’s really interesting when Fitz claims “I’d rather be with Molly even if it meant rocking a crying baby in the middle of the night” because, well, he’s literally made other claims to the contrary, saying he wouldn’t have gone with her even if he’d known she was pregnant. Because at the end of the day as much as Fitz is compelled by others to do work for the greater good, I think deep down a lot of the time it is what he would do anyway. Like I really don’t think he could actually enjoy being with Molly knowing that the world is burning down around them. He would want to get out there and help somehow; not only to secure their own future but to reduce other people’s suffering as well. He’s an empathetic boy even though he’d like to be selfish.

Every time Fitz calls Molly his wife I lose ten years off my life

Again, I understand why he’s thinking like this, but Fitz’s ownership of Molly is just so uncomfortable. The fact that he can’t imagine her not having a place ready and waiting for him in her life when he returns just illustrates that she is not a fully realised person to him. She is just a comforting idea.

Oh yes, it was definitely Starling’s “pillowtalk” that got you captured and not the fact that you fit the exact description of the witted bastard right down to having Chivalry’s earring and a whole ass wolf

Somehow forgot that Jhaampe is basically a city of tents with only a few permanent buildings and people constantly coming and going

Fitz’s first words to the Fool are “I’ve come to you.” I’m gonna fucking die

Literally every single word from the moment Fitz realises it’s the Fool and starts describing him is a full body assault and personal attack I am seeking reparations

God the tenderness, the angst, the relief……… shall i pass away

“I doubted he was much taller, but his body was no longer a child’s.” My dude this is a gay awakening if I ever saw one

Fitz be like *spends 87 pages describing the Fool in painstaking detail* anyway I love being a heterosexual male

I’ve heard ppl cite Fitz’s descriptions of Kettricken as evidence of a crush (hard disagree) but literally nothingggggg even comes close to the way he describes the Fool. Not just this once but over and over again it’s insane.

“Talk fell off between us. The bottle of brandy was empty. We were reduced to silence, staring at one another drunkenly.” skjakfnajghajgnaLNGJ is it gay to silently gaze into thine homie’s eyes

The Fool protecting Fitz from everyone - especially Starling - in Jhaampe is often hilarious and always heartwarming

Realising Fitz was skinny enough for the Fool to lift on his own ahhh no wonder he said the famous “When I recall how beautiful you were” line, Fitz is a total wreck

I love that the Fool actually gives Chade shit for his plan to take Nettle. I love him.

“Too few folk cared for me. I could not hate a single one of them.” Oh, Fitz :(

I always wonder how the Fool really feels about Molly. Is he jealous? Does he compare himself to this woman Fitz idolises and he doesn’t know? Does he know that Fitz is barking up the wrong tree or is he stuck thinking Molly must really be Fitz’s soulmate since he won’t shut up about how much he loves her and can’t wait to get back to her? He just never really lets on how it makes him feel when Fitz has relationships with women. We know Fitz gets jealous of the Fool (for litch rally like no reason lol), so with the Fool being much more honest with himself/in general about his love for Fitz and having much more legitimate reason to be jealous, is he? Or is it just something he’s made his peace with, that these women give Fitz something that he cannot? Is he okay with that cos he has to be or does he have a different, less monogamous view of love and relationships (he does have three parents after all). I dunnoooo dude I just have so many questions. Like obviously - OBVIOUSLY - if Fitz and the Fool didn’t have romantic feelings for each other before, there is no doubting that romantic feelings appeared the moment Fitz appeared in the Fool’s hut. Fitz won’t admit that but mere chapters later the Fool is talking about how he loves Fitz in every way so like. He knows. So how does he feel when Fitz is calling out for Molly in his sleep, or openly speaking of seeking her out when all this is over, and lying to the Fool to protect Molly and his daughter. Really makes u think!!!!

Fitz reuniting with Sooty and going to see her every day in Jhaampe is so cuuuute and made me so happy. Sooty is a good girl :’)

Fitz be like *leans against the table where the Fool is carving and watches his fingers at work like a true repressed gay*

Verity is literally so strong???? He submerged himself in skill and was able to pull himself back from the stream can u imagine? Go off king!

Bro I literally can’t with the Fool mentioning Jofron so casually and Fitz immediately thinking wow oh my god they’re definitely fucking oh my god the Fool has a girlfriend - Fitz sweetie calm down

I love how Fitz and the Fool just naturally walk together :))) and Nighteyes babysitting Kettle is so cute

Molly never once says that she misses Fitz. She says she always expected him to do the right thing, to come after her and not leave her alone with a child. But she doesn’t look back on their time together fondly or have much positive to say about him as a person. And all that is fair, but it’s also just… Not really the behaviour of someone who’s been separated from their soulmate. It’s more just someone who’s been left in a shitty position by someone they cared about but hardly knew.

Fitz asking the Fool what is between him and Starling when they’re literally just being civil is sooooo fucking funny. Not everyone finds the Fool as irresistible as you do, Fitz.

The Fool just casually finding a pretext to call Fitz the light of his life

Fitz telling Kettricken firmly that he will not travel if the Fool is ill is one of the only times he ever puts his foot down with her GEE I WONDER WHY

I’ve said it before I’ll say it again…… there really do be something about the way Fitz can’t meet the Fool’s eyes………. It’s not like they’re weird and colourless anymore like they used to be!!!

The Fool already talking about Clerres in this book!

Fitz and the Fool and Nighteyes playing in the stream is too fucking pure omg, it’s what they deserve

And then Starling has to bloody ruin it bc she’s homophobique

But seriously, Fitz actually lets go for the first time in ages and has a nice evening only for Starling to go tattling to Kettricken, and Kettricken having the gall to confront Fitz about it. And then Fitz solves the problem by saying he doesn’t disdain her when like!! He has every right to!!!! She sold him out, sold his daughter out. She never even apologised but instead has just been totally petty and self-righteous and stirring up trouble amongst the group. She hasn’t earned or even asked for his forgiveness. So fitting that she’s the one constantly judging Fitz for his relationship with Lord Golden in Tawny Man lol, she just cannot let Fitz and the Fool be the queer icons they are!!!

Verrrrrrrrrrry interesting that Fitz only “suddenly missed the human warmth and comfort” of Starling taking his arm or sleeping against him literally IMMEDIATELY after the plumbing and love confrontation with the Fool. I mean he has been doing all of those things with the Fool (sleeping together, walking arm in arm etc.) so it’s not about human touch at all, it’s about convincing himself that a WOMAN’S touch is somehow inherently different.

He does the same thing with Starling as with Kettricken. She technically apologises but it’s not sincere and that’s not why he forgives her. Same as Kettricken, she tells her sob story and he can’t hold onto his anger. It makes sense, but it’s just very toxic. It would be nice if at least one person would really recognise how much they’ve hurt Fitz and really, genuinely want to atone for it, or apologise without expecting forgiveness. The onus should not be on Fitz to forgive Starling but on Starling to grow up and not need Fitz to like her in order to remain civil and do what they have to. Also “I do not find your wit bond offensive” has the same energy as someone telling you out of nowhere like “It’s fine that you’re gay :)” like wow thank u?? lol

Fitz is Demisexual, Exhibit C: “I wanted her with a desperation that had nothing to do with love, and even, I believe, little to do with lust.”

“By his love he is betrayed, and his love betrayed also.” So fate agrees with me, Fitz and the Fool are in love? :)

Anytime the potential that Fitz might have to choose between Molly and Nighteyes I lose brain cells. That’s ur brother Fitz!!! It’s not even a choice!! How dare u

It’s just sooooo intentionally laid out for us in this book that Fitz’s relationship with Molly really wasn’t good or healthy and that his fixation on it is misguided, and I think that’s why I struggled sooooo hard with the ending of Fool’s Fate, because it kind of implied the exact opposite. I’m hoping on this reread I will pick up on it being laid out as a result of Fitz getting his memories/teen feelings back rather than it just feeling like a lowkey retcon, but I guess we’ll see lol

“I felt I was a bit in love with him, you know. That sort of lift to the heart.” the confirmation that the Fool KNOWS HOW IT FEELS TO BE IN LOVE sends me deep into the swamps goodbyeeeeeeeeeeee

“The one who loves him best will betray him most foully.” So fate agrees, the Fool loves Fitz best :)

“You do love me! … Before, it was words. I always feared it was born out of pity.” Godddddd Foooooooooool!!!!!!!!!!! 

Everything about Fitz, the Fool and Nighteyes meeting in the skill for the first time is just truly perfect iconic unparalleled.

Fitz’s love for Verity hurts my heart so much. Just think of the relationship they could have had if they weren’t stupid royals.

Kettle’s whole speech about Fitz and Molly… Just yes to every word.

