#actually been a while since we've hit one of these (due to me doing very little public art for a while lmao) so that's fun!

[humming-fly]

Oh Yeah before I forget, this blog hit another milestone recently!! (and actually has since blown past it but I was too busy to celebrate it this week lol)

It's been a while since we hit one of these, but for the new folks (and a reminder to the old) what I do to celebrate is to open up my ask box for a day to random sketch requests!

You can ask for anything you want (within reason) and I'll plan to do some shitty little pencil doodles to knock as many of em as I can out- I'll prioritize folks that aren't on anon (so that I know they aren't sending in more than one), but anyone is free to send in whatever, be it fma kirby sonic or something I've never heard of haha

I plan to cut off the ask box tomorrow at noon (or if it gets too flooded before that), so feel free to send in your sketch request before then, and thank you all for checking out (or somehow continuing to stick around) this silly little blog!

[fangsandfeels]

The vagueness of Astarion sleeping mechanics drives me mad sometimes

So, the game says that elves don't sleep - to the point where it's ironically stated that the only way for them to experience sleeping is to either drink a potion of Angelic Slumber or "get hit really hard with a chair".

Instead, they enter a semi-aware meditative state (Revery) where they experience memories from their past lives (usually most positive and emotional parts). Or they just sorting through their current memories.

Now, we've seen Astarion meditating if his way of lying on a bedroll is anything to go by. He is also immune to sleeping spells. We could also see him sleeping (in a Durge run). I know that devs technically recycle the same sleeping pose for all romanced companions, but still. Also, Astarion has nightmares, which is not typical for elves.

Of course, when I was going through the lore, I scratched the surface, but from what I understood, Revery is supposed to be a controlled state, and nightmares aren't exactly controlled.

But, I've found a very interesting bit that (so far) is still considered part of the official canon:

Elves can sleep and dream just like any human, but almost all surface elves avoid doing so. Dreams, as humans know them, are strange and confusing to elves. Unlike the actual memories of one’s primal soul, present life, or past lives, dreams are uncontrolled products of the subconscious, and perhaps the subconscious minds of those past lives or primal souls as well. An elf who dreams must always wonder whose mind these thoughts first arose from, and why. Priests of Sehanine Moonbow are an exception: they sleep and dream to receive signs from their god, and elves consult such priests to interpret their own dreams."

From: Mordenkainrn's Tome Of Foes, Chapter 2: Elves

And not only does this little bit explain a lot, but it also provides some food for your fic writing purposes.

Now, I'm entering the headcanon territory, so be warned.

Astarion's access to Revery got horribly fucked up after he had been Turned. Not only does he no longer have access to his previous lives since he is technically dead and plucked from the cycle, but he also can't even have his happy or good memories before he became a spawn. Even if they are still there, somewhere in the memory palace, getting to them requires going through the catalog of traumatic and painful memories he acquired after being enslaved by Cazador. It's like running through a burning house trying to rescue your family photo - and the hall gets longer each time. So, entering a trance means confronting the worst memories of his life over and over because there is nothing else there.

Due to this Astarion may resort to sleeping, which elves don't usually do. Elves don't like dreams because dreams are subconscious, and they can't be controlled, which scares them. For Astarion, however, it means there is a chance of him subconsciously dreaming of something nice or just being blissfully empty. However, it doesn't safeguard him from nightmares which (because they are the product of his unconsciousness) get even more twisted than simple memories.

Additionally, there can be a possibility that after becoming a spawn he got cut off from meditation and trances completely, relying on sleeping only: at least, the cut spawn epilogue by Withers mentions how while Astarion needs to sleep again, he doesn't sleep alone. While we don't know what that means exactly (and whether it will ever be implemented in the game), I assume that the tadpole gave him the ability to meditate back, but it was a small improvement because his memory headspace no longer holds happy memories capable of offering solace or refuge.

So, my personal headcanon is that he switches between meditating and sleeping depending on how aware he needs to be, and whatever option feels less torturous at the moment.

For instance, in his Origin run, when he remembers the moment of Cazador carving scars into him, he is in a trance. Which is why the memory is so horribly vivid, as if he is reliving it anew.

However, when he has a nightmare where Cazador finds him, he is sleeping and experiencing a memory affected by his subconsciousness. Which is why he jolts himself awake and desperate to know the limits of his freedom.

So, yes, the man literally can't catch a break.

On a happier note (and for your hurt/comfort fanfiction purposes), once Astarion starts traveling with Tav and the group, his memory bank gets updated with memories that are actually fun and nice, so he has something to linger upon when he is meditating. Sleeping gradually becomes a bit more pleasant experience because his subconsciousness got more material to work with, so the quality of his non-controlled dreams has to gradually improve.

[hestzhyen]

Chapter 46 Nonsense Takes

Hello dear void. So, about that whole "I wish Hokazono-sensei would slow down just a smidge" thing... yeah. Not happening. Dude's writing like he still needs to stave off the infamous WSJ axe.

I don't know man. I have a lot of thoughts that all boil down to "I wish it had gone differently." Not because I think I could do it better myself- I can't even write fanfiction that I'm comfortable with posting anonymously. But this is the first time I've ever been disappointed because we didn't get a chapter of uninterrupted talking heads.

There was plenty of dialogue, and a lot of it was intriguing. I'm gonna go ham on it all in a bit. But the way the chapter ended kind of disappointed me. This is 100% Hestzhyen's Rubbish Opinion here, but fucking let the characters rest. I hate it when the characters jump from one crisis to another until the end of time. We've seen Chihiro running on fumes for far too long now and Hakuri's going to be even worse off. Guy can't even use the power they need him for without hurting himself so bad he passes out, but there's no time to let him recover. Gotta chase the bad guys!

It's ultimately a tone and pacing thing. Having the characters fight when they're already tired and/or meaningfully injured is a basic tool in the writer's kit for establishing tension. But we've done that for almost every major fight in Kagurabachi so far! Even against random Yakuza mooks! Chihiro's been operating at less than full capacity since the Hishaku's tree exploded the guy they tried to interrogate in chapter 2 for fuck's sake. He wasn't even fully rested going in to the Rakuzaichi- his arm was newly healed and bandaged up. The "ooh they're not at full strength, this'll be tough!" thing is getting old.

Okay me, no need to hit image cap with examples. But every major fight has involved using this tool in some way- every Char rescue and fighting Sojo, the Rakuzaichi infiltration and storehouse fight, and now we're starting an arc with it. I am adamantly against any series doing this without subverting expectations. If Chihiro isn't meaningfully punished for constantly risking himself when he's not at 100%, it's flawed writing in my opinion. (Passing out or losing a limb doesn't count when Char can reverse that.)

Enough bashing. Obviously this is early in an ongoing series and we've just started the arc. There's a ton of story left to go through so chill, me. In fact, Shiba being separated from Chihiro might be an indication that yes, finally, there are going to be lasting consequences of some kind for him.

I say this because Shiba's been the lone voice of reason when Chihiro decides it's time to go off the rails. He's ignored pretty much every time, but he's still there to manage the setup and aftermath. Chihiro won't have that safety net this time. I love Hakuri to pieces but he doesn't have the experience to do the intel groundwork, nor the ability to perfectly replace Shiba's clutch escape factor, you know? So I'll shut up and wait to see what happens for now.

Actual Analysis Section

Getting right into it, we immediately learn that Shiba's not coming along due to some bad blood between himself and some Kunishige antis in the Kamunabi leadership. (I feel you, man. The Kunishige we've seen so far was the best.) So while he could turn up, I think Shiba will be on the sidelines working on his own subplot. This is the "Kamunabi Classifieds/Secret Files" arc after all. Gonna be a lot of awful truths getting unearthed and Shiba is the best guy to give us insight.

Recall this conversation in chapter 7:

Despite having quit the Kamunabi under mutually unfriendly terms, Shiba's still got connections to them. Enough that he's still included in their plans when situations call for him. I think most readers clued in to the fact that Shiba was some kind of Special Ops guy when he worked there: he's very comfortable snooping around and doing a little "forceful interrogation" to get information. But the exact nature of his history might come to light this arc. And he'll be a very interesting viewpoint into the Kamunabi as someone who is deeply entwined with the org but is loath to cooperate with them for personal reasons. I suspect he'll have the most objective opinion out of the rest of the cast.

As for Azami, he was in a real bind this chapter- he didn't say a single word and was sweating bullets the entire time. He did move to protect Chihiro when Blond Jerkass threatened him at least. This arc is gonna be pretty painful for him I think. Bet most of the tension will come from his reasons for staying with the Kamunabi versus wanting to do right by Chihiro and Shiba.

Also, time to revoke my "guess the associations" privileges since I completely missed the mark on which Bearer is associated to which area. Kabuki monk guy ([漆羽] Uruha! A name, thank god!) is in the hotsprings. Or was, rather. Hope he wasn't wishing for some excitement in his life because he got more than he bargained for with that Hishaku suicide raid I think. Is he running towards safety with the Hishaku, Kamunabi, or freedom from both...?

Another guy with a weird name too. 漆 (uru, also read as nana in modern Japanese) is very, very old and likely derives from descriptions of the shine of wood that's been lacquered or varnished. In names it can convey strength, resilience, and uniqueness. 羽 (ha) means feather and has associations with freedom, grace, good fortune, and lots of support through life. So "gleaming feather" or "lacquered feather"? Guessing he'll be a free-spirited dude with an unusual perspective! Ooh this has got me excited.

Anyway. How about that unresolved conflict at the chapter's end? Chihiro made a decent case for himself (seriously he was so cool cutting off Blond Jerkass to remind them of he good he's accomplished), but the major sticking point of him being unwilling to completely fall under the Kamunabi's control is still there. You can bet your sweet Bippy it's going to be a major source of conflict in this arc. "An enemy of my enemy is my friend" is the best way to describe the relationship between him and the government right now, and that sentiment is not a solid foundation for a lasting partnership.

I can see the Hishaku forcing the Kamunabi's hand in trusting Chihiro and Hakuri, fighting tooth and nail but still letting them get the swords, then swooping in as the Kamunabi self-destructs over what to do with them. God I can't wait suss out what they're actually doing though. John Hishaku, you are peak entertainment.

Poor guy is always surprised when he's relevant to a conversation.

More Hakuri than expected! Yay! He also got to have some good moments with Tafuku, which is really cool! Sad that he's nerfed going in to the arc, but it makes sense. Wonder if they shared that he can use Isou too... it's not relevant to this discussion so not surprised it wasn't addressed. Guess we'll see later! Love these little mysteries that hook us between the larger plot developments. Everything is explained when it needs to be instead of awkwardly blurted out or infodumped.

Best panel in the chapter by far.

Tafuku's such a bro, man. I really hope that he and Hiyuki are assigned to keep watch over Chihiro and Hakuri as they search for Uruha.

Speaking of Hiyuki, seems like she's got a lot of pull with some members of the leadership council. I wonder if that's due to her status as the Kamunabi's strongest fighter alone or if there's a bit more going on... Hiyuki backstory when?

ALMOST got to see Azami's sorcery again (ch 46 vs. 7). What a cock tease. Seems to be some sort of condensed energy ability.

Look at Hakuri! He was gonna whisk Chihiro away into the storehouse to protect him, even though it would mean putting himself at odds with the council! He's so willing to put himself at risk for Chihiro it's scary. Couldn't register and transport that notebook without knocking himself out but he'll do whatever it takes for his samurai. Seriously! God I love him. (Is this foreshadowing? I think it's character consistency more than anything else, but we'll see...)

Slightly prefer the fan TL of the line ("Place your bets on me!")

Another favorite trope of mine. Chihiro unintentionally echoing his dad's words from 20 years ago got me good- and I'm not the only one based on some of the council's reactions. I love Kagurabachi for a lot of reasons but moments like this are definitely near the top. The theme of legacy and the past influencing the present is handled so well- always there, but never overdone. Thank you for trusting us to get the point, Hokazono-sensei.

So Kunishige was willing to help the war effort but was unproven at the time. He had to convince them to trust in him at all. Interesting, very interesting. Something compelled him to be there to make his case- looking forward to finding out what that was. DEAD DIL-

Trial, Interrupted

What did we learn?

One, the Kamunabi do blood tests. Weird but alright, guess they've got records of all their members' blood types and profiles stashed away somewhere. No wait that's fucking insane. Why do you need that genetic information? Why does it have to be blood instead of saliva? Why do you store it apparently indefinitely even after death- and how? What happened to references, finger printing, and researching public records to verify identity? (Actually, Chihiro might not have been properly registered as a citizen at birth due to his circumstances... that would be a fun wrinkle in him earning a paycheck.)

Guess: drawing Chihiro's blood is going to reveal Something. Exactly what isn't something I want to speculate too hard on, but it's gonna be relevant to this arc so I'll put a pin in it for now.

Two, the Hishaku have precisely zero chill. John has been preparing for god knows how long to attack the Bearers and now is the time to strike. So this leaves me with two questions: why is Chihiro being there with the Kamunabi perfectly fine (perhaps even necessary), and did they somehow account for Hakuri's presence in their plans?

I have a list of unanswered questions about Hakuri and the Sazanamis in a text file and this adds more. No one knew he was a Special Boy with the storehouse ability until yesterday (in-universe)... theoretically. And his abilities seem perfect for throwing a wrench in the Hishaku's machinations. So if they don't know about Hakuri, how will they adapt- and what will that mean for Team Goldfish? If they do know, then how? And why let this go forward? Wow falling for the plot hooks driving the narrative, how unique! Reagrdless of which scenario comes to be, I genuinely fear for Hakuri's safety... maybe a bit too much.

Three, Kamunabi politics aren't divided into neat factions for easy comprehension. At last we have some insights into the leaders' personalities though.

Rude mfers

These might be the guys that Shiba had a disagreement with before leaving. Blond Jerkass in particular is trying really hard to look villainous; he's clearly not a fan of Kunishige and went out of his way to get us all to hate him. I think he is too principled to work with the Hishaku, but he'll definitely be a thorn in Chihiro's side.

"Principled? This guy?!" Yeah!

He disagreed vehemently with Kunishige's decision to hide the swords instead of letting the Kamunabi keep them, and he sees that same "selfishness" in Chihiro is my read of him. He's also got no qualms about killing Chihiro to make Enten available to the Kamunabi since Chihiro's wielding it without any kind of oversight. This is our "authority of the establishment" guy for sure. He's there for the mission in his own way, and I hope we learn his motivations before he's offed or put on a shelf.

Pencil 'Stache seems like a snobbish skeptic so I kinda wanna punch him too. He has a modicum of concern for the issues at hand at least, I'll give him that. Not much else to say about him right now.

Prince Nez, Azami, Mask, and Eyepatch are strongly implied to be the ones who helped Kunishige hide, so they're likely to at least be neutral. Even if they had no great love for Kunishige himself, they could have been persuaded to help on practical grounds.

