#act 5 is where the plot really gets chugging

[davestriderascend]

the homestuck reread pt 2

this is a continuation of this post, where i recap my reread of acts 1-4. in this post, ill be focusing on just act 5, bc its literally like the length of 1-4 all on its own. act 5 started in 2010 and finished in 2011- it took about a year to make! act 1 started in 2009, meaning that this one act took the same amount of time to finish as the previous 4 acts!

act five is split into two acts, or "bifurcated." the curtains are red and blue, the act is neatly split into two plots, and we are introduced to the best and most important troll- sollux (jk). anyway bc of this i will also be splitting my recap into subacts, and then talking about the act as a whole!

Act 5 Act 1 - AKA, Hivebent

a5a1 is the act where we are finally, officially, introduced to the trolls. a5a1 is fast-paced, text-heavy, and made with the intention to summarize the trolls session as quickly as possible. its hussies way of catching us up on the trolls backstory, the plot relevant info from their session, and the midnight crew + felts role in sgrub (w implications for how that impacts the kids sburb session). were introduced to doc scratch, and we learn a lot more about the paradoxical nature of sburb/sgrub. thats pretty much the whole subact! while this act was coming out, toby fox released his solo album alternia, and a bunch of ppl collabed on a squiddles album!

The Plot

im going to mix it up a little and start w the plot this time. the plot of hivebent was fastpaced and crammed a lot of things into one subact. if you recall anything from hs that happened before the trolls were on the meteor, chances are it all happened in this act! the purpose of this subact was very obviously just to set up for the following subact, and i noticed a lot of people complained about the pacing on the formspring (were still on the first one, btw). personally, i understood immediately what hussie was doing, so it didnt really bother me at all.

the trolls session was brief, largely bc unlike the kids, they were all already familiar w violence and weapons and frankly overprepared for their session. they breezed through the quests and bosses, and without even godtiering (except vriska) they all managed to beat an extremely overpowered black king that had been prototyped 12 times, one of which was w feferis monster horrorterror lusus. aradia largely played jades roll in setting up the whole session, following nudges from mysterious sources to discover the ruins, get sollux to create the game, and push all of her friends into playing it. hivebent ends with the end of their session and their new fate on the meteor.

The Characters

karkat, obviously, is one of the main characters in hivebent. hes ornery and obsessed with leadership, and he fights with everyone all the time. however, we still see a lot of moments where he genuinely connects with even the most insufferable people, regularly giving all of his friends the benefit of the doubt and offering compassion every time the need arises. in a5a2, vriska credits him for being the reason why the trolls didnt devolve into competitive murder. while he might not have been the best leader, he was genuinely really good at keeping the team together, even when the thing uniting them was just bitching about his obnoxious memos. like dave, karkat was one of my favorites on my first readthrough, and like dave, hes been a lot less compelling for me this time around, but theres still a lot to enjoy about his dynamics with others.

in a lot of ways, vriska also holds the limelight. sometimes it kind of feels like act 5 is her act to me, but maybe thats just bc she was my favorite and therefore all i cared about. vriska and john are both like, just as compelling to me as they were my first read, and my feelings on them really havent changed at all. its incredible. vriska is just such a complex character, and its like. man to this fucking day i will see tumblr posts like man i wish we had female characters who x and im like vriska already did. she already did and she killed it and fandom hated her so bad for it. shes genuinely so refreshing as a character bc i feel like we really never do get to see women who are just loud and brash and cringe and messy and she is just. ugh. she is the moment she is everything fr.

kanaya is my GIRL. shes one of the most genuinely hysterical characters in all of hs and one of my favorite trolls. even before she meets rose and starts playing up the sarcasm thing she has a very dry, deadpan sense of humor, and very little tolerance for stupid people, as much as she is patient with them. shes a little goofy, a little silly, and her crush on rose oh my god its literally so cute. i completely forgot she had a crush on rose way back before she even met her. listen, i love her, shes so great

tavros gets a fair bit of focus as well, as an early troll in hs, and ill be honest. i paid like no attention to tavros whatsoever my first read, bc i just didnt find him very interesting. however, im finding him a lot more compelling on my reread! the parallels he has with vriska are really interesting, and its unbelievable how much fandom has watered him down. he really is kind of a dick? and i dont understand why youd get rid of that! it makes him a much more nuanced and complex character than the woobie shy boy i see in so much fancontent

terezi gets less attention than you would think before a5a2, but she certainly has her own role in this act. shes never really been my favorite, because i just dont really relate to her at all? so i dont have much to say other than like. man. she sure is there. her relationship with nepeta is cute i love when people rp along w her and i think its really cool how she manages to outmanipulate doc scratch (tho that might be a5a2?), and early karez! is actually pretty cute.

aradia and sollux occupy a much smaller role, which mostly starts and ends with their responsibility for getting the ball rolling. they made sgrub, they got everyone playing it. however, despite the incredibly small role they play, i love them both so much. sollux in particular was one of my favorite trolls when i first read hs, and whoa! shocker! he still is. hes so fucking funny. his relationship w karkat is hysterical and hes just a lot of fun as a character

nepeta and equius have an even smaller role. personally tho, i fukcing love equius, i think hes so fucking funny. he feels very much like a thirteen yo boy who spent too much time in video game lobbies and started saying racist shit as a result. hes weird and uncomfortable, but mostly harmless, when he isnt being a huge fucking bigot. nepeta on the other hand is one of the most iconic girls ever in fiction, which i must acknowledge even when she isnt one of my personal faves. shes vicious and tough and still super cute and girly and like, not in a femme fatale way, but just in a middle school girl playing warrior cats way. which is SO REAL? she is THE weirdgirl, man. its her. little girls everywhere are being so represented right now.

gamzee is uh. well ill be honest. he basically doesnt matter at all. he has almost no lines and no relevance and is just kind of there, really? hes such a nothing character in this act. even that infamous tavros and gamzee conversation? thats really late in a5a2. so he literally doesnt do anything worth noting. rip.

eridan and feferi are the very last characters introduced, and so they just have very little fucking page time. every time i read hs pesterlogs im always so struck by the imaginary version of feferi that exists in the collective fandom mind. people were never normal about either of them, and ive always found myself at odds with popular opinion when it came to those two. but idk that i should really get into that, just bc it seems like my life would be easier if i didnt.

im going to hold off saying anything about the midnight crew until a5a2, but i did want to comment very quickly on doc scratch. it is insane how much he influences in a5a1. like, vriska talks about how she had no intentions of killing aradia, or maiming tavros or terezi, and how she feels like its just going way too far, but she only did it bc of scratchs pushing and manipulation! he was grooming her, for ages. he also manipulated terezi, and kanaya, and aradia! none of them even realize the extent to which he manipulated them, he was so fucking slick about it. im also going to take this moment to mention that while it might not be clear in the comic, hussies talked a lot in the formsprings about how scratch literally only talks to girls, except for that one time he said one sentence to screw w karkat. he is like. so creepy. :')

The Albums

i think alternia was the very first solo album made for hs, and its not surprising it was made by none other than mr radiation. the albums pretty good, but honestly listening to it i just wanted to be listening to alterniabound. a lot of the alternia songs are remixed for alterniabound, and i like the remixed versions a lot better tbh.

and then theres.... squiddles. this album is a trip man. so many of these songs i was listening to and was just like. what the actual fuck. highly recommend sending to your non hs friends to mess w them, 10/10 way to spend your time. the unicorn song was particularly upsetting.

Act 5 Act 2

this one is significantly longer than a5a1. a5a2 basically synthesizes hivebent with the kids story and builds towards the scratch- or, cascade, which is the biggest flash project to date. this is where terezi kills that doomed john, where jade enters the medium, where most of daves medium journey takes place, where rose goes grimdark, where all the kids godtier, where gamzee goes shithive, the one with alterniabound, the bit with doc scratch and the green background, all that shit. a lot happens! during this act, hussie also quits using the first formspring and starts a new one, in hopes of streamlining it and answering less nonsense questions, which she abandons by the end of the act, instead starting up a tumblr. there are also a lot of new albums released during this period, including the felt, vol 6: heir transparent, strife, alterniabound, medium, mobius trip and hadron kaleido, vol 7: at the price of oblivion, sburb, the wanderers, prospit and derse, the vol 1-4 compilation, and vol 8. so lets get into it.

The Plot

theres so much. so much happens. but what you need to know is that everything from right before jade enters the medium to when they scratch the session, blow up the green sun, and are about to meet up w the trolls, happens in this act. for the trolls, this pretty much means everything from the end of their session to when they meet up w the kids, including the gamzee shithive incident.

The Characters

lets get the easy shit out of the way first. most of the trolls, with the exception of the patron trolls (terezi, karkat, vriska, and kanaya), have very small roles in this act. their only real moments to shine are during alterniabound and the murderspree. i will say, alterniabound and the other meteor walkarounds do a lot of work in terms of like, fleshing out the trolls relationships to each other. all of it, really. pretty much all of the touching, cute relationship moments between trolls happen in these logs, including karkat and eridans weird bromance thing, karkats love for kanaya, like, all of feferi and solluxs relationship, sollux and terezis honestly really touching friendship, and like all of the good equius and nepeta moments (where previously their relationship had just come off as creepy and controlling). i could probably write a post just about alterniabound, so im not going to get into it here.

dave also actually doesnt have a lot going on in this act. dave spends most of the act timetraveling around, collaborating with terezi to get a bunch of very necessary but completely unseen shit going on. it isnt until much later that we really get any moments with him, but notable moments include: john valuing their friendship so much that he listens to dave instead of terezi, daves horror at roses suicide plan and determination to intervene, dave and roses way of cutting straight through each others bullshit and being real with each other in a way that they arent with anyone else, and daves extremely weird and avoidant reaction to his bros death (foreshadowing!)

rose, similarly, is offscreen for most of the beginning, doing grimdark bullshit. it isnt until right before she literally goes grimdark that we start to focus on her again. compelling moments for me: her reaction to her mothers death, and pretty much everything she says about her mom (their relationship is so complicated, but it is obvious that rose does actually really care about her and mourns her, in contrast to daves relationship with bro), the way everyone tells rose that the horrorterrors are lyign to her and tricking her but nothing... really bad seems to come of her going grimdark, and she doesnt lose control or anything? and, again, everything with her and dave leading up to cascade

vriska probably plays the biggest and most interesting role of all of the trolls in this act, serving as johns patron and leading him through to godtier. her relationship with john is really cute, actually, and its kinda fun how john simultaneously sees right through her and teases her, but also will go along with her shit and is actually very kind to her most of the time. most compelling to me is her conversations with john about guilt, weakness, and death

john and jade easily have the biggest roles in this act, though, with jade finally getting into the medium, prototyping jadesprite (and THAT whole mess), befriending the trolls, coming up with the password system, and putting a lot of the plans into place, and john being heavily featured as he goes through his game and is the first kid to make it to godtier. i kinda feel like id just be repeating what i said w act 4 tho, so lets keep going

the midnight crew! i said id come back to them. there is a lot of filling in the exiles backstory in this act, so that its pretty much full circle by the time it ends. the midnight crew in particular i found interesting bc we see enough of them (post introduction of the quadrant system) that hussie actually starts leaning into their card suits as quadrant roles! cd excels at settling disputes between parties, jack is super destructive, hb is obsessed w romance, and dd regularly pacifies jack and talks him out of impulsive plans that they both know would just make their lives harder. which is really cool!! it was a neat little touch that i really enjoyed

The Formsprings and the Tumblr

finally, finally, the first formspring came to an end. hussie claimed that there were just too many asks and people were starting to ask things that had already been answered, so they wanted to make a new one devoted to only the comic relevant stuff. and, well. it didnt work. it was better! but the formspring was still full of stupid, pointless bullshit and dumb nothing questions. there were a couple of running jokes that made their way into canon (shooshpap, fedorafreaks session) and some running jokes that just sucked (fat vriska. ugh.), plenty of the usual bigotry, and a few answers that were genuinely really interesting. still dont recommend reading it. obviously, hussie wound up torching this one too, as it wasnt really any better, and instead started up a tumblr! as of the end of a5a2, there were almost no posts and so i have nothing interesting to say about it other than it existed.

The Albums

ok so there are so many that were released like, right at the end, i am not actually caught up yet. so ill just talk about the ones i have listened to so far.

first up, we have the felt album. the idea for this one was similar to the mc album, where music helps set the stage and develop the environment and characters. the concept was an orchestral album that played with chronology, and the results are so cool. songs reverse and slow down and fast forward, and listening to it is just such a cool experience! i thought docs song especially really fit him.

vol 6: heir transparent. its a pretty middling album. its good, but i dont have anything particularly interesting to say about it. i hate the nic cage songs on here, but it has megalovania, which we all know is an irrefutable banger. i honestly kinda prefer the hs megalovania to the ut one.

strife! this was actually one of the first hs albums i ever listened to all the way through. time on my side is one of my all-time favorite hs songs, and heir conditioning STILL goes hard as hell. its a good album!! its fun.

i said earlier that listening to alternia just made me want to listen to alterniabound. this album is fantastic, and i think its also like, the first one w track commentary? which was really cool to read through! i think my favorite track is killed by 8r8k spider, but all of the themes just fit the characters so well and theyre really well done.

medium. this was another environmental album meant to sort of set a mood for the universe, and a solo album! i liked this one, but i dont have much to say about it. it was very pretty.

mobius fucking kaleido whatever. i hate this one. its a solo album and most of the tracks have lyrics and i just did not enjoy that one bit. the lyrics feel really corny, the like... art book thing?? is illegible, and it is just not for me.

vol 7: at the price of oblivion. this is the first album to have individual track art!! which, ofc, is all gorgeous. a lot of the songs on this album are so fucking good (except warhammer of zillyhoo. ugh. UGH.), and my favorite is terezi owns. it goes HARD. black rose/green sun is also really striking and perfectly haunting.

sburb is another solo, environmental album. the whole thing is a series of piano compositions, and its beautiful. really, really stunning work.

i listened to the wanderers while i was typing up this bigass post, and its really good! i think it perfectly fits the vibe of the desolate wasteland planet and the exiles silly little shenanigans, and i think of all of the like, themed environmental albums so far, this one does the best job at representing the energy for me personally (except probably squiddles, but ugh. squiddles). my favorite track is riches to ruins movements i & ii, i can tell it was remixed for heir of grief and i actually really love the og.

im still working through my relisten of prospit & derse, but like strife, this was an album i listened to over and over again long before i started this reread and i know i fucking love it. derse dreamers was always my favorite (theyre ALL good tho, NO misses), but who knows! maybe ill have a new one when im finished. i always really liked that the prospit tracks had really distinct piano, bass, and wind instruments (in parallel to john and jade playing bass, piano, and flute), and the derse tracks have really distinct synth and violin (in parallel to rose and daves instruments). its such a nice touch.

idk if vol 1-4 has any new stuff in the collection, and i havent listened to vol 8 yet, so ill just update about those whenever i write another recap.

Final Thoughts

uhhhh... im tired? lmao. ive been typing so long i cant remember if theres anything else. there was a lot more to say about this act than i thought thered be.

i guess, in summary, im really enjoying my reread so far. i think im reading with a much more critical eye than i did way back when (i started in 2014, for those of u just getting here), and im really paying more attention to certain characters i glanced over before or the actual mechanics of like, alternia and sburb and etc. ive retained more memory of the characters than i thought, but less about the plot than i thought, and my favorite characters have shuffled around a bit.

prior to my reread, i probably would have told you my favorite characters were dave, john, karkat, and then vriska and the rest of the strilondes. during my original read (almost a decade ago), my favorites were dave, vriska, sollux, dirk, and rose. now, id say my favorites are rose, kanaya, vriska, john, and sollux.

but yeah! i think thats about all i have to say, for now. stay tuned for. sighs. act 6.

update: wow, here it is! act 6, sub acts 1-3. also, heres a recap on the formspring and blogspot. youre welcome.

[sweetvixen1996]

Brief Non-Spoiler Review of Pirateaba's The Wandering Inn II: Fae and Fare (5/100 Books in 2024)

RATING: 4/5; RECOMMENDS: 3.5/5

This series was recommended to me by a friend. It is a very long book and would not be for everyone. However, it worked well for me because, at the time, I was starting a job that allowed me to listen to many audiobooks. Still, be aware of the length going in. However, because of its often slice-of-life nature, starting and stopping it was rarely difficult.

My biggest issues with the first book were the inconsistent pacing and the occasional melodramatic nature of the writing. However, my friend assured me that that gets a lot better as the story goes on, and I can definitely say that it does in the second book. Neither the prose nor the character introspection are as melodramatic, and the pace moves on much smoother. It still has plenty of slice-of-life moments in the first book, but the plot is always chugging along.

The characters are also smoothed out a lot more. Erin isn't as naive here, and her social intelligence is displayed better. Ryoka is far more likable overall. She makes an active effort to be a better person to be around, and the one time she truly loses it, it's after she's been under extreme stress. She also gets her butt kicked for it and is immediately regretful.

The side characters continue to be incredibly fun and colorful. My favorite is still Pisces; Seria and Mrsha are getting up there though. Pisces especially shines in the beginning, where his better nature leads him to make altruistic actions that he probably wouldn't normally do.

