#also bc i am a person who loves spoilers and context i know what happens to henry so every passing episode i am filled with dread

[nedlittle]

[alt]

2x21 "crisis" really is a perfect episode

[aromanticannibal]

The pattern is that people straight up do not read™. or they read a 3-5 tweet summary of what happened and treat it as if they did. or because shonen expectations based on "the classics" is bullshit and significantly rotted people's brains when deciding wether an ending is good or not.

Which could be nothing right

yeahhh. i will forever regret reading the last chapter through leaks because it was a dreadful experience, and watching everyone ever shit on it for like a week after genuinely made me want to just get off the internet forever or something because i felt like an idiot for liking the ending (all this is my fault for getting too invested in both tumblr and mha etc etc).

All the "it's rushed" and pacing complaints barely matter to me at this point because you just cannot feel the pacing of something correctly when you're reading it exclusively through leaks. you can't absorb info like that. And don't get me started on the number of complaints and criticisms I've seen of the last chapter that are just provably bullshit (I saw someone say Izuku didn't get a statue lmao. yes he did, you just read the fucking leaks and watched twitter drama unfold instead of reading the actual chapter i fear).

[alexxncl]

‼️NIGHTBRINGER HDD CH. 3 SPOILERS‼️

masterlist | events | ch. 2 | ch. 4.1 | ch. 4.2

mc stop being the most important person ever: challenge impossible

damn is this how the boys acted before they got to the devildom the first time ??? i see why they love mc so much, especially lucifer. family is the most important thing to him, it's why he acts the way he does and it's why the celestial war happened in the first place. being clouded with this much tension as a family had to have been extremely emotionally strenuous for him, aside from the frustration that comes from rowdy younger siblings

and it was obviously just as bad for his little brothers. they couldnt understand why lucifer was pulling away from them so much. and caused trouble to get any kind of attention from him, to keep him from holing himself up in his room and drowning himself in paperwork

it probably especially hurt mammon to see lucifer like this. his big brother who wants afraid of anything suddenly afraid of addressing his own feelings and fears of his family falling apart

i would like to let it be known that i was not AT ALL being serious when i picked the "can't we talk it out" option...why are we talking to a clump of glass petals ??

why am i even questioning anything that happens in this game anymore ????

BYE THIS IS SO UNSERIOUS i love it here. not obey me pulling a spiderman no way home and acting like i wouldn't catch on

and mc asking "can't we just gang up on the bitch" has to be the FUNNIEST thing ever i love them 🫶🏽 just like me fr

mammon would literally never say that. not those words at least. he respects and looks up to lucifer way too much to that. and satan wouldn't say that. the old satan would say what mammon said if we're being honest...and the new him would find a more respectful and less snippy way to say it while still getting his point across

every almost negative vision is really just lucifer's nightmare. not having the love or care or mutual respect that families are built upon is like nit having a family at all. we already know how luci feels about family. like i get that it's supposed to be funny but when you think about it in context with the game's events, this is actually really sad ???

this is also SEVERELY ooc. like i'm not crazy right ??? mammon does not use his powers like that for something as petty as a lackluster insult, and satan would come up with a much better insult than that

all jokes aside, i couldn't ever see the boys acting like this. ever. under any circumstance. even early on in the 1st game, it wasn't this bad. they butted heads and were emotionally constipated, but they still acted like brothers

i feel like the flower is showing them the worst versions of themselves, not just the way things would be without mc. bc things were relatively ok without them before. they werent the best, but they survived and didn't kill each other for millenia before mc came into the picture

fighting back the urge to go on yet another big brother mammon tangent...fighting hard

...no way they used the power of friendship to fix the situation AGAIN

now i didn't trust or particularly care for raphael in the og game, but that's mainly bc of the way he was talked about by the characters well before his appearance and the fact that he seemed standoffish. i like this raphael, and i want more

but depending on where we are in the timeline and which timeline we're in, this could be michael

oh they big mad

satan being angry is a no brainer

but beel? he's the textbook definition of a gentle giant. a himbo if you will. he goes out of his way to be gentle with everyone and everything that comes his way because he knows his strength and how easy it is for him to overuse it on accident

baby don't play when it comes to his family. just like his big brothers

[malenjoyer]

Hi! First of all i love your art it brings me so much joy <3 thank you so much for it

I wanted to ask a silly question: I've never read any superhero comic in my life. I'm planning on starting to read dick grayson/nightwing comics soon. The problem is that I know a lot of what happens in his 1996 – 2009 series bc I started interacting with the fandom for around a month before deciding to start reading his comics. I wasn't worried before bc well there must be hundreds other comics where he shows up and there's also cartoons and movies and tv shows. But now I'm wondering if I kind of ruined my own experience with this series by knowing too much before getting into it myself 😭 I was so excited but now I'm feeling sad about it

I started with a similar scenario where a lot of the things were mentioned by people I followed and a lot was technically spoiled for me. I got into Batman media before I got into Robin and Nightwing related stuff. It didn’t ruin anything for me personally knowing how stuff goes because I still appreciated the context around things.

However, as a guy who drew nightwing an abnormal amount of times within one year, I have to say spoilers is not what you should be worried about.

Because the most worrying thing is reading nightwing solo runs 100+ issues in is that most of the stories are bad.

Yes, I’ll say it… I think most of it is bad. There’s cute moments but so many story endings are not satisfactory and the pacing is weird. This is not to discourage you or make you feel sad before going into comics but… as someone who was in a similar situation, stick to reading lists in the beginning. Because after 5-7 mid runs, you start to think, man what am I doing…

How I feel after reading 100+ solo issues and most of them weren’t good:

[xxe123spiderfreakxx]

spoilers for tmagp ep 22:

whoaaaaa. whoaaaaaa AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

name drops amirite ladies? 💥💥💥

also what the fuck was up with that brain shit? yuck tastic. it was giving resident evil eepy creepy o~o <333 i love. i have no fucking clue what is fucking happening im just oooo the horrors! what next u weirdos???

also. I'll say it again....sam and alice gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta stay broken up pls theyre so messy <3 but i hope they can make up and be good friends again <333 before someone fucking dies CHRIST

Mrs. Lena Kelly!!! who the fuck is her partner and pls tell me she's yet another horror shithead sapphic??? I NEED <333

also also i would love alice to start interrogating gwen (not just bc im a dyehard head LMAO) since she went to colin's for answers and i feel like that's the next step since she doesnt know celia has her own drama happening and also shes more on sam's side(?) rn.

celia is hard to read. im like...o.o like im also on the alice train of "mysterious hot lady" and i dont fully know her intentions. but i like her (and then i get (in)directly murked bc of her) <3

but anyway omg??? would love some messy hurt/comfort dyehard thatll probs end in a fight even if they say some raw caring things?? pls throw it into my starving maw erghhhhhhhh toxic yuri train woot woot

but my actual speculation...like it's nothing new, but what is the purpose of notating whenever someone lies? like? is the person keeping track making notes for themself or ominipotently knows they are full of shit and putting it on record for clarity? like it bzzzed at sam when he said he could take care of himself, and that tbh felt more like a read than just recording misinformation 🫵😭😭😭

i dont understand why the recorder/alexander j. newall wants us to know that? like i can figure out a lot of those are lies based on my own prior knowledge/context clues so it has to be something right?

i might be over thinking it but i dont get why it's there. like i get it, i saw some dope theories about [ERROR] being a former archivist??!! that shit is so cool, and is ink5oul injured or dead now? what's up with the possible smirke ritual with architecture? yeah yeah i get it those are for smarter folks to speculate. they are rotating in my brain and i will read everyone's thoughts desperately on them...

i just am so hung up on the lying radar. like why why why why erghhhh im wringing my handddsss

[kxinv]

I finished iwwv a few days ago, and obvi cant stop thinking about it. Here are my thoughts.😵‍💫

‼️Spoilers‼️

Specifically, I can’t stop thinking about James and how upset he must have been, for all the multitude of reasons he would be.

Everytime I think about how he didn’t want to stay in the Castle, and def didnt wanna stay in his and Oliver’s room alone (whenever oli stayed with Meredith), always on walks or somewhere else we don’t know, I felt sooo bad for him.😭 And how Oliver explained that he hadnt seen or barely saw James for a couple days before the combat class.

I was so upset I felt sick.😫 Like— James is grappling with keeping two secrets from Oliver: one, that he’s in love with him, and two, the murder. So he watches his best friend end up with Meredith and he can’t do anything about it. And then there’s the fear of letting the truth out about Richard and potentially not being accepted by Oliver anymore, not as a friend, let alone as a lover.

Just… how isolating that must have been for him. Not being able to tell—I assume—the only person in the world he’d want to speak to about what happened, and also how he clearly felt unworthy of Oliver bc of what he did. While oliver didn’t believe that he was worthy of james as well—always the sidekick. GOD I HATE IT😖😖

(Sidenote, that point when Oli realizes why James was never at the house, and didn’t want to be alone in their room, bc James asks Wren to come to bed with him. Like yeah, Oliver, catch up. That shit fucking hurt.)

For context, I read through the whole book wondering when they would kiss bc I read a spoiler about it and I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR IT TO BE 16 PAGES FROM THE END WTF. So many times throughout they were literally this close 🤏 from each other and I was like, “this has got to be it, right??” lmaoo

And I’m sure that for both of them, maybe more James than Oliver, they were afraid of messing up their friendship or afraid of being rejected by the other. Which I usually love that about the friends-to-lovers trope, but I could not handle the angst in this fucking book, i was, and still am, distraught😭😭

“‘I never wanted you to look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.’”