Look I’m just gonna say it… The way Burrich reacts to Molly’s advances … like I know it’s probably not intentional but it just reads as very much fitting in with my headcanon that he is gay. As soon as she makes it clear she wants to sleep with him he like leaps across the room lol. I do believe he cares for her and loves her in his way, but it does feel mostly like he’ll just do whatever he needs to to care for her and the baby.  Sowwy

I wonder why the Fool wasn’t as affected by his giving up of memories to Girl-on-a-Dragon?? Or was he, and he just gets them back before we see him again in Tawny Man?

“Take my hurt that I never knew my father, take my hours of staring up at his portrait when the great hall was empty and I could do so alone.” um this is so fucking sad

It was the Fool who sent Starling to find Fitz after Verity uses his body and again I have to ask, wtf is going on in your mind, Fool!

Fitz is Demisexual, Exhibit D: Even once he actually sleeps with Starling he has no enthusiasm about it, he just kind of goes along with it, likely to prove to himself that he has really let go of his past/Molly. 

I always wonder why the Fool leaves now. Is it because he thinks their work is done and doesn’t want to risk messing things up by hanging around his catalyst like at the end of Tawny Man? Does he intend to come back and find Fitz again but get sidetracked by a lead or a new dream? Like it’s just weird because at first he was like “Prophet and Catalyst stick together” and was gonna stay with Fitz - or was that just an excuse because he was obsessed with Girl-on-a-Dragon? Fool u spicy lil enigma

It’s blood and the wit that wakes the stone dragons so does that mean King Wisdom was witted? Or is that obvious lol

Fitz isn’t even bothered by the Fool’s kiss, just shocked. I am looking.

Patience shouting orders at Verity-as-Dragon is beautiful ksjjk

Of courrrrrssse Burrich names his first son Chivalry

In the epilogue, the Fool is the only one Fitz actually says he misses. Exquisite.

I know some people have an issue with Regal’s death but personally I find it delicious

Okay that’s all (I say as if this wasn’t 139841989 pages long). See y’all in 92 years when my sister finally starts reading Liveship!

[fuckyeahisawthat]

@ignisentis replied to your post:

I read some reviews and also found it fascinating that so many reviewers seemed to miss the overall arc of the show and what it was trying to do with narrative expectations. There were some I read that barely even mentioned Primo, and that was so confusing because he’s such a big part of the show! He’s a main character, for goodness sake! (Which I was pleasantly surprised by when I watched the show. I had no idea that role would be so big and so compelling.)

I do also wonder if being able to binge the series all at once makes those themes more obvious, but dang, it did feel pretty clear by halfway through the show, especially by the Silenzio episode where you’re partially rooting for Little Paul to escape and partially rooting for Primo to catch him again and that doesn’t feel like competing desires. It’s so well done!

Ha guess who watched Silenzio (episode 5) again last night and needs to yell about it. It’s hard to pick a favorite episode of Trust because so many of the things I like about it are, like, thematic statements and plot and character arcs that span multiple episodes. But also...Silenzio is my favorite episode. It’s definitely the place where I went from “hey this is fun” to “holy FUCK this show is brilliant.”

In addition to being just...masterfully executed suspense from start to finish, I think it does exactly what you’re describing in terms of allowing us to sustain emotional investment with multiple characters who are directly opposed to each other, which is really challenging to do and requires both great writing and great performances to pull off. It’s sort of a microcosm of what I was talking about in this longer post.

The reason this episode works so well is that we understand the stakes for everyone involved. The stakes for Paul and Angelo are fairly obvious, and if we had any doubt, Angelo spells it out for us early in the episode. If they’re caught, he’ll be killed, and Paul will, at best, be recaptured by violent people who are now extremely angry at him. And in this episode we get to see exactly how scary Primo can be when he’s angry, in a way that’s different from his other violent set pieces so far. In the sunflower field he is relaxed and stylish and funny, and we’re invited to find his competence with violence enjoyable to watch. In Silenzio he is just dead terrifying. (In addition to the whole “hunt you down like an animal” bit, let us not forget that he starts the episode being ready to straight up set someone on fire.) So we have a hope and a fear for Paul and Angelo that are very well-defined.

But we also understand the stakes for Primo. He has literally just convinced his uncle that they can pull this off, and now they have nothing but problems. They’ve gotten an insulting ransom offer. The kidnap victim ran off, due to Primo’s underlings disobeying him and the fact that Primo was passed out drunk at a gas station overnight. (Granted, if he had come back to the house immediately after realizing the gas pump was locked, he probably would have caught Paul and Angelo in the act of escaping and killed them both that night, which would have been a much bigger mistake...but the characters haven’t come to that conclusion yet.) Primo doesn’t look particularly competent in Salvatore’s eyes at the beginning of the episode, and that’s part of what fuels the maniacal intensity with which he pursues them.

I have a writing teacher who said that the way we get to know characters in dramatic writing is by giving them a problem and watching how they solve it. And we get to know a lot about Primo in this episode. Despite what Salvatore might think, we get to see his competence--he says he is going to find them, and he goddamn well does. We get a sense of his greater ambitions for the first time. And we see the absolutely ferocious single-minded stubbornness with which he can pursue something (or someone) when the stakes are high for him. For me, this was the episode where I got convinced, oh, yeah, this is the person who can get John Paul “Not One Single, Solitary Cent” Getty to pay the ransom.

To me this episode always has such a sense of fatalism to it, because it’s about how every single character is trapped by the violence of their situation. For Angelo the choices are help Paul and risk his own life, or become an accessory to murder at seventeen. That’s how their world works. At the same time we know that Primo has to respond to disobedience with violence, because that is also how their world works. We know from the start that Paul and Angelo are doomed, if only because we know we’re only halfway through the series. But they manage to just barely escape getting caught so many times, and that little bit of hope for them pulls us into the tension really effectively. And they’re able to sustain that tension until, like, the literal last thirty seconds of the episode, and then resolve it in the most violent and dramatic fashion possible. And while the ending is tragic and horrifying, it’s also (to me at least) weirdly satisfying in a narrative sense, in the way that releasing that tension is always going to be satisfying after an entire episode of buildup. Trust is extremely good at setup and payoff, and the end of that episode is one hell of a payoff. It’s a grim payoff, but it’s one that feels like it fits the plot and the tone and the themes of the story.

[retphienix]

It's been 6 years :)

On March 30th, 2015 I decided I wanted a gaming side blog. (so we're early, but shush, it's the month for me)

I didn't know what I'd use it for exactly, but I had ideas- something I always have even if most of them only get as far as daydreamin' or writing out before closing them :P

For proof on the lack of direction the blog initially had- the March 30th date is the anniversary of my first post, an in-depth and lengthy review of Dragon Warrior Monsters for the GBC.

If you know the blog then you know "Extremely long and in-depth reviews" aren't the norm around here. As a matter of fact, that first post is the ONLY one I've done!

The closest I've come to ever repeating that would be the (word of the day) Directionless video I put out on Hades to get a grip on the concept of making videos, but that wasn't nearly as much of a 'review' as that first post is.

Tangent, definitely planning on trying my hand at videos some more for the foreseeable future. Probably not gonna use the tagline Full Impressions that I tossed as a whim for the Hades video but yeah- I'm excited to try my hand at a few videos :) tangent over.

It didn't take me long to come up with what I'd like to do for the blog though :)

A few months later I liveblogged a challenge run of FFT where I used only Ramza- a solo run. - Which maybe only happened because I tried a nuzlocke run a year prior on my main account-

(Nuzlocke | FFT challenge run)

Thanks to that haphazard liveblog experiment I started to realize a couple things which became the primary motivators behind this blog.

1) I LOVE sharing experiences. No brainer, I'm sure, but being able to share my experiences, and compare them with others' experiences, and just that mutual sharing is uplifting and feels good to do.

2) Liveblogging is an EXCEPTIONAL motivator to buckle down and play all those games I said I'd play (cue everyone laughing because I'm still way behind and have an immeasurable backlog).

But I mean that, on both respects. I have plenty of motivators toward the blog today, but if I were to be concise it's pretty much "It's easier to beat games if I liveblog them- otherwise I get distracted and play other games" and "I love sharing experiences and thoughts with people about my favorite thing- games."

Since 2015 I've tackled around 70 games as full playthroughs, and an untold ton as one offs or just to ramble about for a bit.

I've had a lot of highlights over the years, and I don't talk much about it as an overall experience so I thought for the anniversary I'd try to do just that. Not everything- I can't say I have photographic memory that would bring all of it up without prompting after all :P But whatever comes to mind as I browse some of my old stuff- as well as some thoughts on what I'd like to see in the future.

It's gonna be a bit self-centric I assume as I type this preamble to it, so let me say outright that this blog wouldn't be half of what it is without all the people who've given it the time of day over the years.