The story starts to really branch out on a global scale; we learn more about other lands and people. We also learn more about the earthlings sent to Innworld. Furthermore, thanks to the frost fairies, we learn that there's more bleedover between our world and the world Aaron and the others end up in.

My biggest issue with this book is that, while most of the last book was uneven in quality, it had an incredibly strong and emotionally powerful final act. This one, however, was more even overall yet had a much less impressive climax.

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

Zodiac Academy 4: Shadow Princess -- Rant and I guess Review/breakdown, I don't know, I'm not sure what I was trying to do with this post, but its here if anyone's interested

Spoilers for Zodiac Academy Book 4: Shadow Princess. Skip this post if you don't want spoilers

Okay, first I'm going to preface this with Zodiac Academy 3: The Reckoning, despite its flaws, is an experience to say the least. Despite my rant on it, it was still a fun time. We had moments that made me happy, made me sad, made me mad, made me wonder how these characters can possibly be functioning adults with how nauseatingly dumb they are. All in all, didn't hate it, the ending kind of spurned me on to keep on chugging with this series. I like trash and I like books with vibes; I won't apologize for it.

Now, I had a completely different experience with Zodiac Academy 4: Shadow Princess. Oddly named considering the book doesn't have a whole lot to do with her, I mean, she's there, just kind of in the back of everyone's mind and she comes out every once in a while to remind us that she's a plot point I guess but nothing really happens with her until the very end. Very little of what happens in this book correlates to what happens with her at the end of the book. Honestly, you could've cut her out of this book and left her for the next one. This book should probably have ended after the nymph attack on Christmas at the palace with basically all of Solaria now knowing that the twins are in fact phoenixes who will become exponentially more powerful than the Heirs, let the community stew in that and end it there. And then in book 5 start really digging into the Shadow Realm and the Shadow Princess. But instead, in this book she makes weird appearances randomly throughout the book with very little payoff for anyone to actually care that she's around (almost like the authors forgot about her while they were writing and just inserted her randomly so they could have a cliffhanger ending). So there's one gripe but another gripe was omg, this book was so frustrating to read. Not that it was necessarily boring, but there were definitely some boring moments in it. It was just so long-winded in everything it did, it takes entirely too long to get to the point. So much so, that I had to turn the audio book off and get the book on Kindle Unlimited so I can skim through everything to actually get to the meat of what was going on. And then beyond that, the characters were pointlessly dumb, their thought process, their emotions, even the plot points were so ridiculously contrived. It was rough to say the least.

I'd say I enjoyed the book up until the Halloween party, from there the book just goes bananas and everyone's plans from the Halloween party to the rest of the book makes no sense. Like the Heirs come up with this really dumb plan to embarrass the Twins by making them drink these potions so they would essentially act out behaviors that the media has been making false stories regarding them about. So Darcy drinks a potion that makes her think there's ravens all around her so she's talking to ravens but nobody else sees the ravens so they think she's insane and talking to nobody. And then Tori essentially is given probably the Fae version of a date-rape drug so her inhibitions would be lowered and she essentially was tossing herself around every dude with a heartbeat so it would appear that she has a sex addiction (but hey, at least Darius gave her the antidote before any of these men could take advantage of her; Darius ever the gentleman, am i right? ech, that whole scene made me want to barf, and he wonders why Tori would prefer to be Star Crossed than be mated to him, gee i wonder why, couldn't possibly be because he put her in a situation where he had absolute control and she none whatsoever). And beyond these guys you know drugging these girls to get desired behaviors to embarrass them, I don't really understand how they thought this plan would work. The idea was that by doing this, the Heirs were trying to bring down the Twins' support system i.e. their friends to really ostracize them. But Darcy blatantly remembers Seth giving her the potion so their friends are all like, "yeah, you were drugged, those weren't your normal behaviors". The only thing that this plan actually did successfully do was put them in a negative light with the public outside of the school but its not like these girls would really care about that. They've said time and time again, they don't want the throne. Its the Heirs that insist on playing this politics game with them. So yeah, their plan sucked, they ultimately ended up regretting it. And I'm a little skeptical on whether or not these potions should actually have worked on the twins considering the nature of the phoenix order being impervious to outside mental fuckery, i guess because they ingested these potions it made them susceptible maybe to being messed with like this, i don't know, there's no world building in these books, I have no idea how any thing works in the Fae world in this universe.

Then we have this ridiculously contrived plot where the twins are in a fight with each other which was dumb. Tori's mad at Darcy because Darcy doesn't want to attack the Heirs for what they did. But Tori doesn't know about Darcy's relationship with Orion and that Seth is holding that over Darcy's head, so she can't attack the Heirs without putting Orion at risk. Not for a second did I legitimately believe that if these were well-written characters would this fight have occurred. Tori would have realized something was up with Darcy, she knows her sister better than anyone, she knows how selfless Darcy can be so why she wasn't reading between the lines I don't get. Also Darcy not just telling Tori about her and Orion after Seth found out was really dumb. You two have kept so many secrets from the Heirs, Tori would have kept that secret too, Seth would never have found out that she knew. And Tori ultimately ends up finding out anyway in the most bizarre way possible. By Orion kissing Tori thinking she was Darcy?! Like what?! Orion, dude, you have been lusting over Darcy since you met her, you do not have the same reaction with Tori's physical appearance and you've now had many intimate encounters with Darcy and you still can't tell them apart other than by their hair? What kind of fated mate are you?! You're also a vampire, I feel like you should know what Darcy smells like and how that differs from Tori, you've drank blood from both of them. Also, don't get me wrong, I love Orion, he's probably my favorite of the main male characters. I love Orion and Darcy, I think they're super cute (even though I typically don't go in for the student/teacher relationship). But they're so dumb too, like you were already caught once, barely managed to cover your asses, and then you went out and did the exact same thing that got you caught the first time and by the number 1 person it would suck to have been caught by, Seth.

And Seth, my man, is anything going to be done about this dude's assholery, I feel like they're making strides in attempting to redeem the Heirs, but Seth, he just get worse with every single book. Like he clearly has a thing for Darcy, and he's all like "why won't she like me and be with me"? Maybe because you're a fucking dick to her who chopped off her hair and continuously beats her up. He's basically the equivalent of a 4th grader who hits the girl he likes because he doesn't know how to express his feelings.

And then we got this whole Shadow Princess thing going on where its eventually revealed that the Shadow Princess is Orion's sister Clara who we thought had tragically died some years ago when Lionel sacrificed her to the Shadow Realm. And by some weird contrived plot point, Clara can somehow come back from the Shadow Realm on the New Years I think. There's a special spell or something they have to do to create a portal to create a bridge Clara can use to cross-over from the Shadow Realm into the Fae realm. And as a side note, any mention of the Shadow Realm in these books, I cannot take seriously, I just keep thinking about Yu-Gi-Oh the entire time. But anyway, everyone's all like, yes! lets free Clara who has been in the Shadow Realm for the past half a decade. Not a single person thinking, hey, are we sure this is Clara? Clara's been in there for a while, how do we know this is still her or that you know, she hasn't turned evil because you know she's been hanging out with a bunch of dead fae who are also lost in the shadow realm? And then we're supposed to be surprised when she does make it back to our world and does in fact turn out to be evil? or at least crazy?

In this book, there was just a lot of contrived bullshit happening with not nearly enough critical thinking happening to level it out. Nevertheless, I will probably still continue with the series, I'm a die hard BlueLance shipper, I gotta keep reading for them, you know. Also Max and Geraldine are pretty cute too. Now that I've skimmed through most of the book, I think I'll go back to the audio book, finish it and then give myself maybe a week break before going into book 5. I am trying to take my time because book 9 isn't out yet and these authors write like the Shadowhunters writing room, they get to the climax of the book and then they just abruptly end with no aftermath to tie the book together or anything.

[jae-daddy]

Red Rose (5)

jaebum mafia series 

one / two / three / four / five 

masterlist 

pairing: im jaebum x reader  genre: mafia, angst, romance, mature plot: im jaebum was your first love in university, but then disappeared, and now he’s back and he is a mafia leader? a/n: im so excited to write this story! i hope yall enjoy it too! not edited <3

You smiled at the dark-haired boy juggling the armful of snacks towards you. You get up, running over to him and helping him place everything onto the picnic mat.

“This is so much stuff, Jaebum,” you remarked looking at the pile of snacks heaping on the light pink blanket. Jaebum didn’t reply, instead, he reached into the bag he brought during the first run from the car and pulled out cushions and more blankets.

He set three books out for you and plopped himself onto the blanket. He lay a cushion underneath his head but kept a hand underneath his head as his other hand beckoned you towards him, “Come on babe, there are so many clouds today. I bet I can make more animals out of them than you.”

“Expand the category to anything,” you lay on his chest, crossing your ankles as you reached for one of the books he picked out for you. You opened the book, the smell of his cologne flowing through the pages, “And watch me whoop your ass as I read this book.”

Jaebum hummed tauntingly, as he brought his fingers into your hair, running through it gently.

You sighed happily, putting the book down on your stomach and gazed up at the sky. Once again you were reminded of how big this world was, how much bigger it was than your mind could comprehend. You were so small, so insignificant, but at that moment the golden sunshine fluttering in your chest was endless. In that moment, the entire universe was just this; just you and him. His heartbeat gently beating against your neck, your fingers finding their way to his.

There hand in hand, on the pink blanket, under the never-ending sky, you were endlessly happy.

“I don’t understand why we have to do this,” you heard him grumble for the hundredth time. You had let it go the first time, understandingly, but every time he repeated his resentment, every time he complained, the room became hotter. The apartment grew smaller, shrinking close around you; and this was the last straw. You couldn’t do it anymore.

You closed the last of the box from the kitchen and stared at the tall boy who made your living room look like a dollhouse.

Yugyeom looked up closing the final box, his eyes narrowing with irritation. You didn’t say anything and glared back at him.

This little brat was acting as if you were the one making him pack your apartment for you. You were helping him, and you didn’t need his help in the first place. Actually, you wouldn’t have had to move in the first place, but here you were moving out so you don’t get murdered in the middle of your sleep.

It was all Im Jaebum’s decision. Him deciding how to keep you safe, and him deciding to send this tall brat to help you pack up.

“Thank god we’re finished, anymore of your whining and I would have to murder you,” you rolled your eyes at him.

A corner of his red lips lifted as his eyes narrowed further, “You sure are violent for a waitress.”

Your eyes narrowed further at the way he said the waitress. He said it as an insult. As if was beneath him; as if being a waitress made you undeserving of his respect. And he should be respecting you, you had saved his life.

“And you whine like a child for being such a big bad criminal,” you smiled back at him.

Before he could reply, Jinyoung walked back into the apartment getting off the phone, “The movers will be here in fifteen minutes, are we done?”

“We done?” Yugyeom choked staring at Jinyoung. Yugyeom jabbed his tongue against his cheek angrily before muttering, “You didn’t do anything. I did.”

“I packed!” You protested at the same time as Jinyoung.

Yugyeom didn’t skip a beat, he pointed to Jinyoung first, “You have been gone for the past two hours making a phone call. You packed one box in total.” He then turned to you, scowling, “It’s not helping when it is your house. This is your shit-hole of a house, your shit, so you should be doing the packing anyway.”

Jinyoung just cooed, mockingly at the younger boy, “Is our little baby tired?”

“Aww,” you cooed along.

If looks could kill you and Jinyoung would be ten feet underground right now. But he didn’t say anything more and just stomped out of the apartment making you cringe. You were sure your neighbours downstairs would be cursing at the loud noise.

You turned to Jinyoung with a small smile, “Do you want a drink? I got four beers left in the freezer.”

“Why not,” he sighed, settling into the two-seater sofa, in the middle of the living room. You came back, passing him a bottle before sinking into the old sofa next to him.

“This is a really small place,” he commented talking in the apartment. It was small, it was just bigger than the hall you had breakfast in this morning. You hated the colour of the walls, but now that you were leaving you knew you were going to miss the way it clashed with every piece of furniture you ever got.

“It was good enough for me,” you replied, before taking a sip of the beer. You gasped at the old sensation burning down your throat making him turn towards you with raised eyebrows. You just smiled, gesturing to the beer, “It’s so cold and my throat feels so... raw.”

“Well, you did have an eventful past week.”

“Has it really been a week?” You both looked at the murky pink walls.

“Actually, it’s been less than a week.” He answered.

“It feels like it's been a lifetime,” you whispered.

Jinyoung stayed quiet for a few moments before saying, “It'll remain hard for a while until we solve this.”

“I know,” you sighed, taking a sip.

“It does get better though,” he took a sip before adding, “Or at least you get used to it.”

You bit your lip as a question bubbled inside you. You wanted to ask him why they did this if it was so tough. Why did they choose to be criminals when it was so dangerous, when they were getting hurt and hurting others. But you didn’t know if it was your place to ask him that.

Instead, you asked something that was probably equally as stupid, “How do you know Jaebum?”

His eyes crinkled as he chuckled at the question, shaking his head with a wide smile on his face, “JB and I go way back.”

“How back?” You turned towards him, completely interested.

They couldn’t have gone too back, because back then you knew Im Jaebum. And your Im Jaebum used to find the shapes of ducklings in the cloud, not shoot men and get blood splattered all over his suit.

You would’ve known of Jinyoung, in a story or heard his name in passing at the very least. But this was the first time you had heard of him.

Was it after his dad passed away? Was it so traumatic for Jaebum that he joined the wrong crowd?

“Nappies,” Jinyoung snorted, answering your question. “Our parents were friends, so we grew up together. He is my best friend and my boss, but he is my brother first and foremost. We always have each other's backs.”

You didn’t say anything and just stared at him, in confusion. How could he and Jaebum be so close but you never heard of him? No photo of him in his dorm, no appearance in the stories of his childhood he would tell you. It was almost as if Jinyoung had been a ghost for Jaebum in college.

You didn’t have the heart to tell Jinyoung that Jaebum didn’t mention him to you. So, you just continued to stare at him as you took him his dark features.

“All of us, us boys,” Jinyoung took a long sip of the beer. “We are all brothers, we will sacrifice ourselves before letting the other get in harm's way.”

You smiled at that, even though they were a bunch of criminals, “That’s admirable.”

“You’re part of it now,” Jinyoung looked over at you, meeting your eyes with his sparkling ones. “We protect you like one of us now.”

“Just for three months,” you breathed, feeling uncomfortable under his heavy gaze.

Jinyoung nodded slowly, after a long moment he asked, “Will you move back here after it ends?”

“No, I can’t,” you bit your lip, shrugging a shoulder. “There’s no returning policy in this apartment.”

“That’s good then,” he said, making you frown. Jinyoung shot you a loopy smile before he explained, “It’s better to move so no one knows where you live anymore.”

A shiver ran through you at his words. It wasn’t just Marco’s men who could be after you. Certainly, they weren’t the only enemies Jaebum and his mafia had, the others might come after you too if they found out.

How long does this continue? When do you get to get out of here, truly free?

“The movers are here,” Mr Grumpy walked in, taking an unopened beer from between you and Jinyoung and chugging it down, “Fuck’s sake I needed that.”

“Language!” Jinyoung gasped.

//

You sipped from your glass of orange juice and vodka, shimmering your shoulders as you hopped around the room. The rhythm of the happy song wrapped around you as you did a twirl trying to keep the drink from spilling.

Due to the very imminent danger that currently resided over you, you had three weeks off work. A whole month of no working, of no diner, of doing absolutely nothing. Therefore, like every other sane person on basically house arrest, you got tired of spending day after day in your room.

In the past three days, you barely saw anyone. The last time you had seen anyone was Jackson who had come to inform you that you would not be going to work due to security issues. When you asked how they managed to get Randy to agree, he shrugged with a charming smile and said, “We can be very persuasive, waitress.”

It seemed like everyone called you waitress. Well, everyone except Jinyoung and Jaebum. Jinyoung being the gentleman he was called you respectfully by your name, and Jaebum, well, he just didn’t talk to you at all.

After the little meltdown, you sat down with yourself and made a list of all the pros and cons of staying here. The pros included you were safe, you will not get kidnapped or murdered, you would live under the same roof as Jaebum which meant you would run into him, talk to him and maybe, just maybe, everything would go back to normal. Cons were that they, themselves, kill you, use you as a drug mule, and you find out Jaebum remembers but is ignoring you because he despises you.

You groaned at the thought and took another deep chug from the glass in your hand. You were tired of staring at your wall endlessly, so you decided to have a little party by yourself. You went down to the kitchen where the staff were shaking as if you’d pull out a gun and shoot them any second.

You took another drink for that example, trying to drown the nausea bubbling in your stomach.

Don’t think about it, you reminded yourself. If I don’t think about it, it didn’t happen.

You went to the kitchen and the kitchen staff almost shit themselves. You tried to make them feel relaxed, but your anxiousness only made them more on guard and scared. When you asked for a bottle of vodka and orange juice, and chicken nuggets, they were more than happy to please you.

To spell your boredom away you were drinking vodka, eating chicken nuggets, and singing and dancing with your entire soul to your playlist. You walked over to the speaker, cranking it up before playing the next song.