FUCK

And then Oliver calling James a prince in that iconic line!!

(seriously tho, Richard used the term “prince” numerous times and meant it in a derogatory way, but Oliver saying it with acceptance, forgiveness, and affection, I—🫠)

Then when the both of them notice Colborne is off to the side, they know things are not going to be the same, and James realizes he might not see oliver again (at least not out of prison, knowing he would be forced to confess im sure), so he cant hold back anymore and kisses oliver. And in that one moment, they experience all the pain and emotion of this is our first kiss, but also (likely) our last.☹️☹️☹️

I get the point of the slow burn and gay tragedy, but MY GOD I just wanted these two boys to be happy.

So I am on the delusional side of things; they deserve a happy ending. James HAS to be alive, plss omgg. (i love reading the theories in fanfics of where ppl believe James disappeared to.) (Also, didnt realize he drove all the way to washington state to drown himself btw, didnt consider where the san juan islands were, just something i looked up and thought was interesting, anyways)

They’re so in love😭😭 I can’t stand it. Espec James. I feel so fucking bad for him, just thinking about how much he was struggling.

Moments that broke me:

- When James showed up at Oliver’s house unannounced. (which ofc he would, where else would he go, who else would he go to or want to be near.)

- Alexander said James couldn’t pick himself up off the floor for like half a week when Oliver was first arrested.

- The kiss on the hand, the last time they saw each other.

- The hope in Oliver when he’s finally out and all he wants is to see James.

- Oliver breaking down at Meredith’s place.

\\

Okay, now this is just a few other notes I had on the story.

First is just a theory of mine, but I don’t believe James and Wren had any kind of romantic or sexual relationship. I believe it was always platonic / protective. Bc I think that James knew he was in love with Oliver way early on in their friendship, and just didn’t want to admit it for obvious reasons.

(I also think it’s possible James could have resented his feelings for Oliver bc of how Richard taunted him being the smallest of the boys and, perhaps, for being a little fruity and whatnot, so when Oliver ended up with Meredith, I think maybe he focused on Wren as a distraction, the way Oliver used Meredith.)

Also, I dont think oliver is bi, i think he is gay. I thought he was bi at first because—well clearly he’s with meredith, but i started to reconsider when I remembered how he said he’s never brought a girl home before, and he only seems to like meredith bc everyone does and everyone’s supposed to. She’s the conventionally attractive one, and yk, that’s what a lot of queer ppl veer toward. A sort of, idk if its performative heterosexuality or what, but Oliver ends up following the social script for how a presumably straight/cis person is supposed to act. Maybe there’s also the attention from someone like Meredith that feels enticing to him. How she’s considered to be “the hottest girl” at their school and all that, and what being with her would mean for him. I just think Oliver is oblivious to his superficial feelings for her.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that I feel the story lacks in-depth characterization.

Maybe that was a choice to focus on the characters’ archetypes, how they get pigeon-holed to play certain people, but I personally thought it made them feel empty and I couldn’t connect to them. I felt like I didn’t get the full or clear picture of who each character was. Meaning sometimes they didn’t feel like an actual, real person I could meet.

I wish there was more complexity to them, I wish we got to see how each of their internal conflicts—how they deal with their archtypes and their struggle to go against it or accept it, how it causes them distress. I think more explicit examples of that would’ve helped fill in the gaps of their personalities for me. There should have been more moments in the book to show the full depth of who they are, maybe compared to who they want to be. (Not to mention, some characters def got more development than others.)

To be honest, a lot of the story felt disjointed, broken, and put together with pieces missing. Apart from the lack of individual character depth, the dynamics and relationships between the friend group felt somehow superficial and empty as well. I kept thinking how they’ve been friends for three years, but it seemed as though they didn’t really know each other sometimes.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of right now, idk if anyone else felt this way. I’d like to know if someone did/does, bc I honestly felt like there should’ve been more to the story, as I said above it seems like pieces are missing that i beleive if expanded upon would have helped to really develop the characters’ identities, their relationships between each other, and also helped to connect with the audience better.

But maybe I’m just picky🤷 tbh the story resembled one of those average netflix original tv shows most of the time I read through it lol.

[notsogreatpotoo]

Supernatural Notes Masterpost

context. i'm watching this show and taking notes bc of my friend @sardonic-the-writer. i've quickly realized these notes will be extensive reactions to every moment onscreen, so like, obviously spoilers for the show, and this will probably be annoying. enjoy the glimpse into my brain. (will be rbing or editing this whenever i watch more, so all of it will be in one place. it takes me so long to watch episodes bc i must nerd out and overanalyze everything.)

Season 1

Episode 1: Pilot

um why are the vines on the house moving / lookin like creepy ass tentacles

oh no. cute kids. something bad’s gonna happen and traumatize them

wait these are sam and dean. double oh no.

cute domestic family? hhhragh that isn’t gonna last long

why. why is the mobile moving.

creepy music and other happenings

ah shit

she’s alone in the bed? she’s checking on sam alone after weird baby monitor happenings???

dark silhouette i bet that ain’t john

GIRL YO U CAN CHECK ON THE FLICKERING LIGHTS LATER STOPP

GIRL IS NOT GOING TO SURVIVE SHE’S GOING TO INVESTIGATE MORE SHIT ON HER OWN I GET THAT YOU DON’T THINK YOU’RE IN A HORROR MOVIE BUT PLEASE MA’AM IT’S BEEN TWO MINUTES

I KNEW IT WANINT JOHN YOU FUCK

OH shIT

‘hey sammy you okay?’ BOY YOUR WIFE WAS SCREAMING 2 SECONDS AGO WHERE TF IS SHE??? I KNOW U LOVE UR BABY BUT HE’S SMILING ND FINE FOR NOW

FUCK SHE’S ON THE CEILING

okay scary emotional moment aside that sudden plume of fire was actually kinda funny but still this is a yikes situation!! get your kids outta there pal!!!

um sir??? i know you didn’t just tell your kid to take his brother outside WITHOUT YOU

SIR WHAT DID YOU EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO DO

it’s been four minutes and they’ve probably lost their mother and their house. sard.

‘it’s okay sam’ HONEY. dean tryna reassure the literal baby who don’t know what’s going on bc that’s what he;s supposed to do. as an older sibling this hurtsss

okay at least he came out and joined them but Still

hoping that firefighters save the house

the spike in music and the zoom on john’s face is not making me hopeful.

okayyy they are going to a costume party? and he’s not in a costume? sam ur cute but. Tis a Costume Party.

Halloween is my favorite holiday Sam. This Is A Warning.

realizing this fits into the media rule of mothers not being allowed to survive is funny bc it made me picture this as a d*sney show

174? ONE SEVENTY FOUR. SAM WINCHESTER u are NOT ALLOWED TO BE HUMBLE.

‘is that good’ THE HIGHEST SCORE FOR THE LSAT IS 180

they don’t know? i am sensing Not Good Familial Ties

second blonde lady onscreen is probs also gonna die, calling it now.

ah shit is this gonna be a normal break in or another fuckin ceiling person fire thing

sam winchester. is horror movie logic hereditary?? why are u investigating shit by urself

sam why the hell are you fighting someone IN THE DARK

DEAN WHY THE HELL DID YOU JUST FIGHT YOUR BROTHER FOR FUN AND SCARE HIM HALF TO DEATH- oh wait, you’re brothers. STILL!!

‘or not’ no, shut up, just cause he flipped u when u weren’t expecting it don’t mean that could’ve worked on a real threat if they had a weapon. sam u are smart but also stupid.

okay pausing just to say i like their voices and we will be ignoring that right sard?

oh her name is Jess! second blonde lady Jess is going to die at some point

also just noticed dean not thinking sam would answer his calls and :’[

DEAN I NO LONGER FEEL BAD WTF

code words babeyyy

also Sam if you have something happening in your family that requires code words while the ‘you can say it in front of her’ thing is good for standing up for yourself and all, I assume it ain’t the best idea

Sam is actually being perfectly reasonable in this situation however I assume that Sam will not be listened to

‘He’s always missing, and he’s always fine’ again confirming that this show will hurt. John, u suck and I’ve known you for less than ten minutes.

JOHN WTF

did sam know this wasn’t normal?? did he have to get to college and realize oh, this was bad?

dean having a ‘it’s not really paranoia if they’re really out to get you’ mindset is Not Helping

‘dad’s obsession to find the thing that killed her’ i told you that zoom on his face did not make me feel hopeful

sam brought up mom, this is gonna get messyyyy

ran away? sard, sam is going to make me feel things this is not okay. i am going to project so hard onto these characters and it will be all your fault.

ohnno. Feelings.

SARD. SARD. ‘I can’t do this alone.’ ‘Yes you can.’ ‘I don’t want to.’ I DON’T WANT TO??? SARD HOW DARE YOU I’M GOING INSANE AND IT’S BEEN TEN MINUTES

sam gave in and i know i should feel bad abt that bc i was rooting for him like two seconds ago but you don’t understand ‘i don’t want to’ destroyed me

brother that is a lot of tools

voice appreciation bullet point. please ignore.