Azami might be the only one with personal reasons since he was Kunishige's friend. Very interesting that Chihiro claimed not to know him though... did Shiba know or guess his circumstances and tell Chihiro to lie? Azami was off screen after chapter 18 so there's a time gap to fill there- when we left off with him, he was under investigation for secretly harboring Chihiro. He's not a happy camper about any of this and I want to know exactly why. (Also, Chihiro backstory?! He didn't always live in the mountains with his dad, and he knows or was old enough to remember leaving his old home to live there??? LORE PLEASE.)

Prince Nez seems like a rational guy based on his segments explaining why going to war with the Sazanami would be bad in Ch. 22. He's the only one who seems concerned about getting to the heart of the matter here as well, being less concerned with Chihiro's ancestry versus the feasibility of his plan. Not to mention being the one to bring up that Magatsumi needs to be properly resealed as soon as possible. So I think he's a guy who is motivated by practical concerns above all else. Logic over passion is my read of him. He'll take the best approach based on merits more than anything else.

Mask appears fairly neutral. He's one of the two who was impressed by Hiyuki's assessment of Chihiro's character, so he could share at least a few of her ideals about justice and protecting the peace. She didn't rebuke him like the other guy so he's probably sincere (or at least not an obvious faker).

Eyepatch had just one line- he thought that Chihiro did in fact look like... someone he knew. Context would lead us to assume it's Kunishige, but after decades of being baited by Nomura as a KH fan, I know a potential red herring when I see one. I won't go full tinfoil hat theory here without more info but I will demand a treat if Eyepatch was referring to Chihiro's mom.

Hairclips has a very neutral impression right now since this is the only time she spoke. She was one of the three who originally sealed Magatsumi but everything else about her is a mystery right now. She got a big panel to herself so I expect to learn more about her later.

The "this meeting could have been an e-mail" vibes speak to my soul.

Piercing Guy seems like he's in it for himself first and foremost between this outburst and Hiyuki calling him a creep for wanting her approval. Then again, he seemed pretty open to hearing Chihiro's arguments about judging him based on his actions rather than his lineage. He's also amenable to accepting Chihiro as soon as he unknowingly echoes his father's resolve from decades prior... despite starting the chapter by saying he doesn't see the resemblance at all.

There's two ways to read this: either he's careless and selfish and going with what seems good at the time, or he's careless and forgot details about Kunishige until Chihiro's testimony brought them back. I think he's the most suspicious one so far. I've got my eye on you, Piercing Guy. Careless people are easy to manipulate and corrupt.

Beard Guy seems like the first among equals. Someone who carefully weighs the pros and cons of every course of action before committing. He played the role of practical, fair-minded judge rather well this chapter. He's also quite decisive in a crisis, but there's a lot more to unpack with him. (Is he Hiyuki's supervisor? How does he actually feel about everything?) Reserving judgement until we see more of his inner thoughts.

So yeah. Chihiro and the Kamunabi have agreed to work together for now, but they certainly aren't solid allies. And the Hishaku are going all out with their datenseki stockpile to blow everything up for some reason... So much for getting to chill but hey, at least there's no time wasted either. Until next time, kind void.

[phantomoftheorpheum]

The Umbrella Academy Season 4 Review/Critique

Fair warning- this is ridiculously long. If you expand this post and don't actually want to read it, it will be a pain in the ass to scroll through; I would advise against it.

Just to be 100% clear, these are my opinions and interpretations of the show. If you don't want to see criticism (and quite a lot of it) or read a pretty raw, unfiltered/unedited review of the season, this is not for you. This is a casual platform, so I tend to just let myself think out loud on these posts, meaning that I don't go back and heavily edit my thoughts. I may express ideas for the storylines that would need some refining, I'm generally just spitballing.

This is a very criticism heavy post, I have a lot of issues with this season, so if that will upset you, please just don't bother to read this. I will be tagging anti tags (due to the large amount of criticism I have for the show) for filtering purposes.

*** Spoilers for all 4 seasons of Umbrella Academy ***

Good Stuff First

I always like to start with my favorite stuff from the show, because usually if I am bothering to critique, it means I have a lot of criticisms, but I always want to acknowledge what the show does well before I start getting into what it does not do well.

Individual Characters & Dynamics - In particular, I thought Klaus's unique character voice was present and well written and the performance continued to be top notch (I have some criticisms about the actual storyline, but I think Robert nailed what he was given from an acting standpoint). Many of the specific dialogue and character dynamics felt consistent to earlier seasons, which can be difficult with such a wacky show. There are definitely some characters who were able to shine, regardless of what they were given.

Visuals/Sets - The show still looks as good as it ever has. It's never been groundbreaking cinematography, but you can feel the budget in the aesthetics of the show. It has been able to maintain this weird "almost our world, but not quite" reality in a visual manner since season 1. It has a distinct style and look. The sets largely feel big and textured and expansive, even when they're fairly simple. I like that we've at least glimpsed the house in every season.

Tone/Humor - The Umbrella Academy is weird. It has always been weird. It must be weird or else it would feel... bad weird? It does succeed in continuing to be weird AF. I like that the show isn't afraid to be incredibly strange. It is a show that swings big. The humor is still there. Humor is hard, and I think they hit more often than they miss.

Family Road Trip - The group dynamic, family bickering, montage effect of 4x02, etc. was one of the lighter and more enjoyable choices made in season 4. The bit of "annoying song stuck on a loop" that continued to crop up throughout the season worked for me.

Abigail Completely Failing at Being Gene - This is only a very small part of the season, but Nick Offerman playing an alien cloaked in a (very weird) human skin and very poorly pulling it off added some levity while it lasted.

Soundtrack - While I think there are fewer distinctly standout tracks for this season (but this is entirely a personal opinion, maybe others feel differently), the show's commitment to its distinctive sound and use of music is still solid. I particularly appreciated the callbacks to season 1, obviously I Think We're Alone Now, but also by selecting Dead To The World in 4x06 for Five (I prefer In The Heat Of The Moment as a song, personally, but the choice was very clever). This is a show that I genuinely like to go listen to the soundtrack of after the season, and I intend to do that with this season as well (except for the Christmas stuff, I am not a big Christmas songs person).

The Cast - This is related to point one, but I really think 99% of the cast did they best they could with the material they had to work with.

Despite all my criticisms, I still found myself sad to be at the end of the journey. And I think that says something about the strength of these characters. A perfect journey? No. But one I'm still glad that I took.

My Criticisms

I want to start by saying that if I bother to critique something, that means I believe it has enough potential to be worth discussing. If it didn't, I absolutely would not bother. So while I think this is going to come off quite harshly, it is coming from a place of "I love what this show can be when it's at its best, and here's how I personally think we could have been closer to its best."

A lot of times when I write up my thoughts about a show, I start with my most specific criticisms, and as I examine those, it points me to a bigger underlying issue. Sometimes I work the other way around, thinking about the larger elements I have criticisms of, then searching out examples. But in this case, either way, I find myself ending up at the same place with the same issue, and that issue (perhaps ironically for this particular show) is time.

I believe the largest issue with season 4 is time management, crafting storylines that are interconnected and therefore justify their screen time, and pacing. Yes, I have some criticisms that could not be fixed with better time management, but a lot of my issues lead back to this. Pacing is always a tricky element, is at the top of many criticism lists of many shows, and has been at the top of my list for several shows I reviewed this year. Pacing issues seem to be cropping up more and more with streaming service based shows on all platforms, and I don't think that's coincidental. But, imo, Netflix is our best example.

One of the greatest strengths of Netflix Originals, back when they first started, was the guarantee of a full season before a cancellation. Because they had no feedback on a show before producing and releasing an entire season, there were no early mid-season cancellations. This allowed writers a little more room to stretch out, knowing they wouldn't walk into work the next day and be told they have 2 or 3 episodes to wrap up a story, or worse, wake up to just no job at all. So while the seasons were shorter, the time was guaranteed. Many of Netflix's early properties, particularly if their first season was successful, were greenlit for multiple seasons at a time, a practice which has been all but abandoned (Bridgerton and Stranger Things have been afforded this luxury in recent years, but few other shows). But as Netflix (and other streaming services) got its legs under itself, it came to realize that there was more profit in producing the first season of many shows, then cancelling all but the most successful. This epidemic of unfinished stories has been spreading rapidly. Now, not only does Netflix have an extremely high cancellation rate and rarely renews a show for more than a season at a time, it has also been shortening seasons, bringing down production costs, and trying to minimize risk and maximize "safe" profits. Minimizing risk in favor of maximizing safe profits rarely results in good art. Which explains a lot.

And so, unfortunately, I think The Umbrella Academy is a casualty of this increasingly mercenary system. Not only was it forced to make creative decisions with the constant threat of "This could be the end, but you won't know it until after it airs, so it also has to work as not the end," during the first three seasons, but though it got warning of its final season, it received a limited run to complete the show. Now, I can't fault anyone for wanting to write each season as a possible ending, considering how often Netflix cancels shows. Is this smart? Yes. Is this also limiting? Yes. And shows like The Umbrella Academy, with universes that become increasingly complicated with increasingly detailed lore, suffer quite a lot when trying to contain a story to each individual season. And finale seasons are particularly difficult. Expectations are high. Netflix's production model gives audiences years to build up their anticipation for the finale. Too much time to think, to pick holes in what has already been created, to cool to something they were once passionate about. Delivering a genuinely satisfying finale under these circumstances would be a daunting task.

But with all that being said. Season 4 only has 6 episodes, and it somehow manages to waste so much time. I don't know what's in the water over at Netflix, because I don't know if anyone knows how to waste limited time like Netflix does. If it weren't so irritating, it would almost be impressive.

The truth is, very few of the main characters really matter to the overarching plot of the season, which is a very weird choice, particularly in a final season. It's basically Ben, Jennifer (who we barely know and just met), Hargreeves, Abigail, and tangentially Viktor. Five & Lila are basically completely taken out of play for an episode and a half, where their actions have practically no relevance to the main plot, and the critical information Five gets while using his "new" power could easily have happened without this storyline. Luther & Diego are similarly sidelined by the CIA storyline. And, again, Klaus & Allison are occupied with a side plot that removes them from the main conflict of the season and does not tie in to the finale.

I do not mind the centering of Ben & Jennifer for a season of the show in theory, but with only 6 episodes to tell this story, I think it was a stretch to believe they had the time to do this plotline justice and waste so much time elsewhere. I don't know if this was solely a me issue, but I just... didn't care about Jennifer. I mean, sure, I rooted for her in a passive "she seems nice" kind of way, but even by the end we barely know anything about her. I can live with a "cosmic connection" insta-love situation between Ben & Jennifer (not my favorite trope, but it can be okay), but just because Ben instantly connects with Jennifer, that doesn't mean the audience does. And, to make matters worse, this version of Ben is one that we don't know that well, anyway. Like... his defining character trait is that he's mean and angry. I didn't mind that in season 3, as he was new to us and at odds with our protagonists for most of the season, but we don't really learn much new about him in season 4, either. The bit of Ben's history that we get is from Umbrella Ben, not Sparrow Ben. And Sparrow Ben's personality and history isn't touched on. Why is he like this? It's never explored, not beyond the shallow "the Sparrow Academy wasn't raised as the family that the Umbrella Academy was" that was established in season 3. The fact that we know so little about this version of Ben makes it harder for me to connect with him, as well. So to center these two characters in the final season, and then not even give us scenes to flesh them out as individuals, it just feels like such a waste of time. It didn't need to be Ben and Jennifer. In fact, it very much felt like it was only Ben and Jennifer because everyone has always wanted them to tie "the Jennifer incident" into everything. Again, I think this plot could work fine if given the correct amount of screen time, but as it is, it feels rushed and shallow. We might care about Sparrow Ben (might), but we don't have much reason to care about Jennifer.

Lack of direction - There are only six episodes in this season! Every minute needs to be used wisely. This should be the most focused of all the seasons, every storyline streamlined to tie into the finale of the show. Which is the opposite of what we got. For the vast majority of the show, nothing Klaus or Allison does matters. Nothing Diego or Luther does matters. Nothing Five or Lila does matters. Sure, those storylines touch on individual character development, but when you're planning to kill everyone off in a couple hours anyway, why are we starting down unconnected character arcs that are destined to be left hanging? Every bit of interpersonal character development should be written in a way that ties into the finale plot of the show, so scenes can pull double duty and maximize the limited time available. What was the purpose of Lila and Diego fighting (other than to physically separate them)? What did they learn? How did they change or grow? They didn't. They are split apart, sent down different dead end roads, only to be gathered back up in time to die. They speak words of understanding, but we don't actually get to see them learn or put those changes into practice.

I think about it this way- if Lila and Five had gotten lost into the weird limbo subway system and we never saw what happened to them, and instead they just reappeared from that adventure for the finale, would that fundamentally change anything about how the show’s main plot plays out? No. It wouldn’t. If Klaus had stormed off in 4x03 and Allison had gone after him and we’d never seen either of them again until the finale, would that fundamentally change anything about how the show’s main plot plays out? No. It wouldn’t. If Diego and Luther had gotten their CIA passes and walked into that building and vanished from the story until the final episode of the show, would that fundamentally change anything about how the show’s main plot plays out? No. It wouldn’t. Even Viktor, who is directly addressing the main plot point of Ben & Jennifer’s connection becoming apocalyptic, has very little impact on that storyline leading up to the finale. He speaks to Ben once, he insists on trying to save Ben, and spends the rest of the time working through personal issues with his dad or being attacked in a sequence that has no consequences. The conflicts that these characters encounter have very little bearing on the physical events of the show (they get shot at, they escape. They fight, they escape. They are chased, they escape) and what are the specific consequences? There aren’t any. Viktor gets to use his powers to save Hargreeves and gets shot (I think??) doing it, but he’s fine, and it doesn’t change their approach or goals in any way. Five and Lila are trapped together for years and have a romantic relationship, but then they “go home” and it doesn’t lead to any of the characters deeply changing or acting notably differently in the following events (Five and Diego fight at a bad time, we get a funny reaction from the other siblings, etc. but it doesn't change anything) and then it is never truly resolved. Luther and Diego go to the CIA and this plot is used as a vehicle to reveal the villainy of Five’s boss (so??), but ultimately Luther and Diego get a big fight sequence, learn very little, and take up a lot of screen time for a reveal that could easily have happened in seconds. None of their actions in this storyline blatantly effects the outcome of the show. And Diego feels set up for some character work, but all it really leads to is him being like "I get it," and that change never getting a chance to be actionable. Allison and Klaus reconcile, but only after a lot of screen time is spent on another side quest. Do they really change as people from this story? We don't know because there's not enough time to see. This is clearly not a legit substitution for actually addressing the issues between them, but we don’t have time to do that, either. Not to mention, the conflict between Klaus and Allison isn’t some slow burn issue. It’s doesn’t exist before this season. What is the point of any of these plot lines? Why send Allison and Klaus off together to resolve issues that we only just found out exist, when Allison has canonically been estranged from all of her other siblings since the events of season 3? That is blatantly an unresolved issue, but instead of using her screen time to address her season 3 actions, they create a whole new issue for her and Klaus to fight and then reconcile about. Wouldn’t it be much more interesting to see Allison and Viktor work through their issues once and for all? Or to address all of the ways Allison betrayed Luther in season 3? What about Klaus reconnecting with this version of Ben? What about Luther working through being betrayed by his father? What about Diego and Lila actually being parents? What about really getting to see how this life that Allison sold them all out for isn't even the dream she thought it would be? What if, instead of getting a montage of Lila & Five’s romance, we got a montage of Jennifer and Ben finding and destroying each other in many different worlds? You want to sell me on this tragic, cosmic connection between them? Okay. Sell me on it. Make it hurt. 