You groaned at how perfect the song was, you welcomed the nostalgia as you spun away from the control. You shimmied towards your plate of chicken nuggets, picking one up and stuffing it into your mouth as you began singing the lyrics.

“Oh god,” suddenly the music was so faint you could barely hear it.

“Oh no, that was the best part!” You groaned, turning around, singing the part with all your heart. The words got stuck in your throat as you saw the familiar boy standing in all black in front of you.

You gave him a toothy grin, as you sighed, happily, “Finally.”

Jaebum stared at you with an unreadable expression.

“Ugh,” you groaned taking him in. It was so unfair, it was so fucking unfair. How the hell did he get hotter over the years, isn’t age supposed to make people not attractive? Im Jaebum was ageing like fine wine, “And I wanna drink all of it.”

You pointed at him, your finger moving in circles despite you standing straight.

Im Jaebum looked like sin in all black. His dark locks messily pushed back, revealing his fucking sexy forehead. His forehead was so sexy, how had you never realised how sexy it was before? Maybe because he didn’t put it up before, your Jaebum had his hair falling over his forehead.

He would feel uncomfortable in the black shirt this Jaebum wore, and the black slacks. Your Jaebum would have been itching to get out of those expensive black dress-shoes and into his converses.

But this Jaebum was stunning. The dark black of midnight stark against his pale skin made his dark features even darker. It made him look more dangerous, stronger, more... angry.

“You’ve had more than enough to drink,” he crossed his arms in front of him. Your gaze followed the way his arms bulged under the black material. You licked your lips as your eyes roamed over him.

He did get a lot fitter than you remembered him. Maybe because he was a man this time around and not a boy.

He was a man though.

Such a typical fucking man, trying to dictate your life. This is exactly what you had seen growing up, a man trying to dominate over the females around him; that alpha male ego bullshit.

“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want,” you told him, giving him your best sassy look.

Jaebum didn’t look intimidated. For a brief moment you thought you saw a glimpse of a smile on his lips, but that might have been your imagination. Because all he did was shake his head, his face emotionless and sombre as he replied, “If you have any more, you’ll regret it.”

“So, I’ll be the one regretting it,” you shrugged, walking towards him. You lost your balance but caught yourself. You held up a hand towards Jaebum, who had flinched slightly at your potential fall. You stood up straighter, “I’ll vomit, I’ll have a headache. I’ll be the one to die if those other mafia people kidnap me, what’s it to you?”

“I’m not having any conversation with you in this condition,” he shook his head, grabbing the vodka bottle before walking towards the door.

You frowned, suddenly feeling scared that he’s going to leave. You didn’t want him to go, even if all he did was stand there and glare at you, pretending not to remember you, you wanted him to stay.

“No, you can’t-” you hiccuped, you can’t leave, you wanted to tell him.

Jaebum sighed, looking incredible in his black outfit, as he glanced at the vodka bottle in his hand, “You-”

He let out another exhausted sigh before saying, “I’m taking it for myself. I want to have some.”

You smiled brightly at that.

“Yes! Of course, you can have some!” You sat down in front of the fireplace, beside the table with the chicken nuggets. You gestured to the plate, as the heat of the fire gently hovered over your back, “Here have some chicken nuggets, it tastes exactly like McDonald's with the sauce!”

Before Jaebum could reply you felt yourself falling backwards, but you quickly caught yourself. You let out a little giggle as Jaebum found standing with both his arms out as if he could catch you from across the room.

“I’m good,” you mumbled. You were about to say more but then you started thinking of the picnic that day with Jaebum. No one could’ve predicted it, but one moment you fell asleep under the summer sky only to wake up to a rainstorm.

You felt someone settle next to you. You looked over to find Jaebum, and you smiled brightly, “You came.”

“Of course, I’d always come back to you,” he smiled back brightly.

Jaebum’s frown deepened, making your smile turn upside down.

You watched him in the flames of the fire behind you, and your heart sank, “You don't smile anymore. I haven’t seen you smile since I met you again.”

You reached up and brushed a strand of hair that fell onto his forehead. His bright dark eyes met your drunk gaze, and you frowned this time. You felt tears prickle your eyes as you ran the back of your hand down his cheek, “There is a darkness around you. You walk with it, or it walks with you. Why?”

Why are you so sad?

Why are you here?

What happened to make you like this?

Was it all the people you have hurt? Does it weigh down on you? Does it hurt you thinking about them too?

Did you start as a mistake too? Wrong place, wrong time, and this is your life now?

I understand how you feel. I’m just like you.

I think of those men I’ve shot too. I am just as bad. Does the numbers or intention even matter when the blood on your hands is the same?

“Pew pewpewpew pew,” you aimed your finger gun as you shot different areas of the room. You had shot real humans, you were a shooter. You knew how to use guns. You were dangerous too, you understood Jaebum, “Pew pew.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jaebum stared at you, terrified.

You turned towards him, your eyes heavy as you gave him a close-lipped smile. You lifted up your finger gun and blew the smoke coming out from the shots you just took.

“I am,” you answered, slurring, dangerous, a criminal, bad as just as him, all about the bad life, “Pewpew pew.”

I’ve missed you so much. Your eyes prickled with tears again, making Jaebum’s dark eyes widened at the emotion in your eyes.

“You’re...” your words got lost as you slurred more, finding it harder to say each word. You frowned remembering he wanted to drink but he hadn’t even taken a sip of the alcohol or had any of the chicken nuggets. Don’t you “like chicken nuggets?”

You used to love them before, your bottom lip quivered as a few tears spilt from your eyes. You missed Jaebum, you missed him so much.

You were so happy he was here.

You grabbed his hand and held it tight, before resting your head on your elbow. You’re just going to take a short little- no, not a nap. Just close your eyes for like one second, literally.

“You cried because I’m like chicken nuggets?” was the last thing you heard him whisper before you knocked out.

//

You groaned as you sat on the table the next morning. The sunshine was too bright, the world was spinning, and you felt like throwing up with every step you took. You steadied yourself in your seat, holding your hammering head in your hands as you held back the urge to throw up.

“Someone had a wild night,” Bambam commented getting into his seat.

Yugyeom sat beside him, smirking at your pain, “God, you’re pathetic, waitress.”

“Just because you’re not fun to be with alone doesn’t mean everyone else is too,” Mark came to your rescue sitting on the first chair on the right. Your gaze went to the seat Jaebum would occupy and internally groaned.

Why did you drink so much?

You had said so much; done so much.

Your stomach twisted when the memory of your softly caressing his soft cheek attacked your mind.

Oh, god, you were dead.

This is why you are having breakfast in the hall, and not in your bedroom like the other days.

You turned towards Mark, the hangover taking a backseat at the new terror lodging around you, “Why are we eating here today?”

“We have breakfast together every Thursdays,” he replied, and you eased back into your chair.

So, it wasn't for you. He didn't bring you out in front of everyone to shame you, or to kick you out. It was just a tradition, that’s fine.

No, it was not fine. You still had done and said all those things yesterday.

Omg, did you cry?

You cringed as the memory of the tears spilling from your eyes struck you this time. God, why were you like this?

Before you could curse yourself any longer, the remaining boys walked in. Jinyoung settled next to you giving you a polite smile, as Jackson and Youngjae got into their respective chairs.

You didn’t want to look at Jaebum due to your embarrassing behaviour last night, but you couldn’t help yourself. Your gaze travelled to him and your breath got caught in your chest.

He was so sinfully handsome. He was once again dressed in complete black with his hair pushed back, but a few longer strands flopped forward. He needed a haircut or his hair would no one be able to stay pushed back. But the long strands made him look even more devilish.

Jaebum didn’t glance at you once as he walked towards his seat. He didn’t refer to you or acknowledge your existence all through the breakfast.

None of the others did too, all busy talking about their business and all the things they had to do this week.

You tried to listen to get hints of what kind of businesses they were involved in, but all you heard was white-collar affairs.

“Are you going to get drunk today too?” Youngjae teased when he saw you push around your breakfast.

You glared up at him, and then Yugyeom who matched his mocking smirk. What did these two have against you?

“I’m not an alcoholic,” you retorted. The two rolled their eyes, but it was that little huff of amusement that came from the head of the table that made you freeze.

You turned your surprised eyes over to Jaebum, who tried to cover his chuckle with a cough. His dark gaze met yours, and when he realised you won’t give in and look away, his shoulders slumped slightly as he said, “Well, you have been drinking every day for the past few days.”

“How do you--”

“I know everything that happens in my house,” he cut you off.

The thing is you should be terrified of this Jaebum. You didn’t know what he was capable of. You knew your Jaebum would never hurt you, but you didn’t know the stranger before you. You didn't know what made him tick, what he did to punish or who he even was.

But you stared into his calculating eyes as you replied, “I got carried away yesterday.”

The corner of his lip quirked up ever so lightly as he said, “I could tell.”

You just glared at him as he picked up a chicken nugget from his plate and bit into it, not shifting his eyes from you. That asshole, he made the cooks make chicken nuggets just to mock you about last night. What a little piece of shit, challenging you while eating chicken nuggets.

You hated the way your body reacted to him though. You were supposed to feel anger and rage course through you. But the way he bit into the piece of meat and stared his fiery gaze into your eyes made you feel hot all over. You had never wished to be a chicken nugget more than you did at that moment.

“Maybe,” a voice said beside you, snapping you out from his trance. You turned to find Jinyoung looking over at Jaebum. Jaebum’s attention was on Jinyoung now, silently telling him to continue, “Y/n just needs a break.”

“She is on a break,” Yugyeom snorted.

Jinyoung ignored him and continued, “She has been stuck in her room for the past few days, and will continue to be for a while. You can’t blame her for getting bored and trying to get her mind off things.”

“So, what do you suggest?” Jaebum lifted a perfectly manicured eyebrow.

You turned to Jinyoung, taking in all his beauty as he stood in front of his boss and talked for you. Even without you telling him, somehow, he knew how you felt and how you would certainly lose your sanity if you stayed locked up in there for a moment longer.

You smiled softly at him as he said, “Let her work.”

You rose an eyebrow at Jinyoung asking him what the hell did he mean by letting me. Jinyoung blinked at your reassuringly as he nodded slightly, telling you to trust him.

“No way,” Jackson said, “We’ll have to babysit her there.”

“Fine,” Jinyoung shrugs, turning to Jaebum. “There is an opening in the company, and I hire her.”

“Bullshit-”

“-Is she even qualified?”

“You wouldn’t hire me?!”

Jinyoung clicked his tongue and silence fell over the room. He continued to look at Jaebum and said, “I did a background check on her. She has a business degree from an Ivy League university.”

The same one you went to, you bit your tongue from screaming towards Jaebum.

Well, it wasn't like you wanted the job. But it was better than being stuck here all day.

“She’ll leave soon and we will need a replacement, and it’s important business,” Yugyeom glared at you. “How can we trust that she won’t sell our information to other companies.”

“Ah,” Jinyoug sighed, nodding. You snapped your head towards him, betrayed. How could he do this? Wasn’t he on your side?

“I guess we’ll have to employ her around the house then,” he murmured, you narrowed your eyes at how insincere he sounded. You saw the false lightbulb go over his head, as he acted terribly surprised and exclaimed, “I know! She can help you with the Greenhouse, Jaebum!”

“No!” You both answer at the same time. You meet his gaze as he shoots lasers through them to kill you. You smirked at that and lean back. A smile spread over your lips before nodding enthusiastically at Jinyoung, “Oh that sounds perfect!”

Jinyoung looks down at you, grinning, “That’s settled then! She remains on the property and doesn’t get bored. Perfect.”

“Perfect,” you smirk, staring at the disdained male at the head of the table.

He said he couldn’t remember you.

You stabbed a slice of apple with your fork before chomping a big bite off, let’s see how much longer he can pretend.

[fallingtowers]

btvs season 2 episodes ranked

ok i warned you guys i was gonna do this and now i’m gonna do it!!! i’m rewatching btvs and i thought i’d follow up my ranking of s1 episodes that i did like years ago with my official ranking of the s2 episodes from worst to best. it’s much harder to do this for s2 onwards because the seasons are longer and the overall quality of the writing is much more even, but i feel pretty good about this list nonetheless. alright here we go

20. episode 12, “bad eggs”: of course this episode was gonna come in last. everything about it is stupid. the premise is stupid. the execution is stupid. the cowboy vampires are stupid

19. episode 11, “ted”: ughhh. man. ok, like, this episode makes a very important point about how if you’re a kid who’s being abused it can be really hard to even get people to believe you. unfortunately they forgot to also make the episode entertaining. the whole “something is wrong with the person my loved one is dating and i’m the only one who sees that” plot is mega trite. nothing that happens in this episode even really affects the overarching plot of the season. eminently skippable

18. episode 20, “go fish”: HOW is this dumbfuck episode so late in the season? were the writers like “hey things are heating up with angel. we’ve really got some narrative momentum going. i know what we should do. we should put the prison break guy in a gill-man suit”

17. episode 2, “some assembly required”: this is a dumb bland monster-of-the-week episode, but unlike “go fish” it at least occupies a reasonable position in the season for an episode of its caliber. it left me with a lot of questions, like: why in hell did they feel the need to dig up those graves just to see if the corpses were still down there? what did the creepy photographer guy have to do with anything? and, most importantly, who put angel in that ugly fucking beige jacket?

16. episode 4, “inca mummy girl”: dumb as hell. i hate it when xander is horny. also, at one point buffy is like hey maybe this south american foreign exchange student can translate these ancient incan runes? maybe she’s just kind of got that knowledge on lock despite ostensibly being 16? and fucking everybody in the room acts like it’s a reasonable thing to say

15. episode 9, “what’s my line (part 1)” & episode 10, “what’s my line (part 2)”: starts out kind of lackluster and quickly devolves into abject stupidity. kendra is probably the dumbest character on the entire show, which is a real shame given that she’s one of the show’s few characters of color, and one of its even fewer heroic ones. the worm guy is cool in concept but not in execution. also his name is “fister” lol

14. episode 5, “reptile boy”: why do they keep making buffy be attracted to these receding-hairline-ass middle-aged bitches. are we just supposed to accept this?? the scene where willow calls out giles and angel fucking rules though. i love willow so much

13. episode 8, “the dark age”: i mean i love a glimpse into giles’s past, i just wish it weren’t done in such a bland way. this episode also loses points because the resolution is so stupid in both concept and execution.

12. episode 13, “surprise”: can a vampire get a boner? would a vampire boner be cold? would you have to run the boner in the microwave for a few seconds before putting it in? anyway, the buffy/angel relationship fucking sucks and it’s never sucked more than here. this episode is basically just a setup for the much better “innocence”

11. episode 18, “killed by death”: buffy goes to the second-scariest hospital in the world, where she chugs flu water and fights nicky nine doors. this episode is very atmospheric and the monster’s gimmick is clever and unique, but it’s baffling to me that this is what they decided to follow up “passion” with. angel is barely even in this one!!

10. episode 15, “phases”: buffy and the gang face off against the second-scariest fursuit in the world. i appreciate how this episode manages to be a gimmicky monster-of-the-week thing while also developing the characters and moving the main plot forward. the punchline of the xander and larry subplot is so cheap but so funny

9. episode 1, “when she was bad”: the way the show keeps pretending the master was anything resembling an imposing villain is kind of silly, but it makes a lot of sense in character. btvs’s writing is at its best when it acknowledges that buffy is very young and that the stuff she goes through is bound to leave scars. the actual plot of this one is forgettable, and the anointed fuckin sucks, but the emotional beats hit so nice

8. episode 14, “innocence”: thank god they made angel evil. not only is the buffy/angel stuff deeply uncomf, angel as a good guy is sooo boring. angel as a villain is hammy and fun. the best part of this episode though is the way buffy takes out the judge with a rocket launcher, in a crowded mall, and there are no casualties and no structural damage. god i love this show

7. episode 16, “bewitched, bothered and bewildered”: although this episode could stand to be less horny, it’s so good and funny. btvs is really good at knowing exactly which beats to hit to make a strong premise as entertaining as possible, and this episode is an example of that.

6. episode 21, “becoming (part 1)” & episode 22, “becoming (part 2)”: the longer season kind of works against the writers here—they had room to let the finale sprawl and, by jove, they did. the result is a not especially tight two-parter which nonetheless has its share of banger moments, such as: any scene with drusilla; spike meeting buffy’s mom; the final confrontation between buffy and angel; the ending. all in all it’s not bad but it could’ve been better.

5. episode 3, “school hard”: god this is such a fun episode. it introduces spike and drusilla; the gimmick of buffy having to take charge and save everyone during parent-teacher night is super entertaining; principal snyder is good and funny throughout. and, to top it all off, spike does everyone a favor and finally kills off the anointed.

4. episode 19, “i only have eyes for you”: maybe i’m biased but i looove a haunting. i love a ghost story. unlike the other weirdly-placed late-game monster-of-the-week episodes, this one does some really interesting stuff with its premise and ties it into the bigger picture of the season. the parallels it draws between the ghost couple and buffy and angel are really powerful

3. episode 7, “lie to me”: this is a good-ass episode. ford works where so many other one-off characters fall flat, and the gimmick of the vampire wannabe club is really fun. the confrontation between buffy and ford whips ass. also, spike and dru rule. love to see em.