From recommending games they love or appreciate, to comparing thoughts, to offering kind words for analysis I've done over the years, to pointing out when I'm dumb and misread a situation :P- to, yes, even the people who decided "Fuck this guy's ramble" and deleted my captions before reblogging my gifs way back during Hamtaro (Of COURSE I remember that! It's amusing lol).

This is better because of others, because of the interactions and the people I've gotten the chance to chat with or befriend. It's just a liveblog more or less, my own little bit of fun I toss out for myself if for anyone- so seeing others enjoy this or that from the work I put into sharing my experiences or thoughts is always a joy in itself :)

Anyway, onto selfishly rambling about some tidbits of the past :)

Also sorry but no, opted to not shove a ton of photos in, it does have a handful of links to old posts though :P

This'll be disorganized as heck as I'll add to it over time before I feel it's worth posting (or the tumblr post editor becomes a hassle and more or less forces me to).

First~

FFT Solo Ramza Challenge: Considering it was roughly the first thing this blog has done, it's also something that's stuck in my head a lot more clearly than most of the other stuff I've done to be honest lol.

In truth, this is partially because FFT is my favorite game, bar none. But it's also because the whole experience was pretty new to me. Prior to it I had really only done one self-imposed-challenge that wasn't requested by the game in some manner and that was a nuzlocke run of Blue version.

So adding a challenge to my favorite game was a fantastic experience!

Notes I just wanted to say today about that run: If anyone enjoys FFT I honestly recommend giving it a shot for the unique story it lends itself to. I do recommend skipping the rules until after the second battle but that's up to YOU to decide.

My first post on the subject is me complaining about spending 4 hours grinding out the second fight and, despite hyperbole being my natural state, that was NOT hyperbole.

It DID take 60~ restarts to beat. It DID take 4 hours. The reason is that that 2nd battle is RNG as HECK, you HAVE to have Delita do some meaningful actions, you HAVE to have the enemies miss and make poor plays, you damn near HAVE to crit a few instances to save yourself from taking too much damage.

It's a numbers game to the extreme, so I wouldn't fault anyone for 'cheating' and skipping the 2nd fight for the ruleset lol.

The memory that stands out the most for that run is actually isolated in a post in which Ramza (Purrick in this run) talks like a total badass as just ONE DUDE running into a room full of enemies. I just think on that as a great encapsulated view of what it was like. The run started off face grindingly difficult, but because FFT is a game that offers so much freedom to the player it was extremely easy to 'break' the game into making Purrick overpowered as hell.

That's something I love about some tactical RPGs, I love having the ability to play smart so that I can play stupid later on, and breaking the game into making him one shot god is certainly a good payoff for playing smart early on :P

RetQuick: I miss RetQuick, it was primarily a short experiment I did in 2015 where I'd play a game for a short span of time (REALLY short, like 10-20 minutes) and record that for the purpose of making gifs and saying a short piece on what I thought.

It's one of those formats where the purpose was pretty shallow- but had a reason. I wanted to try making some gifs with some tools that existed online, so I made an excuse to do just that.

I also wanted to play a TON of games, usually through emulation on my sister's PSP, and this let me do that.

These two minor goals came together and so I spent a while making RetQuicks which were honestly more fun to make than they had any right to be. I mean the gifs were tedious but the playing? The thought sharing? The end product ocassionally having more appeal than just a photoset? It was fun.

I'm thinking whenever I have trouble picking a game for the blog I'll revisit the format... sorta.

I already reused it for a short stint to show clips I had no plan on expanding into a playthrough, but that died as well as it was too similar to Tidbits posts (another tag I no longer really use).

My thought is to rebrand retquick as something of a tryout for what game comes next. Play a handful of my backlog games for an hour or so each and say some thoughts before saying which one I'll continue as the main game for that period of time.

Old Tag Stuff: One of those things that only sticks to me since I made the decisions but it's always funny for me to look back on my old posts because I was apprehensive as hell toward making my posts visible. The reason my early playthroughs on the My-Tags page are variants of Ret instead of just "The name of the game so people can find this post" is because I felt like a liveblog would just spam the tag to hell-

Something I don't remotely feel bad for doing anymore.

So I avoided getting any sort of spotlight for quite a while on the blog for little reason.

Why Retphienix?: This is just a dumb thought I wanted to share and I'm sure I've said before.

It stands for retro!

Yeah!

Ain't that dumb and also not a real shorthand? lol

I think I have some sort of deer in headlights anxiety towards naming things, I mean do you think I think Full Impressions is a good summation for a video? I don't. But perhaps that's overshadowed by the other inexperiences and anxiety driven decisions that had- doesn't matter.

Retphienix is Retphienix because I sat there in 2015 and thought "Well... what do I name an alt account?"

My main is Redphienix, which yes, is ALSO a terrible name AND is misspelled. But it's that because of sentimental reasons. As a kid I misspelled Redphoenix when making my gamertag (I knew how to spell Phoenix back then as well, I was too excited about xbox live and misspelled it) and it's become something of a sentimental misspelling.

So I wanted to make a mix on that for my game blog, but I had no idea what. In the end I thought "RetroPhienix? I don't know. Retphienix is closer to Redphienix. I'll do that" and so it was done.

And just like how Redphienix is both bad and misspelled but exists because of sentimental reasons- Retphienix has acquired the same 'flavor' in my eye lol.

Aspirations for the blog: I have no immediate ramp up plans or road map or whatever, and in truth I'll be happy if the blog stays just as it is forever- up until tumblr ends- I cry over lost posts- and I reopen it on another platform.

But I do have blurry half-considered daydreams that I'd like to see happen for the blog through some hard work or shifts on my part.

One is something I'm already doing kinda, hence my embarrassing means of bringing it up a lot lately. Videos- I want those. I wanna make some looks back on series people don't talk about that I enjoy, I want to make videos sharing my thoughts on games I beat for the blog (like what full impressions kinda was, but I don't think they'll have a unified name from here on out). Maybe retrospectives, but mostly when I think of making a video tied to retphienix or me in general it's me looking at a game that said something to me, and saying it louder with my own interpretations on it.

You know the kind, videos where they talk about a video game but not the whole thing- just a singular message they really heard loud and clear from it intentionally or not. I dig those and I know I end a lot of games having plenty to say that could be directed into such a format.

We'll see.

And I'm along for the ride on that one as well- currently I'm keeping my eyes on whatever is directly next, which happens to be "I plan on playing Omori, if it clicks as something to talk about I would like to take a shot at that in a video too!"

The other is that I'd like to build a small community. Wouldn't know the first thing on doing that in a modern sense, but just a little online friend group to chat with and play games together. Something that could open up multiplayer and coop experiences being better shared on the blog and would just in general expand my gaming to what it used to be back on the 360 when I had a large group to play with.

Since the 360 era ended I've pretty much closed off- stopped playing competitive games due to lack of interest- and slowed down to playing all games either solo, with randoms (and no mic usually), or with my cousin. It's a rare instance when I play with some good people like @gamesception or another friend of mine, John.

When I diverted from playing competitive games nonstop toward other genres I didn't intend to also cut out all my online gaming buds, it just kinda happened, and I never really put any effort into rectifying that.

So more or less I'd like to one day sit down and work on a discord server, and then buck up and put the leg work in to make some gamin' buds again, but that's such a vague concept anymore.

Sounds all sad and what not but it's more ambivalent, I made decisions that

changed how gaming worked for me after the 360 and this is just where it landed for better and worse- I'd just like to see if I can make it a little better :P

General things I think when I think retphienix: Honestly? I think of how much fun I've had over the years and how thankful I am to have had an outlet that encouraged me to explore more of the medium.

I REALLY love games. I went to college for games, I've written LEAGUES about games, I've played countless games, my childhood was games, my adult life is games- games games games yada yada yada.

So when I think of retphienix I think of how without it I probably wouldn't have explored a lot of the corners of gaming that I have.

I genuinely, and I mean this, might not have sat down and beaten FF7 for myself and would have considered the amount I played as a kid to be enough.

I might not have played Chrono Trigger yet, and I KNOW I wouldn't have played Chrono Cross, and I'm happy as hell to have played both of those. CT was a mind blowing moment for me that showed me just how good an RPG can be, and CC gave me miles to think of in terms of innovating an RPG and how beholden to the narrative a sequel should be (I don't feel CC should have been chrono at all lol).

I DEFINITELY wouldn't have given New Vegas another chance. And I know I'm a sourpuss on NV, I've been that way since I maxed my achievements on the 360 for it, but replaying it really did reveal to me how exceedingly negative I was being.

My memories had become "It's brown and a boring location >:(" and "The factions all suck and it doesn't do anything with the idea of bad factions >:(" and became "It's... a little brown guys, not a big fan of the area" and "They didn't do enough with exploring the gray factions" while adding "Wait. This is pretty damn fun. And 90% of the additions are stellar. And I forgot about Dead Money, my favorite dlc in any game ever with a story that tears at my heart every time I think of it, NV good actually?"