Five - I'm just going to be brutally honest here- I believe Five is the strongest driving force of the show and his sidelining in season 4 was a huge mistake. Five might not be the emotional core of The Umbrella Academy, but he is absolutely central and critical to what has worked well in previous seasons. And yet, in season 4, he's pushed to the side and basically written out of the main plot for half of 4x04 and all of 4x05. And then, even when he is around, he's lost a lot of the elements that make him a fan favorite. Let's talk about that- in season 1, Five's return and his mission is where it all kicks off. Yes, technically the inciting incident is Hargreeves' death, but gathering the family without Five's arrival would have been useless and led nowhere. Five drives the entire plot of season 1, while the rest of the siblings get character arcs around him. He makes things happen. He withholds information from his siblings and from the audience. Without him moving the plot forward and tying things together, season 1 would have been a disjointed mess. In season 2, we follow Five's attempts to reunite the family and fix yet another doomsday. Again, he is the one that pushes the plot forward, while the other siblings wander down various other storylines (which is not to say that they are not involved and don't contribute, just that they don't move the plot along to the same degree). In season 3, Five attempts to "retire," but pretty quickly he's back in the thick of things in search of answers and solutions. He is set against Hargreeves in an intellectual face off and is ultimately the one who pieces together the hotel's puzzle. He also discovers that he is, essentially, his own nemesis and behind a lot of what happened in previous seasons (a storyline that feels like it had a lot more to give, possibly, but is abandoned and explained away as "something a version of him did in some timelines,"). But in season 4, Five is... Well, he's suddenly not that relevant. He starts out fine, undercover and attempting to infiltrate The Keepers, and he does push the initial plot forward with his investigation, but then he just drops off the map (literally and figuratively). Five, who has always been the character to seek out answers and the character the audience trails through the bigger plot points of the story, is suddenly out of play. Now we're watching him wander around the multiverse (presumably for an attempt at character development, which ultimately falls flat) where he learns nothing important and falls unconvincingly in love with his brother's wife for an episode and half. Why? Because... they didn't know what to do with him? Honestly, I can't explain why. Five's acerbic wit, his tendency to be one step ahead of the audience, his cockiness, the uncanny personality that is a quirk of being an old man trapped in a young man's body, his absolutely brutal and ruthless methods to protect his family, and his cool fight scenes, it all just vanishes. Suddenly, for the first time, he feels the age of the actor. He feels erased long before he literally is. After 3 seasons of him having one of the coolest powers that leads to some of the coolest scenes, we're suddenly in a world where everyone else has some useful version of their power, while Five's kind of sucks. And like his teleporting power only reappearing at the very end (spurred on to save Lila specifically, rather than his family, because ???), Five's personality is frequently missing. Which leads me to-

Five and Lila - This may be a controversial opinion, but in concept this could have worked. Am I mad at the idea that two characters who are stuck together for years with no one else as company might fall in love, even if they're an odd pairing? No. Like I said, it's okay in concept. But only in concept. In reality, there was neither the time, nor the necessary casting to make this storyline hit properly. Regardless of Five's character's age, or the fact that his actor is (technically) an adult now, this felt flat out wrong to watch. Not only does Five still very much look like a teenager (inevitable, as while Aidan has aged over the course of filming the show, the age of young Five would now, still, vastly outstrip his real age of 20), but we also know that Lila was introduced to him as a child. Lila and Five meet in season 2, in which he is (physically) still a 13 year old boy, while Lila is an adult woman (considering she has the same birthday as the rest of the Umbrella Academy, this would put her at approximately 30 years old at this time). Yes, the exact ages of these characters is a bit messy to track, but no amount of text on the screen telling me so many years have passed is going to allow me to forget this detail, which makes this whole situation, at best, deeply uncomfortable. The fifteen year age gap between the actors is incredibly evident, and this romance is ultimately completely unnecessary for them to evolve in the (frankly minimal) ways that they do. They also pretty brutally sacrificed Diego's character for this. All of Diego's negative traits are cranked up to 100 this season, while Lila's are generally turned down to a low simmer (until she nearly dooms everyone to a meaningless death). While I don't think their relationship being on the rocks, or either of their character's struggle to fit into domestic life, is a bad idea, I again find myself questioning what the point of this storyline was for this particular season. We don't get much of a conclusion. Diego is basically a buffoon all season, Lila is less blatantly fucked up most of the time and also somehow less likable for it, and Five feels out of place in this storyline. Why did we do this? As far as I can tell, it's because they didn't have any other ideas to keep these characters busy while the actual plot happens around them. That's really not a good reason to blow up a dysfunctional but well liked dynamic (Diego and Lila) and never even bother to mop up the blood. And that leads me to-

Lila - Just, in general, I found myself asking "who in the writer's room is ridiculously obsessed with Lila, because that is the only explanation for any of this." For example, Klaus names everybody's problems and can't think of any real issues for Lila?? LILA? Her erratic, risk taking behavior and serious mommy/family issues are the most intensely Lila thing about her?? This is what her entire character is built upon? Why are we acting like she's not been a complete wildcard for the last two seasons?? Her new power doesn't make any kind of sense. Everyone else basically got some version of their old power back (and we eventually learn that Lila does have that power back as well, despite wildly underusing it), but now she has laser eyes.... Because? Her inability to properly control the laser eyes is funny, but also doesn't make any sense. In previous seasons we see Lila quickly adapt to using new powers only moments after acquiring them. If there is any one single person in this whole show who should have adapted to a new power immediately, it would be Lila. And somehow, for some reason, they center Lila during the finale conflict. Everything rests on her decision to stay or go. On her connection to her family (despite us barely seeing her in a room with them all season), instead of literally any of the main Umbrellas we've been following all along. And she gets the last line of dialogue from our main characters. We spend an extended sequence watching The Umbrella Academy slowly sacrifice themselves and Lila gets the last word?? And all of this is coming from someone who actually really loved Lila in seasons 2 and 3. She was one of my favorite characters coming into this season, but this... It just felt blatantly disrespectful to all the other main characters.

Everyone Dying is a Bummer - Okay, don't get me wrong, I'm not set against tragic endings in general, but... I don't think The Umbrella Academy earned this ending (at least not in this way). This idea of the world being better off without them, like they are a mistake that fundamentally ruins the world and must choose to sacrifice themselves in the name of saving humanity, that would (could) be fine. Except that it doesn't feel thematically well supported by the previous seasons, or even just season 4. At its heart, seasons 1-3 followed the ups and downs of Five's journey to save his siblings from the apocalypse, even though they are the ones to cause it. This is his entire goal. He wavers, he actively tries to walk away from this, but he cannot help himself, he always comes back around to this goal. This is what we buy into in season 1. So the idea that this is impossible and that they all must die anyway, feels antithetical to why we are asked to care in the first place. We haven't been asked to care about the world (not in any tangible sense). We watch random, innocent people, or vaguely antagonistic people, get killed in horrible ways left and right in the show and we are not asked to care. We're often asked to laugh. We care about them saving the world because we care about them saving the family, this dysfunctional group of oddballs. Sure, on a very basic and fundamental level we don't want humanity to be wiped out, but the humanity of the surrounding world is never deeply touched upon in the show. And their death wipes out infinite universes. We're told this is "right," but we don't tie any real emotional stakes to it.

Season 4, which centers around saving (or failing to save) Ben and Jennifer, around Viktor's desire to find another way because he loves his brother (even this version of him) and his siblings have always fought so hard to find another way because they love Viktor, asks us to care for these same reasons. Not for the world, but because we care about these particular characters. And the writers decide to sideline Five, whose centering I believe is absolutely essential to pulling off a "they must all die at the end" storyline to begin with. Why? Because he's the one who has fought so hard to save them. To have him not be at the center of the storyline where saving them is not possible makes absolutely no sense. Do I think that a final season where we follow Five coming to the conclusion that they are all doomed could possibly work? Yeah, if they had (and here it is again) the time to dig into that story and show us how he grapples with and fights that resolution tooth and nail until he cannot anymore (they point at it with the diner scene, but don't have the time to let us feel the weight of it). But they don't do that. We don't get to follow him throughout a season trying to cope with this impossible truth. Instead, he accepts that fate in a matter of onscreen minutes and with immediate resignation. (Yes, you could argue this is what he has been doing the last 3 seasons, but we're never truly given the impression that he is trying to prevent an absolute inevitability, only that he is trying to prevent a specific reality). It undermines the foundation of his character, and because Five is the driving force of the first three seasons, it undermines the foundation of those storylines as well. With the limited amount of time they were given to wrap up this show, instead of ending with a "everyone must sacrifice themselves" storyline, I would have, instead, centered Five's personal journey in season 4, which concludes with him realizing there can be one universe in which his family can all live, but only if he dies. They live, but he must sacrifice himself and be erased from existence so they will never mourn him, never know him, never know to be grateful. What could be more fitting for the show, more simultaneously sad and happy, than Five achieving what he set out to do in 1x01 and saving his family and that costing him everything?

Now... how to work that in and fill in some major plot holes at the same time? Well, I have some ideas, but I'm gonna save them for a different post, because while writing this review, I found myself re-outlining season 4 and trying to fix some of nonsensical elements of this season and if I get into that, it needs its own post. But I think it could be done. And speaking of nonsensical events.... Why do the Umbrellas have to die now? Like, logistically speaking, if The Cleanse is a necessary event and every single other world except the "perfect" timeline ends in apocalypse, then why can't they jump on that subway to a different universe where they have more time to be really, truly sure that's the only answer? At the very least they would have had a chance to really say goodbye to each other. We know there are plenty of universes where Ben & Jennifer both exist, there's no reason it has to be now. Since there are infinite "wrong" universes, they have all the time in the world. This is not a decision that has to be made exclusively in this moment, despite being portrayed that way. They don't die, The Cleanse doesn't work, they fact check their solution in a different universe, they get a chance to say their goodbyes, etc. etc. The urgency makes no sense. For that matter, why doesn't Five blip them all down to the subway where the show has already established in this season that time does not pass, so they can have a real conversation about this? There is literally no reason not to do this. They, quite literally, have a character who can take them to a timeless limbo where they can take as much time as they want/need to sort this out. They, quite literally, have that character take an entire family to this place, proving that he is capable of bringing a group of people there, and they don't use it.

It Doesn't Get Better - One of the major themes of Umbrella Academy is dysfunctional family and the way we cope (or don't) with childhood trauma. How burying that pain is destructive and hurts the people around us. And while I don't think the show's intent was to send the ultimate message of, "Actually, it doesn't get better, you'll never heal those wounds, and your existence is a destructive mistake," that's... kind of what it implies anyway. Throughout the whole show we explore the ways these characters are trying to work through the abusive household they grew up in, to move past the things that happened to them, and we watch them process and come together as a family and stand up against their abuser and grow into better versions of themselves and lose their way and pick each other back up. And then we're told that it doesn't matter because they all have to die. It sends a strange message. Personally, I think the show may not ever have intended to really send a message at all. It's absurd and irreverent and tragic and silly. It has never shied away from violence. It's always had a bit of a flippant nihilism hanging about it. And I think there is an argument for "People don't always get what they deserve. Sometimes they just get the short end of the stick and it sucks, but that's just how it is," being an underlying theme worth exploring. It's just... they don't really explore it, they just kind of dump it on us at the end. And because we don't have time to come to terms with this messaging (time, it's all about time), I think a lot of people feel like there's this bait & switch happening. For the last 3 seasons, we've been watching a show that is constantly addressing this childhood trauma and a toxic family dynamic, but then the end of that show is like "and all of these kids are a casualty of their abuser's arrogance and there was literally, not from the moment they were born, anything they ever could have done to grow away from that." It's pretty fucking bleak, to say the least.

Plot Holes For Days - There are more plot holes in this show than a block of Swiss Cheese. There are so many, that I'm still mentally trying to sort out an ending that feels... somewhat in the spirit of what season 4 was intending, and doesn't leave us up to our eyeballs in nonsensical plot points. For example- in The Umbrella's original universe, they already changed things so that they don't exist anymore long before the apocalypse. One of the major plot points of season 3 is that Harlan accidentally killed The Umbrellas' mothers before they were even born (obviously this is a paradox, as Harlan could never do that without meeting Viktor). But Hargreeves was still able to adopt Marigold enhanced children! Marigold kids were still born! We're told in 1x01 that 43 women spontaneously gave birth without having been pregnant, but we're supposed to believe that The Umbrellas, right here and now, have definitely got all of the Marigold in this universe? (And that doesn't even get into the questions surrounding the Marigold's presence in this world, since The Umbrellas did not bring it with them, we see no sign of other super powered versions of them existing in this universe, but if it didn't already exist here in some capacity and no children were born with these powers, then there's nothing inherently wrong with this universe, meaning the apocalypse wouldn't need to happen, and on and on and on. Like if all the Marigold was just in that jar and that counts as being in this world, then they could have just chucked that thing at Jennifer and bam, problem solved.) We know that in the original timeline Hargreeves didn't adopt all the Marigold children, because that's the entire point of Lila's backstory. And what about the other 35 women who spontaneously gave birth and those kids? So how could The Umbrellas possibly know if they are destroying all the Marigold by sacrificing themselves in this world? They can't know that. The existence of The Sparrows (and in another universe The Phoenix Academy) also implies that there could be many universes where The Umbrella kids don't all even exist, but other children were born with their powers, so specifically The Umbrella kids all dying isn't something that would need to be set in stone, since none of the other Marigold kids had to die for The Cleanse to work in this universe. Now, a lot of shows have plot holes or paradoxes or questions left at the end, and a lot of shows I would cut some slack. I'm even willing to ignore a lot of the smaller plot holes in this show, but this is the culmination of the entire series, the explanation for what must happen and why, and the justification for all our main characters being wiped out, and it just doesn't hold up under more than a moment's scrutiny. And that, imo, is a pretty big problem.