‘I’m 26, dude.’ shut uppp

eee they will be working cases in this show this is great. love a good mystery / case of the week show but don’t wanna watch cop shows :/

Three Weeks is Not a Few Days Buddy

sam strikes again with the braincell. he will lose it again soon enough.

okay so. did not sound like the men getting disappeared were whispering that ‘i can never go home’ thing so is this like a ghost lady off the side of the road typa shit? hitchhiker that died and never made it to her destination?

‘never bothered you, never asked you for a thing’ YOU MEAN YOU DIDN’T COMMUNICATE FOR SHIT

very much get why sam did not tell his family abt the lsat thing but damnit, dean, be proud of your little brother!!!

jess is nice but sam Will be brushing her off and Will feel justified for doing it

jess is concerned. i am Also concerned.

‘I promise’ sir you are jinxing yourself!!!

did he tell her??? we don’t get to know that apparently

stranger that i do not recognize from sard rbing spn gifs. therefore, likely unimportant character that something is going to happen to.

GHOST LADY I FCKIN CALLED IT

she don’t look quite like a hitchhiker tho. also, i get you’re concerned, brother, but ominous wind seems to only be blowing at her hair and dress and your radio just went haywire. you are ALONE. did you not get taught stranger danger bc while it don’t always apply to adults, it sure does to This Situation, boy

most ominous words ever. she did not mention car trouble, just said ‘take me home’ this is baddd

no one has common sense or self preservation in this show i stg

ghost lady Can interact with physical realm. i think this might be worse.

BOY STOP STARING AT HER TITS AND REALIZE THAT THIS SITCH IS GONNA GET YOU IN TROUBLE

‘a girl like you’ bruh. stop.

this feels like a weird interpretation of a siren

one, fast hand go zoom. two, the only woman we’ve been introduced to so far that hasn’t been immediately sexualized was their mother and she immediately died. so. not great

wasn’t stupid car boy talking to a girl on the phone earlier???

‘do you think im pretty’ soundin like the slit mouthed woman over here, bad sign

STUPID CAR BOY EMPHASIS ON STUPID

as soon as he pulled up to weird house and she vanished he should have been outta there

moving weird handprint with no proper smear

oh no it’s showing a shot of him from inside the house this is bad

that made me jump BUT I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING INSIDE HOUSE

boy is backing out like the pizza man from home alone

oh no that isn’t it is it

wait he didn’t check the backseat?? or did she vanish completely and then reappear in backseat

oh he is,, Not Okay

the switch from that scene to that music made me laugh

credit card scams??? and you’re just gonna ask that out in the open?? sam. sam.

sam. do not diss metallica.

soundtrack appreciation bullet point.

haha time to lie to cops :]

spotless?? it certainly was not spotless when BLOOD SPLATTERED ON THE WINDOWS

he was dating a cop’s daughter and considering cheating? stupid car boy is Even More Stupid

‘thanks, that’s awfully kind of you’ see. unfortunately dean fucks.

dean Not Being Able To Resist Insulting the cops is, i’m sad to say, hot

them fighting is totally not going to be suspicious at all (boys, get it together for my sake, i’m not good at sarcasm)

older sheriff lookin ass guy is going to remember their faces and mess this up for them somehow

this is making me so glad my roommate that i actually share a room with is not here bc my headphones just died and i will charge them Later

dean, your alibis are gonna get all mixed uppppp

random girl who asked if Amy was okay after two strangers started to corner her i love you

why is amy even interested in troy

sam gets to go on um actually. as a treat.

JINX

sam keeps meeting the eyes of whoever’s talking bc he’s still adjusting to this / he’s used to dean and dean keeps watching for sam’s reactions bc he’s used to this but sam is now the new element

okay i get that the local legend stuff was spot on and also important but girl maybe mentioning troy disappearing forever next to his gf is not the best idea? PLUS if dean and sam were really troy’s uncles then them taking weird ghost stuff at face value is sus, no?

ah, when it was possible to get zero results bc there weren’t ads everywhere. i do not remember this time.

dean, don’t hit your brother bc you don’t know the correct keywords

good job sam, but i have subtitles on so i read it before i heard it and i misread ‘Constance Welch’ as ‘Contance Wench’ so i just wanted to let you know that’s who she is in my head

poor Joseph. poor Constance. poor kids. why do kids have to be so fragile

‘that bridge look familiar to you?’ no, totally not the same bridge you were just at a couple minutes ago, that would be ridiculous

dean is so insensitive and desensitized and unfortunately i know i’m going to love him

deannnnnn, be nice to sam pleaseeeee

‘well, that’s healthy’ POT MEET KETTLE DEAN

they’re fighting and i am in pain

‘don’t talk about her like that’ like what? like she’s dead? people don’t generally go up in smoke and then randomly appear after years, y’know? dean, hun, you’re in pain but have you considered putting that credit card scam money into getting a therapist?

oh dear

oh look at that, i’m officially just over Halfway Through This Episode. yeah, how many notes do i have? only THREE AND A HALF PAGES

running the longside of the road instead of zigzagging out the way bc they’re Like That

also lovely confirmation that she does not need an invitation or a driver to get inside the car and use it

BOYS. now i KNOW you survive but WTF WAS THAT

sam’s little laugh of relief is quite lovely but unfortunately i think he’s going to become an adrenaline junkie who can’t stop doing this hunting thing. i say unfortunately, but that’s for his sake. i am very excited.

‘car alright?’ dean winchester you just jumped off a bridge

was gonna make a comment abt the futility and perhaps stupidity of cursing out ghost lady. however. i fear that cursing out ghosts may be a staple when it comes to this show.

their dad’s been there…

dean you need a shower. bad ly.

sorry abt two bullet points in a row abt this but dean how do not want to pull off your skin to get allat dirt off ya?? also why didn’t the hotel guy ask about that instead of the ‘reunion’ bull??

writing the way i talk works for me when i’m tryna write fast and not think much bout what i’m saying but i think watching something like this is gonna bring out my accent, if my roommates make fun of me later i’m blaming you sard

this hotel room is the spn version of the red string conspiracy guy meme

i think the thing these guys have in common is the fact that they were all stupid car boys willing to pick up ghost lady and try to take her home

ALSO just realized ghost lady had a husband in her life?? and she was still flirting with stupid car boy?? idk, maybe they had an after death split but this don’t hit right with me

Sard. Why was there whispering. Sard last time there was weird shit like this that Sam noticed a lady started burning on the ceiling. Sard.

‘she might have another weakness’ i think the fact that dean steamrolled right past that means they’ll be using that other weakness

dean wth. are you. allergic to affection? ‘no chick-flick moments’ fuck OFF, this is why he wouldn’t’ve answered your calls

okay, sam’s rolling with it. i still stand by what i said about therapy.

sam what have you noticed now?

is that them???????????? hhhhhhhhraghhh

dean, sam is on the phoneee

love how cool dean is with illegal shit tho

wait they’re in separate places law of media says something bad is going to happen

‘you got anything that’s real’ ‘my boobs’ sard unfortunately i love him.

how many fake names ya think dean just has ready to go? wait, imagine him in an improv class

okay, fr tho dean, that corkboard shit is sus as hell, idc if you were three when it first happened, it still looks like you’re stalkin ‘em (which. i guess you kinda are.)

is that his dad’s book? adult version of the notebook of doom

sam is still looking for their dad even tho he coulda totally taken the opportunity to split back to stanford :]

poor Joseph :[

there was no after death split and i feel very icky about ghost lady flirting with stupid car boy

…was that hesitance before ‘definitely’ or am i imagining things?

good job for being nice to people sam

oh no, retracting that statement. why are you telling him this

oh shit it was hesitance

OH SHIT

so a woman in white is like medea, gottit

okay i understand why ghost lady flirted with the stupid car boy

ooh narratively interesting point >> cheating Joseph has more faith in Constance to be a good person than himself

also this makes more sense than the fact that the kids were left alone for a literal minute and both died

he gon pick that lock!!

dean is free hehe

wait sam placed the call? aww, he cares about his brother

ex-Marine? keeping that tidbit locked away for later

also you woulda thunk that the cops coulda thought about coordinates when looking at a combo of random numbers

wait!!!! sam is going to be okay, he’s not what the woman in white is looking for, right? unless he like, pissed her off by running through her with the car. but still. first episode, he must be okay

trappedinthecartrappedinthecar

‘you will be’ fuck OFF GET AWAY FROM HIMM

THAT TOTALLY DOESN’T COUNT YOU FUCKING ASSAULTED HIM

wait driving the car through the house worked? huh

fucked up ghost family reunion aside i feel so fucking bad for sam

oh gross

‘you found her weak spot’ guess who called it? again? i love being good at pattern recognition

WHAT THE FUCK DEAN YOU JUST SLAPPED HIS INJURIES

‘if you screwed up my car, i’ll kill you’ or, y’know, you might do that on accident bc you SLAP HIS INJURIES

okay dean you get a little grace for finally taking sam seriously about his interview

‘you’ll call me if you find him?’ there, dean, you have an invitation to talk to your brother. do it.

AWW JESS MADE HIM COOKIES

.

sard.

sard.