Faxanadu would have remained a cool game I saw on SSFF and not a game I played to the end and fell in love with the aesthetic feel it has!

Also that's a game I cheated like crazy on lol, I would do it again! Save state scumming games meant to be rudely difficult is only fair :P

I probably would have never sat down to play through Windwaker which was such a positive and uplifting experience that I now get the most relaxed and warm feeling in my heart when I see those blue waves.

There's so many experiences I would have left on the table in favor of like... putting more hours into a live service title or something.

Maybe, and no offense to my cousin or anyone else playing it, but maybe I'd be no-lifing World of Warcraft nonstop just stagnating my interest toward the skinner box mechanics of an MMO?

Some offense, actually but lightheartedly lol.

But beyond the entire games I've played for the blog, when I think retphienix I picture all the time making gifs, all those games I played on the PSP for short stints, buying a retron 5 to add to what I could explore and being stoked when they shipped a freebie box of old controllers to go with it, getting angry at the retron for being a Piece Of Shit lol, crying at the end of damn near every game with an emotional story because I'm a big emotional mess of a person who finds investing and crying at a story way too easy thanks to empathy pulls, oh!-

Getting excited whenever I found that I had a "*controversial*" opinion that no one would care about lol. Like the one that comes to mind is that I thoroughly believe that Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freeza!! for the NES is WAY better than the fandom recognized and appreciated sequel/remake Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyan!

How many people do you hear talking about either game, let alone saying the NES game that is roughly half of the SNES remake is the better one :P But I stand by that! The SNES one is a remake of DBZ1 and 2 for the NES but it loses all the charm and some of the fun of the NES ones by being a lackluster SNES game!

lol

I admitted wholeheartedly that this post would be a lit-

little directionless (gotta love the new tumblr poster making me break sentences like that), but to sum things up.

It's been 6 years. It's been an untold amount of work to be honest- liveblogging a game, at least for me, hasn't been the easiest thing. It's a lot of thinking out my thoughts (heh), it's a lot of learning tools to make the capturing process possible, it's a lot of experimenting, it's a lot of writing and editing, and, well, sometimes it's just tough.

I mean I went to school for coding, not video editing, not writing, not image processing, not this or that- but this hobby has introduced a lot of things even if only at a VERY base level (I admit fully to using online alternatives to make gifs for instance).

I learned a lot about, well, a lot of things in order to use this blog to learn more about games- and all that work has become part of why I've loved all 6 years of this blog.

6 years of gaming, work, and you all- and it's been worth the investment :) Here's to many more and all of you whether you stumble upon this post or not- literally anyone who's interacted in these 6 years, thank you, and anyone who hasn't I offer you well wishes as well.

<3

[idontwanttowhy]

Review: Holiday Love ホリデイラブ (2018)

A frustrating Fatal-Attraction-esque jdrama

Synopsis

Takamori Azu (Riisa Naka) has been leading a seemingly perfect life with her husband, Takamori Junpei (Takashi Tsukamoto) and their daughter Nanaka. However, her world crumbles when she is told that Junpei has been cheating on her with a part-time co-worker, Izutsu Rina (Matsumoto Marika)--by Rina's husband, Izutsu Wataru (Nakamura Tomoya) no less. To make matters worse, she discovers that Rina won't let go of Junpei and is doing everything in her power to destroy their relationship. A rollercoaster of betrayal, mistakes, and obsession ensues.

AC Overall: 8/10, be prepared to be mad

So this drama is about people being unfaithful in their marriages and the tolls that takes on themselves, their relationships, and their families--and ultimately how they dealt with it all. I was very frustrated throughout the drama, partially because of the cheating and partially because of how everything panned out. But what kept me watching was the mistress, Rina's, plans to be with Junpei, despite both his wife's efforts and her husband's efforts to separate them. Be prepared for Fatal Attraction-level obsession. Matsumoto Marika did a great job playing the obsessed, unstable mistress. Give it a watch for the mess of it all, from will-they-won't-they get back together drama and possible revenge cheating, to unhealthy obsessions and extreme ~moves~ because of it. Some of it was predictable, but the execution was creative at times. And it's pretty short, good for a binge.

AC Review (Spoilers, and very long)

Ngl, this drama had me Fuh-RUS-TRA-TED practically the whole time. Bc I 1) could not understand Junpei for cheating and 2) tbh still don't understand how and why Junpei had two women who wanted to be with him. But I digress. Actually no, this whole review is going to be a digression. First ep we see Junpei fucking some other woman and they talking about "I wish I had married you" and love and blah blah blah. Which makes it decidedly not an "I fucked up and my dick slipped" situation. Not that the latter is better bc they're both shit. Idk if it's better if someone "slips up" because of a lack of control, or a strong love towards someone else. Jury's still out. But Junpei whispered sweet-apparently-nothings into this woman's ear for a YEAR, and dead acted like nothing was going on at home. And then had Rina assed out in front of his wife and her husband talking about "I didn't say all that" like suuure want receipts? So ultimately everything was his damn fault. Anyway. My girl Azu, blessherheart, was completely blindsided when Rina's (very attractive though also very abusive but very attractive and why would you want Junpei over him but yeah he's abusive so I get it but if he wasn't then...) husband showed up with a beat-up Junpei talking 'bout "he's fucking my wife, what are we going to do?". And poor Nanaka! The children in both marriages suffered the most bc they really were just innocent bystanders who got caught up in the bull and will probably have some trauma because of it. Like Nanaka was such a happy spirit but got depressed when she lost all her friends! My heart really went out to her.

Anyway anyway. So my girl Azu did the right thing at first--had Junpei's ass sleeping in the car and everything, which I loved, and was determined to divorce him. But then she got tricked into (almost) sleeping with a Japanese Micheal Cera (simultaneously old- and young-looking somehow) by a client-like gurl. I was proud that she stopped it (and he didn't continue without consent) but like, her sister and best friend's response was like "how could you (almost) fuck a stranger" and I'm sitting here like "she was drunk? he was blackmailed into this? she thought she knew him at least a little? and she realized she didn't want to and didn't actually have sex with him? and where was this energy when they found out about Junpei??". And then the best friend proceeded to give shit advice, talking about "don't tell Junpei, it'll ruin his ego" when realistically, she shoulda just told him the minute she decided she wanted to be with him still (which I'll discuss later) bc they were split up at the time, and he did (arguably, though maybe not, still depends on the person's pov) worse. But no, he found out through the mistress (of course!) and thus put Azu in purgatory. Her flip in the decision to be with him again was because he had always been there...which I get (prob bc of my scorpio sun) but ughhh I wish she hadn't welcomed him back so easily. Like yeah, say you still want to be with him, sure, but make him sweat at least a little more? Make him beg? act different? idk. She made him feel too comfortable too quick, which made him feel more entitled to being upset about her and JMichael Cera talking about "I know I shouldn't be mad, kedo..." and making my girl Azu sad, which leads me to...

THE MISTRESS. with her baby voice. wtf. And Junpei couldn't keep his dick in his pants even after all the shit. I mean, they didn't fuck but dude was acting sus again around her, which was just more fodder for her in the end. (His only other female co-worker watching and knowing everything was me the whole time. Like, you dumb, dumb man). He was waaay too nice after all the shit, letting her into his dorm and letting her do him favors so he felt guilty and letting her try to talk him into leaving his wife. I was sooo mad that after all the mess, Junpei still didn't grow any balls to say to her, point-blank, "I'm not leaving my wife, please leave" until way too late for me. And she really, and i mean REALLY, went out of her way to get Azu to cheat and molded him like putty. I had no faith in Junpei. Throughout the whole thing. Dude is spineless. And...so was Wataru, but in the macho-man kind of way. Controlling to hide his insecurities. Violent for no reason (did we need the r. scene? fuck) But in the end, he was the one that caved the least when it came to the cheating, trying to figure out what happened, and taking concrete steps rather than the wishy-washy moves Azu and Junpei were making. And then he grew as a father after kicking Rina out, because then he spent time with the kids (after his mom said she had a life lol) and they ultimately chose him in Tokyo which was super interesting and redeeming...wait wait wait but he was still very abusive and there is no excuse for that. I really had to stop myself--whenever he wasn't yelling at grown ass adults and breaking shit--from thinking that he was a good person. The struggle. But this man really said everyone's dumb, and I low-key agree. I could understand him the most (though it doesn't excuse anything, ik ik). But I would've changed the locks too.