2. episode 17, “passion”: god what a fuckin banger. a little melodramatic, but it hits so nice. angel gets to really chew the scenery, and ends up feeling like a really threatening villain for once. the scenes between buffy and giles at the end are heartbreaking. again, though, this episode’s placement in the season is weird—it feels like it’s gonna kick off the endgame, and then is immediately followed by a handful of inconsequential monster-of-the-week episodes. could’ve easily been the #1 episode in the season if not for its kind of slow middle part, and the way all the momentum it’s built up just kinda ends up going nowhere.

1. episode 6, “halloween”: this one is so fun!!! an excellent gimmick, executed well. it’s a fun first glimpse into giles’s past, and the first episode to feature ethan rayne. also, spike and dru rule. LOVE to see em. this episode isn’t one of the season’s big moments and it doesn’t really hit any big emotional beats, but it wins out just by virtue of being extremely entertaining and well-written. it is just simply a good time

[ask-badlydrawn-saiouma]

HHHHH OUMA WHAT THE HECK DID YOU DO

Asks: KOKICHI WHAT DID YOU DO|

oh you poor thing shuichil

PLOT TWIST!!!|

Bet ouma went: "U-uh Kaito...Maki... M-me and Ouma-kun are dating now..”|

OH BOY SHUICHI IS ABOUT TO CHUG A LOT OF OBLIVIOUS PROTAG JUICE RIGHT ABOUT NOW

💙-...

💙-W-WHAAA-

✨- Did you hit your head or somethin? Shuichi came by like 5 minutes ago. I mean he was acting a -bit-weird...

✨ - He came by askin bout where Kaede was n' when |asked why-

��- Oh, Well umm it's- I wanted to tell her first, but I guess I could tell you guys. I,,,lied. Ko- Ouma-kun is the one that made me cry.

💜-But I didn't want you to get the wrong idea and hit him again. Since I was crying because umm,,,

💜-Because he confessed to me!

*💜-,,,or at least I was going to*

💜- Yeah, that's why. I liked him back I guess... and now we're uhh dating! Since I've told you, could you do me a favor?

💜- I know you'll never be best friends, but if you guys could try and get along with him? I'll get him to behave too!

💜-Please? For me?

✨- And that's basically it, you remember your -boyfriend- now? Seriously how do you forget that? And when did you teach Shuichi to use puppydog eyes?

💙-HHH Whyy, did he really need to go so far to get payback for my lying???

[catboycafe]

I Will Now Express Every Thought I Have About Pacific Rim: The Black 

⚠️ spoilers for the whole thing baby

I actually forgot Pacific Rim: The Black was premiering today until I saw it in an article this morning! When I first heard about it months ago, I was decidedly not sold on a Pacific Rim anime. Uprising burnt me the fuck out and I don’t have a lot of trust left in me for new entries to the franchise. But I had heard rumblings of Raleigh and Herc being referenced after going into #pacificrim and I decided I may as well check out to see what was up! I binged it in 4 hours and it sure was a whirlwind, I’ll tell ya

The Plot

I really enjoy the setting and initial concept! We’re so use to seeing Kaiju/Jaegar shenanigans play out within these major cities with helpless civilians everywhere that spending so much time in a lonesome desert and these destroyed civilizations was really cool and indicative of the changes Pacific Rim has undergone in the last few years. I also looooved the Desert Settlement from the beginning!! It seemed really homey and picturesque; I wish we’d spent more time with the other survivors and got to see more of their day to day aside from farming and sitting. 

I also found the first episode set up to be really tight and well written! I was hooked during the initial flashback, Hayley and Taylor’s fight was really poignant and well acted, and the reveal of Atlas Destroyer felt really huge and epic!!

But once we left the Desert Settlement and the plot started actually moving along, the pacing becomes suuuper rough. We spent way too long in Bogan with Shane and Mei; there’s only 7 episodes and we spent, like, 3? 4? within the confines of that camp and I felt it weighed the plot down. Boy is introduced in the 2nd episode and, because the narrative spends so much time on Shane’s evil machinations and Mei’s back story, we still don’t know anything concrete about his origins or purpose 3 episodes later! That felt frustrating to me

The story beats overall were very predictable. I was able to pick up on Mei’s backstory via her dynamic with Shane in their introductions, so her memories felt too built up and too hollow once they were revealed. The same with the reveal of Boy’s Kaiju form; he was in a big green test tube in a PPDC base - I assumed immediately he was a part-kaiju experiment and again his reveal felt hollow, especially after the glacial pace of it’s development. 

Even when events weren’t predictable, they lacked weight. The appearance of several Kaiju Breaches in “Boneyard” felt very cheap for some reason; I wasn’t scared and I didn’t feel tense about these odds mounting against the protagonists. This was just happening and I was just watching. 

The Art Direction and Animation

I’m very obsessed with all the new Kaiju we got from this; I love how Copperhead is rendered, they’re a joy to see on screen!! The Rippers are also very cute and deserve little plushies...i love these neat little dogs. Boy’s Kaiju Form is very intimidating with an interesting color palette and I loved seeing him next to Copperhead’s highly saturated design!

That’s unfortunately all that I liked however; All the human character design is unmemorable to me. Every character looks exactly like another easily identifiable anime character from a different property (Hayley looks exactly like Zero Suit Samus to me, for example. And Mei kept reminding me of both Bernadetta Fire Emblem and Motoko Kusanagi from GitS. The list goes on). 

I can sort of understand why they’re so bland? A franchise going from Live Action to something as heavily stylized as anime is probably a really difficult transition and these designs are probably meant to be more lowkey than more unique anime designs in order to help that transition. But realistically stylized designs can still be recognizable and unique! These feel uninspired and bare bones.

 I have no problem with the switch to CGI animation that modern anime is doing because I know it’s a lot cheaper to produce and it can still be really unique and striking! But The Black’s model animation felt very stilted and inconsistent. I don’t have a lot of knowledge about animating so I don’t think I can accurately describe what I disliked? Wooden is probably the best term. Character movements felt wooden and things like hair and clothes felt plastic. 

Impacts also had very little weight. The fight between Tayler/Mei and Copperhead reminded me of when you’re in a dream and trying to punch something, but you can’t punch hard. It was simply too floaty and too soft. The final showdown in “Showdown” was better, but not by much. It was very immersion breaking seeing these Giant Robots and Giant Monsters unable to throw a real solid hit!

Characters

My favorite character was unequivocally Joel Wyrick. We love Joel Wyrick in this house! Joel’s character has real charisma and charm. I love his flirtations with Loa, how his cocky disposition is juxtaposed with his drinking problem and later insecurities over his lost memories, and his genuine kindness shown to Mei, Taylor, and Boy. No one ever plays with Boy, they just run after him and drag him around...but Joel has this moment in “Escape from Bogan” where he kneels down to Boy and helps him collect rocks. It was sweet!

So of course, when Joel dies for absolutely no reason 5 minutes later - pissed! I was pissed! I yelled “COME ON” aloud in my studio apartment! I was genuinely so excited to see him interact more with the rest of cast then, poof. No More Joel.

His death felt like it was for shock value to me rather than actual narrative development. Why kill him when we still don’t fully understand his and Mei’s relationship? Why were they so close? Were they childhood friends, or just coworkers that happen to become friends? Why did he specifically know all the details of Shane’s abuse towards Mei before she did? 

What did his death accomplish? It made Mei sad...ok? She was already...very sad. Her running away from Shane already had consequences - the consequences of Shane coming after them for revenge in the future. Why did Joel have to become a causality? 

His death is ultimately tied to Mei’s character arc which is, unfortunately, my least favorite :c I find Mei to be a really one dimensional character with a personality, backstory, outlook, and motivation that I’ve seen done a million times before with a million other characters. She feels very out of place in the franchise as a whole - Pacific Rim is, at it’s core, a story about connecting with others. Her self-centric arc and lack of desire to connect outside of drifting really alienates her from the story at large and it frustrates me how long The Black’s narrative spends on her. 

Hayley and Taylor were otherwise very interesting in the pilot episode, but become similarly one dimensional at the story chugs on. Taylor’s unflinching (bordering on unhealthy) faith in their parents was really interesting next to Hayley’s complete acceptance of their parents’ death. But once the two of them make up their differences, they lack an interesting dynamic and become very passive protagonists.

 Taylor especially has no personality - how would you describe Taylor? He’s...brave. He’s the older brother. He’s a leader? He’s nice? There is nothing noteworthy about him at all, which is sad considering I think he has the potential to be a really interesting way to explore the original movie’s influence on The Black’s story.

Hayley’s grief and self-blame are more interesting than Taylor’s...nothingness, but she still falls into this one-note trope of being the naive, excitable little sister. I guess I feel abnormally frustrated about this flat character writing because Pacific Rim’s incredibly unique cast has always been an inspiration to me! It feels sad that this new iteration into the series is full of what feel like stock characters. 

Then we get to Boy. How come Boy can’t have a person name? It’s specifically written in a dialogue between Taylor and Hayley: “I’m not going to call him Chad or Barnaby or one of those names for a baby brother you wanted as a kid,”

Why?

He’s by all accounts a human child when they find him. Yes, he was found in a big green test tube - but he walks and acts just like a human child. The only difference, seemingly, is that he is non-verbal and engages in strange/annoying behavior (running off, eating bugs, etc). So he isn’t deserving of a name?? I don’t know why that makes me so mad, it just does. it’s like they refuse to treat him as a human even before they find out he’s a Kaiju  - it’s super weird! How can the story sell me on the three of them becoming found family (like they’re seemingly trying to do) if the protagonists won’t even treat this kid like a kid??

Misc. Thoughts

The callbacks to Stacker, Herc, and Raleigh were cool! I also like that Herc is a major plot point! We love Herc Hanson and it’s what he deserves. I also find Loa’s connection to Horizon Bravo very interesting...and the fact we’re getting Kaiju cultist lore! Love that! Love that!

Fucked up that the only two dark skinned characters were: 1) removed from the story 10 minutes in with no call back yet, 2) Killed after having 1 line of dialogue and fridged for the character development of the blonde white girl. I really need to know what the deal with those 4 characters leaving in the beginning was about - I absolutely thought we’d see them again by now, but no dice

I don’t know how to feel about Ajax and have no clue what their purpose in the story is. They’re cool, but whats the point? 

If Mei and Taylor are paired up together romantically, I’m putting Craig Kyle and Greg Johnson in the time out box. Very tired of seeing random hetero romance B plots in stories that can’t even get their A plots together

Overall, it’s kind of subpar! It has the foundations of a really interesting story, but the pacing and characters really took me out of it. I’m interested in Season 2! I know season 2 is already ordered and I’d love to see how things continue to develop, see if the character writing gets any better - but I’m not too hopeful unfortunately. I really really love Pacific Rim after all these years and I’m happy to still be getting content and world building! There’s just sooo much I would change about this however. At least fanfiction’s free! 

Thanks for reading all this, I have ADHD and just go on and on if u let me. hmu if You Too have thoughts about Pacific Rim: The Black and have no one to talk abt them with

[riverdale-retread]

Riverdale S5E9 Destroyer - 5 Things I Loved/ 3 Points to Consider

I loved -

1. Betty going ultra-rogue and raging out had me in ecstasy - not quite unadulterated, but no matter.  I generally hate the ‘rogue-cop-had-to-do-it-cuz-system-failed’ type nonsense because, you know, it’s propaganda of the most insidious kind.  BUT.   The sheer terror that Betty Cooper, formerly the pink-sweatered doe-eyed teen dream girl,  invokes in these men is so cathartic.  Betty’s childhood acts of violence were always in defense of someone else - and now she’s just taken it a step further, of trying to do prophylactic justice rather than preventing immediate harm.   Betty slamming that dude sneering that “these girls are ‘looking to trick’” right into his steering wheel WAS AMAZING.  We’ve gone from bash-on-back-of-head to slam-head-down-break-nose as the go-to move. Her measured “Jug. Head?” when he calls at a key moment was hilarious, as was her cold hard, “Or I might not” about coming back for that guy she tied to the tree. 

Sidebar:   I feel like I don’t know Betty’s true size because she was most frequently seen with Jughead, whose height and heft fluctuated a lot due to plot demands, but I actually believe she’d be frightening.  The set of her shoulders as she charges around looking for people to beat up is an astonishing change from how I think of her, the fairytale princess in the fluffy sparkly dress. 

2.  Cheryl Blossom performing Stupid Love in that amazing custom-tailored red jumpsuit  with the glittering red strips down the sides - Oh My GOSH!!!   I basically did everything she told me to do in the song - Freak Out/ Freak Out/ Freak Out/ Look At Me.  And the mandatory Cheryl hair whoosh!  Who says you need to show skin or wear heels to be blazing hot?  Her commitment to performance is such that she dances up the stairs at the start of the song. If there had been a coach like this at any of the schools I went to, my physically incompetent ass would’ve thrown the mother of all tantrums to be given dance lessons, instead of um, being a bookworm in the library. 

3.  This is a two-for-one but Fangs and Jughead are currently being the world’s best ex-boyfriends and I want to give them each a big forehead kiss (and a bum squeeze, no not like that, just a little one, friendly-like).  Fangs is so mature and so in love with Kevin, and he is much more calm than I could be given what Kevin has done to him. I want to know everything about you, the good and the bad, he says, looking so handsome and hurt.  Bad Kevin! I believed in you!  And of course the soft way that Jughead talks to Betty when she’s in distress, using his Let me help you sotto voce that he only ever uses with true intimates, always goes straight to my heart.   There’s literally nobody that offers Betty any sort of comfort anywhere but for Jughead. 

But. I did not feel any sexual tension or residual longing, not from this episode.  It was more sibling energy. The tendon of RAGE that stands out on Betty’s neck as the old codger starts going on about Alien Fusion Reactors, while Jughead  cringes like a younger brother who’s gonna GET IT when they get home or she tells mom, was very cute

4. I actually loved the We Scored a Single Point So Team Is Not Cancelled football match.  I normally never get anything out of these games but this one worked for me. I loved Archie’s speech to his players. Specifically, his tone of voice.  He’s so hot when he’s being someone’s big brother - this is the same tone of voice as him telling Joaquin, You have to hit me! Hit me, at the boxing match. There’s something about this delivery  that just um, makes me tingle.  And then him leaping with BOTH FEET off the ground when Britta scores that one touch down (is this right? i have no idea).  Oh Archie can move. And speaking of Britta - the way her long braid whips around when she avoids getting tackled was fantastic!  All the adults celebrating so hard because one thing went right!  I wish we had more of that energy in actual children’s sports lol.

5. Reggie finally getting to show something of who he is as an adult.  (What I remember most about him from previous seasons is I gotta matter Ronnie! and his single tear of heartbreak as he tells Archie how it is at home for him).  Unsurprisingly, he’s much better at being an aggro asshole than Archie.  He smiles and smiles while delivering terrible news (Your team is about to be cancelled!) and jaunty while dealing low blows to kids (Loser, Loser, Loser).  And yet, he is not a heartless criminal of the stripe that Hiram is - I’m not gonna break some kid’s legs for no reason - and knows how to walk away from a Lodge when they ask too much of him.  I can’t wait to see where they go next with him.  He just gets handsomer every time I see him.

Things to Consider

a)  Archie propositions Veronica - to give him motivation heh - while IN THE locker room which was previously full of his teenage students. OK so as Betty Cooper says Three is a Pattern and I’m calling it. The Riverdale High School building is Archie’s orientation. 

b)  Alice Cooper is mixing Zolpiderm (sleeping pills) with wine and that is very upsetting.  She is at least not chugging the wine straight from the bottle which I hate in movies and tv.

c) Tabitha, Cheryl and Veronica starting to cooperate as the business-owner,  maple syrup and pizzazz supplier, and big-scheme launcher is so exciting, and I kind of wish there was a spinoff with just these three women doing things, really. Like, it wouldn’t even be fanfic, because I don’t ship them, but just, these beautiful smart young women doing business together and THAT being the story would be so comforting and inspirational to me. 

[pondermoniums]

A Rant Nobody Asked for About Stranger Things season 3.

feat. my personal pet peeves.

Disclaimer: when I first watched Stranger Things 3, I massively enjoyed it. I thought it finally captured the 80s aesthetic and vibe with the colors, the neon, and music. I even enjoyed it the SECOND time I watched it, although I was officially aware of some major flaws by that point.

1. The Coca Cola flex.

CocaCola has been all over this show ever since Tommy handed Steve one as a makeshift ice pack after his fight with Jonathan in s1. And then by season 3 it’s just....obnoxious???? And so unnecessary??? Karen Wheeler’s drinking one by the pool in episode one. Billy knocks into someone during his first day being flayed, and a coke rolls over the concrete.

LUCAS DOES AN ENTIRE MONOLOGUE ABOUT NEW COKE.

I mean, Jesus, we get it. CocaCola basically owns Georgia, where a lot of American TV shows are filmed.....but......you’re literally CocaCola. This kind of flex is entirely unnecessary and therefore pathetic.