SARD ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

…

he is not making that interview is he

fuck

the winchester boys suffering the same fates as their father apparently

THE PROBLEM IS IT MAKES SENSE SAM WASN’T JUST GOING TO UP AND LEAVE HIS LIFE ALL WILLY NILLY AND I EVEN CALLED IT BUT THE PARALLELS AND THE PAIN SARD

final thoughts:

unfortunately I’m hooked. it made perfect sense for this to initiate everything. sure, it’s not the best show ever but there’s so much packed in and my overthinking brain is whirring faster than my laptop’s fan rn. loved that things were never immediately revealed bc it gave me a chance to guess and it felt so good when things fell into place later. sam is a sweetheart, but he’s also really smart and able to pass as innocent even when he’s lying his head off. i love that. dean’s an asshole that i am unfortunately attached to but he also obviously cares a lot about his family and doesn’t know how to handle that when it seems so broken. i am still so upset about that final bit. i will be binging this whenever i can but how dare you sard. this is nearly six pages of notes. why am i like this.

edit bc I just realized every ‘home’ in this episode was destroyed. ‘i can never go home.’ the winchesters’ house in the beginning and sam’s place both went up in flames, and sam drove a car through the haunted place. the only thing that saves things like motels is impermanence. sard I need to write forever I think

[sketching-shark]

Man, zhu bajie n tang sanzang had to b up there w swk about their mischaracterization n hated in lmk fandom

I have never seen so much mishandling as i seen with those three characters 😭😭(like bro i get that the most noticeable arc that ppl retain is the white bone spirit arc bc of OSP BUT THEY DIDNT STUCK TO THAT CHARACTERISTICS IN THE LATER ARCS LIKE CMON NOW—bajie couldn’t even lie about the dragon piss medicine in a later arc, what makes yall think he’s always a fantastic liar. Theres some benefit to his lying but they also backfire. BAJIE DO END UP LIKING EVERYONE LIKE HE REFER TO SWK AS ELDER BROTHER!<- no man could ever live up to the wonder of zhu wuneng. He just sweet n he does get a fantastic arc in the novel!

Tang sanzang does have some(albeit rare moments where hes nice but his asshoole moments sometimes intertwined) where hes like “yea my disciples r greats but theyre mad ugly.” Or that he gets better at having more trust in his disciples besides zhu wuneng. Even if its followed by hella traumatizing moments that no human person would remain sane like that. <hes just barely holding on by his faith, his mission and his disciples. Not his horse bc he cant hold on to save his life but that character arc where he DIDNT FELL OFF THOO!>

Monkie Kid spoilers below

Hmmm I know about the Sun Wukong & Tang Sanzang dunking but is that happening with Zhu Bajie too? Have to say I find that a little surprising given that (if memory serves correctly) Monkie Kid did say Zhu Bajie's main fault (well besides the whole being a man-eating yaoguai thing) was being stubborn, but then lego Patriarch Subodhi said he became one of the hardest workers of the pilgrimage. I guess I was under the impression that people were more light on their criticisms and thoughts about Zhu Bajie, but maybe that's just because he doesn't seem to be a point of great interest in the lego show fandom lol.

Kind of funny story anon but I've been vicariously growing in awareness on how much Zhu Bajie is loved in China through @antidotefortheawkward's posts about the pigman. And yeah, I can see that being in large part because Xiyouji in its totality does give a very different impression of who these characters are and where they end up than a cartoony summary can provide. As a number of people on this site have noted for example, the White Bone Demon Arc can be understood in a much more complex light than "Tang Sanzang & Zhu Bajie hurt poor monkey for nothing" when placed in the context of it being more near the beginning of the journey when the pilgrims were still grating against each other a lot & it happening very soon after the whole debacle with the Ginseng fruit tree. Here after all you can see how the monk has a recent history of getting into serious trouble from the monkey lying and being quick to destruction, so he would be primed to not believe SWK, not to mention he does hesitate to use the headband against SWK more than many give him credit for here. And YEAH given all the things they go through together I am more willing to accept a Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie enemies to friends arc than that put on many another character.

Also LMAOOOOO Tang Sanzang DOES seem to have quite a few lines where he tries to comfort terrified individuals by telling them that the pilgrims are good people even with their rancid looks (ugly pilgrim rights <3). And oh dang anon you are so right about how even if Tang Sanzang is much more of a static character in comparison to SWK it's kind of a shame more attention isn't given to the series of horrifying events he goes through and what effect that would have on him so that he gets a little more depth than "weepy monk who's mean to the Monkey King & falls off his dragon horse" in the popular western imagination. But then again I can understand why the monk's trauma is largely downplayed in western cartoony retellings, given that said lighthearted cartoony retellings probably wouldn't be the best medium to even touch on stuff like human butchery, death threats, sexual assault, and the consequences thereof.

[abyssmalice]

// 4.2 story genshin spoilers

(alright everyone...................... time for my story Thonkies)

(so overall: it was a p good story, i feel like it wrapped up fontaine's overall story well enough.

emphasis on "well enough" bc i do feel like some parts of it were very, uh, how do i put it. "bullshitty" is a harsh word but there were def moments, especially when it was dropping exposition, that felt like the writers were kinda just pulling things out of their ass in order to explain things and therefore come up with a solution to conclude everything. in the vein of "X thing exists!! we're just telling you it exists Now, like 5 mins into the finale, without almost zero buildup to it" sort of vibe.

at least, i think i need to go over the prophecy and the heavenly principles stuff with a fine-toothed comb again later........ because the exposition on that felt very "just take us at our word for it" like when you think about it, How does the heavenly principles actually enact the prophecy? especially when the story outright throws a "the root of the prophecy's effects is the whale"?? the implication is that the prophecy and all it entails is "fated", and thus, it's not that the heavens literally orchestrated the whale and stuff (well unless they want to prove me wrong on that in the next couple of AQs) - but that they have the ability to manipulate or enforce "fate". the "law" of the world and all that bs essentially. and fontaine's fate was meant to be that prophecy, leaving the finer details up to whatever actually happens.

BUT THIS STILL TAKES A BIT OF THINKING TO FIGURE OUT AND ALSO KINDA FEELS WEIRDLY OUT OF NOWHERE AND ITS LIKE, AS A WRITER I THINK IT'S COOL BUT ALSO GOD DAMN DID IT FEEL LIKE IT CAME OUT OF JUST NOWHERE-

anyway, this isn't to say the AQ was bad. no, i honestly think it was really good, i genuinely liked it, even if i feel like the execution of some parts was. weird. essentially lmao

.

ANYWAY THATS MY ONLY REAL MAJOR GRIPE, LET ME GET INTO THE STUFF I ENJOYED THE HELL OUT OF:

aka fuwina........... ;A;

like ok girl, you win, ill roll for you. i am so fucking rolling for you once i have the primos-

the entire "acting" scene by scene.......... oh my god, it was so good, you really feel for her. i was utterly bawling my eyes out the entire time, personally. also idk about the other languages, but jp furina takes the fucking cake for me - all of her dialogue where she isn't putting up a front is voiced so softly, almost childishly—it really hammers in the point that furina really was, as focalors put it, "naive and inexperienced as my first day as a human" when first created - she was split into existence and purposefully left clueless on some knowledge (like focalors' plan for the prophecy) and lacking in any magical powers that could be considered godlike, hence human, and not-all-knowing or all-powerful as a god. a true human, a newborn young human.

in essence, a child thrust into the role of acting as something more than that, with dire consequences if that role was not played to perfection, with seemingly no end; any normal person would be crumbling under such weight, and furina more so as someone who, in the context of her own situation, didn't even know what the "plan" entailed besides what focalors' said - all she had was pure turned desperate belief that it would turn out okay because the other-her said so.

(i can already hear tonitoni awkwardly trying to share a juice box in the back of my brain.............. something something the solidarity of young girls thrust into positions of power without quite knowing what they were getting into years down the line but they knew there was something on the line and they would do what they can for those they loved and a god looked upon them and said, follow what i say, and everything will be well-)

anyway i havent played furina's story quest yet so thats all the fuwina thonks i have, but i sure hope it doesnt make me bawl again........

.

my other big thonks def have to do with the whale and the events around it (of course they do, what kinda blog is this again? tonitoni blog? yes and no)

i think the fight was pretty cool, tho i want to know why the actual hell we fought. that thing. inside the whale. besides the rule of cool factor. like is there a reason that was in there in the first place?? also why do some of its aoe attacks look like vishaps are trying to attack you.................... hey, what's going on here man......................

also the way skirk tosses not just choldee but also the whale into an abyssal-looking crack. like, ill get to childe in a second, but let me focus on how she actually just sucks the whale into a suspiciously quantum-looking ball before tossing it aside. (please tell me we're getting a quantum element. bc. maybe. that. that means. i-imaginary element.................. PLEASE I WANT TO GIVE MY TONIS AN EXCUSE TO SECRETLY HAVE EITHER QUANTUM OR IMAGINARY AS ONE OF THEIR ELEMENTS PLEAAAAAAASE-)

and skirk herself is still a pretty mysterious character, despite all the lore dumping she did. p much the only primary things strictly related to her character is that: 1) she has her own greater-scope master 2) is very much strength-focused (300 million swings........... yeah, i see where childe gets it now), 3) and bc of said views on the strong and the weak, she will only consider others her equal (and therefore, humor them at all) if they display truly exceptional strength (see: "without using powers from beyond this world")

(this also makes me think skirk would not even bother to blink at smol toni, but may in fact consider tol toni at least somewhat "an equal" due to that toni surviving millennia in the abyss due to a mixture of insanely stubborn determination + her actual elemental powers come purely from the leylines/irminsul and nothing else, so any honed skill is both technique and teyvat-related power. thooooo, considering the lore also says that the primordial one created the human realm and its leylines (which should implicate the irminsul too, considering it's also found in the abyss aka beyond the world itself??), well....... god fucking knows on that one really.