We gotta talk about the best friend too. I watched on viki with the comments, so throughout the show people were like "oh they should be together" and shit, which had me kinda tight because I really appreciate when shows allow for platonic friendship between a cishet- man and woman? Esp without one professing their ever-present love to the other. Dude gave shit advice but ultimately was the only one thinking straight and suspecting Rina was behind it all. And then actually doing the groundwork to prove it. And he sent her new clients when the news of the affair broke and everything. And and he had Nanaka's approval. Honestly there wasn't anything to dislike (except the shit advice...).

The ending tho, was the kicker. Homegirl put on a whole play for the company and really sought to end his life. I expected something, bc how could someone as obsessed as she was just back off? (and he deserved it bc Junpei didn't sacrifice enough for me, got around everyone knowing about his affair but had his wife's business out on the street, didn't have to lose his job like he was supposed to, etc...) but I didn't expect a performance. The flair. A1.

This show didn't necessarily have me gasping (except for that scene)--more like "wow I saw that coming but wow they really did that". Good stuff. And I learned that in Japan if a spouse cheats or otherwise does something that's cause for divorce, they have to pay a compensation fee! Wild.

If you made it to the end of this rant, I appreciate you ;

[mrsbhandari]

Artsy as Fuck - Graphite

A/N: Hello!! its been a whole ass brick since I updated this but ive been writing a lot of anime shit and just couldn’t think of anything for this but then I got an idea!! so yeah I hope you like it!!

Word Count: 

Warnings: language, NSFW for the first few paragraphs but after that its kind of angsty?? a lil bit. idk how to write angst so idk if it even counts lmao

Summary: Colt and Roze refuse to confront feelings that arose after their...eventful morning. 

Tag list: 1530

@omgjasminesimone, @edgiestwinter, @bucketofsoup, @donutsgirl36, @desireepow-1986, @lovehugsandcandy, @troublemakerinspace, @client-327

Masterlist

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The steam of the shower was only adding to the clouding of his mind as his hands ran down Roze’s sides, making her shiver despite the heat of the water. 

“To be clear--oh--This means nothing,” she said, moaning as his lips attached to her neck and added to the hickeys there. Colt felt a twinge of sadness, but he didn’t know about what. She moved her hands up to his shoulders and he forgot completely.

“Mhmm.”

“Seriously, Colt, this is just to...relieve tension.”

“Mhmm.”

“Colt, pay atten--oh, yes.” Colt cut her off with a swift bite to the junction of her shoulder and her neck as well as a finger brushing her entrance, sufficiently lubricated from a combination of her own slick and the water. He easily slid two fingers into her, letting a gasp reverberate in the shower as he pressed against her sweet spot. Instantly, her grip tightened on his biceps, tough beneath her touch. Nails embedded themselves into his skin, sure to leave crescent bruises visible when he posed for her class in 20 minutes. 

Remembering his job, Colt quickened his fingers, relishing Roze’s loud gasps against his shoulder as they pressed their chests together. This may just be for ‘tension relieving,’ but damn was it good. Her orgasm hit her and his arm snaked around her waist, holding her up and against him while she moaned in his ear. She rode out her orgasm for a few more seconds before weakly grabbing his wrist and pulling his fingers out, catching her breath as the water cascaded down her back. Pulling away, she rested her hands on Colt’s shoulders, partially to hold herself up and partially to watch him as he raised his fingers to his lips, cleaning them with a long tongue while keeping eye contact with her.

“Delicious.”

“You’re so annoying,” she breathed out, cool facade broken by hitched breaths.

“At least I’m good at fucking, though, right?”

Her mouth barely quirked to a smile before falling back into her neutral pout. She stepped out of the shower without a word. 

“Right?!”

---------------------------------------------------------

It was not the right time to wear a tank top, yet it was all she had. She had thought about asking Colt to borrow one of his shirts, but that seemed too...intimate. For their situation. That’s what she told herself. Secretly, Roze cursed the hot LA weather as well as her expectation that she wasn’t going to do anything with Colt when she met up with him at the garage. 

In all honesty, she knew that sex with Colt was a game-changer--especially sex that good. With sex, there were so many emotions swirling around, ripe for the taking, that it seemed impossible not to fall for him. That stupid smile when he caught her staring, the way his eyes roll back when he came, the dark look in his eye when she got too lippy with him; they all added up to extend the emotions of that heavenly hour into a full-blown relationship, which is not what she needed. Especially with Colt. He agreed. It had been ten minutes since they left the garage, yet she was already thinking about the possibility of next time with him. Internally, she cursed herself again for saying that it meant nothing. But he agreed. 

She ignored the pang of disappointment that found its way into her heart despite her best efforts to separate her feelings from this little...predicament she found herself in. How am I supposed to fake date a person I keep feeling things for? Especially when he’s only using me to avoid a girl.

Said girl walked into the studio, giving Roze and her mosaic of bruises a major side-eye and eye roll. Ingrid’s eyes traveled to Colt, knowing that he should have marks as well, and scoffed at the deep red of the scratches along his shoulders, revealed by his wife beater and clean overalls that were folded over at the waist, much like how it was at the garage. Ingrid couldn’t deny that he looked like he should be June’s picture in a calendar, but she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of knowing she thought that. 

“Did you have to wear that here?” Roze playfully tugged on one of the sleeves tied around his waist. He was leaning over her easel, looking down at her from where his chin was resting on the wood. 

“Professor told me to wear something and layer it. I’m a mechanic, not a designer.” In reality, the comment about his clothes did hurt him a little, even if it wasn’t meant seriously. He didn’t look as stylish as most of the people in the class, and he definitely didn’t look cool or rich enough to be Roze’s boyfriend. She always looked fresh from an expensive magazine to him; he thought he looked like the search results for ‘mechanic’ at the Spirit Halloween website. He smiled a little at the thought and decided it was a problem to confront another day.

“Well, Kaneko, right now you’re a model.” Roze calling him by his last name only made the memories from an hour ago, already fresh, rush back into his mind. She sent him a smirk that let him know she knew what she made him think about. Their conversation was cut short by more students arriving for the class, prompting Colt to step up on the podium and strike a pose for the class, making sure to drape his clothing in a way they could draw to show the clothing. He felt a little bit more confident in himself with his girlfriend calling him a model, but he tried to keep his face neutral. 

He stood for hours on the podium, but he certainly couldn’t complain as he was standing directly in front of Roze who, in between actually drawing him, spent more of the time making silly faces to get him to laugh and break his resolve. His girlfriend was so cute. 

Except she’s not. The thought hit him like a bag of bricks. This is temporary. You fucked and she said it didn’t mean anything. And why should it? She’s a cool art student, going places. You’re stuck here with no direction. Better to get that through your head now rather than later. This is all fake. His face turned pensive as he stood there, ignoring her cross-eyes in her most recent attempt to make him break. She’s probably just acting to make this whole thing more believable, he reasoned, pushing all thoughts of a real relationship out of his head. Suddenly, all he wanted was for the class to be over. 

His wish was soon granted by the professor clapping his hands together and announcing the class’ end. Before he could leave, Roze gathered her stuff and approached him, wary of the watchful eye Ingrid was casting over them to catch any slip-ups that would indicate any reason to believe that something was amiss.

“Wanna go to lunch? My pick today.” She sent him a sweet smile that he couldn’t help but melt at the sight of. Fuck. Don’t think it means anything. He gave a curt nod and a tight smile in response, ignoring the concern that clouded her eyes. This means nothing.

---------------------------------------------------------

“I’ll pay.” Colt’s eyes flitted to hers across the fancy table as she handed a stack of bills to the waiter, telling him to keep the change as a tip. Colt didn’t want to say that he felt emasculated by Roze paying, because he was perfectly fine with that aspect of it. He did, however, feel poor. Here he was in this nice restaurant (cloth napkins and a mini chandelier for every table? Bougie.) in overalls, trying to brush off the pitying looks that kept getting sent Roze’s way as she sat with him and paid for him with cash. 

They must think it’s a gender-bent Pretty Woman situation. The demons in his head laughed at him, boiling his blood and stirring the pot of deprecating thoughts swirling around his mind. I’m not a charity case. Roze seemed to notice his sudden change in attitude but decided to say nothing about it. 

“How was your risotto?”

“Good.”

“And your chicken?”

“Fine. Little dry.”

“Oh, mine tasted great.”

“Congrats.”

“Ok, fuckwad.” She slammed her cutlery down on her plate and leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table to carry her head on her interlocked fingers. “What’s with you?”

He feigned disinterest. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You were fine this morning and through class, but then you just...shut down.”

“I don’t know why you would care. It’s not like we’re dating or anything.” Colt didn’t know what the fuck he was saying. 

“Are you always this angsty?” The comment surprised him and he looked over to find Roze with her head cocked and an amused shine in her eyes. The sight made one part of him sweat and the other scoff. 

“Why did you bring me here, Roze?”

“I like it here,” she answered without missing a beat. 

“Why?”

“Why are you asking?”

“I want to know.”