2. Karen and Billy

Okay, listen. I thought their interaction in season 2 was H I L A R I O U S.  But I’m someone who has looked 21 since I was 14, thanks to being an early bloomer. I get it. The cocky prowess of looking older than your peers. Getting to look adults in the eye and get that tiny bit of respect with nothing more than just looking like they do. And, as a writer, the contrast between thirsty, older Karen with young and equally thirsty Billy is an odd pair of puzzle pieces that fit really hilariously - largely because it’s so unexpected, maybe. And frankly, I think it’s one of the first scenes where Dacre’s acting really made my eyes fall out of my head, he did so well.

But it should have ended there.

I’ve been to a LOT of public pools in my day (I’m 26 but hush), and I have NEVER seen older women thirsting over the lifeguards. Ever. It’s predatory - an attribute most women understand all too well - unprofessional, and just downright gross. Their whole interaction in s3 is for “the male lens,” which Hollywood really needs to figure out by now is outdated, predatory, disgusting, and not good writing.

3. Glossing over Billy Chugging Chemicals

Bouncing off of #2, is Karen’s total negligence of Billy’s condition. Many people have pointed it out before, but a row of mothers being completely ???? about Billy’s condition is a raging red flag of bad writing.

(Also that it was written by men, because women are hard-wired to be super aware of other women - a tactic of living on guard in a man’s world all the damn time. So you can always count on a mother, grandmother, or a brave teen/20-something to be the one to walk up to a person who doesn’t look well in order to check on them, even if you’re complete strangers. It’s happened to me, and I’ve done this for other people.)

These women literally stare at him for every shift of work he has, and they.....don’t do anything????

Karen WALKS IN ON HIM DRINKING CHLORINE. It actually took me the second watch-through to realize what he was doing in that storage room, and god, my heart just broke. It’s the only time we actually see a glimpse of Billy making himself flayed like the others. It’s so fleeting (maybe because we already get so much pain from his plot, and we do see what happens with the other flayed people) but it’s also one of the reasons, I think, that we have a whole fanbase ready and eager for his return.

We didn’t get a good glimpse of him poisoning himself to the point that he has to rely on the MindFlayer to stay alive. I’m not saying any of us want that, no way, but that’s my personal headcanon: in s2, Will was super protected and therefore capable of being separated from the Flayer. All of the Flayed IMMEDIATELY low-key drowned themselves in ice water to lower their temperature, and then chugged chemicals. They all die twice.

4. Billy. Just......Billy.

This poor boy’s plot was so pointless. It’s a special thing: creating such a good character and then doing fuck-all with him. The moment you realize his only purpose in season 2 was an introduction is....the beginning of a lot of disappointment. And no, he DIDN’T serve as an antagonist for Steve, because what happened? He slowed Steve down.

That’s it.

He doesn’t keep Steve from helping the kids in the tunnels. He doesn’t break him and Nancy up. He doesn’t gloriously out Steve’s bisexuality to the town by being his shameless lover.

He literally does nothing except just......be there? Looking gorgeous and providing a juxtaposing characterization for Max. That’s all. Billy’s treated like an accessory.

Then we arrive to season 3 and....I guess the only justification for his plot is sort of classic Greek tragic hero. He’s the new Keg King whose hubris makes him stand too long outside the warehouse, and thus, his downfall.

But here’s what’s wrong with that: Steve Harrington.

We were so spoiled with good writing for Steve. Steve had an incredibly refreshing and valid character AND redemption arc. Frankly, all the good writing goes to Steve in this show, so we expected the same writing to go to the other douche bag king of the show.

And we didn’t get it.

5. 80s Bullshit vs. Modern Audience

You can tell they’re trying to straddle the line between, “this is how people talked back then,” and, “this pertains to a modern audience.”

Example: Mike saying to Will, “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls.”

I know they did multiple takes of this scene with different variations of this line, and that’s the one the editors settled with. Regardless, I know I am not the only person who screeched with rainbow pride for Will’s sake. And it’s not the first time they’ve touched on very hot modern topics. Hopper touches on homophobia in season 1 - a fact I completely missed until I read an interview where the actor, David Harbor, mentions it, himself. Then I rewatched season 1 and realized, sure enough, he reacts poorly when Joyce tells him that Lonnie calls Will a f*g. It’s not even fatherly, “that should be my son, how dare he.” It’s straight up, “this kid might not be worth finding if he’s gay.”

Of course there’s the more obvious occasions where Steve calls Jonathan a queer and Neil Hargrove should come with his own neon trigger sign. Slut is a term that’s carelessly thrown around (as high schoolers are wont to do, sure).

But the thing that’s bothered me the most is Steve saying to Billy, “Were you dropped too much on your head as a child, or what?”

Maybe it’s just me being extremely sensitive to mental health stuff (also, WHY does Steve ironically get all the triggering lines? lol), plus he says it very soon after we finally know why Billy behaves the way he does. Just.....*long sigh*. I hurt, okay. Some parts of this show really hurt, and I don’t like “it was the 80s” as an excuse.

6. Lucas and Kali or, the Diversity Check Marks

One black kid. One. Then they gave him a sister. Cool. Somebody give these people BLM awards.

*eyes roll so hard my cat chases them across the floor*

You know what this reminds me of? The East Asian actor who trended in movies like The Goonies and Indiana Jones.

The only thing that even remotely makes this small drop of diversity okay, is that they made Lucas a major player in The Party, and cast a dope actress to be Erica Sinclair, and likewise made her a linchpin in the Scoops Troop plot.

But touching back to #5, you can’t use “it’s the 80s” as an excuse, nor can you say, “it’s white bread Indiana.”

BUT but but but Kali!!!!

You mean the character in one episode? Two, if you count the opening of season 2.

Listen. For all the bipoc folks who wonder, “Do white people realize how.....WHITE everything is?” as a white person, I can absolutely say: 

Yes. We. Do. Fucking. Notice.

• • • • •

Well. That’s all lol If you made it this far, I’m sorry and thanks lol 

Tip your artists and comment on fics because lord knows that where my seratonin comes from.

[svt13roses]

I Can Smile Because It’s You

Part 2 of Oh We’re In Love Aren’t We

Words: 2.7k 

A/n: I’ll be honest I don’t have a schedule or anything for this fic, so sorry for the sporadic updates lmao

Previous | Next

     Your plan had succeeded eventually, but you soon came to realize that it had worked almost too well. You both had somehow managed to be in the same class every year since becoming friends, and this year was no different. Due to you both being in the same class, he hadn’t really seen a need to make any new friends when he knew he had you, thus making you two practically inseparable. You expected this year to be the same as the years before, especially since it’s starting to play out like usual. You had arrived at Jihoon’s house bright and early to walk to school. Now, some would say arriving at a house that’s a 15 minute walk away from school over an hour early would be considered excessive but you already knew how this morning was going to play out. You arrived at his front door, and it opened immediately. You greeted his mother, and as you stepped inside you both said as usual:

    “He refuses to wake up, can you please do something?” She simply chuckled and mentioned that breakfast would be ready when you managed to wake up her demon son. 

     “JIHOON YOU HAVE 5 MINUTES TO WAKE UP BEFORE YOU HAVE TO FEEL MY WRATH!” you had shouted as you marched to the door of his bedroom. You were still one to keep to your promises, and thus you set an alarm for 5 minutes on your phone and sat outside his door. As you waited, you began to look around the familiar hallway that was practically your second home. You began to notice the changes that had occurred in this particular hallway over the years. Little details like fading paint color and scuff marks on the floors began to stick out more. The same pictures from years before lined the hall, with you being a feature in some of them as Jihoon had grown older.

     One picture had always caught your attention no matter how many times you had roamed this hall, it was taken shortly after you had befriended Jihoon. You had been invited over to hang out at his place for a weekend while your parents went on a vacation for their anniversary (your mom had first tried to say “extended play date” but you were much too old and mature for “play dates” anymore, you had claimed). Since it was summer, you were allowed to stay up later and Jihoon’s mom had offered the idea of making brownies together, with you two being her assistant bakers. In an unsurprising turn of events, she ended up doing all the work while you two got to eat the leftover batter. The picture had been taken without either of your knowledge at the time, with both of you too engrossed in getting every last bit of brownie batter from the bowl. The part that made the picture special wasn’t the fact that he had a friend, he had friends in the past that were featured in other pictures around the house. What made it special was the fact that he looked genuinely happy and excited. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy before he met you, but there was something different about the smile and the look in his eyes in that particular picture. In almost every picture since, he has had the same look when you’re there with him and it always made you feel warm inside knowing you were the reason for that change. 

     Your thoughts were cut off by the blaring alarm of the timer going off. A faint groan could be heard from the other side of the door, then a thump, then all was silent. 

     “Jihoon?” You called out, lightly knocking on his door. “Jihoon I was not joking about you having to face my wrath, if I have to come in there you’re going to wish you woke up the first time.” You slowly opened his door, peeking inside you saw a bare bed stripped of its sheets which had been lying in a lump next to the bed. From the pile of blankets, you could see a leg sticking out one end and tufts of hair at the other end. A sigh left your lips as you wondered how to actually wake the boy up, and how he even managed to get that tangled in his sheets in the first place. You tip-toed over to where the leg was sticking out, already planning your next move. As you went to grab his leg you heard a voice coming from the muffled sheets. 

     “Care to repeat that?” you chuckled. Jihoon’s head shot out of the blankets, his eyes squinting as he was adjusting to the sunlight flowing into his room. 

     “I said, you better not do it.” He grumbled out, voice still rough from waking up. 

     “Better do what? Last I saw you couldn’t possibly see what I was about to do. For all you know I could have been a kind friend delivering you breakfast. You would have missed out on a once in a lifetime opportunity right there.” You chirped, a sly smile creeping its way onto your lips. An agitated noise of some kind came from the pile of blankets. 

     “I know you y/n. You were plotting something in that dumb head of yours. Worst case scenario it was a handful of ice cubes in my sheets like you did last year. I’m still bitter about that by the way. Best case scenario? There isn’t one. Now get out of my room and let me get ready.” He sat up, stretched, and turned towards you. “See? I’m awake. Yipee. Now leave.” Jihoon pointed towards the door. You raised your brow at him, before making your way out of his room. Before you left, you quickly turned on the light and sprinted away after closing his door, hearing him yell out some insult about practically blinding him. 

     You made your way into the kitchen, the smell of coffee and toast wafting through the air. This was slowly becoming a beloved tradition in the mornings for you. While waiting for Jihoon to get ready, his mom and you would have a mug of coffee and two slices of toast since neither of you were huge on eating breakfast. You took your seat at the table. A plate of buttered golden brown toast and a warm cup of coffee that could be mistaken for milk with the amount of cream and sugar added was practically calling your name. The first sip of coffee was heavenly, and you could only assume that your face said everything as you heard Jihoon’s mom chuckle to herself as she was finishing making her own plate of toast.

     “I know I say this more often than I should, but I really do apologize for how Jihoon is in the mornings. I don’t know where he got it from, his father and I have always been early risers since we were kids. I guess those genes didn’t get passed down and now we’re stuck with a grouch in the mornings.” She softly said, making her way to the table with the plate of toast and coffee in hand. 

     “It’s really no problem” you laughed, “he’s been this way as long as I’ve known him. If he was actually awake and ready by the time I got here I would be convinced that he was replaced by an evil twin or something. Oh god, he doesn’t have a twin I know about right? You wouldn’t hide this from me for what, 5 years now?” The thought of having another Jihoon in your life scared you more than it probably should have. It’s not that he was a bad person, he was just so uniquely himself that you couldn’t comprehend there being another version. From an outsider’s perspective, you assumed Jihoon could be described as a lone wolf of sorts. He was content by himself, he didn’t really seek out the company or the thoughts of others. At school he was polite and civil to his classmates, even laughing along with their antics at times. However, no one would ever really describe him as their “friend” or someone they were close to. To them, he was just their classmate Jihoon: another body among the others that come and go as the years go by. However, he didn’t seem to mind this fact at all. He made his own little world, and you were lucky enough to become a part of that piece of him.  

     You both silently continued your breakfasts, enjoying the warm rays of sunshine that filled the kitchen. You could faintly hear Jihoon’s footsteps in the background as he was walking about getting ready. Just as you were about to call out and make a snarky comment about how he could get ready so leisurely when you both knew you would be late if he continued at that pace, he made his appearance in the kitchen. 

     “Either you both forget that I need to eat breakfast too, or you just actively ignore that fact every morning.” He mumbled as he saw two empty plates and mugs. “I also don’t wanna hear it from you y/n. ‘Well if you just woke up earlier, then your mom would make you breakfast’” he said in a high pitched voice, attempting to mock you. “But you see,” he grabbed a glass and began pouring milk, “I am a growing boy. I need my rest, and you do too. So really, who’s the crazy one here? The one getting the proper hours of sleep, or the one who wakes up at the ass crack of dawn?”

    “Language, Jihoon” his mom quipped.

    He chugged the glass of milk and shrugged as he looked at you. “Just saying is all. I know for a fact y/n doesn’t go to bed earlier cause she’s usually the one nagging me to go to sleep. So, mom, don’t act like y/n is some saint come to save me cause if anything she’s worse than I am.” He put the glass in the sink and grabbed an apple from the table, making his way towards the front door. He turned back and gave a smug grin. “Well, look at the time,” he hummed, “I think it’s time to go. C’mon y/n, don’t want to be late do you?”

     You stared at him dumbfounded but eventually got up to put your dishes away. You grabbed your things and waved goodbye to his mom as the two of you made your way outside. As you both walked along, the only sound being made was your shoes against the sidewalk and the occasional crunch of the apple that Jihoon had grabbed earlier. Eventually, the silence became too much.

     “Where did that sass come from this morning? Usually, you barely manage to get out a ‘good morning’ to your mom. Thanks for calling me out like that too, I feel like I lost all respect from your mom that I built up.” You pouted as you kicked a stray pebble. 

     He chuckled, but you made sure to keep your attention on the pebble that seemed to become more interesting the more you kicked it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m always like this.” You could practically hear the smirk, but you refused to look his way. 

     “Lee Jihoon I have known you since elementary school, and while you do sass me more than I care to admit, you are never that witty in the mornings.”

     “Oh! So you’re calling me witty now?”

     “I’m not! I’m just saying that I didn’t expect you to do whatever… that was”

     “You’re acting like this is a big deal” he laughed.

     “Pssh, I am not,” you scoffed, “I’m just merely taken aback about your change in behavior.” You felt him wrap an arm around your shoulder.

     “Ah y/n, have you possibly considered the phrase new school year, new me?” You shoved his arm off and stopped in your tracks. 

     “No, not at all,” you deadpanned. “You’re a man of habit. I could probably list off the same quirks you’ve had since we were 10, you really haven’t changed.”

     “Hey, I’ve changed since I was 10-”

     “Sure Jihoon, sure”

     You both arrived at the school gates before the argument could continue. You could hear Jihoon still grumbling about how he has, in fact, changed as you walked into the building. You were about to tell him to quit being such a child when all of a sudden you felt pressure on your backpack. Confused, you spun around to see who it could have been, but all you could see was the flood of students standing around or making their way to their respective classrooms. 

     “What’s wrong? You look like a ghost just touched your shoulder.” Jihoon snickered. 

     “You didn’t see anyone come up from behind and put anything in my backpack right?”

     “Nope, but I do see something poking out,” he reached for the object, “seriously when did you become so ignorant that you leave one of your zipper pockets open?” He pulled it out of your backpack and handed it to you. “Looks like a note with something in it.”

     “Ugh, I’ll read it when we get to class.” You held the note, but you couldn’t help but feel like something was off. You knew Jihoon wasn’t the kind of person to play these kinds of games with you, and your friends would have been more obvious and upfront about delivering a message like this. As you continued to class, you half expected Jihoon to start nagging you about opening the note right away but he stayed silent. You looked at him and he seemed like he was deep in thought. 

     “I always wonder what’s going through that head of yours” you whispered. You both entered your first class and took your seats, still not saying a word to each other. After unpacking your notebook and pen, you stared at the note like it was some alien object. You began to open it, before shutting it and shoving it underneath your notebook. Grabbing your pen, you reached across your desk to the seat in front of you and poked Jihoon in the neck. No response. You poked again and he craned his neck back, making eye contact with you. You both stared at each other until he broke the silence.

     “Well, what is it?”

     “What is what? Oh- yeah. You wanna read the note with me?”

     “Mm, not really. If I was meant to read it then I would have gotten one too.” He huffed, turning his chair around to face your desk. He grabbed your pen from your grasp and began fiddling with it. “Although,” he sighed, “that doesn’t mean you can’t tell me what it says. Just because I don’t want to read it doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what’s inside.” 

     You couldn’t help but giggle. “Aw, is my Jihoonie scared it’s a love note? If anything, it’s probably one of my friends just saying ‘hey nerd, here’s the lunch money I owe you from two weeks ago. Thanks, the sandwich was subpar at best.’ with cash inside.”

     “It’s not gonna be a love note, I’m perfectly sure about that.”

     “Hey! It definitely could be-”

     “Y/n that’s the cheesiest thing ever! A love note with a little chocolate with it, you only see those in the romance movies my mom likes to watch. Besides, even if it was some sort of confession I know you would reject it.”