Gene & Jean/Villains - So, on a slightly lighter note, another thing that I don't have a problem with in concept is Gene & Jean. They're weird and quirky, as all Umbrella Academy villains seem to be, and I love both actors. It's just that season 4 has a serious problem with its villains in general. That is, there are too many of them and their plans are too convoluted. The ultimate villains being in some way connected back to Hargreeves (and specifically Abigail, who up until this point has had very little to justify her existence in the show) makes sense to me. But the absolutely convoluted mess that is The Keepers cult led by Gene & Jean being at odds with Hargreeves' men who are hiding Jennifer, being at odds with Abigail masquerading as Sy Grossman and then as Gene (I still don't understand why she needed to kill Gene or Jean, like Gene & Jean were already trying to bring about The Cleanse, why is she infiltrating them??), instead of using her resources/position as Hargreeves' wife, is ridiculously messy. The person I watched this season with actually asked me after 4x04 if I had any idea what was happening because they were completely lost. Generally, I am pretty patient about how a show shares information. I always assume that I am picking up what they're putting down, and if I don't understand something, I will when I'm supposed to. That... didn't always feel like the case to me this season. I don't think it was so much that it was hard to follow, but that it just didn't make a lot of sense. The "why" for so many character actions, but particularly the villains, just never fully materializes. Abigail and Hargreeves' sides are fighting in this season, with him attempting to prevent the apocalypse and her trying to bring it about... But what is the justification for the completely convoluted nonsensical path it takes to get there? She seems to have plenty of power over Hargreeves when the kids visit. Why does she need to infiltrate The Keepers? Why do The Keepers need to exist at all? It's just a coincidence that they have the same goals as Abigail? If she actually started them, then I assume she would have installed herself into the organization and not needed Gene to infiltrate it. I don't understand her choices. There were many, many simpler ways to get where they ended up.

So... it's not as if The Umbrella Academy is the first show to do this ending. In fact, one of my favorite shows of all time does this ending (not mentioning it by name because that would be a massive spoiler, obviously). I think this ending is completely possible to pull off. But I also am neither convinced from an in-universe logical point, nor from a storyteller's point, that it earned this ending. Did I want it to be a happily ever after? No. I don't think that would fit tonally with the show. But I wanted it to feel necessary, truly inevitable, and both physically and thematically, I don't buy that it was.

My advice to anyone who was starting this show for the first time would have to be, "don't think too hard about it," because ultimately, if you do it will crumble. Just enjoy the vibes and the bickering and the comedy and strangeness. There's no point in asking too many questions. And for some people, that's totally okay. That's enough. I'm just (shockingly) not one of those people.

So, if you're still with me, I'd love to hear what you guys think. Did you feel emotionally fulfilled? Were there particular plot points you loved or hated? What was your favorite musical choice of season 4? Should I release my redesigned season 4 outline? What ending would you have chosen? I'm open to all opinions! I don't agree with all opinions, but I will very much consider them.

[williamaltman]

Ok so, I've been wanting to talk about the whole episode 5 recollection thing ever since we saw it on the previous trailers, and since there were more shots of it in the new one too I'm gonna take the opportunity...

So, in all the little shots we've seen, we have Louis going at Lestat. So I'm guessing the idea is that they're gonna make the """fight""" actually more of a fight and not just Louis getting beaten.

Personally, I am pleased with this, because I think it's basically the best way to deal with this whole mess. I never had an issue with Lestat and Louis "fighting". What I have issue with is how extremely violent it was, how Lestat actually seriously hurt Louis. If it had been just a punch or two (though that would already be domestic abuse) I wouldn't have been fazed, but his whole body was bruised and bleeding. There was a trail of blood when he got dragged across the street. He took months to heal. In their little "fights" (actually not sure if it's more than one) in the book, Louis was completely fine. Lestat never truly hurt him physically.

So, to sort of get into a writers mindset I guess, how could you "fix it"? Well, I don't think they could say it's a fake memory. I'm sorry but the idea that it was implanted by Armand for example is just ridiculous to me. I don't think it even makes much sense in the first place, but besides that, I hate the idea of just blaming Armand to make Lestat seem better. This black and white idea of one of them being the "bad boyfriend" and the other the "good one" that comes from both sides is NOT true to the characters imo, and I also think it's a shitty narrative to go with, storytelling wise.

Besides that, I'm not sure how else you could fully retcon it and say it was fake. I saw people theorizing that only the drop was fake, but again that seems to rely on the Armand fake memory theory, and I honestly don't think they'll retcon it since it was kinda the whole point thematically from what the writers said (that it's a parallel to Paul and that they were "very pleased with themselves" for it). And clearly the initial "fight" is not fake from the new shots we got. Obviously "Louis made it up" is not an option. I remember people talking about how it was from Claudia's POV, which I honestly don't remember whether that part was supposed to be from her diary or not, but even if that's the case the most that could do is establish that the details of the fall are messy because she wasn't there to see it, and that maybe Lestat wasn't so "triumphant" after it.

Lestat attacked Louis, just because he THOUGHT Louis wanted to leave with Claudia. He started it, which does matter imo (I don't think they can change that to it being Louis) and it was completely unequal. I know this fandom is lowkey plagued with gender role discourse, but Lestat, as a stronger vampire, has a huge advantage against Louis, akin to a man hitting his wife, but probably even bigger due to supernatural strength.

And that is to say, technically the main problems will probably still be there. Which is how it should be imo, cause after doing that they have to commit to it, at least to some extent. The idea should not be to fully exonerate Lestat, but to basically soften the blow (literally and figuratively) by adding some more nuance to it. The writers said themselves that they want Louis to be belieavable as a victim.

So, I'm guessing that what we're gonna see is Louis defending himself, getting some hits against Lestat, and that Lestat was hurt too, and maybe something new about the fall. Which honestly is gonna give me some peace of mind. I get why people don't like the idea of discrediting Louis' account of the event, and of how the fandom can turn on him if he's not some perfect victim... But there was (is) just something in me that can't fully ship Loustat as much as I did before with that having happened.

Like, for a while I have basically just chosen to ignore it as much as possible. I don't rewatch the episode, I skip it during reactions, I skip the beginning of episode 6 where we see how Louis is after. I have acknowledged it many times but more as like a meta thing that happened. I probably wouldn't say it's triggering, but it just crossed a line to me and I'm gonna welcome (almost) anything they do to make it less bad than it seemed, not because I want for Louis to come off as a liar or anything but just like... For my own relief, to kinda have a bit of weight off my shoulders when watching the show and shipping them? Obviously I don't know anything for sure and I might be wrong about some things I'm guessing, but not having it be so one-sided at least already helps a bit. (Please don't come here to say I'm a weak bitch who can't handle dark gothic romance or some bullshit like that. I've already talked about that back when the scene aired and if you think it's a simple as that you're probably just dumb and insensitive)

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Baseball's Greatest Hits 1989 Novelty / Swing / Pop / Jazz / Comedy / Folk / Singer-Songwriter

Well, folks, I gotta say that baseball and I really aren't on the greatest of terms right now. See, my Mets are currently in the fight of their life for a playoff wild card spot, and their MVP-caliber shortstop, Francisco Lindor, who prides himself on playing every day, is now nursing a back injury, and we don't yet know the severity of it, because as I'm currently writing this, me and this entire fanbase are awaiting the results of a very important MRI. And as a diehard Mets fan whose only really been raised on baseball heartbreak, I've been conditioned to only expect bad news at this point, knowing full well that even if his injury is minor and he's only out for a few games, that his absence at this highly critical point in the season has a pretty good chance of causing this club to miss the playoffs by a mere inch, even though they've been pretty much the best team in the league since Memorial Day, with a starting pitching staff that was not expected to be very good, but has somehow miraculously developed itself into the best one in the game, despite ace Kodai Senga only making a single appearance all season due to multiple injuries.

But even though I really don't wanna think too much about baseball right now (hah!), we still push on, because like it or not, this novelty album of baseball songs from Rhino Records—the first of its kind, they allege—happens to be the next album in my queue, and so here I am, regardless of my own mood and how I'm currently trying to cope in this moment, ready to write, objectively 😥.

So, first of all, and above all else, this is a fun album. Little of it consists of music that I would consider to be *good*, but that's not really the point of an album like this in the first place; we're here for goofy novelty, and boy, do we have a whole lot of it, from swingin' and showtuney and rockin' tunes about specific greats like Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, and Hank Aaron; to jazz pianist Dave Frishberg's "Van Lingle Mungo," a song that, according to this albums own liner notes, became his most requested, even though its lyrics are literally only names of baseball players that he'd found in a baseball encyclopedia once, including that of Van Lingle Mungo himself. What a song to have your career defined by 😂.

But the absurdity of this album really only begins there, because in addition to that, we've got some peak 80s cringe here as well. Like, you know how so many people in that decade mistakenly thought it'd be a good idea to try their hand at rapping? Well, have a listen to legendary Yankees announcer Mel Allen rap the words 'that ain't no jive' on "Baseball Dreams," by Allen and a group called The Naturals. This song is like if one of those horribly cheesy 'just say no to drugs' anthems was made about baseball instead. A complete atrocity that reminds you just how much of this awful type of cheap and generic, keyboard-dominated ~sound~ was really floating around out there at the time. Fun to point and laugh at now, but holy shit, what terrible, terrible music this was!

And up until that very song on this album, I was set to write about how this is a great release for families to listen to in their car while on the way to a ballgame, so long as they don't go to more than a few games a year. But then I heard the next song, "Baseball Card Lover" by Rockin' Richie Ray, and thought otherwise, because while Richie provides the thinnest of pretenses that this song is merely about his love of baseball cards, what it's actually clearly about instead are his own fantasies about having wild sex with the players on those cards 🥵. So, uh...fun for the whole family, this album certainly is not.

Still, though, there are a few genuinely good songs on here too, and the best among them, I'd say, is probably Philly soul group The Intruders' "(Love Is Like A) Baseball Game," which wasn't their biggest hit, but still managed to perform modestly well, reaching #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968. A quality piece of soul music that came courtesy of the legendary songwriting and production duo of Gamble and Huff, but I'm not too sure that I agree that the whole concept of love can really be equated to "three strikes, you're out" 😅.

So, all in all, it definitely did feel a little bit tormenting to have to listen to this album and then write up a post about it today, but now that I've done it, I won't have to do it again 👍. Worth a listen if you love the history of baseball and think you'd get a kick out of the wide variety of wacky music that this folkloric game has managed to yield since about the ~1940s, but if baseball's never really been your thing, you can probably skip this collection, because you probably wouldn't understand or appreciate much of what these songs are about anyway.

But seriously, how do you leave a song like "Meet the Mets," one of the single-catchiest baseball tunes ever written, off of an album like this?! 🤔 Tsk, tsk. The lesser known funkier and peppier 70s version of it goes pretty hard, as far as baseball songs go, too, I think.

Highlights:

The Intruders - "(Love Is Like A) Baseball Game" Steve Goodman - "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" Sister Wynona Carr - "The Ball Game"

P.S.: Since I've written this, Lindor's MRI has come back clean, which is definitely encouraging, but they really need him back ASAP. Time is definitely not on their side right now 😓.

[sneakyscarab]

hello! it's been a while since ive written out my thoughts about touhou! part of the reason why is that i've been working on a website of my own, which now hosts all my grimoire of nina entries with enhanced bonus features! plus a lot of other things on other pages but this is the relevant part to this post. i'm not sure whether i want to continue making tumblr versions of the posts now that i've set this up, but for now im gonna do both a tumblr edition and a neocities edition. with that out of the way lets get started on...

Touhou 1-5 PC98 Extravaganza!

after finishing the main series (and taking a probably needed break from bullet hells for a bit) I went back to the beginning and checked out the first wave of Touhou, the 5 PC98 games!

putting this up front, while i absolutely respect what these games did to kick off the series and get things going, i cant say i was very fond of them, so the overall tone of this writing is on the neutral to negative side. just something i feel i should note. with that said, let’s get started.

Touhou 1 - Highly Responsive to Prayers

Highly Responsive to Prayers is a weird game. contrary to what one would expect, the First Touhou Game is not a vertical scrolling shooter like others. HRtP is instead a sort of breakout/arkanoid type game, where you control a miko-shaped paddle named Reimu running back and forth bouncing a giant yin-yang orb that clears up tiles, beating a stage once you’ve cleared the screen. it does actually have whispers of the series’ future though, with turrets in levels that shoot bullets towards you, Reimu having a amulet-shooting ability (influence the orb's movement), screen-clearing bombs, and menacing boss fights.

you heard me right, this breakout clone has boss fights, and theyre kinda wild. every 5th stage is a boss, which have big hitboxes and shoot out tons of bullets and other attacks which you have to simultaneously avoid while also manipulating your orb in order to hit the boss (because only the orb does damage). After beating the first boss youre given a branching path between Makai or Hell, and either choice gives you 15 more stages for a total of 20.

overall HRtP is a very bizarre and not particularly great game, but its uniqueness makes it really stand out, and if you're in the market to play a weird breakout/bullet hell game for whatever reason you should try it out.

Touhou 2 - Story of Eastern Wonderland

now This is a Touhou game! released alongside HRtP at Comiket 52, Story of Eastern Wonderland is what i would say is the true first Touhou game, being a vertical scrolling shooter with 6 stages, fancy boss fights, and ridiculous characters.

right out of the gate SoEW shows off how wacky the PC98 era lore is, with the first stage containing not one but two military tanks as boss fights. the third stage's boss as well is a weird metallic wall with 5 "eyes" and innumerable laser cannons. its wild. as for gameplay, it's pretty much what you would consider Standard Touhou, although with some features missing that havent been invented yet, notably the movement-slowing Focus mechanic.

one interesting thing about this game is the colour choice: likely due to palette restrictions pretty much the entire game is a combo of red+purple, with the occasional blue+green sprites. even marisa is not immune, having bright red hair only in this game alongside a purple robe+hat.

its very surprising how close SoEW already is to the modern gameplay loop, although i guess it shouldnt be Too surprising considering scrolling shooters are like one of the first game genres ever made. its a pretty fun time, but also pretty rough around the edges.

Touhou 3 - Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream

if you thought we would stablize into the regular style now that we've seen SoEW, you'd be off the mark. Phantasmagoria of Dim Dream is actually a VS game in the same style as the later PoFV and UDoALG titles! it was really surprising to me seeing just how much experimentation was going on with the series this early in its lifespan, but I suppose that happened a lot back then.

in terms of gameplay PoDD plays surprisingly similar to PoFV, with the same enemy combos, sending spells at each other through a charge meter, and summoning yourself as a boss fight on the other guy's screen as an ultimate move. it even has the same insane boss summon rebound mechanic and the same cheating bastard final boss ai!

one funny difference is that, since faeries hadnt yet been established as go-to mooks, the enemies during duels are a variety of random things. besides ghosts you just have star, moon, or heart shapes with ' ' and ^^ faces. theyre so abstract I kinda love it lol.

like SoEW its surprisingly functional for its age, although also like that game it still lacks features like focus, leaving it being unpolished in comparison to newer variations of this formula. unless youre a PC98 enthusiast id recommend playing PoFV or UDoALG instead, especially since the multiplayer on this one is local-only.