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

Lets debunk the BS from this. Up top a lot of this BS comes from Bob Chipman/MovieBob who is the guy who if you recall said:

-         Superheroes like Superman (and thus by extension Spider-Man who marry civilians were jerks for putting their spouses through the same stuff soldiers’ spouses go through

-         Spider-Man appeals best to teens (even though he provably doesn’t since most people get into him before their teens and he appealed to college students in his heyday)

-         The Spider-Marriage was nothing more than a forced publicity stunt

-         Sins Past is worse than OMD

-         Spider-Man is about passive aggressive power

-         And the best one, ever since OMD Peter and MJ had become ‘more interesting’

That all being said lets dive into this:

Someone asked the panel what a queer reading would add to the character of Miles…Jesus…that’s just the greatest sign of hope for this podcast isn’t it? Shoot me now…

Miles was not 3 dimensional when he was created. Even if you disagree it is nonsense to say that Peter wasn’t  three dimensional when he was first created. Just look at how much Stan explored Peter’s psychology in this singular panel from ASM #50

Look at that. Peter Parker pulled between the two sides of his life. Making a judgement of someone. But then calling out his own judgement of them and acknowledging maybe he’s in the wrong.

This was 1967!

That isn’t three dimensional?

Additionally other people would disagree that Peter wasn’t three dimensional early on.

And even if you disagree with that it’s nonsense to say he hasn’t SINCE become three dimensional or that retaining his origin story (which Miles broadly uses as the basis for his story in every version of his character) somehow holds him back from being three dimensional. If nothing else Peter was at least multifaceted for the time period.

Spider-Man wasn’t an example of stories about a 15 year old made for 7 year olds. Spider-Man was intended to be a senior in AF #15 and the stories were written by Stan for at worst an older audience but at best basically just for him.

Stan Lee confirmed that AF #15 was written not as a one off but as something that if successful COULD become an on-going series.

Its BS to say Peter makes no sense as a character because he makes sense about as much as any character within the confines of the superhero genre can. MILES doesn’t somehow make more sense whatsoever.

No. Spider-Man wasn’t merely a thrown together ‘hey here is a teenage superhero story with a downer ending’ it was a story about selfishness, responsibility and appealed via it’s relative normalcy and lack of idealization of the superhero protagonist.

The psychology and thematic idea of his exclusive powers (invisibility+venom blast) is the same…how? How is disappearing and repelling people the same thing? They keep saying that in the podcast as though it’s obvious and it’s really not

Great Power=Great responsibility isn’t Peter’s catch phrase it’s the philosophy underpinning everything he does

‘The young end millennials have been thrown under the bus by society so the optimism is reserved for the young end millenials like Miles and Gwen’ oh but also ‘you need 5-10 years added to each character to have this make sense and also Spide-Ham doesn’t quit fit’…So…the theory doesn’t  make sense then does it. Also, what optimism is there for teen millenials in the late 2010s? We are all shit scared Global warming needs to be fixed within the next 10-20 years. The young end millenials will not be in much of a position to do that. Maybe not the high-end millenials either. The power rests in older Gen Xers or even older generations. So this ‘generational’ theory is bullshit. Yeah, Miles as the next generation maybe makes sense but not when you apply real world concepts of who the different generations are. Especially considering that’s made up bullshit anyway.

‘Blah blah blah for most of my life I’ve been uninterested in Spider-Man because I’ve believed him to be WHITE MALE teenaged wish fulfilment.’…*internally groans*…oh boy…this woman is one of those  types huh. Frankly I, and I would advocate others too, take a salt shaker with them whenever they hear someone say something like this. But more importantly Spider-Man is seriously NOT what she describes. For starters Peter was a senior in high school when he began and shouldered adult responsibilities when his father died. That’s wish fulfilment? That’s a BURDEN. The reason that spoke to so many people was because he was just different and because his imperfections made him more relatable. The whiteness idea is also bullshit since he was intentionally or otherwise subtextually Jewish and has spoken to countless people of all colours across the generations. He very particularly has a HUGE following among African Americans which was partially what prompted the creation of Miles Morals in the first place!  Shit, the showrunner for the 1994 Spider-Man cartoon was black for God’s sake. Many of the head honcho creators for ITSV were people of colour who were clearly MASSIVE Spider-Man fans!

‘As a woman Spider-Man didn’t resonate with me’. Spider-Man is male. And he acts in ways a male would in the context of the situations. But the character as a whole, in his deepest themes and concepts, is a universal character. He does and has spoken to people across race, gender, sex, sexuality, class, culture and generations. Spider-Girl, Mayday Parker, was her father’s daughter and far more similar than different to him. She spoke to male and female readers. Peter Parker himself has had female fans since his inception. There is no end of female fans here on tumblr or in other online spaces that are the proof of this, to say nothing of old letters pages.

Miles feels more like a real kid and fits together better than most other versions of Peter Parker?...how? I don’t like USM the comic but hwo the fuck do you take that, Spec Spidey, the 1994 cartoon and the Raimi movies (that MovieBob adores btw) and say ‘it doesn’t fit together properly like Miles’. Dude, Comic Book Miles Morales is a teenager in New York who goes to a bordering school for scientifically gifted kids and yet is supposed to be an everyman. That fits together well? He risked his life before  being motivated to do so which is how most 13 year old woudn’t  have acted. Then he feels guilty about Peter dying but his BFF explains it’s not his fault and he accepts this but then goes on to become Spider-Man anyway. And somehow this equates to guilt+responsibility. THAT’s better put together? His character got web-shooters two different ways by the same writer and the guy he was a legacy to was resurrected within like 3 years of Miles’ debut. That’s well put together? This makes more sense and is more believable than a kid who’s Dad dies because he didn’t use his gifts altruistically, so he spends his whole life striving to use them altruistically?

Blah blah blah MovieBob spewing more shit about how Peter is a teenage wish fulfilment power fantasy even though he clearly isn’t from a modern POV and REALLY wasn’t in the early 1960s.

By extension arguing Peter is an adult male’s retroactive teenaged wish fulfilment fantasy of working stuff out is so plainly wrong. Peter Parker in the early 1960s didn’t have everything figured out. The whole world was against him totally unfairly. He needed Aunt May or the Human Torch at times to give him pep talks. His social life was barely existent! You wanna see a middle aged man’s retroactive young wish fulfilment fantasy? Go read Brand New Day, which MovieBob claims was superior to the pre-OMD era. What is the wish fulfilment here? That attractive young women like him? Is that it? That one thing vs. all the horrible shit beating Peter down?

Bob claims there was a lot more Steve Ditko in the early issues of his run compared to Stan Lee because Peter was very angry. First of all Ditko was such a private person claiming he was definitely angry and that the anger was all him is a MASSIVE speculation. Especially considering Stan wrote Spidey as angry plenty after Ditko left. More importantly, Peter wasn’t  angry in the early Ditko issues except for maybe issue #8. He had his moments sure, but it wasn’t at all consistent. He wasn’t raging out or smashing shit like he did later  in Ditko’s run. He was more anxious and neurotic in those early issues which is comparatively closer to how Stan and Romita handled Peter in their earliest issues together. Peter and the whole world of Spidey got angrier towards the end  of Ditko’s run. You know when Stan was letting Steve plot stuff more and more…It’s almost like Bob is full of shit or something

Bob tries to claim by the time ITSV was being written the kinks in Miles’ character had been worked out in the comics. Nah fam. If anything they’d been exacerbated. In reality it was the ITSV writers who took the wonky early Miles character and worked out those kinks themselves, creating an overall superior rendition of the character. A viewpoint I am not alone in.

‘The Prowler has never been a particularly noteworthy villain in the comics’ That’s because he’s not  a villain. He was kind of a villain in his debut but he very quickly became an ally to Spidey

The panel then get into a very pretentious discussion about how ITSV preaches you arne’t stapled to your origin, you are not your trauma. That claiming that is pretentious ala Zack Snyder. But like…isn’t that the POINT of super hero origins? That they contextualize everything about the heroes thereafter? Isn’t carrying his trauma with everything they do practically the point of Batman and Spider-Man’s origins; you know the 2 most popular heroes? Uncle Ben’s death IS stapled to Spider-Man because it underlines everything he ever does. Shit it doesn’t even make sense when applied to Miles in ITSV. He does what he does because his Spider-Man died and then so did his uncle. There is even a whole scene in his dorm room where each Spider-Hero relays the grief that shaped their own lives. I’m not saying you need death and tragedy to be Spider-Man. But that’s neither a bad thing nor something that ISN’T applicable to Peter nor ITSV Miles. Aren’t these idiots supposed to be film buffs? How do you screw up such a basic reading like that?