     “And why do you say that? Maybe I want a little romance in my life!” You scoffed. Jihoon looked at you and smiled.

     “Who needs romance when you got me? You love me more anyway.” He lightly tapped the pen on your nose and put it down, turning his chair away. You were left speechless as the bell rang to signal class starting. You put the note away in your backpack, making sure the contents inside didn’t fall out. While you directed your attention to the teacher taking attendance, you didn’t notice the slight tint of red Jihoon’s ears were turning. For once in his life, Jihoon was glad he sat in front of you instead of next to you like in most of your classes. If you saw him you would definitely question why he was blushing so hard, and he wasn’t ready to have that conversation yet. He definitely wasn’t ready to hear about the note either, already knowing what’s inside. 

[som3thingcr3ative]

Voluspa Part 5

It’s HERE!!!!!!! I promised a new chapter, and I have delivered. This one is a little slower, but things will pick up veeeery soon, I just needed to get some backstory in, some life in characters. 

(side note, this looks longer on my google docs...the next one will be longer and sooner, I promise.)

synopsis: Astrid is welcomed to the feast and to Kattegat. She meets a new ally and settles into her new home, enjoying the attentions of a certain Viking King. 

warnings: mentions of suicide, drinking, slavery. 

previously: 

“I have seen it,” I say, raising my chin just a tad. My fingers leave Einar’s fur and relax at my side. No fear. “The gods have shown me.”“

“I like this one,” Ivar muses, leaning forward once again, his eyes on me. “You are welcome here, Astrid. So long as your loyalties remain true, you are my honored guest. Welcome to Kattegat!”

PART 1 2 3 4 5 6

That night, I can relax. Old Norse takes no effort for me; it comes as naturally as any language to a native speaker, which allows my efforts to shift toward containing a disturbing number of prophecies from slipping out of my mouth. Normally, if I were to prophesy, it would be in Old Norse around english speaking people- seen as nothing more than a character quirk, but around Vikings, the prophecy would be chilling. I would be avoided at all costs if one wanted to keep their sanity. 

So for the small blessing of control, I am thankful. 

There is good ale (a bit weak compared to beer, but still enough to loosen the tongue), good food (without all of the hormones and hassle of my previous home), and good company. Vikings share their stories of raids and victories- and with enough ale, their defeats. Only once do I think of Damon; of how he would love to hear these stories from living history itself- so I chug the ale in my cup and get a refill from the blushing (and very thankful) servant girl whose arse I’d saved earlier, all thoughts of my brother banished. I learn that her name is Rita, that she was captured from what is to be France, and that by giving her the distraction needed to clean up and act as if nothing had happened, I’d spared her a great deal of pain. 

An idea blossoms. I turn to Ivar who sits to my right. “My king, could I pay you for this servant girl? I wish for her to be my handmaiden.”

Ivar’s eyes barely glance over the girl. He smiles at me and waves a hand. “You are my guest, Astrid. There is no need to pay me for her; she is yours.”

I grin at him and bow my head just briefly. “I am grateful, my King.” He nods and turns back to his food and his conversation with Ubbe while I smile at the girl. 

“Well Rita, it appears you will not suffer any more punishments. From now on, you are under my protection.” 

Rita’s jaw drops. In old french, I add “as my handmaiden, you will be given a great deal of freedom- all I ask is that you do not lie to me or plot behind my back.”

“Yes, my lady!” She replies in enthusiastic french. “Thank you so much, my lady!”

“Go get yourself cleaned up-” I hand her a small coin ‘borrowed’ from a drunken Jarl encountered on the journey here. “And get some new clothes. You are a handmaiden now, it’s best you look like it.” 

She turns the coin over and over between dirty fingers, her eyes wide. Finally she nods to me and scampers off, grinning like a fool. I allow myself a victorious smile and take a sip of ale. 

Only a few minutes pass before Ivar turns to me, at Ubbe’s goading. 

“You are certainly a puzzle, Astrid.” He comments, eyeing me. “I am told you rode here on a stallion with no tack- and then carried your own bags to this hall where you proceeded to single-handedly beat three men.” He glances down at Einar who is draped over my feet, crunching away at a cow femur. “With a wolf, no less.”

“I assure you, my King, it is quite the story.”

“Ivar.” He smiles. “No need for pleasantries, you are my guest.”

Another small smile. A gracious tip of my head. “Ivar,” I correct. “If you have the time, perhaps I could tell you?”

He raises his mug, signalling a servant to serve him more ale. Once the cup is full, he sips at it, eyes never leaving me. “I have all the time in the world.” 

My brows lift. I take a swig of ale, making a show of it. He laughs. 

“It’s one of those stories, is it?”

I grin. “It all started nineteen years ago, when my mother pushed me out of her body screaming and covered in blood…

My childhood was a pleasant one, by most accounts. I had a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food on the table. When I was three, my father died. As the first born, I inherited his ability to sense...things. Things that I shouldn’t have known. Things that, for a while, drove me crazy. I scared people. One man jumped off of a cliff because I told him his wife would die by his hands if he did not kill himself first. He believed me because I had been right before- another man had a baby girl- I told him that he would have an accident and kill his child, but he scoffed at me. One day he was carrying his child through the house when he tripped, sending the baby flying. She landed on her head and broke her neck, just like that. He killed himself two days later. 

We moved away. Packed up everything we had and left. My mother trained me to hold those prophecies in, to keep them from hurting anyone, so instead they hurt me. I look at someone and I know how they will die. I know the defining moments of their life and their worst mistakes. And I keep all of that bottled up inside of me. 

So I started fresh. I turned to animals instead of people. Animals do not expect things of you. They want to give and receive love, they do not judge or place blame. They do not envy or betray. If you trust them and give them reason to trust you, they will be there for you, no matter what. The best part is, I can’t see their whole life mapped out before me. I can’t know exactly what to do to change their whole path, their entire fate. It is a weight off of my shoulders. 

I helped bring Hvardr, my stallion into this world. His mother orphaned him, so I made sure he was fed. I cared for him, and when he grew, I trained him to trust me and only me. He will buck anyone else off of him. If someone tries to restrain him in any way, he will hurt them- maybe even kill them. But not me. 

Einar was barely a month old when I found him strung up in a trap. I helped him heal- and I tried to keep him wild- I really did. He’s stubborn, though, so when he chose me, there wasn’t a thing I could do to say no. Here we are eight seasons later. 

I never found love, I never had those firsts so many women have. I am not like others. I am different. And because of that difference, I see things in a totally different light. This gift is a blessing and a curse- and sometimes I wish I were normal, or that my younger brother had it, not me, but then I realize that everything I am and everything I have is because of what makes me different. 

I would not be who I am if I were the same as everyone else. 

~

Rita finds me in my room that night, shortly after the feast ended. Her hair is in a loose braid, nothing too complicated while still showing her stature. Cleaned up, I can see that she is actually quite pretty, in a youthful way. No more than fourteen or fifteen summers, if I had to guess. 

Her life flashes before my eyes in quick bursts, defining moments and tragedy lasting a brief second longer than the rest until I see her death- and I know instantly how to treat her. I smile at her, eyeing her new dress. She blushes, grinning at the floor. 

“You look beautiful,” I tell her, speaking in Old French. “Like a princess.”

“Thank you, m’lady.” She ducks her head, showing respect. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“You can extinguish that torch over there, Rita. I’m quite tired from the day’s events. Oh, and I had them bring in an extra bed. I know it’s not much, but… well it’s yours.” 

Her eyes widen as she looks over at the bed. It has two furs on it for the cold night, a few feet away from my own bed. Our beds take up only about half the space in the room Ivar was kind enough to lend to me. 

“Thank you, m’lady!” She says, holding a hand to her chest as she stares at the bed. I know that it is more than she’s probably ever had- first as a frankish peasant and then as a slave, a bed to her is a luxury she’d only dreamed of. I hope she can sleep, knowing for myself the difficulty of sleeping on a bed after more than a few nights on the floor. 

“I’ll see you in the morning,” I tell her, moving to cover myself with a fur. “Good night, and sleep well.” Behind me, I can hear her move to the solitary torch burning against the far wall. Einar, curled against my legs, watches her carefully as she walks to her bed and gets comfortable. He is still wary of her, but is slowly warming up to the idea of another person sleeping close to him. 

tag list:  All Ivar tag: @inforapound​ @amy8220 @sallydelys​ @youbloodymadgenius​ @i-am-a-teenage-dirtbaggg​

Voluspa: @tis-itheapplepie​ @thetwistedqueen @inforapound @wuxiesalt @readsalot73​ @themusingkitten @youbloodymadgenius

[a-very-fond-farewell]

The forbidden crack! Untamed prompts: 24/?

Role-reversed!AU (Song[Xiao]Xue): “Love at First Sight”

[villain!SL/investigator!XY]

[title is from a Kylie Minogue’ song and from nowhere else fight me]

[so. me is embarrassed to say this but. the idea comes from an Italian movie of the late 90’s.]

[which is to say that: (1) Italian comedies are rarely my thing bc they are (pardon my French, I don’t feel like switch to Italian rn) problematique most of the times; (2) it’s been 10 or so years since I last saw this particular movie and even if at the time I liked it I was probably sixteen at the time so... not the best judge also my memory is shit for actual plot points; (3) internalized homophobia runs in the Italian film industry; (4) it deals with criminal gangs and, even if the movie makes fun of them, it is still a sore topic in my country so... I’m not gonna go in detail for this ficlet. it is, in fact, just a prompt; (5) also there is a cop character and... well, I changed it into a private investigator bc fuck it; (6) ignore me, I’m emotional tonight.]

*

Married off. Him. To a lovely girl, for sure, but with a penchant for pickpocketing and letting her mouth run at the most inconvenient of times. The wedding is in six months. Song Lan has to laugh at that.

But Mother has been almost too complacent with him for the longest time, allowing him to play his games and get it on with too many women for him to care to keep track of. He may or may not have disrespected some of them and their powerful families in the past for being a serial womanizer. There’s a logic behind it, of course, but since his eye surgery he cannot seem to remember what that could have possibly been at the time.

The worst of all being that he doesn’t remember why he ever found women attractive in the first place. People of the Baixue Clan tried to cheer him up to no avail for months. They took him to brothels, called in his favorite rent-girls, tipped them extra, brought him out of town on vacation to distract him, but... nothing.

He feels like crying sometimes. He’s done. Broken. Nobody will ever take him seriously anymore now that he’s nothing but his mommy’s boy. Forget for a minute that his mother is keeping the entire Yi City in check by enforcing her law on other clans. Let alone that her word has ruled over rascals and rogue hotheads for decades just by letting them hear her name. BaoShan Sanren would have not forgiven him for turning down the daughter of a competing family, that’s for sure.

Sometimes Song Lan looks down at himself, dressed in ridiculously flashy buttondowns open at the collar, with black jackets and fitting trousers, embezzled shoes on his long feet... and he wants to shriek. He hates everything about himself and he doesn’t know where to start. He doesn’t recognize himself anymore, almost as if his mind had changed about everything he believed to know.

At least he can see again. That should be enough, right?

*

It should have seen it fucking coming, Xue Yang knows this much.

A bullet to the heart would have hurt him less, but it’s been a year since his husband’s death and he’s done. He’s fucking done. Throwing himself away like that, recklessly accepting new cases one after the other just because. He’s got nothing to come home for anyway.

But as he disinfects the slash of a dagger on his shoulder, he wonders if there’s more to life than this. A dirty bathroom where he and his husband used to shave in the morning together before work. A stuffy apartment filled with unwanted memories. Mold on the ceiling, laughter rising to the sky every night before Xiao XingChen died. Before everything else left with him.

Xue Yang flinches when the alcohol stings badly on the cut and he chugs some vodka down for good measure as he prepares to stitch the gaping wound back together. The flame scorches the needle until it becomes almost white and he wonders, not for the first time, how it would feel to just... stop. He cried so much he doesn’t have tears left anymore.

The last time he saw his husband’s beautiful face it was at the morgue, where a dispassionate woman in white had asked him to confirm his identity. She asked him if he had formally agreed to put his husband’s name on the list of organ donors. He refused in the beginning... and then thought about it. About what his righteous husband would have wanted him to do.

Letting go of him –of any part of him, really– so soon tore him apart.

Since there was nothing left of Xiao XingChen, it was just right for not a single thing of Xue Yang to be left in his wake as well.

Well, aside from the pain. But that was to be expected after all.

He had never deserved anything but pain in his life.

Fuck that. Fuck that shit.

*

Mother asked him to look for a mole in the group, but he found a mere nobody snooping around in their area instead. Searching for what, he doesn’t know. But, as he crowds the other man in a dark alley behind the secret entry of their club, Song Lan cannot help himself from staring.

The laundromat from where their regular patrons usually enter to play is open 24/7, the flickering light coming from its open door casting just... the loveliest shadows on the younger man’s face. He’s shorter, much shorter than him. Possibly in his early thirties. Dressed nicely with a gun pointed at Song Lan... but he doesn’t care.

It’s almost as if something has fallen back in its original place and Song Lan is filled with elation. He has never felt more relieved or happy in his life. It feels like a second chance at life, an opportunity he doesn’t want to let slide through his fingers this time around.

He grasps the other man’s hand holding the gun and directs it upwards in a swift move. A bullet cuts through the air as he pushes the shorter man up to the laundromat window, neon lights dancing on Song Lan’s face. Soon people from the club will rush to his aid, knowing full well that he’s out looking for a snitch. He doesn’t have time, so he takes a good look at the person at his mercy.

He knows him.

And he falls in love, immediately.

*

The shot still rings in his ear, the gun burning in his outstretched hand, now caught in a vicious grasp. Xue Yang flinches as he looks up and gets ready to defend himself. He was just following a useless son of a bitch lying to his wife about not playing cards and losing all of their money. He would have never thought it would turn so bad so soon. Usually he gets away quickly enough, running for his life as usual...

...but this is different.

His gaze meets Xiao XingChen’s eyes and he freezes on the spot. He would recognize them anywhere, the same glassy quality to them, the same softness around them. Nothing makes sense anymore.

Because the one in front of him looks nothing like his husband.

And yet he knows him.

He knows what it feels to be looked with fondness and longing by one Xiao XingChen.

Fuck, he missed that.

He missed that so much.

*

[additional nonsense under the cut, bc. I am me]

[the original movie is a comedy, but I saw this post while I was writing the prompt and now it’s a fucking urban-noir kind of deal baby!]

[am I procrastinating another ficlet (slowly turning into a 20k monster bc I’m stupid) by writing this prompt instead? no. what are you talking about?]

[i wanted SL to have a family, but I had no idea what the people at the Temple would have looked like or acted around him, so I imagined BaoShan Sanren hoarding children as she goes (which is canon anyway) but she’s a villain in this bc I’m an asshole.]

[SL is the only one of her children to have an actual father, hence he’s the only one with a last name different from Sanren (which I know is a title but let. me. live. *kissy face* :* :* :* many thanks.]

[I offer Lan QiRen as a tribute for fatherhood, even if I know SL’s surname is written like “mist”, while the Lan Sect is named after the character for “blue”. but let me dream.]

[also I just like the idea of SL’s auntie or big sister being WWX’s mother for no other reason that this is a silly prompt and I need to fill these additional notes with something vaguely resembling a plot.]

[if you want another role-reversed!au check this other (wangxian) prompt of mine. then check all the others and have fun.]

[in the movie there was a scene where the widower runs on a horse to save the man he (begrudgingly) has come to care about from his wedding.]

[for the majority if not the entirety of the movie the widower sees something of his dead wife in the criminal (who received the wife’s eyes through transplant) and denies any attraction to him until the end... even if he runs away with him.]

[the criminal has changed since the transplant and became somewhat a decent person. in the end he runs away with the widower.]

[I wanted actual romance, not plausible deniability, thanks. hence this stupid prompt someone might like, maybe.]

[if you write something based on this prompt (the most angsty or hurt/comfort-y the better, but also fluff or *coughs*smut*coughs* is good) send me an ask. I want to read it! :D]

ok now I go back to my 20k-and-counting monster fic. bye!!

[thenerdparty]

Avengers: Endgame Film Review

Written by Shawn Eastridge Has it really been 11 years since the first Iron Man? The Dark Knight might have taken all the credit that year for revolutionizing the superhero genre, but Iron Man’s legacy has proved just as important. While other films in Phase One hobbled somewhere between decent and mediocre, Joss Whedon’s first Avengers exceeded any and all expectations. To this day, it stands as one of the greatest superhero films ever, and it paved the way for the remainder of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.

Over the course of the past decade, the MCU has seen its fair share of highs (Anything directed by the Russos), lows (Thor movies not directed by Taika Waititi) and everything in between. But through it all, Marvel Studios has maintained a consistent level of quality, conjuring up box office numbers that made Warner Bros SO JEALOUS they ruined Superman in the attempt to catch up. (Hey, WB: I’m still available to help get you on the right track with the Man of Steel. Call me.)

But now, twenty-two movies later, it’s all come down to this. We’re in the Endgame now, the long-awaited BIG FINALE to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.