Touhou 4 - Lotus Land Story

now things are starting to standardize. Lotus Land Story is another vertical scrolling shooter and adds in a bunch of features not in SoEW that would go on to be series mainstays: focus, boss phases, boss item drops, and most notably having Marisa as a deuteragonist! if SoEW was a standard touhou missing some features, LLS is taking steps to a full on touhou game, missing just a few mechanics from EoSD, notably the spell card system and point-of-collection line.

LLS is also notable for a few other reasons, one being the character Yuuka who is one of the few PC98 characters to get remade in the windows games, and the other being the origin of the iconic song Bad Apple!! which got remixed by nomico and memed half to death.

Its pretty good, albeit still rough around the edges and missing the sort of spark thats found in later entries.

Touhou 5 - Mystic Square

Mystic Square is where we settle in, playing identical to LLS, which means theres not much to talk about. there are 2 more playable characters than LLS, with both Mima and Yuuka. Mystic Square also includes the 4th and final PC98 character to get remade later in the Windows canon, Alice Margatroid. besides the name and the blonde hair though theres pretty much nothing connecting the two Alices together. if you liked Lotus Land Story you'll probably like this too, i dunno.

alrighty with all those games out of the way its time to talk about the characters of note. and of course if theres one name thats synonymous with PC98 its...

Mima! appearing in four of the five games of this era, Mima is the most consistent character besides Reimu and Marisa, and yet she has never been seen since Mystic Square. this may be a hot take, but i think Mima is emblematic of a lot of the qualities of this era that make it hard to get into from a story perspective. for starters, Mima is incredibly inconsistent. She shows up 4 times and is basically a different character each time; being a random Hell boss in HRtP, a vengeful spirit bent on destroying all humanity (except Marisa i guess?) in SoEW, a woman of few words and a short temper in PoDD, and a snarky bully who tells blatant lies just to see how people react in MS. she also has a weird conceptual design and wack power scaling, being a ghost who was never alive, always been a ghost, who also for some reason has like dragon wings but only when she gets angry (Marisa also has these in PoDD which is really bizarre) and shes able to simply escape being magically sealed away as if she was cracking the seal on a pickle jar and casually beats up everyone in Mystic Square without even blinking. While i do like elements of her character (her lying bastard personality from MS is pretty funny and I see why people would want that back) i think its for the best that she stays in the PC98 era, the one seal she cannot break free of. If she were to come back, so much would have to be rewritten either of the world around her or Mima herself that she would basically be a different character entirely, which i think would cause way more drama than her return is worth.

moving on, lets talk about Genjii! this old fart is basically Reimu's grandpa who is also a magical flying turtle. since Reimu doesnt know how to fly in these games, her pops Genjii gives her a ride whenever she needs to go solve an incident. He also acts as a straight-man to Reimu's comedy in her storylines, often questioning the bizarre things that she says or weird noises she makes. he's just a funny turtle grandpa and i'm here for it. while Genjii has never officially appeared in a game in the Windows era, ZUN has stated that the reason is that he's just enjoying his retirement. Reimu can fly on her own now, so he's just resting in the pond out behind the shrine, doing whatever it is grandpa turtles do in their free time. good for him :>

the last character spotlight is for Meira! she's a cool samurai lady from stage 2 of SoEW who was also Reimu's gay awakening :P (for context, Meira and Reimu's pre-battle conversation is a bit where Meira claims to seek the Hakurei Maiden [for her power] but Reimu assumes that Meira's hitting on her. After clarifying that Meira wants to fight Reimu and take her power after winning, Reimu counter-offers by implying that she'll take Meira as her girlfriend if she wins.) this was almost certainly just intended as a joke, but considering that Touhou Project is basically a yuri wonderland its very funny to see gay implications in literally the second spoken conversation in the entire series. besides that, Meira also has cool attacks utilizing her sword where she makes huge slashes in the air that explode into bullets after a second, which were probably inspiration for Youmu's sick swordplay five games later.

and thats the PC98 era! with these games under my belt ive now played each whole-numbered entry in the series, woo~! so having played them all, what are my thoughts on the origins of Touhou?

i'll start by clarifying that i am generally not a 'Retro Gamer'. while i acknowledge the importance of early entries into series, they are very frequently rough, unpolished, or just straight up unfun because the devs are still working out the kinks on how they want the series to go. this is doubly so for games from this pre-2000s era, where game design in general was still a new concept and most games were working off arcade standards of high difficulty to steal quarters. early Touhou is not exempt from this, these games are missing a lot of features added later that make the games more fun, and the difficulty is much higher with a lot more 'bullshit' design like bullets that spawn on your character or a lack of proper resources given on respawn leading to a cycle of death.

all said, i cant say i really enjoyed my time with the PC98 titles. you may have noticed that i didn't mention 1cc runs so far in this article, and the reason for that is i couldnt find the motivation to keep trying for more runs like i did with the future games. mix that in with the bizarre, nonsensical, and often self-contradictory writing and you have a recipe for mediocrity. PoDD in particular is an absolute dearth of writing and worldbuilding. most character interactoins are like one sentence long, and the plot involves two scientists on a "Probability Space Hypervessel" who somehow invited in the characters from Gensokyo to the real world so that they could capture them and steal their magic for clout. In Marisa's route after she beats them up they give her a weapon as a reward which is a ICBM with a smiley face that Marisa names Mimi-chan and rides around instead of her broom. like its all so ridiculous you can just tell that these were like student projects done by a dude in his free time and not a serious attempt at making a world or story.

overall i just really have trouble finding passion for these titles compared to the later entries, to the point that i had to shove all 5 of these games into a single article and its about as much writing as Subterranean Animism alone. im sorry if youre a big PC98 and/or Mima enjoyer but theyre not for me, and i have to say im glad that Touhou moved on and evolved past this point.

thank you for reading, and i'll see you next time, whenever that is!

[sunshinesfaraway]

A cry, or a whimper for help.

I do not like to go into specifics while venting most of the time, as talking about and revealing these sorts of things is incredibly painful and difficult for us all. But, alas, life has been incredibly rude and cruel to us as of late - so this once, I will break the rule I have established for myself. Right now, we are ill. It's not of much relevance for the vent, but it is important enough to mention. We are sicker than we have been in a long, long time, and so is the rest of our family. Despite this, however, for the past month while the rest of our family has been sick, we have been up and taking care of them and absolutely everything in the house. Dishes, fetching things our family members request, yard work, cleaning the home, taking care of our dog, etc etc. This has continued to even now, while we have fallen ill as well. Tonight, though, we were hit with an ultimatum. Despite how we are ill and have been religiously taking care of our family for not only this past month, but for a.. *very* long time despite how hard it is for us to even take care of ourselves, we were met with this: Obtain our GED and Drivers License, or face the risk of being kicked out, and perhaps more punishments. This, to say the least, was gut wrenching for us. We are severely mentally ill and have ran out of our medication due to our father's incompetence, and been out of therapy for even longer due to the same reasons. Now, getting our GED should be.. easy enough, I assume, if it were not for two glaring issues. One - we have not been taken to the GED test center to obtain any studying materials what-so-ever for 4+ years despite our numerous requests. and Two - we have the education of a middle schooler. The state in which we reside has one of the lowest education levels of the United States, and the district we're in specifically may be the worst of our state. Most of our high school life, before we dropped out due to our rapidly deteriorating mental health and the utter incompetence of the school board there, was spent retreading on things we should've learned back in middle school. It was horrible, an utter waste of time. However, the GED test follows a far, fare stricter and more standard form of education. Something far above our paygrade. Even with the study materials, I'm not entirely sure we'd be able to actually pass the test due to the failure of the school system here. As for our driver's license; that one is easy enough, we just need to get over our fear of cars and even bigger fear of being out on the road. The point is, we are lost. I am lost. I don't know what to do, how to help, or how to hold us all together. I feel utterly betrayed by our family right now, considering both of our parents have agreed and moved forward with this ultimatum for me - even my mother, who we've taken care of since we were a child. Though, I assume with how poor her mental health is recently and my father's track record of abuse and manipulation, he likely forced her into this like he has many times in the past. Infact, an ultimatum hasn't even befallen my brother, who is far older than me, a horrible person who blows all of his un-earned allowance on gacha video games and adult materials. I don't know what to do. I'm lost. Please help. I need guidance. I need help.

[rin-and-jade]

hi there, I've been very active in researching OSDD/DID for the last few years, and it came to be that around July of 2022 I realized how many applications and descriptions fit my experience. I/we don't experience amnesia, but do experience high degrees of trance-like dissociation and DPDR regularly. I/we identify as an OSDD system, and have distinctive parts/alters, who have their own body awareness, personalities, interacting with the world, and their own names, if exclusively identified.

The problem is that there is a huge amount of imposter syndrome, and self-invalidation, since we don't remember any significant trauma that would cause such a brain thing to happen. The only things we can remember are instances of emotional invalidation (and altercations ending in panic attacks from a young age) due to caregivers figures not realizing we're autistic, or how to help us. But that doesn't feel like it's enough. With all the searching we've done, we can't recover anything more specific as a recurring trauma. It hurts, and feels like we are invalid as a system, and that without something more significant there's no way we could have developed this way.

Is this enough, depending on how the brain dealt with distress? Should we keep searching for repressed trauma?

TLDR; Imposter syndrome due to lack of trauma rememberance, and what is remembered feels "too light".

Yikes.. imposter syndrome is already a pain in the ass to deal with. I'll try my best to explain multiple things to you and all ya got to do is digest all of these and do the tips i write below ok? (long post bare with me)

Following the order, let's start with the syndrome itself. This can make a distrust between you and the memories/severity you have known,, having the mindset of seeing 'worthiness' in a simple scale (of not bad to bad enough) won't cut it apparently. First you must understand that you're easy to miss the whole point which is acknowledging you have these unpleasant memories, and that is the only proof needed.

Secondly, self invalidation hits people right in the gut. Everytime. While you can't stop it from throwing punches, you can actually learn how to dodge. In this case where invalidation is trying to beat you up hard anytime,, it's time to implement the concept of worth and acceptance. By understanding that everyone has its own worth (and the same degree/amount) and even for you, that'll dodge an uppercut of "your struggles are nothing compared to others" which is much better than getting your jaw hit and halfway in the process of understanding the truth (because it lies all the time). Having acceptance that despite how 'small' or 'not really bad' traumatic experiences makes you dodge another jab punch,, invalidation hates this as it tries to put you down for good and you're going against it. Like boxing, it takes practice to create a counterattack and be fast in dodging so if you got hit once in a while, get up again, you're doing great,, beat that shit to pulp with consistency.

Thirdly, for repressed trauma/memories. I think of this sometimes, i, myself is also aware we still have many to uncover but that isn't always the important thing to dig for. How can one be sure that it has CDD? By knowing it has one already, in fact (the presenting symptoms and struggles around it, as well as history of when it happened). Finding traces is not easy and takes lot of time,, just as an investigation case where some deed had happened (cdd) and you're tasked to understand what process/action had led to this cause by looking for clues (repressed memories) and even if you, the detective have gained profound evidence (pieces of memories, etc). Because you weren't in the crime scene or whoever was involved in the deed,, not knowing the full chronology, series of events and reasons is perfectly alright. What im telling is that you don't need to see the full picture to determine something,, with enough clues that serves as concrete evidence, it had already been sufficient.

Lastly, i say you should not chase for memories as its counterintuitive. Like taming a cat, you can't catch it that way,, and so it works similarly with this. The more you heal on yourself and other parts, it'll uncover by itself and im sure of it. So you don't have to chase anymore because it's bound to come by itself, just like a cat.

I also made this simple graph on how your issues affect each other and its outcome in my own understanding,, by having awareness that this is creating a loop, you are bound to escape/break it easier. The writings are not dyslexic-friendly so im kinda sorry on that..

This hopefully covers up everything what you're questioning and the presented struggles as well, so, i now wish you luck and feel free to come back and tell me your progress.

- j

[osakanone]

So, like I always say, actually look at the overdose rates. They're grim sure, but if drug education (either mandatory education or resources online and their popularity) hasn't improved there's no reason it would magically drop, because reporting often isn't an accurate representation of consumption.

The rates dipped during the pandemic sure, but the overdose rates haven't shifted.

What you're seeing isn't that the kids are consuming less, its that they are reporting less.

They've learned to lie better.

I wish I could find the study, but the leading cause of people underreporting their consumption is when the percieved risks of reporting are higher than the benefits...

OR when there is so little embarrassment that its considered a total non-issue. Its not quite a normal distribution, but yeah.

We see this pattern in countries where access to drugs carries a higher legal consequence, while the secondary social health effects go completely unchanged which is how we actually spot the shadow in the reporting to begin with.

So that we're seeing this either means either the perception of the social and life consequences of drugs, and the emotional pressure perception of investigations for drugs suddenly got way way stricter...

...Or that acceptance is way, way up.

But what about the purchasing plateau?

The exception to this rule is access, which got hit hard by the pandemic, because...

while couriers and crypto distribution methods were hit harder since police had less to do and could focus up on potentential delivery vectors, which is why the price of many drugs on the darkweb actually went up, not down, due to the risks.

Having less access to your peers means having less access to people with connections and skills to get hold of things you might want

We haven't seen things return to those levels, because a lot of people aged out of those friend-groups while being socially isolated by the pandemic itself and thus they didn't grandfather the connections or skills down to the next generation.

The importance is we've actually seen this cause a shakeup where access to discrete medical services, support for marginalized groups where economic empowerment is low, specialty goods, personal security services, life-saving medications, skills-teaching, and essential goods in times of crisis have been tested.

This is why, ironically, we've seen a big shift of these groups to *stop* using the internet as a means of distributing information because its actually far too visible to authorities and services and a preference for more ad-hoc methodologies is now preferred.

From the rooftops:

Never rely on one source for your knowledge in these cases: If a value is a result of a systematic process, then evaluate all of the inputs and outputs of that system and you can often spot where one of them doesn't align properly with the results.

Say it with me:

This is the technique you use to detect propaganda for the first time when no prior exists

You can't always depend on others to tell you when you are being lied to using numbers and statistics, even when they come from seemingly honest or reliable sources.

Its a very VERY important skill.

this is so sad. in the united states of america teenagers dont even have enough money for drugs. one like one prayer.

[raenvs3000f24]

Unit 7: The Relevance of Nature and Music

Music and nature are two things which hold a big priority in my life. Music is for the most part my go to for relaxation. I listen to it everytime I am resting or doing a light study. Nature on the other hand is very important for me because I use it for refreshing, meditating and contemplating. Music holds a very important aspect in nature interpretation. As the course textbook of ENVS3000 alludes to music as being a part of history in it’s interpretive context. This is where songs and performances were considered an integral part of every campfire in the early days of Yellowstone, a famous camp area called Wylie Camps. Nature is present in music due to it’s lyrics which fundamentally describe its characteristics in any way or form. The textbook also provides us with many indicators that express how songs actually work in order for it’s true meaning to be percieved by an individual. It is as the following: get words and facts to stick to the mind, paint pictures in the imagination, and reach emotions of the listener. It is safe to say that all of these indicators are a very reasonable measure in which one perceives a song.