FUCK I WISH THE LORE ON LEYLINES AND IRMINSUL WASNT SO MESSED UP IN LOGIC!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS MESSING ME UP AS SOMEONE WHOSE MUSES' LORE RELIES ON THIS!!!!!!!)

anyway, i really want to know the logic behind her just. throwing childe. into the hole along with mr whale in a ball. im guessing, the implication is that it's just like, a random abyssal portal that will presumably spit out the whale into an abyssal garbage dump while childe will be sent somewhere he can be retrieved (and taken back to snezhnaya, thank god, tonitoni would never let him hear the end of it if her brother got thrown into ANOTHER unreachable destination after two AQs of being thrown into jail and then into a sealed sea).

still a weird jarring moment though, i agree with everyone on that........... really weird.

BUT HEY, AT LEAST WE HAVE WORD FOR WORD DIALOGUE SAYING CHILDE IS SUPER STRONG AND FOUGHT THAT STUPID WHALE FOR AGES ESSENTIALLY, i want no more complaints on how strong and cool he is (i am saying this bc toni will never say it but i know she'd want to say it but would hate saying it so im saying it for her)

.

there's some more stuff i wanna say, esp re: the third descender and the gnosis stuff, + some extra thonkies about "fate" esp in the context of my tonitonis. and with the fontaine AQ wrapped up here, i can probs start to safely figure out the full fontaine timeline for smol toni - but ill leave all that in a separate thonkie post)

[barbreypilled]

⭐ for ikte!!!

hehehehe

anyway I started writing this silly ahh fic in July 2022 after rereading the series and I have a lot of silly headcanons and silly little facts that I cooked up in my crazy brain hehehe also this is going to be annoyingly long so I'm putting it under a read more

-I’ve had the headcanon that the victors were trafficked out of a physical brothel since about 7th grade when I found out what a brothel was, i liked the idea of them all kind of commiserating. In my mind sex trafficking is actually a huge moneymaker in the Capitol even before Ptolemy’s time but he streamlined it in some way and eventually was able to monopolize it (I won’t get into that fully yet bc there’s a pretty big plot point related to that) (I spent way too much time thinking about this lmao), in addition to victors and ‘roadsiders’ as mentioned in the 3rd chapter he also gets his pick of new shipments of Avoxes, which go for way cheaper. (I’m trying to remember what has actually been published yet lmao I’m just omw home from work rn, none of this is like. major spoilers tho like I won’t talk about [REDACTED] or the [REDACTED] 🤪😎 anyway I love writing about evil shitty ppl doing weird evil shit my Baby Book headcanons are very ASOIAF coded

-idk how many chapters there are going to be yet but as of right now probably about 70, I’m contemplating breaking it up by year bc it starts w Annie’s games and ends right at the beginning of CF w a post-MJ epilogue. Im also giving pre-canon POV chapters to a few characters, as of rn I have one for Asenath and one for Ronan aka Ciaran’s dad but I can’t decide who else…. also on that note Asenath’s backstory is fucking bonkers and I can’t get into it rn without just openly spoiling a huge chunk of the second half of the fic but it’s. a lot. it starts to be hinted at in the 7th chapter which will ideally be up soon… >:)

-I have entirely too many opinions about fanon Annie and how I am literally the only person who Gets Her and I won’t get into all of that now but as an Actual Mentally Ill Person™️ I definitely don’t think the Capitol would have just left her alone after she Came Back Wrong like I definitely think the upper echelon would have kind of pretended all that never happened especially bc (at least in my take as we will see soon bc I have actually finished those chapters hehe) she was INCREDIBLY inconvenient as it pertained to mainstream entertainment/network tv but the tabloids and more low-brow media outlets would have had an absolute field day w her and that’s a major plot point in The Piss. Also as someone who has had actual psychotic episodes and has actual OCD and actual autism I’m definitely taking her in a different direction than most ppl do lmao. Also somewhat on that note I know there is a high demand for like. rly saccharine odesta content there is absolutely none of that in the piss lmao. Like they have cute little couple-y scenes but for a good chunk of it they are two deeply traumatized unemployed 18/19year olds w way too much money basically just sniping at each other until one of them overhears someone talking shit about the other and gets their child gladiator sleeper agent murder instinct triggered

-A few scenes I'm rly looking forward to publishing in no particular order without any context are The Seal Scene, Angerona Heavensbee's Wedding, the 72nd games, The Ismene Reveal, The Phoca Reveal and Persephone's introduction hehehehe and half of these are already fully finished >:)

[lady-of-the-spirit]

Joan

I don't have a faceclaim for Joan yet so the answers for cast related questions will be Vague or just how I imagine an actor playing her would be.

how they’d be introduced

After Nile dies for the first time, the others are all dreaming about her. In the middle of flashes of Nile on screen, there are also flashes of another woman, far away, dreaming of Nile as well. She's the first person shown waking up and there's a lingering on her face as she gasps, clutching her neck, clearly confused. Cut back to the gang waking up and knowing immediately what's happened.

who the fandom ships them with

I mean Joan is aroace so hopefully no one? At least romantically? I know fandoms can be shitty about that but I feel like TOG fandom is chill enough, at least the majority of it. Platonically I can see her and Booker and her and Nile being very popular friend ships for her (bc that's how I've imagined canon anyway).

why the fandom loves them

She's the Relateable One. She's not a warrior, she's not a soldier, she's just a normal person trying to live as normally as possible while struggling with the whole immortality thing - the day to day struggles, the wondering Why Am I Here - as much as the rest of them. Plus she's canonically got anxiety so add that to relatability.

She's quiet and shy and gets nervous in situations but she's not gonna be a pushover about it. She's snarky when it's least expected. She has a lot of inner turmoil. I think the fandom would have fun with her.

why the fandom hates them

Probably because she's boring? Like as complex as she is, she's the normal one of the group, comparatively anyway. She's not always running around trying to save the world like the others (she does but in a different way than they do). She's just trying to live her life.

what the cast relationship would be like

I would HOPE for fun times just bc of Joan's story being so much about found family. And it sounds like the actors are close?

what was their audition scene

Idk how acting works so I'm gonna choose this one scene I've imagined a lot, where Nile and Joan are talking about their families. I think it's a good scene because (in my head) it's a scene where Joan both shows the grief she Carrie's around inside of her but also the strength she's had to develop to keep going.

dependent upon the fandom, who they’d be on a press tour/at comic con with

Did the TOG cast do comic con? I have no idea.

if they spoil things

Yes. But in "spoilers with no context" ways. On twitter she'd post a picture of an iron skillet, a plane ticket, the Ben Affleck exhausted smoking pic and nothing else.

if the show/movie has ended, are they happy with their character’s ending and the ending at large

2O2G has yet to release and so has the 3rd and final volume of the comics so I cannot answer this rip (yes Joan's canon splits from canon canon but whatever happens there is a foundation nonetheless)

OC if they were Canon

[cowboy-robooty]

PART THREE. (FINAL PART) SPOILERS UNDER READ MORE I AM A CRAZY BITCH

So anyways we left off at basically tengoku and aoki compliment eachother like sour cream on spicy food. And now its aokis turn to help tengoku become a better person by getting his ass to admit hes in love. Im putting it suuuper insloquenly bc well ive been typing in mai phone for the past almost four hours now. but seriously, it makes you realize how well they fit together. Despite everything they make eachother better in the end and are able to at least alliviate eachothers biggest problems when it comes to their mentalities on love and relationships. Aoki finally is able to experience someone loving him even when he isnt a good boy, and tengoku finally has the courage to latch onto aoki and never let him go even if he tries to squirm away because even though loving someone is scary, he has to accept it and overcome his fear of feelings being onesided if he ever wants to experience two sided feelings.

its genuinely quite sweet when they finally get both their feelings into words. (of course after some other shit happens)

And now tengoku and Aoki are together for EVERRRR!!!!!!! ITS SO GOOD!!!! UWAAA!!!

ive written a lot, but i still think my wording is janky and ive been pretty bad at trying to capture the swag of oni to tengoku. I havent even talked about sai or kyuu.. and how those volumes, still touch upon some really interesting topics. One of which ill mention below (SO BE CAREFUL SPOILER IN A SPOILER)

in sai basically they go visit aokis mom all that etc etc really good stuff very realistic depiction bc since aoki moved away the mom has chilled out and isnt a literal demon anymore but yknow the scars remain. but anyways being with aokis mom and seeing aoki getting along so well with his tormentor makes tengoku think about how fucked up he was to aoki in the beginning of their relationship and how its fucked up that theyre still in it cuz uhh well. I mean. you know how yaoi evil is 😁!!!! but yeah like becauss tengoku is aokis actual boyfriend now and loves him he realizes how fucked it is that he IS aokis boyfriend despite the roots of their interaction. and he does this.

and its a page ruined my life for like 2 years. Just out of context even okay i think its a really powerful message to tell someone that they shouldnt forgive people when they hurt them just because theyre good. but yeah also in context its true as hell too because its true that aoki shouldnt forgive the people who hurt him but its also tengoku who is indirectly telling aoki that he shouldnt forgive tengoku for literally molesting him when they first met and shouldnt be his boyfriend because its not right to start dating someone who did that to you. and he tells aoki that he wants to break up since he loves him and wants to protect him.