One of the pundits claimed the movie preaches acting heroically in spite of your tragedies not because of them. Again though…that’ not Spider-Man. Peter is a hero specifically because his uncle died. Miles endeavours to become Spider-Man because his Peter died. His Uncle Aaron’s death further fuels him and allows him to make to final leap of faith. Yes, Peter B. continues to be a hero in spite of his failings but it is only his experiences with Miles that make that possible.

‘They don’t need the tragedies to be heroic they are already heroic in their own right. Look, I don’t disagree with that more broadly. Mayday Parker didn’t need tragedy to be a hero. But in terms of the specific characters in this movie? That’s clearly not true:

This whole ‘in spite of tragedy’ shit is so pre-Marvel DC comics it hurts. Heroes who just innately do the right thing because it is the right thing to do is a dated and archaic invention Spidey and the other Marvel heroes were reacting against.

‘Spider-Man Noir detracted from the film’s message of diversity because he was a brooding WHITE MAN who prowled the night to enact fist based justice!!!!’ Do I even need to say anything to that? First of all literally every hero in the movie enacts fist based justice. Why does Noir operating at night make him worse than Peter B? Why does him being male make that worse than Peni or Gwen? Why does him being white make that worse than Miles or Peni? And as for detracting from the message of diversity, shockingly diversity can be found within the same ethnic or gender group. You know white/male people aren’t a monolith and all that. Plus creatively you want PERSONALITY diversity more than anything else. In this movie in particular you want shorthand conceptual differences too. ‘Spider-Man but an anime mech girl’ ‘Spider-Man but a noir character’. ‘Spider-Man but a cartoon pig’. This is how asinine this disgusting modern day mentality is.

Wow…MovieBob defending Noir from the asinine comment. I’m genuinely surprised. Too bad he doesn’t use the most obvious defence of ‘that is obviously a ridiculous statement to make you moron’

The next topic of discussion was related to Marvel moving away from Gwen as Spider-Man’s dead girlfriend. I spoke a lot about Bob’s ice cold take on that in this post.

He claims they introduced Spider-Gwen because the idea would be taboo and thus would get people talking. HA! Spider-Gwen was done as just a general idea not something to spark controversy. It wouldn’t even BE controversial. Marvel brought back a version of Gwen within 2 years of her death. They brought her back again 15 years after her death. They brought her back again 22 years after her death along with other versions who melted because it was the Clone Saga. During and after all those times they had AUs of Gwen in What If, Age of Apocalypse, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane and other such stuff. An explicitly AU of Gwen Stacy in 2014 was one of the most aggressively uncontroversial  things you could do.

Gwen’s ballet shoes differentiate her from every other Spider-Man ever. I mean yes in terms of being a dancer I suppose but in terms of being dedicated and studious, training hard and earning immense physical control? There have been plenty of versions of Spider-Man pre-2018 who are like that.

The only way you can make Spider-Gwen work going forward is by not tying it to her death in the canon? Boy…too God damn bad her debut and origin is entirely built upon that. Her origin in the comics and in the movies is built  upon a role reversal because it is Peter who dies to motivate her. Film audiences would’ve still grasped that role reversal because it was only 4 years ago Emma Stone’s highly popular rendition of the character died. And that was in the last pre-MCU Spider-Man movie to boot!

‘The only Iron Man story anyone cared about was Demon in a Bottle’ Actually they only cared about that story and Armor Wars. But yeah, the MCU version is lesser for neither having his alcoholism nor a crippling heart condition. The mere fact people became complacent about that doesn’t mean it wasn’t reductive.

‘These are fictional characters they need to grow and change with the times to remain popular’ Gwen Stacy sucked shit in the 1960s-1970s and was then killed off and defined by her death. Somehow she still  wound up becoming a fan favourite by the 90s and 21st century. Spider-Gwen sucks as a character but not in concept. I never had a problem with the concept. But the idea that she needed to exist to keep Gwen popular is bullshit because Gwen had somehow become immensely popular in spite of being a nothing character. And that even presumes anyone needed to perform maintenance on Gwen to keep her popular. No we didn’t. She was an irrelevant character beyond her death. It’s like saying we need to change Uncle Ben or Bruce’s parents to keep them popular.

Gwen’s affect on Peter Parker was important for awhile but we aren’t that society anymore. It’s not a fucking societal concern!  Putting aside how a 2014 movie did Gwen’s death just a few years before ITSV, Gwen’s death is about a universal human experience.  Death, grief, moving on. Oh, I see. This halfwit mistakenly believes Gwen is an example of women in the refrigerator.

Gwen died because Peter had this perfect lovely girlfriend and everything was too great for him and they didn’t know how to write beyond that. An oversimplification. Gwen died because they needed to shake things up for sales in general. Because Conway shipped Peter with MJ. And a 20 year old Spidey in 1973 really was too young to be killed off. Oh and you know she was written like shit. Yeah that’s the part no one ever talks about. Gwen is played up as this underserving victim of a character but she sucked shit.

It’s almost the 2020s! So fucking what? People still lose loved ones in the 2020s? I’m not even saying Spider-Gwen should have died in ITSV or revolved around her counterpart dying. I’m saying this dumbass is wrong for bringing it up as though killing Gwen off is dated on principle. But this is the same moron who unironically said ‘I never connected to Spider-Man because he is a teenaged white male wish fulfilment fantasy’. I’m sure she got top marks in her gender studies class

‘sOme PpL nEEd 2 gEt oVa iTTTTTTT’ I genuinely wish this person would wake up mute someday.

‘We could do a whole movie about Spider-Gwen’. I don’t respect where this opinion is coming from but I don’t necesarilly disag- ‘Get Seanen Maguire to write it’…nevermind. This gets even worse when you consider Maguire had only been writing Gwen for literally 3 issues at the time this podcast was released. Of the back of three issues  you are declaring this writer qualified to write an entire movie about the character? Not even Jason Latour who created her. I smell someone who just jumped on the bandwagon or worse is blinded by agenda and ideology.

‘Gwen could’ve done with 5 more minutes’ It’s not her movie!  It’s Miles’ movie and secondarily Peter B’s movie because he is Miles mentor. It is through their mutual relationship that Miles learns to be Spider-Man and Peter learns to be Spider-Man again.

It never made sense for an 80 year old woman to be raising a 16 year old boy! Aunt May in the 1960s wasn’t in her 80s. She just looked that way because, duh, standards of health were different back then. A 40 year old now looks much younger and in better health than someone who potentially might’ve been born in the 19th century circa 1962! A working class  woman no less…With chronic health problems! Even if she was in her mid-late 50s her looking like that was totally believable in context! And her raising Peter was also entirely believable depending upon how old Ben and May were when Richard and Mary were born. It’s not beyond possibility at all that there was 15-20 years separating Ben and his younger brother, meaning if Peter was born when Richard was 25, Ben and May would’ve been in their 40s. Thus by the time Peter was 15 they’d be in their 50s or 60s.

These idiots keep treating Peter from Miles’ universe as a bona fide version of 616 Peter when it’s blindingly obvious he’s supposed to be an idealized rendition of the character. A version intended to be a juxtaposition to the version we all know walking into the movie.

Peter B. Parker having a more traditional version of Aunt May as opposed to a more proactive and involved version has left him with a sense of giving up. Er…no. It’s pretty obvious Peter B. Parker is the Spider-Man we know and love who normally doesn’t give up but one string of failures after another has brought him to his lowest. But he rises back up again. Look Peter is supposed to be a representation of human beings. Human beings need people and need emotional support. When you lose those people and are alone you can go to a very dark place. That’s Peter B’s story. If Aunt May had been more involved but everything else went wrong (including her death) he’d have still wound up in the dark place he went to. Blonde Peter might’ve weathered May’s death better in theory but he had OTHER stuff in his life to keep him afloat. Peter B lost most everything. What horseshit it is to argue if Aunt May was different he’d have not given up.

There was no purpose for Aunt May being as old as she was or on the cusp of death in the original comics. Er…yeah there was. She was that old because it made her more vulnerable and thus accentuated the loss of her husband and the need for Peter to be her support network. It also internally justified why she was so frail and unwell. Old people usually have health problems. Duh! But then Bob admits there is a reason for those decisions. So he is contradicting himself.

Bob presumes Blonde Peter told Aunt May his secret even though there is no evidence in the movie to support that idea.

Kids today aren’t resentful of their grandparents like older generations were, that’s why Aunt May is played differently now. Um…Peter was never resentful of Aunt May in the first place. He sincerely loved her and felt he needed to pay her back for all she’d done for him.