In the utilization of the following indicators listed above; I would like to share a song which I casually listen to that reminds me of nature interpretation. The song is called The Open Road. The lyrics of the song read;

Here I am in this old town Still dreaming of the open road I've been here for far too long There's so much more than this, I know

It's been years since I've been gone I miss the way it feels to roam This urge that's grown inside my heart To pack my bags and hit the road

I'm dreaming of the road again Set free in the wind Feels like we've found home again On the road that's grown within

While listening to the lyrics, I get their words and facts to stick to my mind by pondering upon their meaning. For example, the lyrics allude to an open road in context of a roadtrip where a breeze of wind is blowing upon the travellers. I also imagin myself being physically on the roadtrip while I am listening to this song. There is where I imagine the wind blowing on me as I drive along a long road trip in an old town. I also get very emotional when I listen to this song in which I feel like going back on a road trip to explore the beautiful nature that freshens up my mind. This song has been my favourite song since my childhood. Me and my family always played it when we went on long road trips which made us get very good vibes from it. Alongside the lyrics, I really appreciate the music video of this song as well. The video displays a very good illustration of nature as a group of friends drive along the area.

”Display photo of the song The Open Road”

The textbook really endorses music in the nature. As it alludes to music as making outdoor exhibits alive. I personally agree with this statement in reference to my own natural background experiences. Once upon a time, I attended an outdoor exhibition of motorbikes in the wild nature. The exhibition was occupied by a guitarist gang that sang songs. That made my experience of attending that place a hundred folds better! This is where I totally correspond to the view of the textbook that mentions guitarist can add a whole new dimension to an exhibition!

[lazodiac]

Once more into the breach! Join me and @qwertystop as we continue our text comparision of Ar Tonelico 2's original translation and the fan translation, now along-side the original Japanese script courtesy of her own bit of song magic, OVERLANG.

Video Length: 3:34:44

Shockingly not a lot to talk about, despite advancing the plot. We head to the slums to locate the elevator to the Gyro Stabilizer, are blocked by the Divine Army robos… and saved by the Cloche Fan Club, Reine and a new character, which Qwerty absolutely called hell yeah. With those dealt with, we then descend into the deepest part of the tower we can access, within the Sea of Death, a dangerous area sure to test our might…

… which the game promptly forgets is the set up because not only is there no sign of the Sea of Death anywhere within the facility, not only are we fighting enemies that barely register on the scale, there isn't even a dungeon to really go through! It's just a straight shot up to the end, then a straight shot down, then back up. Unless you're Qwerty and playing the fan translation, which pulls perhaps the funniest prank of all time; dummying back in the actual dungeon mechanics!

Though to call them mechanics is… rather generous. The final room, where the Veela crystal we're after, is located has two barriers on either side of it. One must go to the very top of each pathway to click an non-descript button to deactivate both, so that we can even get to it. This is an advanced form of the dungeoneering we've done in the rest of the game purely in the sense that it is now TWO buttons instead of just one that must be found, but is otherwise, I feel, kind of a mistake?

The dummied out text we've seen so far has mostly just been additionally asides in the cutscenes that don't REALLY add much, but putting them back in seems fine to me, but I have a feeling the developers dummied these barriers out for a reason- in this case, because the entire conceit of the dungeon is to get to the top, encounter the Divine Beam, learn you need to go back down to find its control crystal, then climb back up to face it. On either of these loops back, you can go the path you didn't on your way up and thus do a complete sweep of the area, and it is likely by the end of the dungeon you'll have drained all the encounters (Qwerty drains them all a little sooner due to having to find the damn buttons, but if I hadn't been running from fights I would have ran out of them just about before the boss itself). So perhaps the devs decided this kind of busy-work puzzle wasn't necessary for the mechanical pacing of the game, and so removed it- but due to time constraints couldn't fully remove it, so just left it unactivated. One could argue that turning it back on makes the dungeon more… of anything, given the fact that this area is supposed to BE something important and threatening world wise, and it really just isn't at all, but I think 100 hours into an RPG there needs to be some give and take between "interesting dungeon" and "you're searching for two buttons".

Anyway, lets talk about the Divine Beam as well, since it is like, legitimately a thing. While it doesn't do much damage, and its minions (while threatening early game) are basically nothing, it has a funny prank to pull as well… a prank that I fell into and Qwerty avoided, because symmetry is fun. As it turns out, despite this being a manufacturer for the Divine Army, when you destroy its minions it doesn't make more… it enters ARMAGEDDON MODE and proceeds to try its absolutely damndest to turbo murder you in defense of itself. It will occasionally use its weaker "clean shot" attack, but more of its moves are gonna be things like Heat Ray that roasts a vanguard and their reyveteil, or DEATH WAIL that seemingly just instant kills people??? And Judgement Blade, a move that feels like a charged special that hits the whole party and is quite dangerous, is just a basic move too! Wow! Game has teeth when it wants to I guess!

But with the Beam defeated, and power successfully cut to the shield around the Veela crystal, we pick it up and prepare for the next leg of our journey- installing it to Luca and singing the song that'll reveal the Tower to the world. I'm excited for it, but we'll take a look at it next time!

… huh. I had more to talk about than I expected.

[immortalarizona]

update, part the second

fun fact about 5e encounter balancing

did you know that even with nearly half the combat-capable NPCs out of commission (Buppido was unable to speak due to an unfortunate roll on the long-term madness table, Ront died a while ago, Derendil was a walking friendly fire hazard due to an addition from me to his statblock, and Morwenna was incapable of spellcasting due to a crisis of faith we will get into very soon), a non-optimized level 3 party can still take down a cr 6 kuo-toa archpriest in just over one (1) round if the remaining characters are allowed to gang up on her?

at least Blopp survived long enough to get off that earthquake spell I added to her stat block to reflect her increase in power that was described in the book, because I went into this session with the explicit intention of offing Derendil (everyone, including me, was getting bored with him and constantly kept forgetting about him during rp) via Dropping A Fucking Building On Him

and thank all the dice gods, everyone's dex saves cooperated with my Evil Plan

Derendil and Shuushar fail their saves and die instantly. by some miracle, my players all pass their saves. Morwenna also fails, but the fighter was right next to her and had enough hit points to tank the near-max damage I wound up rolling, so I fudged things and allowed the fighter to shield Morwenna with her body and take the damage for her for reasons of Gay.

oh, Blopp also fails her save and gets crushed by the consequences of her actions. this somewhat ruined the dramatic scene I had in mind where she would curse the party with her dying breath and invoke the power of Demogorgon to Fuck Them Up, but what else do you do

so anyways, this leads into the moment I had been planning since the beginning of the campaign--the moment when the fun funky homebrew rolling table of cursed buffs I made to encourage lots of angst and even more trauma bonding kicks in. (I had already run the mechanics by my players weeks beforehand and worked with them to spice things up for their individual characters. let's just say that there were a few that had quite a bit of opt-in body horror attached, and oh boy, did my players opt in >:D)

aND THEN DEMOGORGON EMERGES FROM THE FUCKING DARKLAKE

(my rogue player was just staring at me the entire time I'm reading the boxed text like :| and I found it way funnier than I should have)

and most of the group is at, like, 3 whole hit points, and some of the NPCs actually went down during the fight, and they have to book it to the southern docks where Ploop arranged for the boats he was bribing them with to be

(as an aside: do you want to find out which NPCs your players do and don't like? just knock a couple down to 0 hit points and see which ones they bother to feed a goodberry and which ones they consciously leave behind!)

I had Buppido fall to his knees in reverence to Demogorgon when he emerged, mostly because I got tired of trying to figure out how to operate him when the jig was pretty much up anyways, so I had him fall to Demogorgon's rampage also. it's fiiiine, he's gonna return later as a fucked up hybrid of a deathlock mastermind and a deathlock wight during Gracklstugh anyways :D

so this is the group that survives to flee Sloobludop: all my players (bard, rogue, ranger, fighter, artificer), Jimjar, Morwenna, the twins, Sarith, and Stool. not gonna lie, I was pleasantly surprised that anyone bothered to save Sarith after Derendil downed him during his rampage

they escape, but the scars remain

as do the curses

we're back in oosrp now and thus far, in order, we've had:

the artificer transform into a fucked up tiefling-adjacent dude with goat legs, a goat head, and a damaged moral compass (the rest of the party has yet to discover this last effect, hehehe)

the ranger--who, mind you, whose favored enemy is fiends due to Backstory Trauma and has a thing in his head that hates demons--transform into a demon with fangs, extra eyes, talons, a scaled tail, horns, three pairs of wings, and also two mouths on his pectorals that scream for the Thing In His Head that he cauterized shut with a fucking torch

the rogue, who is a tiefling who has SO many issues revolving around her demonic heritage, ALSO undergo a demonic transformation involving sprouting another pair of horns, another tail, wings, an inability to eat anything except raw meat, and also some terrifying new instincts involving her brand-new claws that have already led to her losing control and slashing Jimjar, an incident which led to her having to be coaxed back onto the boat

also the fighter (a warforged whose whole schtick is that she's slowly repairing herself until she achieves her full capabilities again) acquired the curse that caused her to zap anyone she came into contact with

for the NPCs, we have: Morwenna with the fiery version of the fighter's curse, Topsy with a curse where her voice echoes with the screams of the damned and does psychic damage to anyone who hears it, Turvy with a less extreme version of the demon transformation curse because I feel guilty inflicting that much body horror on a child, Sarith with a curse that is going to make him question what the fuck he even is now and whether he deserves to still be alive, Stool with the curse where Demogorgon claims your soul after you die so you can't be resurrected because nothing else felt quite right, and Jimjar with the curse that has probably the least effect possible on him (devil's sight in exchange for sunlight hypersensitivity) because it would be suspicious if he wasn't affected at all

it hasn't kicked in just yet (the player and I are saving it for next session proper), but the bard is gonna undergo a similar demonic transformation where he literally becomes cold-blooded and also a psychic vampire of sorts, because foreshadowing make our brains go hehe

speaking of foreshadowing, let's talk Jimjar

so when the rogue sprouted wings and literally took off in a panic, Jimjar called out some quick instructions on how to fly so she didn't, y'know, fall into the fucking Darklake. and now she, the bard, and the ranger are about to ask him how the Fuck he knows this much about flying. (it is because Jimjar is secretly the shapeshifting moon deity of my setting, but he's gonna bullshit something about "uhh.... yeaah....... so one time I pissed off a witch and spent like a year as a bird..........." in the hopes of throwing them off his trail. I am having the time of my life, for the record)

Jimjar is also secretly omniscient, because he's a fucking god, so of course he knows that the bard is not who he claims to be. and recently, unbeknownst to any of my other players, Jimjar and the bard had a short conversation where Jimjar basically let the bard know that a) I know that you're not what you pretend to be, and b) if you hurt anyone here (the bard had literally just taught the twins a bit of sign language so they could comfortably communicate with the rest of the group now that Topsy's voice was out of commission), I will make you regret it (he was cleaning under his nails with his knife the entire time). the bard now secretly has it out for Jimjar, and part of his goal during the above "hey buddy, how do you know how to fly, exactly?" conversation is to turn the rest of the group against Jimjar so that he can take the fall for the Traitor and Traitor-adjacent cards that came up during the tarokka reading in session four.

and of course, I can't tell my bard that the reason Jimjar knows is that he's secretly omniscient, so I send the player one misleading question:

"so doppelgangers live in the Underdark. do you think [your bard] would know that they are capable of reading minds?"

step four: profit

another Road Trip to Hell update, because it's been a hot minute and oh boy, shit has gone DOWN

let's see. where Were we the last time I gave an update

ah yes. it was literally last week

see I lose track of time because so much goes down in the out-of-session rp channels I set up on the campaign discord

speaking of the oosrp, we handled most of Sloobludop via that anyways

I was a bit silly last Thursday and stayed up until 4:00 in the morning doing oosrp (I didn't have classes on Friday due to holiday reasons). everyone else stayed up except the artificer. it was funnier than it should have been when he messaged the chat the following morning like "GUYS WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED."

so basically

party arrives in Sloobludop. the fighter immediately wants to go tidepool-ing. most of the party joins her.

the rogue, after having a conversation with Jimjar where he basically tries to earn her trust back due to. y'know. Shenanigans, and is as obvious about his status as a deity as he can be without outright saying it. (he hands the rogue HIS OWN HOLY SYMBOL. this moment was hilarious for me as a dm), then realizes that "oh shit, we left Sarith and Stool unattended. Where Are They" and goes to find them

they are by the docks. Stool is playing in the water, and Sarith is chatting with them without rapport spores, because May I Remind Y'all that my Sarith is now a zombie plant man. this leads into me coming with an in-universe explanation for this on the fly, which leads into the concept of the "manymind" (except it was a lot more zalgo-ed when I sent it out in the Sarith reply, because I figured it's one of those concepts that doesn't translate quite right into words), which led to the rogue making contact via Stool with some part of the mind of Araumycos, and now like half the party is convinced that Stool is secretly gonna be the bbeg. all because of some silly lil zalgo text I added on impulse.

the ranger wound up going Dad Mode on Topsy and Turvy when Topsy's kleptomania almost got her in serious trouble in the Sloobludop market. it was very sweet.

but when the ranger returned to the tide pool with the twins in tow, that's when the party realizes that "oh shit, we left, like, everyone unattended, didn't we."

thus begins The Hunt For The Missing NPCs

and thus begins My Evil Shenaniganry

see. the party knew that Blopp's cult to Demogorgon was collecting humanoid sacrifices. so it's not like this came out of nowhere

the party also knew that Shuushar's idealism overrides his self-preservation instincts, Derendil fully believed he could fly at the moment and was bound to get himself into trouble if left unattended, and that Morwenna was very emotionally fucked up following her involvement with the death and resurrection of Sarith and was wandering off somewhere to go get hammered and have an emotional breakdown at the moment

in short

they knew that none of these NPCs were in a state, mental or otherwise, to defend themselves effectively should someone attempt to kidnap them

that someone being none other than members of the cult of the Deep Father

the ranger and the fighter look for Morwenna, because out of those three, she's the only one they really care about, hence why I put her in this situation. they do not find her. I have the ranger roll a survival check to see if he can track Morwenna's scent trail (this was how he found the twins earlier, for the record). he rolls, like, a 21. internally, I rejoice

because where does the trail lead, but right to the area with the altars

I rule that the trail vanishes there, buried by the stench of muck and blood

the ranger talks to one of the kuo-toa whips there (I don't remember his name and I can't be bothered to check lmao) and receives a reply which heavily implies that Morwenna is going to be sacrificed to the Deep Father very soon

cue the panic from my players

and the explicit threats of violence from their characters

(for context. the fighter and the ranger are both in love with Morwenna. the rogue is to but that is not relevant to this particular predicament at the moment)

so the fighter rolls strength (intimidation) to hit the ground and try to crack it. she rolls, like, a fucking 23