I WAS REALLY SURPRISED BY THESE PAGES THOUGH BECAUSE WELL. LIKE. I EXPECTED SOME BULLSHIT OKAY. SORRY I ADMIT IT I HAD NO FAITH IN THIS MANGA LOL. but seriously, outwhhss THIS MADE ME CRAZY BECAUSE WELL. it flipped the switch entirely and showed how much aoki has grown. The aoki before wouldve passively let tengoku take the lead and agreed because also tengoku is right. but aokis not the same mf with literally zero self esteem anymore. he thinks for himself. he knows what he wants. and for better or for worse, he wants tengoku as his boyfriend and thats something hes staying firm by because he has CONFIDENCE NOW. Tengoku is the one who learned to not let aoki go no matter what, and aoki in return has learned the same. I really love it because i may be seme uke master supreme but i genuinely do like when they are vulnerable and protect eachother and their relationship in different ways like this. Aoki wants tengoku. And even if tengoku says that its for aokis own good that he doesnt forgive tengoku like he forgives his mom, aoki is his own person and decides what he wants at the end of the day. Tengoku even cries later and is like i love people and then i hurt them and then im hated... i dont want you to hate me i dont want to hurt you and aoki hugs him and ITS SOOOOOO SWEET. TENGOKU LOVES AOKI SO MUCH HES WILLING TO NOT BE SELFISH IF ITS WHATS BEST FOR AOKI BECAUSE HES ALL INSECURE ABOUT HIMSELF HURTING AOKI AND ALL THAT. and it all works out because aoki is not someone who can be pushed around anymore. At least not with tengoku after all because tengoku is something aoki didnt even know he could get in his life.

So "goshdarnit" as payback for when aoki couldnt get tengoku to stop sticking to him he's going to cling to tengoku so hard not even the man himself can pry him off.

TL:DR. oni to tengoku is all about being able to love and to be loved

Robooty Reviews: Oni To Tengoku (8.9/10) ROBOOTY PERSONAL FAVORITE

(in my heart its a 10/10)

Atsurou Aoki is an english teacher who has some mad fuckin self esteem issues. hes our beautiful pathetic man protag and he ends up tangled up in a relationship of sorts with the school nurse, Manabu Tengoku. Its a dry premise and honestly the first volume requires you to sludge through a lot of average yaoi evil shit but please please please im begging you endure okay. i have been an oni to tengoku-er since 2019 and ive been following the development of the sequel (oni to tengoku sai) and the (now third) sequel (oni to tengoku kyuu) of this series and GOD. ILL BE REAL IM A MANIAC AND PROBABLY GOT A LOT MORE OUT OF THIS SERIES THAN THE AUTHOR INTENDED AT ALL BUT IDGAF PLEASE READ IT PERHAPS YOU CAN EXPERIENCE THE SAME ENLIGHTENING AS ME. READ MORE HAS SPOILERS BE WARNED (PART 1 CUZ OF TUMBLR IMAGE LIMIT)

this will be a little different than usual because i have a whole lot to say about aoki and tengoku. Really, a lot of this will be just talking about how and why i like their relationship so if you end up liking this you should most definately read the full manga to experience it for yourself

Despite all the fuckin bullshit of the first volume, the manga is really fucking good at interweving in its core themes and setting up the psychological basis of Aoki. Aoki was abused by his mother as a child, but i think the depiction of abuse is really realistic because even though she whittles down his self esteem and makes him feel worthless she hugs him afterwards and still is motherly towards him, this aoki doesnt hate his mother and fully cut her off per say but she is a demon to him. its pretty realistic imo where parents can do awful things but they buy you a donut and then its like ermm well.. they bought me a donut and do this in my best interest so its okay. Aoki is fucked in the head though. because he doesnt feel like he can be loved deep down and his entire career path is something he chose only because it was expected of him by his family (and his entire life is grasping at straws in an attempt to not disappoint people)

he wants more than anything to just not be an embarassment and be "worthy" of being loved. I like how this is depicted because again it feels more realistic in that he isnt outwardly a freak about it or anything he doesnt have breakdowns in public or anything thats enough to warrent himself to feel like he needs to get help. but he definately does need help of some sort because his way of thinking and the constant guilt and shame he feels is just something thats normal to him now. hes just tired and a bit worn down, but its not like anything is exceptionally bad, since humans are surprisingly adaptable and hes just lived with feeling like hes an embarassment who disappoints people his entire life so its norm.

Tengoku obviously doesnt mean it in the way aoki is taking is. but its things like this that make the themes feel well interwoven to me. Aoki doesnt look tengoku in the eye and say "i have mommy issues and feel like being an embarassment is the reason i cant be loved" but he still shows it in a way that we the audience can see he means, since we can put together aoki's lifestyle and viewpoint from his inner dialogues and flashbacks to his mother's abuse. Aoki wants more than anything else to be a good boy because only good boys can be loved. and unfortunately for aoki san this kind of means he has developed a praise kink and good boy fetish which tengoku just naturally leans towards so erm haha tengoku just pushing those buttons all willy nilly!

Tengoku isnt an idiot though, as he pursues aoki he can definately connect the dots and all that shit for how aoki ticks. This isnt exactly hard to do anyways, since aoki passively talks about himself to tengoku during non crazy scenes and its not like hes an enigma or anything because again, he thinks that the way he lives is completely normal for a guy like him. Tengoku likes aoki and chases him and aoki isnt exactly a willing participant. Tengoku likes aoki because hes a fun plaything and interesting and pure hearted and everything tengoku is not and aoki begins to form an affection for tengoku because he itches the mental illness brain damage spot by pursuing and wanting him consistently and not getting bored.

These panels are true brain damage pages because it hits upon how all aoki wants is for someone to look at him directly and still want him. His greatest wish (that he doesnt even believe could come true at the bottom of his heart) is to have someone that could see him for who he is and despite all his flaws. despite how hes useless, despite how hes not good at anything (to him), despite how hes bad at relationships, despite how he cant talk with other people, and despite what an embarassment he is, still love and want him. Seriously, I must recommend you to read this for yourself. Theres the yaoi bullshit sludge but every chapter has bits and pieces of Aoki's mindset that is an insanely good representation and depiction of how that kind of mentality and acceptance is like.

Volume 2 is where things really pick up. Yaoi sludge has been toned down to make way for FUCKING SWAG!!!! the set up for aoki's mentality is done now were onto getting into the way tengoku and aoki's personalities actually interact with eachother. Along with dipping into tengokus crazy bitch syndrome

Over this volume, were shown that actually aoki and tengoku are a good match for eachother. At least, tengoku provides something special for aoki in that he doesnt know from personal experience the feeling of needing to earn love, but because of that he bounces off well with aoki because he shows basic interest in going "well your feelings and thoughts do matter though. youre a person too". this isnt explicitly said, but its little things liks this that end up making aoki fall in love with him. Aoki falling in love with tengoku is also interesting because this is his first time actively liking someone else because its what he wants, not because its what the other person expects. Despite how terrible their relationship was at first, it set a ground where Aoki was able to create a strong connection with someone without the initial fear of disappointing them since he even didnt like tengoku at first. Honestly with the way Aoki is I think that is why hes able to love tengoku out of his volition, since he already has shown his shameful parts to him and tengoku still wants him-- in fact tengoku is the only person who has seen Aoki's shame and refused to let him go, this lets Aoki take a breather and think about what HE desires for once instead of how to keep someone with him or do whats good for the other person/not shameful.

Also a new teacher is introduced who actually is one of the many guys Tengoku had play-boyed before who became a teacher just so he could try to win tengokus love lol. but he serves as a plot device for that yaoi jealousy arc WOOOHOOOO! I love the jealousy chapter a lot though because BOTH CHARACTERS experience jealousy in their own way. I'm not sure if what Aoki experiences can be classified under jealousy or not, but ill just say it is because thats easier. The chapter is wonderfully done though because see Tengoku has always been the one who chases Aoki but also the one who reminds him that he doesnt fall in love this is just a sex playboy thing. Aoki is the one who has fallen in love and does show this by treating Tengoku specially, but Tengoku obviously doesnt reciprocate this since the way he acts at least is more like Aoki is his favorite of a bunch of toys rather than his one and only like how Aoki sees him. Aoki feels bitterness over this because he wishes he could be loved by Tengoku since Tengoku is somewhat wishy washy and gives Aoki just enough to keep hope but also smushes that hope by refusing a drop more. (this is done though bc this is fucking yaoi ofc tengoku loves aoki to bits and pieces back but tengoku is just scared of liking aoki too much and showing it too much but hold on we havent gotten to tengokus insanity yet jeeeesus christ!). Also im kind of at the tumblr 10 image limit but I think showing these next three pages are really important so ermm me when i post this and then add a reblog or two with MORE BULLSHIT. I'll properly tag the versions with my reblogs

[cerealmonster15]

silver/kalim, you say? 👀

i havent thought of this ship before but i Am curious if you want to talk about them

YES OUGH i love themmmm. theyre def one of those ships that like, i didnt notice in main story bc they havent shown up together much, so it's very much come more from the vignette/card stories + some events. especially bc silver himself hasnt been in the main story much yet!