Let’s be real, though - we all know this isn’t really the finale. The MCU will chug on and on forever. In fact, we’ve even got another Marvel movie right around the corner. (That would be July’s Spider-Man: Far From Home) And while that knowledge does dilute Endgame’s overall effectiveness - can anyone ever stay dead in the realm of comic books - it seems foolish to recognize Endgame as anything other than a monumental success.

Seriously, this ‘conclusion’ to the MCU’s recently dubbed ‘Infinity Saga’ satisfies on nearly every level, fulfilling arcs set up in prior films and providing proper send offs for characters we’ve come to know and love over the past decade. Instead of collapsing under the weight of its ongoing 22-film arc, the Russo Brothers, along with screenwriting duo Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus, rise to the challenge and then some, wrapping things up with style, grace and a surprising amount of emotion. That is perhaps the most pleasant surprise: Endgame is genuinely touching in the way it thoughtfully concludes this ongoing story arc. You may find yourself dabbing the corners of your eyes more frequently than expected through the film’s brisk three-hour runtime.

This isn’t all to say that Endgame is without its fair share of flaws - and there are plenty that I’ll get into during the spoiler section of this review - but honestly, the nitpicks feel so minor when compared to all the things that work. Marvel Studios hasn’t just raised the bar for superhero filmmaking and ‘big finales’ in general. They’ve obliterated it.

There. That’s my non-spoiler reaction. MASSIVE SPOILERS await you ahead. So, do yourself a favor: if you haven’t seen Avengers: Endgame already, see it. Immediately. If you have any fondness for any of the films in this massive franchise, there’s no way you’ll be disappointed. Once you’re in the know, come back and check out the rest of this review.

Sound good? Okay. Let’s push forward.

. . . . .

Where Infinity War brought the comic book action early and often, Endgame’s opening moments are more meditative and somber. Our heroes have just faced a crushing loss. They’re still reeling from the devastation of Thanos’s infamous Finger-Snap Heard ‘round the Universe. Nothing will ever be the same.

After staging an effectively heart-wrenching opening scene, giving us a brief glimpse at Hawkeye’s family life before his wife and kids fade into ash, the Russos keep the mood low-key and mournful for the duration of the film’s first act. Then we get one of Endgame’s earliest and best twists: within the film’s first twenty minutes, the Avengers find Thanos and discover he’s destroyed the Infinity Stones to prevent anyone from undoing his monstrous deed. In an empty gesture, Thor chops off the purple dude’s head. It’s a brilliant way to kick things off, throwing the audience for a loop and suggesting an ‘anything goes’ vibe to keep us on the edge of our seats.

The story jumps ahead five years(!!) to find our heroes scattered and broken, attempting to mend together the pieces in a world still devastated by its new reality. I loved that the Russos let us wallow in our heroes’ misery for a bit. You really get a sense of the loss they’ve experienced, that the entire world has experienced. These scenes offer some wonderful character beats and conversations, something that has always elevated Marvel above the rest of the pack.

Scott Lang, a.k.a. Ant-Man, escapes the Quantum Realm (you saw Ant-Man and the Wasp, right?) to discover a significantly altered world. But he brings a message of hope with him: the duration of time he experienced in the Quantum Realm was only 5 hours, suggesting the potential for time travel. Maybe they can find a way to fix the devastation Thanos has wrought by traveling back in time?

P.S. Can I just take a moment to talk about how much I love Paul Rudd in this movie? Ant-Man has been on the periphery of the MCU’s big events and to see him take on such a big role in this movie was a huge thrill.

This glimmer of hope inspires the band to get back together and it’s genuinely surprising where some of them have ended up. Bruce Banner has finally made peace with his meaner, greener side, resulting in Professor Hulk, a version of the character that maintains Banner’s intelligence and personality. Thor never overcame his grief and has spent the past five years descending into drunken slobbery and gaining a significant amount of weight in the process. This provides one of the film’s best sight gags. Plus, it’s maintained throughout! Kudos to you, Russos!

And then we have Mr. Tony Stark himself, the key to figuring out how to make time travel work. But he’s moved on. He and Pepper have an adorable daughter. He has absolutely zero desire to lose what he has. Ultimately the realization that he can save the lives of countless billions - including one surrogate son Peter Parker - drives him to support the cause.

Endgame’s 2nd act centers around the newly reassembled Avengers time-traveling into the past to gather the Infinity Stones, bring them to their future and use them to ‘un-snap’ their fallen comrades. These sequences are fun and light on their feet. They’re especially effective in lieu of the grim opening scenes.

Here’s the thing, though: As much as I love this portion of the film and the way the time travel stuff is handled, I couldn’t help feeling there was a general lack of consequence to everything that happened during this sequence. Even when things skew from the team’s set plan, it doesn’t feel like a significant snag or an insurmountable obstacle. These moments are treated as minor annoyances before our heroes carry on with a new solution, nary breaking their strides or a sweat in the process.

It’s all fun in a Back to the Future Part II kind of way, but it’s treated more as an extended comedy bit than anything else, and to a certain extent, this robs Endgame of some level of suspense. Plus, it’s time travel. Once you throw time travel into the mix, all bets are off, and I couldn’t help shaking that feeling. After all, what’s to stop them from using this plot device again and again in the future, consequences be damned?

At the very least, the wackiness of the time travel sequence is balanced with some great character beats. I loved Thor’s tender moment with his mom. I loved Captain America vs. Captain America. I loved that Tony gets a sincere heart to heart with his dad, offering some much-needed closure. Robert Downey Jr. has never been anything less than wonderful in this role, but his performance in Endgame might take the cake. Honestly, everyone brings their A-game to the table and these moments ground the sequence, keeping it from getting too bonkers.

This sequence is also balanced with a genuinely tragic moment: Black Widow sacrifices herself to get the Soul Stone. I don’t know why this scene has been stirring up some people, because here’s the thing: this moment works perfectly. Natasha (Black Widow) and Clint (Hawkeye) travel to Vormir to obtain the Soul Stone. As established in Infinity War, the only way to obtain said stone is to sacrifice the thing you love most. Clint’s willing to take the plunge. He’s become a monster in the five years since his family’s disappearance (but an awesome, katana-wielding monster) and he doesn’t feel he deserves to see them again. Natasha knows this isn’t true and she’s willing to sacrifice herself to ensure Clint gets his happy ending. After all, he saved her all those years ago. It’s time to return the favor. It’s heartbreaking, but it feels right and Scarlett Johansson and Jeremy Renner sell every minute.

The plan is a success, but it's not without its snags. Past Thanos ends up getting involved when past Nebula tunes into future Nebula’s wifi and begins broadcasting everything future Nebula has seen, including the Avengers’ time travel plan. Thanos gets worked up into a tizzy and he and past Nebula devise a plan to get him into the Avengers’ future so he can ensure everyone snapped out of existence stays snapped out of existence. Also, why not wipe out everyone else in the process just for good measure? Because that’s what big, angry, purple maniacs do. Don’t question it.

Is it a bit weird that the Thanos the Avengers face isn’t the same Thanos so carefully fleshed out in Infinity War? Yeah, a little bit. To be honest, it makes things feel kind of impersonal. This Thanos feels more like the mysterious being teased in dozens of MCU post-credits sequence than the layered, thoughtful villain of the previous film. It’s a bit of a bummer, but it is what it is.

Ultimately, my biggest gripe with Endgame is the same gripe caused by Infinity War’s conclusion. We already knew the disintegrated heroes were going to come back for their obligatory sequels. Their arrival during Endgame’s epic battle to end all epic battles feels inevitable more than surprising.

And, look, let me be clear: Endgame’s climax is the ultimate superhero big battle you’ve been dreaming of since Nick Fury first name-dropped the ‘Avengers Initiative.’ I went nuts with the best of them when all our heroes returned from the abyss for this ultimate showdown, so understand my next criticism comes from a place of love. Once all the heroes show up, the stakes disappear. I didn’t have any doubt the Avengers would win. As a result, the climax is robbed of its suspense. It’s basically fan service to the nth degree, which again, I’d like to emphasize I was totally cool with. It just prevents the battle from conjuring up any emotional depth.

This isn’t The Return of the King. It's not the Battle of Hogwarts or the Death Star trench run or even the first Avengers' Battle for New York. It’s a big, flashy special effects extravaganza overflowing with crowd-pleasing beats, but lacking in genuine (here’s this word again) consequence. Again, I want to emphasize that I loved every second of it, but there’s a significant lack of loss during these scenes. Ultimately, Tony Stark sacrifices himself to save the universe and it’s absolutely BRILLIANT and heart-wrenching, but no one else seems in danger. Iron Man dies so that dozens of franchises can live on.

The remaining twenty minutes or so of Endgame are low key. We witness Tony’s emotional funeral, torches are passed (go, Sam Wilson, go!) and some unexpected-slash-exciting team-ups are teased (Fat Thor with the Guardians of the Galaxy? I am SO in.) But it’s during these quiet scenes that the Russos skillfully remind us what has always mattered the most: the characters. And I’m not going to lie, it’s difficult not to get choked up when Steve Rogers, a man who has sacrificed so much for the greater good, finally gets his happy ending, dancing the day away with the love of his life.

Big finales don’t get much more enjoyable or fulfilling than this. Marvel’s Cinematic Universe will go on and on and on. Inevitably, its quality will wane and fade, but we can rest easy knowing that the heroes that kicked everything off got the send-off they deserved. It might not be perfect, but it’s pretty damn great. Most importantly, it’s satisfying.

With the Infinity Saga, Marvel Studios has accomplished something extraordinary. They’ve touched countless millions across the globe without compromising the artistic quality of this multi-billion dollar franchise. We can rage on and on about Disney’s domination and how everything is just a corporate product and blah, blah, blah, but we’d be ignoring the fact that they got to where they are because they honored their source material and went out of their way to give the fans something special.

So to Kevin Feige and the entire team at Marvel Studios, cast, crew, writers, bean pushers, etc., I’d like to say thank you. You’ve earned every record-breaking penny. We love you 3000.

Now can someone please un-cancel Daredevil?? Come on!!

[13eyond13]

if someone wants to be a writer what are the advices you give him/her to be good in writing?

Ooh, a very good question! I’m certainly no writing expert myself, there’s SO MUCH I have to work on with my own writing, and I usually spend way more time procrastinating on it than actually practicing it these days, but it’s something I think about constantly and strive to improve upon myself, so I’ll give it a shot.

ADVICE I ALWAYS TRY TO GIVE TO MYSELF WHEN THINKIN’ ABOUT STORYTELLING:

1. WRITE THE STORY YOU WANT TO READ, BUT SOMETHING THAT OTHER PEOPLE WILL HOPEFULLY BE ABLE TO ENJOY, AS WELL. Think of a question you have about life or a weird scenario or a relationship that you really want to answer or investigate, and then try to answer that question or explore that intriguing thing as honestly as you can. Doesn’t matter how big or small or serious or silly it is, if it’s an interesting question mark to you then it probably will be interesting to someone else, too. People generally read stories because we want to learn about ourselves and the world around us in some entertaining way. When we see things in stories that remind us of ourselves or other people we know, or that are tackling topics and concepts we’ve often wondered about ourselves, that’s when we really get emotionally invested. And if you can’t wait to find out what happens next in your own story yourself, that will really compel you to keep putting your butt in the seat to write it!

2. WRITE HOWEVER FEELS MOST NATURAL TO YOU, AND DON’T CONSTANTLY COMPARE YOUR OWN METHODS TO EVERYONE ELSE. Some people like to meticulously plot out their whole story before they begin, and some people like to just wing it and see what sort of weird surprises come out. Both approaches are valid, and so is a mix of the two! Play around with it and see what helps you get words down on paper the easiest. It won’t always be effortless, but it shouldn’t feel like a punishment or a horrible chore that you dread every time you sit down to create, either.

3. MAKE TIME FOR CONSUMING LOTS OF GOOD STORIES. Watch cool movies and TV and read books and comics and carefully observe all the people you know in your everyday life. Absolutely everything is a useful learning opportunity if you want it to be. Pay close attention to the world around you, because it’s all inspiration, even the mundane stuff. It’s those little realistic moments that really give stories life and weight and make people pay attention to what you’re saying as having a spark of truth to it. Get in the habit of describing the things you’re observing to yourself, too, because that’s what writing is. The more you read / watch / experience the more you will internalize the art of storytelling and start figuring out what is good and what isn’t, what feels cliche and lazy and untrue and what feels real and moving and fresh. If you think a story really sucks, don’t just zone out, figure out exactly why you think it sucks, too!

4. MAKE TIME FOR CREATING YOUR OWN STORIES WITHOUT OUTSIDE INFLUENCES OR DISTRACTIONS, TOO. Develop a routine and make it a habit and create your own cozy rituals around the act of writing. Whatever puts you in the best mood for it and keeps your head-space open for clearly visualizing your imaginary world.

Personally, I get very inspired by reading other people’s stories, but they also distract and block me from writing when I’m trying to create something of my own. Everyone is different, but I know I need to keep these two things (story-consuming and story-creating) pretty separate, or else I start doubting everything I try to write and picking it apart way too much. Figure out what kind of writer you are and structure your time and your work-space accordingly.

5. GET TO KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS REALLY WELL. The characters that are the easiest to write and the most fun to read are the ones that the author knows well and understands inside-out. Every single character should want to gain something and/or be afraid of losing something, or else they will be flat and boring. If someone only exists purely to be a love object or an opponent to another character and they don’t display any sort of inner life or personality outside of that role, it will show, and they will not be very relatable or compelling.

If a character is feeling really flat or you’re having a hard time getting inside their head, two great first questions to ask yourself are: “What would this character be doing right now if they weren’t involved in this specific plot?” And: “What would they be doing if they could do absolutely anything that they wanted to do in the world?”

Sometimes you won’t understand a character or how they need to develop or the main conflict / goal of your characters or story at all until you write more scenes with them or even get to the very end of your story, but that’s what second drafts and rewrites are for! You can always go back and clarify all that stuff later, adding more depth and streamlining stuff and cutting things out as you see fit.

6. DON’T GET TOO SAD ABOUT YOUR CRAPPY ROUGH DRAFTS. They’re going to suck at first most of the time. Just keep chugging and tweaking things and keeping a positive mindset, it will definitely not be perfect in the first try! I’ve often saved many versions of things I’ve written and then been shocked when I go back to the early drafts at how much worse they used to be. That’s why we have rewriting and editing and getting feedback from beta readers.

7. SAVE EVERYTHING YOU WRITE. Even if you decide to cut it out of your story because it’s not working right, it can almost always be used again for something else in the future. Maybe you wrote a great description that doesn’t suit the tone of the story, or a funny conversation that doesn’t add anything useful to that particular scene. Put those unused bits into a scrap folder and dig them out to use again somewhere else, either in the same story or a different story altogether.

8. WRITE DOWN YOUR IDEAS FOR YOUR STORY AS SOON AS YOU GET THEM. Keep a little memo pad app on your phone or carry a notebook around. It’s easy to forget those useful little nuggets again later if you don’t.

9. DON’T WRITE ANYTHING YOU WOULDN’T FEEL COMFORTABLE READING OUT LOUD. If it would be way too embarrassing to read to even your most ideal and nonjudgmental reader, then it’s probably a bit over-the-top and should be reworked until it feels more natural and more honestly “you.” I forget where I originally heard this little piece of advice, but I love it and think it’s a good one to keep in mind (mostly because I used to do that a lot, and still do sometimes, lol)

10. FIND SOMEONE YOU TRUST TO GIVE YOU HELPFUL CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK ON YOUR WORK. Beta readers are so important! Ideally it should be someone with a good sense of spelling/grammar and an eye for detail who also understands and enjoys your writing and the things you care about, and is also good at articulating exactly why something is/ is not working well yet. This can be scary and embarrassing sometimes, but if it’s the right person doing it they will both encourage you and help you grow by giving you good honest suggestions for things that can be improved or changed. We often don’t even realize all the things that aren’t coming off well in our own writing after staring at it so long, but that fresh pair of eyes is often very good at picking it out for us, and they’re just trying to help us write the best story we can.

11. FINALLY, there are so many great resources for learning about storytelling online or at your library!

Here are a few YouTube channels on the subject that I really like:

-Lessons from the Screenplay (my favourite): [X]

-Every Frame a Painting (mostly about visual storytelling, but still a ton of great lessons): [X]

-Alexa Donne (a published fiction author with decent practical advice): [X]

-Ellen Brock (an editor with good practical advice): [X]

A few books on the subject I’ve read and enjoyed:

-Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

-On Writing by Stephen King

-Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (thank you to @translightyagami for the rec!)

And here is my collection of writing advice that seemed pretty legit from Tumblr:

writing advice tag [X]

Best of luck with telling your own stories, and thank you for asking me to blabber like a nerd about it!!

[dcarevu]

The Last Laugh

“When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!”

Hey, guys. This is Collin. I know that we’re only four episodes into this blog now, and things are just starting to roll…but unfortunately, I’ve decided that the stress of college and work is too much, so I’m going to have to go on an indefinite hiatus…

April fools!