‘Kids today have cool grandparents because 50% of them would have been hippies.’ Hippies aren’t cool. And never were. They were pretentious losers that hid behind causes as an excuse to do drugs and have lots of sex. Over half a century later the world they claimed to fight for and want to build has yet to materialise and in fact is in a lot of ways far worse off than it was before their generation rose to the seats of power. The hippy generation are part of the baby boomer generation that are so thoroughly mocked today. The people in power who’ve fucked up the job and housing market for consequent generations. These idiots literally spouted a dumbass theory earlier on about how first wave millenials have been thrown under the bus. Who do you think did that? The baby boomers, many of whom used  to be hippies! And NONE of this demands Aunt May has to be different. I have no problem with her being different in ITSV. But the idea of someone who used to be a hippy being doting? Being a worry wart? Why the Hell is that a dated concept?

These idiots clearly view the world aggressively through an identitarian and group weighted lens as opposed to how the world really is. I.e. 7 billion+ individuals

There was a weird amount of focus upon gangsters in the Spec Spidey cartoon considering it was for kids. Not really, the show was reverential of the original comics. The original comics (which were for children) had lots of gangsters

To the people who bitch and moan about getting another Spider-Man it doesn’t take away from the one you had before. No one was complaining about Miles as another Spider-Man in this movie. People weren’t claiming it ruins the Raimi movies or something. People resent it in the comics because it waters down the brand and makes Spider-Man himself less special when he is an ONGOING character. It’d be one thing maybe if the torch was passed from person to person. But nowadays it’s literally all of them co-existing.

Blah blah bah symbolism of a young black boy fighting a big WHITE business MAN. Blah blah blah this is the type of bad guy Miles would fight in real life blah blah blah…Jesus Christ… these people really just buy that type of Kool-aid in bulk don’t they? As if Miles, were he ‘real’ wouldn’t fight anyone who’s doing bad things. FFS they just got done talking about Tombstone from the Spec cartoon. Tombstone is an African American!  And he’s in this fucking movie. He’s not some weird fantastical guy, he’s a regular gangster who happens to be albino. That’s it. Miles fights him in this fucking movie! Miles first major adversary in the comics was the Prowler who was another African American. Miles wouldn’t JUST fight ‘evil white businessMEN’

‘As far as I know about Doc Ock from Superior Spider-Man, which is excellent’ Wow. So, as would be obvious with anyone with a working brain and some prior knowledge of Otto, Superior is garbage. And saying you are basing your assessments of Otto on Superior is like saying you have never known about the character

Doc Ock is in so many Spidey stories as a scientific assistant to other people because the Green Goblin is always either dead or completely untrustworthy. Bob really just said that huh? This is further proof Bob has read precious little Spider-Man material. Doc Ock is NOBODY’s assistant. Even in Secret Wars he had to be threatened into compliance by Doom himself when Ultron was his attack dog. Doc Ock isn’t recruited by other people for his genius, he is the mover and shaker. He recruits other people and is the man in charge. And who the fuck is looking to get the help of Norman Osborn because he’s a scientist? Not to mention Norman is untrustworthy, oh but Otto?????????? The guy who tried to nuke NYC???????? WTF is Bob talking about?

Since we are in the ‘age of heroes’ (whatever THAT means?) it is impossible for Spider-Man to not be mentored by some other hero. Er…yeah it is? This is obviously a defence of MCU Spider-Man and it holds no water. First of all DC and Marvel have had young heroes show up when there are a plethora of heroes around they’ve not had mentors. Second of all it’s entirely possible for Peter to not WANT a mentor and it’d be entirely believable that the other heroes might not see themselves as mentors or might mistrust him.

The Spider-Heroes take their grief and turn it into action. WHOA WHOA WHOA! Didn’t these guys say earlier that the movie preaches the heroes are more than their trauma? That they aren’t stapled to their origins? That they move on from it? What’s this change of tune all of a sudden?

Miles Dad was probably made into a cop to avoid having a difficult discussion about how the police would react to a black super hero or a black Spider-Man. Yeah, or it’s because you know…his Dad worked in law enforcement in the comics so you know…faithfulness. Also the police don’t discriminate against black heroes in the MCU except Luke Cage. Also, also not every fucking cop is racist. Also, also, also how would they know Miles is black his costume covers his whole body!

Miles Dad was super authoritarian. Dude. He didn’t like vigilantes and he followed basic rules like stopping not abusing police sirens. That’s hardly akin to being a jackbooted fascist.

Miles would’ve had a different relationship with authority and the police if his Dad hadn’t been a cop. Er…no not necessarily. First of all being the son of a cop doesn’t mean he’d have not experienced institutionalized racism from the police. Second of all even if he had experienced that he could still believe in justice and taking down obviously evil and dangerous people like Kingpin.

They never touched upon institutional racism from the police in Luke Cage which was for adults. Er, yes they did. The rapper in the later episodes of season 1 (the Bulletproof Love guy) stated he wasn’t going to call the police. The police were stopping and searching black men in their hunt for Cage. Black people wore shirts with holes in them in order to protect Cage and defy the cops. The rap mentioned how nobody was interested in protecting their neighbourhood.

Nobody wants the tell a superhero story about institutional racism within the authorities. Isn’t that literally Luke Cage’s origin? Didn’t Black Panther mention that earlier in the year ITSV was released.

I’m going to disagree that Miles fighting Kingpin was unnecessary because of the cultural connotations we talked about….God…You couldn’t just say ‘the main hero obviously has to defeat the main villain. Duh!’…

Dan Slott is a dang genius! As if you needed more proof these people are unqualified  to talk about Spider-Man…

Spider-Verse’s (the comic’s) fan service is what happens when you get Spider-Man fans to do the story vs. ITSV. Nah fam. ITSV is what happens when you get real fans who are talented  vs. Spider-Verse is what happens when you get a real fan who fundamentally misunderstands the characters and is a hack

There is no real Peter Parker. Who cares! The real Peter Parker is the original because he is the one everyone else is derivative of and therefore based upon. And fans AND creators and Marvel itself clearly care about that because they sure as fuck didn’t kill him  off so Miles could replace him. They killed off the secondary and surplus Ultimate Peter Parker. Treating the original version as the true  one doesn’t invalidate any other versions because they can still be great characters unto themselves. But given how disgustingly SJW this whole podcast has been I am unsurprised they go in for this participation trophy form of analysis where everything is equal all the time.

It also doesn’t invalidate the idea of Spider-Man being anyone. Spider-Man CAN be anyone. But not everyone can be Peter Parker. If we are going to say otherwise the praise these jackoffs lauded onto Miles for how his specific identity was explored is invalidated. Peter is Peter. Miles is Miles. They can both be Spider-Heroes worthy of the mantle.

Because Miles is a POC people who don’t look like Peter can believe they can be Spider-Man. I’m not arguing against Miles but seriously, that was the case before Miles existed. The showrunner of Spider-Man 1994 was an African American and he related to Peter Parker in the 1960s. Poc can relate to Spider-Man regardless of skin colour.

The original comic book version of Spider-Man isn’t the true one just because he is the original. Er….yeah. It seriously does precisely BECAUSE he is the version all the other ones are derivative of. Hence he’s from the PRIME universe. Shit the Spider-Verse comic book the movie takes mild inspiration from literally says that. Granted it then contradicts itself but the point still stands. Because he is the original one he IS the true one because without him the others would not exist. He is the canonical one!

The true 616 Spider-Man will never be in any adaptation because there is too much continuity…Yeah…so? How does that make him not  the original one in the broad context though when you compare every version?

Continuity is the killer of enjoyment when it comes to movies. No, this podcast is the killer of enjoyment. And btw, maybe ask all the people who went to see Infinity War earlier in the year ITSV was released and ask them if continuity ruined that movie for them. This is such a lazy, myopic attitude.

If continuity is used to exclude people it is bad. Good job nobody was ever saying ITSV shouldn’t exist because Miles isn’t Peter then

Infinity War is a fine movie even if you do not know who everybody is. No it isn’t. Infinity War is wholly inaccessible if you do not know who everyone is because it’s throwing dozens of characters at you with little-no context provided.

Black Panther is better than Infinity War, this proves continuity is bad. No. Black Panther not having to have it’s story wrapped up in everything else in the wider universe was what helped make it better. FFS, Winter Soldier is better than Avengers 2012 and that still relies upon plenty of continuity. Civil War is better than Thor the Dark World and the latter has way less continuity than the former. It’s not about having continuity it’s about how you use it. Black Panther was world building in it’s own corner. It wasn’t plugged in so directly to the wider universe the way Homecoming or FFH was. THAT’s what made it good but that’s not a continuity issue that’s a world building issue.

Continuity is toxic when you use it to claim a long running fantasy series didn’t satisfy you. Uh huh, hey do you wanna ask all the people who hated Game of Thrones’ final season that?

Oh, and one of the pundits, the one who bleeted on about Spidey as a ‘tEEnAgE WHITE mAle wish fUlLfiLmEnt fantasy!’ is a Hollywood actress. Now her views make waaaaaaaaaay too much sense

In conclusion…Sigh…For a podcast called School of Movies I think these guys need to go back to kindergarten.