there are a handful of specific instances that really have me 👀 at them:

in i think leona's ceremony robes card, when leona's coming to get his mixed up laundry from malleus, silver's at peak Oblivious Mode and thinks leona's there to talk to malleus bc they are Friends, despite leona very blatantly saying they arent lkfdshgklfdj. ruggie makes a comment that silver and kalim are known by the second years for their kinda airheaded happy go lucky vibes. i think the eng translation called it 'the facepalm brigade' or something lol. like everyone else can be in a bad mood but those two never are and are just painfully oblivious lol. it's cute that they have the same sweet boy vibes :)

they're classmates! in... uhhh.. i think it's either kalim's standard uniform or silver's standard uniform story, kalim makes a point to wake silver up after he fell asleep, to remind him to change classes. it's cute that kalim cares!!! he also gets advice in kind of a funny way from kalim lol, about if he's being too hands off with malleus like sebek says he is [and then silver decides, after seeing how helplessly reliant kalim is on jamil, that silver is Right to want to give malleus space to grow LOL]

silver's lab coat story - silver and kalim are held after class and have to do make up work bc silver fell asleep in class and kalim broke equipment in class jfkldshg. they decide to stay back and work together :) silver is still having trouble staying awake, and confides in kalim [and jamil who got pulled into it lol rip] about his chronic sleep problem, kalim decides that before they work on their assignment, they should make a wake-up potion to help silver stay awake, and silvers really grateful that kalim's so enthused about helping him with it 🥺 the poor goobers both get each other so off track so easily lol. but it's so cute. you can tell in that story kalim really cares about silver and helping him feel better ;A;

a very small thing lol but in jade's halloween ssr story at the very beginning, when kalim's trying to bargain with jade or w/e, jamil complains that kalim's taking so long and silver fell asleep bc he had to wait so long. the way that convo goes just makes it sound like silver was hanging out with kalim and jamil Just Cuz and i thought it was cute kjlfdshg ANYWAY

in the second halloween event [it hasnt come out in engtwst yet so ill avoid story spoilers; im talking the endless halloween/not the masquerade one] there's a scene where jamil says silver scarily reminds him of kalim - i think it had something to do with his Innocent Good Boy Energy or something lol. and silver's response was something like "oh, thank you. kalim is nice to me in class so i am glad you think we're similar." and then later when [REDACTED] happens, silver makes a point to say to kalim that he is a good person and considers him a dear friend 🥺 this scene in particular made me SO HAPPY lol i felt SO VALIDATED!!!!

i THINK. I THINK!!! there's a similar opposite scene. where someone tells kalim that he's a lot like silver and kalim takes it as a compliment?? BUT i can't for the life of me remember the context. i'm not sure if it also happens in halloween 2 or if that's in another event/story. or if i made it up LOL <- god does anyone know what the hell i'm talking about. it's been so long. i used to be so sure it existed and now i dont KNOW!!!

the general vibe of noble/knight is cute. like kalim is the eldest of a wealthy powerful family, to the point that he has an attendant- jamil - and silver is raised as a knight to malleus. i always thought it would be cute if later down the line, jamil's off to live his life free as he pleases, and silver like takes on that role either officially or unofficially by Kalim's side to protect him bc he Loves Him 🥺 wah wah let me have my cliches LOL

circling back to the thing ruggie said in my first bullet point lol, i found through google translating journeys lol, theres a ship tag or something for them in jpntwt/pixiv or w/e that i believe comes from that story. i think it's いらふわコンビ - if you search that it's nothing but silver/kalim lol. when i was auto translating captions with google on fanart of those two, i kept seeing the term "fluffy combination" or "irritated combination" and i was like. what the hell's that mean lol. this was before engtwst existed, so i think i eventually tried comparing the characters to ruggie's dialogue in that story ^ on youtube, and it was clllloooose but not quite the same or something. a few fan translations i saw translated the thing ruggie said as "mad free zone". like those two together Do Not Get Mad lol, or that they have a "frustratingly, easy going vibe". and a spanish sub called it "el espacia libre de locos" which is roughly "space free of craziness/wildness" whatever. anyway. いらふわコンビ. whatever it means, people use it in silver/kalim fanart lol <- there is a lot of adorable fanart of the two of them :')

not really super related but i believe the miraheze wiki says somewhere that silver, kalim, and rook are the only three students that use/specialize in light magic. i dont really know where that comes up but it's a fun fact/i think it's bc theyre the only three characters not based on villains/are more hero leaning from their origins? [besides i guess jack since hes supposedly not based off Anything lol just a random wolf boy]. it was just cute that they had that in common, like boys with the good vibes that make u think "why are you in villain school for villains" fjkdslhgf

there might be other scenes/reasons i'm forgetting but that's the gist of why i Love Them. they are sweet good boys.

[babygirldennis]

This shit is fake bby!!!

Here she is.. My masterpost of all the dumb, illogical bits of info contained within these s15 “leaks” that make me fairly confident they are complete bullshit. It also includes my little tinhat theories that have absolutely no evidence.

I will be putting it all under a Readmore in case you don't want to risk it or if you simply Do Not Care

First up, I'd like to point out that these call sheets repeatedly give very detailed backstories to characters that have few lines which conveniently paints a picture of each episode's plot. And I'm not an expert so correct me if I'm wrong, but after looking at other similar casting calls, they only ever include the demographic and necessary skills.

Basically who in their right mind would write up casting calls that give away so many spoilers? Seems like that could cause and issue if they were leaked lol. But anyway that's my 1st point. But onto the actual content

So the conceit of this episode as a whole is that during the pandemic, the gang "gamed the system" and received three (3!) Loans to start businesses that went bankrupt. One of these businesses is implied to be the one started by dee and charlie who end up selling to Qanon shaman. Already this is so impossible baby.

1. We've already seen the gang try to get a loan and it didn't work. They don't have good ideas. Ur telling me, they managed to finagle 3 separate loans for 3 separate business ideas from an actual bank?

2. Maybe I just have bad reading comprehension but how does one have a business that is both fictitious and bankrupt?

3. If the customer is supposed to be Qanon shaman, an actual real life guy, why are the only descriptors white and male? They say he's shirtless so are they going to paint on all of the tattoos he has? And if so, doesn't that kind of ruin the dramatic reveal when charlie "throws in" the viking helmet? Why would he do that anyways? Sus.

Moving on

Alright this episode would fucking blow for obvious reasons but im going to refrain from looking at this through my gay dennis thruther lens because im biased.

Purely from a narrative standpoint, a woman hasn't been shown to be interested in dennis in nearly 5 years during the wade boggs episode. Ever since, every single woman he approaches has been actively creeped out by him. And now I'm supposed to believe that 3 "smart, passionate woman" (In Their Twenties!!!!!!) agreed to go on a date with him? And Anna even slept with him! Just because he what? Agreed with her? I'm not buyin it.

Plus the concept of this scenario lacks any potential for comedy. When iasip gets political, they always discuss a very specific topic using hyperbolic situations and flawed metaphors. If this is supposed to be a political episode, what ultimately lukewarm point would rob be trying to make here? So far we know they're ranting about

The patriarchy

Privilege

Socialism

No more personal responsibility(?)

The... nature of power in society(??)

How on earth would an episode like get approved? This shit sounds like a Ted talk. It sounds like it was written specifically to sound like a political episode so boring and pointless it would generate outrage and mile long essay posts from Tumblr users and reddit users alike. Almost like this one lol.

On a completely unrelated note, do not try and convince me that Frank "casual cock ring wearer" Reynolds is unable to perform.

Jeez this is getting out of hand fast. Let's move on

Ok now we're starting to getting into the Ireland of it all. Let me go on a bit of a tangent here about all this.. Now I thinq there are just 3 possibilities. Either this is all a publicity stunt and there is some truth to the Ireland rumors, the entire thing could be bogus from some weirdo fan (ps, if a fan did write this I want you to know I fucking hate you. You did this to me), or it is a publicity stunt but Ireland is just more bullshit.

I am going to assume it was a publicity stunt, otherwise I just wasted my entire evening and I can't have that kind of mentality rn. Additionally, I'm Going to tinhat here for a second and say that the Ireland rumors are true, but the details are different.

I say this because if they were going to do filming in Ireland, they probably figured that that information would be impossible to hide. In essence, my completely unfounded hypothesis is that this leak was their fucked up little way of controlling the situation while simultaneously messing with us.

Ok tangent is over, returning to the casting calls. From the looks of it, dee starts a "scam" acting class and has some very devoted students (Note that Tony was also the name of the porn shop owner. Seems weird!) Presumably after the gang replaces her with a monkey as the title suggests.

Honestly, there isn't too much here that's a red flag to me... seems like a nice little dee-centric episode that is the link to the Dublin angle. Assuming I am At All right, this could be a genuine plotline for Dee. However, the monkey could be a red herring and there could be a whole different side plot with the guys. who's to say. Next one!

Ah yes this is the dennis we all know and despise.. no red flags for me here really, I'm also running out of steam because idk if it shows, but I am majorly sleep deprived atm. Anyway I'm going to the next one

Okay this is where things start getting weird again ough a migraine just hit, anyway back to my earlier point about how casting calls would never contains major spoilers bc the people who see these wont be under any kind of NDA..

These ones reveal that bonnie dies. Again, that info wouldn't be in a casting call.