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

Villain: The Joker Robin: No Writer: Carl Swenson Director: Kevin Altieri Animator: Akom Airdate: September 22, 1992 Episode Grade: B

The Joker’s back on the show already, and again, he has formulated an overly-complicated plot which seems to be designed specifically to lead Batman directly to him. We start by seeing a boat full of repulsively green trash chugging through the Gotham river. It’s emitting an absolutely foul stench, and while we aren’t sure if this is a typical occurrence, knowing this city, I wouldn’t doubt it one bit. Char, my girlfriend and watching-buddy got the impression that Gotham is indeed an old, dark, gothic city, but this was her first exposure to the griminess that is often associated with it. This time, however, the griminess seems to be a little bit more pleasant; in fact every citizen who notices it seems to burst out laughing! The garbage is emitting a powerful laughing gas that doesn’t just cause a rush of giggles, but it also seems to send its victims completely out of control, and they start ignoring all of their surroundings altogether. It’s like they’re not even aware of their laughter, as the fumes get them as high as a kite.

Meanwhile, still in Gotham, but away from the city, we cut to a really great shot of Wayne Manor. Inside, Bruce is sprucing himself up, and we discover that it is April Fools’ Day thanks to Alfred once again being the lovable savage that he seems to be. Offering to “draw” Bruce a bath, he quite literally draws him a picture of a bath, hoping to at least get a smile out of him. But alas, when he’s not reaching for his rich playboy persona, we see that Bruce is actually quite the stick in the mud. I love Kevin Conroy’s way of creating two voices for the character, something that had never really been done before this show. I actually believe this was Kevin’s idea, which is no surprise given his acting background. He somehow does it in a way that makes the Bruce Wayne persona seem even more fake, despite that voice being closer to Kevin’s actual voice.

Bruce Wayne dedicating himself to living a lie like that must truly be tough. Think about how that must hamper his relationships, and it starts to explain the social state that he finds himself in later down the DCAU timeline. I’m someone who is an introvert, and sometimes the amount of energy required to socialize is more than I would like to admit. But if I had to pretend to be someone I’m not every day when my true self is as dark as Batman’s character (and let’s be real, Batman is our main character, Bruce Wayne only exists as a name on his legal documents), it would be a lot worse. The seeds were planted this early, and it shows the thought, consistency, and understanding that Radomski, Timm, and co had for the character right away. This wasn’t your average Saturday morning version of Batman.

Obviously as more and more people throughout the city begin to become affected by the laughing gas, it does not go unnoticed by news outlets. Bruce immediately comes to the same conclusion as many of us watching; The Joker. It’s merely a matter of finding him and figuring out what he is up to. Meanwhile back in the city, we find out just that; The Joker and two of his goons are using the gas-induced obliviousness of the citizens on the street to rob them right under their noses. Even police officers are in tears, not paying the least bit of attention. The Joker, of course, is cracking comments and laughing his ass off the whole time. Some of his lines are legitimately hilarious in this episode, I’ve gotta say! While he was entertaining as all hell in Christmas With The Joker, it was more in a simple whacky, over-the-top, cartoon way. He still has some of that aspect here, but a lot more of it comes from genuinely clever writing. Some of his most well known lines from the show come from this episode. “So we’ll just punch some air holes!” and “YOU KILLED CAPTAIN CLOWN!” to name a couple, the latter being downright legendary.

So far, this episode gives the simple vibe of a fun Joker romp without much meat on its bones, and much of it is. But the stakes do raise as we cut back to the Batcave. Batman is analyzing some of the gas, and learning that it causes “permanent insanity”. We’ll come back to this a little bit later, but obviously he has to do something. Not just because of the robberies and accidents happening, but also just because of the mental health factor. Insanity? Not particularly good for you. All of a sudden, however, we hear a crash come from upstairs when he attempts to call Alfred down into the cave. He runs upstairs, and here we see Alfred, smashing artifacts and furniture with a broom as we hear him belt out cackles unlike anything we have heard from him. The gas is inside the house. Batman immediately dons a gas mask and heads out to stop it, presumably taking care of Alfred first. Alfred, and Wayne Manor in general, being the thing in danger isn’t an element the show does a lot, and I think the moderation allows it to stand out a lot more. It can immediately turn a silly episode like this into something much more serious. Char was gasping and worrying the entire time, not wanting Alfred to be hurt. I think she’s growing to really like him. This is helped by the fact that Alfred was recast for this episode, and his new actor, Afrem Zimbalist Jr (unfortunately no longer with us) would remain for the entire rest of the DCAU. Both of us like this change a lot. I think this new voice helps with Alfred’s miniature character evolution, as it just suits this personality more. The first voice (Clive Revill) wasn’t bad by any means. Paired with the version of Alfred that’s a bit more stereotypical “5-star restaurant waiter”, it felt pretty natural. But Afrem…he brings the character to life like no one else can. There’s no way I can picture Clive laughing maniacally the way that Alfred did here. Also…and maybe it’s just me…but even though for the first three episodes Alfred was voiced by a man who was actually English, it sounded more like a fake accent than Afrem’s! And maybe this is because I’m an ignorant American who doesn’t hear English accents every day, nor am I aware of all the regional variations. I don’t know. But virtually everyone who talks about this new portrayal absolutely loves it, so I’m likely not alone with this aspect either.

Back in the river, we see that the garbage boat is fake. Below the water, what looks like the top of a boat is being carried by a submarine. Looking through the periscope of the sub, the Joker catches sight of Batman’s eyes, staring back at him through the lens. Then, BAM. Batman smacks it, causing the entire thing to rattle, and sending the Joker to the floor. Boy are we getting some great drawings in this episode. Batman’s face through the lens looks amazing! We also had some fun, yet purposely ugly shots of people laughing on the streets earlier, and then the Joker getting knocked away from the periscope is gold. After this, we see that Batman is towing around the “boat” with his own Batboat (its first appearance), which pisses the Joker off. So we get a fight scene between the goons and Batman, which is one of the better action scenes we’ve gotten up to this point. Is it still a little bit stilted? Yes, most definitely. But is it Spider-Man the Animated Series level? Not a chance. I did get some excitement here, and the big hunk of metal known in this episode (and throughout the Internet) as Captain Clown is a robot, so we got a little bit of extra fun here. The Fox censors were not as sensitive if the beating was not being done to an actual human being (even if it’s hard to tell whether or not it's human just by looking), and we got to see Batman throw an actual hard punch. The fight against the other two gives me the impression of martial arts and self defense, which also makes sense given Batman’s background (which will be covered later). The scene ends, however, with Batman being locked in a container and thrown into the water, with the container leaking in through the many holes that the Joker stabs into it with a knife. Seeing the Joker whip out a knife like that and puncture it with Batman inside is really jarring given that this is episode four, and we hadn’t really seen that kind of near-violence prior. Yeah, Batman dodged the stabs, but if one of those had hit, he’d be done. Another glimpse into the dangerous psychopath aspect of a character you don’t always expect to fear. To be clear, this was jarring in a good way.

Situations like this are hard to write for, because you have to be able to come up with a solution that isn’t anticlimactic or complete bullshit. Here Batman calls his Batboat with his utility belt and has it slice the container up with its laser gun blast. It was thinking outside the box a little bit (no pun intended), and having the laser miss during the first shot was a good touch. Granted, I also don’t recall this laser getting much use later down the line (you would think a powerful tool like this would be heavily utilized, hinting at it being added just because of this predicament, but then again, welcome to the world of Batman’s gadgets), so overall I don’t think it was perfect. Pretty cool, though, and I’m not gonna complain. I wasn’t expecting it, and I did find it exciting. Also, 12 words: Batman’s anger once he manages to swim back up to the surface.

To speed things up a little bit, Batman gets to the service, finds where the Joker has gone, defeats the thugs by exposing them to their own laughing gas, and even manages to decimate Captain Clown in a trash compactor. After this, the rest of the episode is pretty much just a chase sequence, and it almost reminds me of a video game. Batman is basically going through an obstacle course. We get a couple more really great shots here, one of the Joker creepily riding a conveyor belt through the shadows, and one of Batman sliding down the garbage shoot. I’m surprised this was animated by Akom, as I specifically remember their animation being generally C-tier when I watched the entirety of Animaniacs (with TMS obviously being the best). Perhaps it was all in the storyboards. The more detailed they are, obviously Akom has more to go by with less room to mess things up. Batman ends up confronting the Joker on a walkway above a vat of molten metal, where Joker throws some razor sharp playing-cards at him. He misses once, and then for the second card, Batman manages to catch it. This is a scene that makes you audibly go, “Awww shit”, and you can tell Joker is thinking the same thing. Char brought up something interesting here. The Joker constructs these incredible plans to disrupt Batman’s day. I swear, he plans everything. But only up until a certain point, because he banks too much on certain aspects. He swore that throwing Batman into the river would have finished him. It’s like the SpongeBob episode where Plankton says something like, “I never thought I’d get this far”. Once Batman makes contact with that card razor, Joker panics and immediately tries to run away, ultimately defeating himself as he trips himself up with a rope. He plays with Batman one step too far. He doesn’t realize when to stop. He pokes the bear, and although he may ultimately be a glorified, crazy mobster, he’s not a fighter. Despite this realization of Char’s, which I totally vibe with, just two episodes ago we had the Joker tripping, falling, and being caught by Batman. So overall I do consider this ending a little cheap. A low point to an otherwise entertaining episode.

Well, I guess it’s not quite the ending. Because after this, we are back with Bruce Wayne and Alfred. Alfred seems to be feeling healthy again, but he is distraught since he broke a priceless artifact earlier when he was exposed to the insanity gas. Bruce tells him not to worry, and that it can simply come out of his paycheck, but also assures him that he’s joking, and it’s all an April Fools’ joke. Bruce even chuckles about it. I love this segment, and even though Bruce can be a stick in the mud as I said, every once in a while he can let himself have a little bit of fun.

For some additional things that didn’t quite fit in with the previous paragraphs, I found myself wondering what Joker was exactly planning on accomplishing after the robberies. I almost think that he was honestly expecting to be caught by Batman, or he was at least not planning past the stage of killing him. But I guess with such an unpredictable maniac, you’d have to be able to read his thoughts to really understand a lot of it. Also, Batman’s computer specifically said that the gas causes permanent insanity. Yet at the end, everyone seems to be fine. Does it require more exposure? Does it mean that it’s permanent for just as long as it’s being inhaled? Was it simply wrong? I was a little confused by this. Mark Hamill’s performance was amazing as always, and as I explained the way that Mark tends to almost visually morph into the character while he voices him, Char mentioned something about him and the Joker becoming one like with the Venom symbiote and Eddie. Accurate observation. And lastly, she mentioned something about how this Joker is someone where you never know when you’ll be on their bad side. I got flashes of a certain early scene from Return Of the Joker here, and I cannot wait for her to see that film.

Char’s grade: A

Major firsts: The Batboat, a form of Joker’s laughing gas

Next time: Pretty Poison

By the way, I’m still messing around and trying to figure out the best format for these blog entries. I don’t think I’ve quite found something that works for me yet, so for a bit, the posts may be a little inconsistent in how they’re laid out. Experimentation! I want to try and make them a little bit less like summaries, and more discussion/reaction-based. Thanks for bearing with me! Also, any constructive feedback is appreciated!

[theultimateegghead-blog]

Modest Media Game Reviews 50 post special!                                    Dark Souls

Game – Dark Souls Year of Release – 2011 Developer – FromSoftware Publisher - Namco Bandai Rated - Mature Platforms - PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch For all sakes and purposes, I have played the PAL region version of the PS3 prepare to die edition. Which in turn means I played the DLC.

Dark Souls, an epic dark fantasy action rpg legendary for its harsh and punishing game play. Dark Souls is tied with Metal Gear Solid 3 and The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess as my favorite games of all time. I adore this game and have achieved every trophy/achievement there is in this game. However, as a reviewer I will do my best not to nerd out over this title. With that being said, be warned, Im likely to praise this game like how Solaire praises the sun. Are you ready to go on this adventure with me?

Gameplay – Dark Souls is a very challenging and punishing game with a steep learning curve. Even the simplest enemies can kill the chosen undead if they are not careful. The main character has stats that can be leveled up by the player, certain equipment is locked behind stat requirements, which will in turn cause players to adopt certain playstyles. Players who invest in strength, endurance and vitality can become heavy hitting tanks. Players who invest in intelligence, faith and attunement can become powerful mages. The character style, skills and weapon choice are up to the player. The game has bonfires which act as checkpoints, when the player dies they respawn at the bonfire they last rested at. While the distance between bonfires can be large, shortcuts can be opened to make subsequent run throughs easier. Upon defeating enemies and bosses, players acquire souls. Souls serve as both currency and experience, so in some situations you might choose to upgrade a weapon as opposed to leveling up. Most enemies respawn upon the players death or resting at a bonfire, so there will be no shortage in soul fodder. Players may use items discovered over the game via a hot bar. Some items include the estus flask which can restore health, firebombs and throwing knives and special mosses that can cure status effects. This game has a fair share of bosses to challenge you. Some bosses are big and slow while others are small and fast. This game pulls no punches with its bosses so don’t be afraid to look up guides or summon help. Summoning, ah yes, the player has the ability to summon npc’s or even other players to help them fight a boss. To do so, the player must be in human state, which means that they will not appeared zombified and will be granted access to multiplayer. However, some players can invade you and will attempt to kill you. Nobody likes a red phantom coming along to ruin their day. The games level design is generally fantastic, though some areas are frustrating. This is because the game was rushed towards the end of development, leading to a dip in quality at late game areas. In the end though the game quality does not disappoint. It is versatile, challenging and a rewarding experience. It may be frustrating at times but persevere and you will taste victory. Score – 18/20

Graphics – The graphics are ok, but I would not say they are perfect. While the world is beautiful and diverse, some areas have frame rate issues and clipping or low-quality textures. This sadly can impact gameplay, especially in blightown where the frame rate can chug at points. Character models are well designed, but most models lack a talking animation. This is easily ignored however given the fact that you aren’t meant to see the npc’s faces up close. Some later areas have visual stigmas about them that impact the game, such as lost Izalith’s harshly glowing lava. Because of the fact that these issues can impact gameplay I cannot give a perfect score, but I would say that it is a pretty game and overall looks very nice. Score – 8/10

Story – The game shines here with a unique way to tell the story. The majority of what is needed to know is presented in the opening cutscene and presented over the course of the game as well. At face value the story is this… You are a special undead warrior that has been chosen to succeed the lord of Sunlight Gwyn. In order to do so you must travel all over the land defeating bosses in an attempt to prove yourself worthy of entering the final area of the game. At that point you will determine the fate of the world. Simple enough, but then there comes the item lore. Every drop, every piece of armor, every boss soul has lore attached to it. This lore is hidden and must be sought out by the players through reading descriptions or talking to npcs. Various npcs have their own personal stories that you can play a part in. Each location is rich in backstory. With the DLC mounted even more is explored and some of the most massive plot points of the souls trilogy, such as the abyss, is discussed. The notion of right and wrong is subjective and a majority of the story is up to the player to piece together. While some might say it’s a shoddy way to tell a story, I disagree and think it fits the theme of the game nicely. The lore is for you, the player, to discover. Because of this the game has very few cutscenes, allowing for a more smooth immersive experience. Score – 10/10

Replay Value – Subjectively high. In order to obtain everything, all boss weapons and all trophies, the game must be beaten at least 2 and a half times. While for a huge fan such as myself this is no problem, to the casual player, one playthrough might just be enough. So, it really comes down to this, are you willing to go on another long adventure to see the second ending? Or to get a boss weapon you missed? Is it worth the effort to beat the game twice for the platinum? If you answered yes then you will have a good time, if no then you will probably be satisfied after beating the game once. While your stats and most items carry over to new game plus, there is no content locked behind NG+ other than boss weapons or potential secrets that you skipped or missed. However, it might be worth the time anyway, as this game still has a good challenge to offer. Score – 4/5

Music – Wonderful. One of my favorite osts. In this game the majority of music is of the bosses. The only area with background music is the hub, firelink shrine. The music can be haunting and atmospheric, such as Sif’s theme. It can be bombastic and intense, such as Ornstein and Smough’s theme, or it can be beautiful and somber such as Gwyn’s theme. The music tells part of the story and sets the mood for each event that accompanies the song.  When music is not playing, the levels have ambiance to fill in the void, or it can just be hauntingly silent. Sometimes a crow will caw or a monster will moan in the distance. The world plays a role in the sound design almost as much as the music. I would totally recommend a listen. Score – 5/5

Overall – A truly fantastic game that has brought me many hours of joy. From awesome boss fights to amazing lore and world building. It has great music, a great atmosphere and a well-designed game world that gives a unique open world experience. This game is not for everyone, it is challenging, and can be downright cruel to novice players. This is all part of the experience, to say this game is hard would be true. However, I would not say this game is as insanely unbeatable as many make it out to be. Do not let your guard down though, this game tends to punish those who do… Score – 9/10 - Amazing

One thing this game could improve on – Magic rebalance. Magic can be ridiculously overpowered in this game and can quickly render a melee-oriented build obsolete. If you desire the true dark souls experience, then avoid abusing magic attacks.

This review marks my 50th post. I am proud of my work so far and plan to continue doing so for those of you who enjoy it. See you next time.