I rule that the resulting noise is enough to get the attention of the bard and the rogue, who were off fetching Sarith and Stool (the fungus bros were staring at the fungi on the walls and being generally unsettling). they run over

it is 10:00 PM. I do not wish to run a combat encounter over discord chat, and neither do my players. unfortunately, the most in-character course of action for most of them right now is Violence. the bard is our last hope, both in- and out-of-character.

the bard takes the whip guy behind the altar to have a little chat. he returns not long afterwards, having acquired information about the ritual taking place at midnight and also freaked the whip guy the fuck out. (no one else knows it but me and his player, because we conducted that part over dms, but the bard got to use one of his College of Whispers features for the first time. it was delightful for me as a dm)

violence has not been averted, but it has been delayed. the party heads back to camp to regroup. emotional breakdowns are had, including that banger of a conversation where my last Campaign Art came from. (for context, the ranger gave the twins hand crossbows for purposes of self-defense, and the rogue accused him of trying to turn them into child soldiers.) it is almost midnight. my players and I are all riding an immense adrenaline high

the rogue and the fighter head away from camp and end up resolving most of the Morwenna-centric tension between them. (Morwenna's romantic situation is a Whole Fucking Mess that we will unpack later, don't worry!!)

the ranger reveals to the bard that he died while hunting a demon alongside Drizzt Do'Urden and had to claw himself free from his own grave after something living in his head brought him back

also the bard and the ranger begin flirting almost immediately afterwards (the ranger took his shirt off to show the bard his scars)

this is the moment that Sarith decides it would be a great idea to shoot his shot. it was not, in fact, a good moment

the ranger has his second emotional breakdown of the hour, because he is still plagued by guilt for his participation in the death and resurrection of Sarith. the twins and Sarith give the ranger hugs

and then Sarith asks if he can kiss the ranger. the ranger says no. Sarith goes to mope in a corner and pretend everything is fine while the ranger teaches the twins about the importance of consent while cuddling under the blanket the artificer knitted him

the rogue and the fighter go to Plooploopeen's house to bully him for information so they can rescue Morwenna. I get to deliver exposition, a kickass monologue of emotional foreshadowing, as well as two potions of healing and a potion of water breathing to the party

the party's long rest finishes. it's like 10:00 PM in-game, about two hours until the ritual begins. Jimjar has snuck off to do fuck knows what (only later does the party discover that he used his innate disguise self capabilities to infiltrate the cult's stronghold in Blopp's hovel and grab Morwenna's hammer and shield). I ask the party if they have any final preparations they want to make.

and then the actual session begins.

yes

all this happened between sessions

tbh I'm glad it did. a) it means less time with the stupid voice-destroying kuo-toa voice I attempted the session before, and b) it meant that we could kick off the session with the Good Stuff

aka VIOLENCE

(to be continued in a reblog because tumblr hates me)

[pick-me-up-im-scared]

So Called Revenge (Hiccup x Reader) (Angst)

Author's Note: I felt like doing a one-shot where the reader gets treated shitty, but then gets revenge. I've read stories where the gang (minus Hiccup) treats the reader bad, and I've always thought "but where's the revenge?". So, now I've taken matters in my own hands and wrote the ultimate badass respond. I'm clearly going through something, haha. I'm sorry Astrid for taking it out on you...

Short Summary: You’re getting abused by the dragon riders, both mentally and physically. Ever since you were a kid they seem to have something against you. Though there’s one person who’s not mean to you. Hiccup. You’ve been friends with him for a while now and your getting along very well. Matter of fact, you have a crush on him.

⚠️Warning!⚠️: This story includes swearing and gore and a brief suicide scene.

And if you're very prude, you might consider that this story including smut. There's no sexual acts, just some light "describing".

(y/n/n) = your nickname

Words: 4489

(I don't own any of the GIFs)

Your pov:

Another day in the beloved village called Berk. Notice my sarcasm. Well let's be clear, it's not necessarily the village that's the problem. Rather the people living in it. Even more specifically, a group of dragon riders. My life hasn't been the best, but it could be worse. That's until I hit my teenage years and the dragon riders decided to make my life a living hell. Don't get me wrong, they've had a thing against me all my life. But it's been more physical in the later years. Don't ask me why. Though there's one exception. Hiccup. He´s never said anything rude to me nor laid a hand on me. I think it's cause he feels pity for me. He knows how it feels to be nagged down. Also, the boy doesn't have a bad bone in his body, so he would never even consider doing such an act. And he'd definitely stop them if it wasn't for the fact they never do anything when he's around. They're smart. They know what consequences their actions could lead to if the Chief saw this type of behavior.

But Hiccup and I have more "history" then this. Well, history and history. He tried to interact with me back when we were 15, cause..... well, we were in the same boat. Though I would love to be friends with him, I couldn't even look at him for more then five seconds. Okay, I'll admit it, I have had a crush on Hiccup ever since we were 15. Why not confess your feelings for him? Hum? Well, he's already taken. And Astrid doesn't seem to like me that much to begin with, and I don´t think she would be more found of me if she finds out I've fallen for her boyfriend. Even though I regret not socializing with Hiccup straight from the beginning I've made up for it over the few years. We've grown pretty close, actually. We soon found out we shared an interest in sketching. He loved to watch as my talented hands worked their magic in my sketchbook. I still remember the day he asked me to make a portrait of him. Let me tell you, if I hadn't fallen in love with him already spending 1,5 hours, looking at his gorgeous, freckled face sure would. If you look past the sweating, butterflies in the stomach, and the shaking due to my nerves, I really like to spend time with Hiccup.

I dragged my limping body towards my dresser, changing into my regular outfit. I got down the stairs to make myself some breakfast. Me and my brother barely see each other throughout the day. Just a quick 'hello' or a simple wave whenever we saw each other around the village. It isn't until he comes home at the evening we could properly interact. But he's usually too exhausted by the day's hard work so we just eat dinner then he's off to bed. Due to our 'situation' he has to work harder in order to provide for the both of us. Both our parents has, unfortunately, passed away. Mother died from pestilence, three years ago. No chance of survival, just counting the days she had left. Our whole family got affected by our mother's death, though our father took it the worse. He fell into a deep depression which lead to him taking his life two years later. He hang himself from the wooden beam in their, well his, bedroom. Leaving me and Christopher to take care of our selfs. Remember the part where Hiccup felt bad for me? Yeah, I think this has some reasons for that too.

I did my part, but my payment wasn't in much help in the long run. So I'd stand for the cooking and taking care of the household to try to make it up for him. Especially the long nights. You see, the gang doesn't "just" call me name or tell me what a disappointment I am to my family. There's been a couple of times where they've hurt me physically, too. Punches against the face, kicks in the stomach, even cuts at various body parts. And who has to patch me up again? Christopher. I get mad at myself for not fitting in. Making my brother lack in sleep because I can't stop being seen as a burden. I see Hiccup as my best, well my only, friend and trust him with all of my problems. But how could I tell him his girlfriend and his friends mentally and physically abuse me? He wouldn't believe me. So I try ti stay away from them, but more importantly don´t be around them on my own.

Once the dry slice of bread was washed down by a glass of lukewarm water I was ready to start my day. I opened up the door to be met by grey clouds. This would actually be considered as nice weather for Berk, since we're used to pouring rain or hail. I walked down the village. Noticing my brother at his second shift at the blacksmith. I gave him a wave once we had eye contact. He gave me a warm smile, since his hands were too busy to answer me with a wave back. I chuckled for myself until my eyes fell onto another familiar face. Hiccup. I stopped in my tracks. He was chatting with the rest of the gang, just outside The Great Hall. I got a bellyache just looking at them. Of course Hiccup isn't the reason to my abrupt stop. If it would have been just him and Toothless I would have ran up and hugged him, chatting about something random like we always do. But his company prevent that from happening. Constant flashback of the last solo "meeting" with the rest of the gang went through my head.

I shield my face with my right hand as I quicken the pace, hoping to get away from them as fast as possible. Without getting noticed. "Hey (y/n/n)!" I cringed before looking up to see Hiccup waving me over. Damn it! He saw me. I walked over to the gang, trying not to look too suspicious where Hiccup would notice. It took every nerve in my body to walk over there, being terrified to find out what they'll do if Hiccup leaves. As I reached them Hiccup wrapped his arm around my shoulder while looking down at me, smiling warmly "How are you today, (y/n/n)?". I could tell Astrid's starting to get pissed by the way he approached me. I removed his arm while laughing nervously "I'm great, Hiccup. Thanks for asking". He nodded, giving me another smile. They went back to their own conversations, not really giving me the opportunity to flick in. I began feeling really awkward, just standing there. Seeing this as my opportunity to avoid getting beaten up, I tried to sneak away. As I turned my back to run off, thinking I successfully left without anyone noticing, I felt a pair of arms around my waist. Damn it!

I got dragged back to the group, my hopes of getting back to my house went further and further away. Getting back to the exact position I was in just a few seconds ago Hiccup held his arm around me to prevent me from leaving again. "Where were you going?" he asked as he tried to study my face. I sighed "Nowhere". He looked suspiciously at me, but didn't ask any further. "So (y/n), we were wondering if you wanted come fly with us?" Hiccup asked with his adorable smile. "Uhm, I don't have a dragon, so... very sorry Hiccup but unfortunat-" "You can fly with me and Toothless" he interrupted before I could finish my excuse as to why I 'unfortunately' couldn't join them. I glanced at Astrid before looking back at him "You don't have to. I'll be fine right here". Hiccup chuckled "Stop it, I know how much you like to fly when we're alone" Astrid's eyes widened. "You're coming. That's a Chief's order" he joked.

"I'm just going to do... some manly businesses, then we're ready to go!" Hiccup informed before starting to walked off. I looked at the group who already smirked at me, giving me an idea of what's to come. Answering with a worried look I quickly grabbed Hiccup's upper arm, making him stop. "I-I'll go with you" I said, trying to cover up how terrified I actually am. He looked at me for a while before saying "Uhm.... I'm going to pee, (y/n/n)". I began to panic even more "I know, but you know, it's always better to do things together" I laughed nervously again "I..... I c-can keep you company!". He looked at me confused "It's just around the corner, I'll be quick". "Oh, babe. Could you get me my spare sweatshirt? I seem to have forgotten it at home" Astrid asked, knowing all too well what she's doing. "Yeah, sure! (y/n) it'll take a bit longer including that, but I'll be back as soon as possible" I listen as my last bit of hope blew away. I'm screwed! I watched as Hiccup left.

"He's nice, isn't he?", I snapped my head towards a smirking Astrid. "Huh?" I asked rather confused. Was she genuinely asking or was this some sort of trick? My question was soon answered as Astrid punched me straight in the face, making me fall to the ground. As I dragged my hand under my nose I saw blood. I tried to swipe it up with the sleeve of my tunic. Hiccup can't see this! I looked up at Astrid as she continued "I've seen the way you look at him. But he's mine, and I don't like other girls looking at my boyfriend". "Why? You're afraid he'll leave you for me?" I snapped back, but immediately regret giving such a cocky comeback. Her eyes widened before she punched me again, this time focusing on my eye. My head fell back with the sudden dizziness.

Astrid grabbed me by the hair to keep my head up while she spoke to me "I don't need to worry about you. Sluts isn’t his favorite anyway". She lets go off my hair and instead grabbed my wrist, pressing it against the ground while she strangled me. I grabbed her face with my other hand, trying to make her get off me. "Hey, Snotlout! Grab her other wrist!" she ordered, and soon both my wrists were against the muddy ground. Astrid brought out her dagger. She motioned to Snotlout who lifted up my navy tunic to my neck, exposing my bare chest to the rest of the gang who were circling us. Both to get a better look at what was happening and to cover up the ongoing situation from the people walking by. They laugh at the sight, which made me fight even harder to get out of their grip. I need to get out of here. Come on (y/n)! Come on!

"Let's see what the guys think when your breasts are butchered" Astrid said when she slide the knife over my exposed chest. I bit my lip at first to prevent myself from screaming, knowing they'll punish me hard if I do. But as she continued to slice my flesh I screamed out in pain. Snotlout was quick to cover my mouth until the damage was done. Astrid smirked devilish at her work as I panted heavily. Snotlout let's go of my wrist, figuring I wouldn't have the energy to do anything anyway. "From what I've heard your bed's pretty busy. At least that's what Calvin said", my eyes widened at the mentioning of his name. Calvin were my ex boyfriend, who I've spent 2 years of my life with. Based on his personality, I wasn't surprised he talked to the gang behind my back. What I'm nervous about is what he told them. You'd think I'm over a relationship that ended 2 years ago, but how can I when it's constantly brought up?

"He would brag about taking your virginity before you were wed" Astrid continued. "No he didn't" I said unsurely, looking up at the rest of the gang that still surrounded me. "Yeah he did. What type of things you were willing to do. The slutty behavior you would take on. I still remember Hiccup's disgusted face when he told us" Astrid continued. He told Hiccup, too? "Stop it!" I screamed, tears steaming down my cheeks. "I know Hiccup well enough to know he doesn't like girls with slutty behaviors like yours. He like his girls virgin and pure. Not someone who's willing to spread her legs at any guy that gives her a little attention. Not that you had a chance with him to begin with" she laughed while looking down at me. My blood was pumping with anger as she continued to lie. Even though all I felt was anger, my words just came out as whispering "Please stop" why wouldn't she stop? "What? I'm just telling you the truth. You're sad now that your imaginary fairytale wouldn't come true, cause Hiccup wouldn't even touch you with a stick?" my blood was boiling more and more with every word Astrid feed me "Come on, (y/n)! Don't aim at guys that's out of your league. It's only pathetic. You know they only want you for what's in your pant-". Astrid was cut off as I pushed her off me and slammed her against a house. I wrapped my fingers around her neck and began to choke her.

"I said stop it!" I yelled straight in her face, not being able to handle the anger that was built up inside of me. "Why won't you listen for once and shut the fuck up?" I said through gritted teeth as I squeeze my hands harder around her neck. "(y/n) stop! She can't breathe!" Snotlout yelled as he approached us. "Don't you dare fucking touch me again!" I snapped back, not taking my eyes off Astrid. A satisfaction filled my body as I saw Astrid chip for air. All the anger I've kept inside from all the things she'd said and all the gestures was being thrown into this moment. I heard Snotlout's steps behind me again. Not wanting to risk this opportunity being disturb I pulled Astrid away from the house wall and put her in a chokehold instead. We turned around quickly to face the rest of the group "I said stay away!" I yelled. Thank gods Astrid wasn't able to fight back due to her unconsciousness, otherwise she'd easily take me down. Snotlout was still walking towards us, making me sigh.

I grabbed Astrid's dagger and threw it at Snotlout's thigh. He screamed out in pain before dropping to the ground. I grabbed my own dagger and pointed it towards the rest of the gang who slowly backed away. The pain of Astrid pressed against my opened wounds was nothing compared to the satisfaction. The satisfaction of finally getting my revenge. "(y/n)!", I snapped out off my focus at the yelling of my name by a familiar voice. Tuffnut took this opportunity to unwrap my arm around Astrid's neck while shoving me to the ground. As I looked up I saw Hiccup rubbing Astrid's back as she was coughing like crazy. He looked at Snotlout who's moaning in pain while laying on the ground, before he turned to me. "(y/n)! What did you do this for?" Hiccup asked with an angry tone. He was clearly pissed off, but why? If he had heard just one of the things she was saying we wouldn't have this discussion now.

"She started it!" I said while pointing to Astrid. Hiccup rolled his eyes, clearly not believing me, "Oh come on, (y/n)! Stop act so childish! You could have killed her!" he raised his voice again, especially at that last part. "Too bad you pushed me away, or I could have killed that bitch" I mumbled. Hiccup snapped his head, staring daggers into me "What did you just say?". I'm not back out of this. I stand for what I think, I'm not going lower myself to that pest's level. "I said, too bad you pushed me away, or I could have killed that bitch!" I repeated while standing up with grace, ignoring the pain. Hiccup couldn't believe what I had just said, even though he heard me the first time. He didn't know what to say. His eyes just looked at me with disgust. I brushed off my pants before making my way back to my hut. As I walked past Astrid I quickly went up to her and kicked her in the stomach. I smirked as I walked off, fulfilling my goal of making her feel at least a tenth of the pain she'd caused me. I ignore Hiccup's upset calls for me, and the rest of the gang's insults that was being thrown.

Hiccup's pov:

"You're so delusional, Hiccup" Christopher, (y/n)'s bother, said while I tried my best to comfort Astrid. She didn't coughing anymore, but she was still holding on tight to my shoulders. I sighed and turned to Christopher "What? Your sister were about kill my girlfriend. If there's one thing I'm not it's delusional". "You can't be this stupid, right?", I felt Astrid stiffing in my arms but played it off as fear. "If Tuffnut wouldn't have pushed (y/n) away she would have kept going until Astrid stopped breathing. Or did I get that part wrong?" I asked sarcastically. "Yeah, she probably would, but she had her reasons". I let go of Astrid to stand up and walk over to Christopher. "Oh, please tell me what reasons she had that would make it sain to kill someone!" I yelled. My gods, what's up with this family? "Because Astrid would do the same to her!" I got a bit taken away by the tone of his voice.

"You all would" Christopher gestured to the whole gang, who looked down in shame. What are they doing? Is this true? "They would never do such a thing" I defending the gang, praying to the gods this isn't true. Christopher huffed "You haven't seen what they've done to her, Hiccup. The deep wounds I've had to clean up. The painful screams and sleepless nights. The old wounds barely having a chance to heal until they're met by one ones. Words a 13 year old girl shouldn't even know exist, non the less being called. All the death threats and names being thrown at her. How would you like it to be called 'a useless whore who's the reason her father killed himself'?". I flinched at the harsh words. My eyes began to get glossy as the information gets feed into my head. What have I done?

"And for you to call yourself Chief and don't know anything about it" he said while poked his finger at my chest before walking away. I look around at the gang while asking "Is this true?". My expression showed the guilty I was feeling. "Is what true?" Snotlout asked, playing dumb. "Have you told (y/n) those awful things and abused her behind my back?" I spat, already knowing the answer based on Snotlout's unnecessary question. I cringed as the words came out of my mouth. I can't believe someone would say and do those things to (y/n). The sweet and beautiful girl I´m happy to even call my friend. For people to say that is fucked up, but these people also being the people I refer to as friends. And my fucking girlfriend being the worse? After some time they all nodded, making me feel like throwing up. Everyone expect Astrid. I walked up to her, not even bothering to hunch down to her level. I looked down at her and asked "Have you been apart of any of these actions, Astrid?" She looked at me nervously, not being able to have eye contact with me for more than a second. "No, I would never do such horrible things, Hic. Not to our beloved (y/n/n)". I knew she would lie. "Why are you lying to me?" I ask with a sturdy tone. Her face dropped "I'm not, Hi-". I cut her off by turning my back to her, walking away.

The information Christopher told me clouded my mind. He's right, I am a useless Chief, even more a friend. If I were a good friend I would have noticed this way before. This explains why she never wanted to come down to the lake to swim. Why she'd stay home for days at the time once she'd been felt with the gang by herself. Gods, I'm an idiot for not connecting the dots! I could feel the tears forming in my eyes, but I quickly blinked them away. I can be the one crying when I'm the asshole. I walked up the porch till I was right in front of the familiar door. I knock. I heard Christopher's voice from inside "(y/n), I told you to sit down and rest! I can answer the door!". I heard uneven steps getting closer and closer.

As the door opened I could see (y/n) limping as she took another step towards the doorway. She supported herself against the handle which allowed me to see the bandage that covered most of her upper body though her opened shirt. What have they done to her? My poor (y/n). She widened her eyes when she saw me. I could tell she immediately tried to hide any signs of her injury, straighten her back. "Are you here to continue yelling at me?" she asked bluntly. I shook my head. "If you're here to receive an apology, you can fuck off! I'm not sorry for finally putting that pathetic bitch in her place" I tensed up a bit at her harsh words, but then remembered the things they've done to her. Now the guilt came back "Yeah, about that, I'm so sorry (y/n). I should have listened to yo-" "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Bye" she cut me off and slammed the door right in my face. Okay, I deserved that. I decided there's no need to knock again. She wouldn't answer it anyway.

I was actually quite surprised to see her at The Great Hall at lunch time. She had a plate of food in front of her, but by the looks of it she hadn't touched it. I grabbed my own plate and made my way over to her table. "Is this seat taken?" I asked, pointing at the spot in front of her. She look at me for a while before shaking her head. I sat down and she immediately turned her head, not wanting to look at me. "Chicken isn't your favorite?" I asked jokingly. "There's other things that makes me lose my apatite" she answered brutally, still looking at the floor beside her. I sighed "Look (y/n/n) I-" "Don't call me that!" she snapped. I jumped at her sudden outburst "Okay, sorry.... (y/n), I'm so sorry, I truly am. I should have trusted you. It's just- I never thought Astrid or any of the others would ever do anything like this to you. Not in my wildest, darkest imagination".

"Well they did" she bite back. "I know, and I don't know what to do to make it up to you. I truly care for you (y/n), and I can't forgive myself for letting you go through this for so long" I caressed her shoulder while pouring out my feelings. She look at me shocked "I-I love you, Hiccup". Now it's my turn to be shocked. S-she l-loves me? "I-I'm sorry, what was that?" I asked, wanting to make sure I heard her correct. "I love you, Hiccup. I have ever since we were 15. I wouldn't socialize with you because I got so nervous whenever you were around. I know we'll never be anything, so I've tried to hide my feelings for you. But I guess Astrid noticed it anyway. Half of the things she told me was surrounding that. Me having a crush on you". Okay, Christopher definitely didn't tell me that. She took a deep breath before she continued "I know you're with Astrid, and I don't mean to ruin anything. I just felt the need to confess and now seemed like a good time". She lowered her gaze in order to avoid eye contact.

I sat with my mouth wide open. I can't believe what she just confessed. She love me? She has loved me for six years and she hasn't told me? "Y-you love me?" I asked, still not sure if this was a dream or not. She nodded. "You can go back to your gang now. I won't bother you anymore, don't worry" she informed before standing up and leave. Due to my shock my reactions were a bit delayed. But as soon as my mind was coping the situation I raised up and ran towards her "(y/n) wait!". Once I caught up with her I noticed the tears running down her cheeks "Hiccup, please don't make this harder then it already is" she cried out "Try to forget about me and go to your girlfriend". As she finished her sentence I grabbed her cheeks and kissed her. I could tell she was shocked but soon gave in. As we pulled away she looked at me confused. "She's right here... in front of me" I said while smiling at her. She smiled back before pulling me into another kiss.

_____________________________________________________________

Author's Note: Not how I planned to end this story, but it's cute. Though I would like to know your opinion on endings. Do you like having them being sad (if it's allowed), or do you like this cutesy 'live happily ever after'- type of endings?

[thequiver]

how much of Batman being a shit character do you blame on the writing? Because I feel like a lot of the writers have a major cognitive dissonance when it comes to who they present Batman to be and then how they write him. I personally love Batman but I know he’s a horrible dad. In so many ways, Bruce Wayne makes me makes me annoyed beyond comprehension and I really rather accept a fanon/personal HC version of him because I don’t get how Bruce who loved kids and doesn’t want anyone to suffer the same, parentless, lonely childhood he had turns around to hit their kids or treat them the way he does Dami or Jason

So I think there's been some confusion here.

Because I think that Bruce is a great character, he has depth, he's fascinating and complex. I just also really fucking hate him and think that Bruce Wayne is a terrible person and an Andrew Carnegie wannabe (please note that as as an Appalachian, Bruce being at all like Carnegie means that I want to watch him suffer horrible excruciating pain).

And the thing is, is that Bruce being abusive is in character for how he's been written since the silver age at least. That's just how he is. His upbringing with Alfred leads directly to the kind of abuse he levels against Dick, and then the increase in his abusive behavior after Jason's death is very in character for the way that we've seen Bruce react to his trauma.

The greatest thing that I need people to remember is that you can love someone and still be abusive to them. Just because Bruce loves his kids doesn't mean that he's not abusive, because I do genuinely believe that he loves them- but that's not enough. His love for them is not enough for him to get help for his considerable trauma, it's not enough for him to give up his controlling behavior, and it's not enough for him to truly view them as children, especially not when ever since he adopted Dick his children have always been expected to be the mature ones in the parent-child relationship. Bruce's character is to me the clearest sign of what can happen when the darker side of trauma responses are left unchecked- and it's a kind of narrative that's actually compelling to me, because I was going down a similar path with my ptsd before I got help and started prioritizing my own health and the wellbeing of those I interacted with over my own hurt. I just wish that they'd acknowledge that that's what's happening in the narrative rather than painting him as being right in all things.

Bruce has consistently and been written with classist and sexist undertones, and has consistently been written as abusive for decades. Everything written about a character comes from the writers, it comes with the act of writing, that's how a character ends up on page at all. But that doesn't mean that it's not still the characterization of that character. Bruce has always reminded me of those cops who make a big deal out of taking down abusers while doing the same behavior behind closed doors- and I've known a lot of those.

Bruce is a great character- he's just not a hero, and isn't a good person. And that's okay, sometimes watching a hero become less heroic due to the culmination of their refusal to prioritize their own mental health and their dedication to their cause is compelling. And in Bruce's case it is. What I hate is him being viewed as a good person because in canon... he's not.

And I think that the fact that so many people say what you do- that you prefer a fanon and headcanon made up version of Bruce rather than the canon indicates that you all know what I've said above. And to this I say, Oliver Queen exists. Like seriously...... after a certain point you have to admit that Bruce's character is just like that, and that he's been like that consistently for almost his entire existence, and that just because the changes to the character aren't things you necessarily like doesn't mean that they're out of character or things that don't make sense with prior canon.

TLDR: yeah it's because of writers, but like that doesn't mean it's not in character. Characters don't exist outside of their writing, which is why fanon isn't true. So Bruce being a horrible person is literally just his characterization.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

It hits me so hard once I think how Bobby even being part of the family still did set a line in his role for the kids (more for himself) with thoughts of how he was just "the best buddy" figure and how he didn't take more attitude due his fear of the kids reminding him he is not their father, because he considers himself "nobody's father". But once they got put in danger he forgot this line himself put (1/2)

Hey Nonnie

Thanks for making me feel all emotional!!

But its so true - seeing where Bobby has come from in season 1 to where he's at now is such an amazing and heartwarming thing, and it's been such a quiet and understated transition that I think many people haven't really appreciated it. I know that I am only really getting to really understand his journey as I've been rewatching this week - the Bobby of season 1 and 2 is a million miles away from the Bobby we have now and as you put it - its a beautiful progression - especially as he built it - he built both of his families.

People are quite rightly talking about 5 being the season of Eddie, but it's also been the season of Bobby - we have seen him quietly do his thing - showing us how far he has come. Supporting Athena, and having her back at all times, being there to protect his family through the Jeffery and black out arc, especially the way they showed him parenting Harry when he got suspended from school - which was incredibly done and spoke volumes about the family dynamic the Grant Nash family have created. Supporting Michael and David through defend in place and then as they headed off to Haiti again all quiet and stoic but beautiful. Now we're getting to see the really interesting and wonderful relationship he's built with May come to the fore in Mayday - a relationship that, from Bobbys side, has so much more weight and meaning behind because of the way the show has chosen to focus on his relationship to Brooke - a focus that we're going to see the pay off for tonight!

Then there is the firefam - the most important family in the show - the dynamic we've been missing most of the season, but are starting to get back. This has actually been the most interesting thing to look at when i've rewatched season 5 - especially in 5b - Bobby being there for Eddie - as he has been from day 1, but also being able to see that he learnt from season 3 and put into practice (even if it happened off screen) the things he learnt from both the lawsuit arc with Buck and Eddies fight club arc, the way his relationships with both Eddie and Buck have changed and grown.

The most recent and intriguing development for me is the way his trust of Buck has grown and changed in 5 - since the crane climb, Bobby seems to have decided to change tack a bit with Buck - its like a lightbulb went off and its fascinating to watch Bobby giving more responsibility to Buck - the 'power tsar' and clipboard Buck during the black out, seemingly giving him free reign to train Ravi all the way through to handing over a scene to Buck in 5x14 - I can't wait to see if this continues and how it develops. It s actually one of the reasons I think Bobby might know about the will - because this shift times with Buck finding out about the will and it would explain why Bobby has been so accommodating to Buck's reluctance to accept that Eddie wasn't coming back post Christmas and why he didn't so much as raise and eyebrow post Eddies breakdown - when Buck was parenting Chris and looking after Eddie like they were in a relationship and not just friends.

Honestly I am fascinated by this whole dynamic and I will be going over it with a fine tooth comb in hiatus because I feel deeply that its something we're going to see play an important role in season 6 both in terms of the development of Bobby, Buck and Eddie independently, but also in Buddie going canon.

the Grant Nash family and the firefam dynamic are all so closely intertwined through Bobby and its been very engrossing to see it all fall apart around Bobby while he as remained largely 'unaffected' - standing steadfast and true at the centre - it feels very much like we're going to see Bobby break in some way - and then we'll get to see his combined families return the favour!