But also they suggest charlie has a irish penpal named Shelley who is his biological father. First off charlie is illiterate, although as pointed out by @undeadbreeze shelley could also be communicating in symbols. However, this scenario is still unbelievable to me for a couple reasons:

1. Bonnie's last name is Kelly obviously, and we know it's her maiden name because Jack's last name is also Kelly. But Shelley's last name is... also Kelly? In the context of this big ol hoax, it feels like it was written to show that look! his last name is the same as charlie's! That's how you know that's his dad! But It would be way too big of a coincidence if charlie's dad happened to have the same last name bonnie.

And 2. There's the whole mystery of charlie's long-lost sister from 'charlie got molested' but never any mention of a brother which according to this, shelley has been pretending to be his brother for years. And we all know how much rcg loves their continuity, it seems uncharacteristically lazy to just tack this on without any prior buildup.

And finally let me talk about mac for a second and specifically the line in gus's summary "both are gay men who are attracted to the priesthood for all the wrong reasons"

Iasip has commented on pedophilia in the priesthood many times in the past which leads me to believe that they are implying that mac is a pedophile? Please let me know if I completely misread the implications of that statement, but if not, then that is completely insane and one of the biggest indictators that this is fake. Mac is awful, just like everyone in the gang but he is definitely not a pedophile.

However even if i did completely misread that, it's still proof this is fake.. For all his faults, Rob put a surprising amount of care and effort into mac's coming-out. It hasn't been perfect, but Mfhp in particular firmly established that mac's faith is integral to his identity so Its unlikely that rob would throw all of that away for a cheap shot at priests.

Ok my brain is irradiated sludge at this point, but in conclusion. I hope that 1. I'm right, at least about it being fake (Otherwise damb that'll be so humiliating for me) And 2. This eases ur fears a bit. I don't want to lose all faith in future seasons bc I love iasip and miss the gang. If you read this far youre insane but I literally love you so goddamn much because I spent so so long tapping this out on my silly little phone

Please feel free to add on or message me your thoughts and opinions I need to know I'm not the only one who uhhh went a bit insane. And finally: whoever made these is a cunt. Mwah.

[nowujustlooklikeanyone]

a very off topic Song of Achilles review/literally a rant that not a soul asked for and is literally one big fat fucking spoiler

from my notes app

ok

i’m not even finished yet but i know what happens because it’s based on the greek myth but omfg i keep crying because the happy moments are sad and the sad moments make me hate real life ugh gods sake i can’t deal with it

also my context with reading pjo since third year means im so familiar with the mythology so i even know the side characters and it’s making me even sadder and sadder its like ah i just want to go back to reading magnus chase for a forth time and chill and laugh but then i get sad like oh shit those guys have had so much loss too, my poor babies, i’m miserable, i’m going to go cry, but THEN i read a solangelo fic and i’m like THANK FUCK and there’s a new book coming and rick probably hopefully can’t kill them off (ask me for an explaination why i think this if you are interested) bc i would kill HIM. literally so excited for the book i love Mark Oshiro(the person the solangelo book is in collaboration with) ahhh okay i think i’m fine now WAIT NO BECAUSE NICO DI ANGELO HAD THE SADDEST BACKSTORY OF THEM ALL I LOVE HIM SO MUCH IM SO SAD I MISS BIANCA at least he got some good things in the end thank fuck for will solace they are my otp solangelo is the best ship AND best ship name besides fierrochase. like ever. i don’t think i will ever love any other characters more than them they’re the best characters in all of literature. okay i think i’m fine now BUT NO BECAUSE THEN JASON GRACE DIES LIKE WHAT? FUCK MY LIFE POOR NICO OH AND PIPER DONT GET ME STARTED HER RELATIONSHIP WAS BASED ON A LIE PLACED IN HER HEAD BY A GODDESS AND HE DIDNT HAVE THE MEMORIES BUT SHE DID FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE IT FELT REAL FOR HER SHE CANT JUST GET RID OF THEM SO THEY BREAK UP BECAUSE ITS TOO HARD WHICH IS A GOOD DECISION BUT OH AND THEN JASON DIES? THAT IS THE MOST AWFUL DISGUSTING THING I AM SOBBING AND BARFING ALL OVER THE PLACE ugh and leo is the most precious thing i kin him and i did before i even knew what kinning was when i first read about him in year 5 (i think it was year 5) or maybe i’m just in love with him it’s one of the two, when i was younger he was my favourite character but now it’s like all of them. calypso is perfect for him kinda? like i don’t know when you read it it makes so much sense and you can practically feel his happiness radiating of the page and it made sense like story wise it fit in very very well so i love that… however when i think about caleo vs solangelo and fierrochase… eh. it’s just #lame i can’t explain! even frazel is cuter than caleo because omg they are just COMPLETELY PERFECT i never realised but i have a crush on hazel AND frank… not that that means that much because i have a crush on every single character but i think i love them most? theyre sort of the most memorable because i loved them as soon as i got to know them in the second heroes of olympus book idk i feel a different way about them hm🤨 okay i’m done. i think i’m done. this wasn’t even about song of achilles really HOLY FUCK NO NOW IM THINKING ABOUT PATROCLUS AGAIN NOPE IM SAD I CANT DO THIS. i was actually crying before more than i have in weeks like it was a build up of things in my life,!but mainly when achilles said “i have traded love for glory, and it cost his life. to any god who is listening, end my suffering.”

god. this is fucking embarrassing and unreadable

NEWSFLASH i’m still too scared to finish it and i am finishing every happy book i can find before this jesus christ this book it going to wreck me and today as already been emotional😫

ok a few weeks later and am i insane? girl? i wrote so much anyway i’m still reading other things and i don’t in any way want to finish song of achilles atm so we’ll see i guess!

[iamanartichoke]

[please blacklist spoiler tags: #loki tv series spoilers, #loki series spoilers, #loki spoilers]

Yes, I did just watch episode 2 at 5:30 in the morning.

No, I am not sorry. Not at the moment, although when I inevitably crash later this afternoon, I will be.

Just some very, very quick - and scattered and messy - thoughts: That is a straight up lie; they’re definitely scattered and messy but not very quick at all.

Under the cut for spoilers and length.

I’m going to start with Loki’s characterization. My honest opinion is that Loki’s overall characterization feels like a fic characterization. He definitely is not Avengers Loki, like, at all. I don't know if Tom just, like, forgot how to play that Loki or ...?? That, or Loki was so much more mind-controlled than we realized and getting hulk-smashed just completely reset him back to zero but also fucked him up a little bit and affected his personality, kind of like how some people completely develop weird new personality quirks after a traumatic brain injury.

… yeah, I think that’s where I’m gonna land for now. TV series!Loki feels like a more-or-less canon version of Loki, but if that Loki got hit in the head really hard and now he’s just a little bit fucked up but overall no worse for the wear. Which - it may be that it’s so early in the morning, but that’s actually really fucking funny to me, lmao. God, I kill me. It’s not funny.

No, but, that’s pretty much how I feel. He’s ooc but he’s also ic, and the reason I’m not particularly bothered by the inconsistency, for lack of a better word, is because that’s what pretty much every fic Loki already feels like to me? (Including my own, so I’m not, like, saying that in a derogatory way.) Which is why I say Loki feels like a fic!Loki and to try to explain it better - there is always, for me, a little suspension of disbelief that I employ when I read fic. The reason for that is because the context, the plot, and the dynamics of the fic are usually pretty different than what we ever get in canon, so it becomes a matter of taking film!Loki and, like, bending him a bit in order to fit him into the perimeters of the fic.

The result ends up being that I don’t see the exact Avengers!Loki or TDW!Loki, and thus by definition the portrayal is ooc, but the version that I do see feels like a genuine extension of the canon version, possessing enough of Loki’s overall traits and characteristics that he feels authentic, albeit a bit pretzeled for the new context.

I honestly think that’s something that’s unavoidable, just due to the fact that in fic - and now, in this series - there are a lot more variables at play than there are in the films, wherein Loki is not just a supporting character but also the villain/antagonist and is therefore very limited in what he does/what the narrative allows him to do. When those limitations are taken away, what are we going to see? Probably a lot of different things, and yeah, a lot of them are going to feel a little ooc. And, like in fic, even if the characterization mostly lands, there are definitely bits and pieces (some fics more than others lean this way) where the author didn’t stick the landing or got carried away or otherwise probably forgot for a while that they were writing Loki, not their own OC.

That’s the point where it strays into cringe territory for me (and where the ‘heh, he’s Loki but with a brain injury’ aspect comes in), but while I had to consciously decide to just ignore those moments, overall the tone in this episode felt a bit more balanced between the new, the old, and the cringe, and less whiplash-y from the beginning of the episode to the end.

… I have no idea if that makes sense, but what I’m basically saying is that while I am enjoying this version of Loki, I do recognize all of the ways he’s ooc but, unlike how I feel about Ragnarok!Loki, the ooc-ness feels genuine and unavoidable rather than just a fundamental and careless misunderstanding of the character altogether. In other words, I feel like any ooc-ness here is happening despite the writers taking care to do their best, and isn’t just a result of Loki being lazily written by a person or persons who just doesn’t want to bother with him at all.

Again, I don’t know if that makes sense, but fuck it, there we are and I’m moving on.

I liked all of the little details, including again, things that felt straight out of fic, like Loki asking Mobius why he has the jetski magazine. (Also, if any of my thorki friends read this, was I the only one who noticed that when we see Loki reading the magazine, it just happens to be open to a page with a picture featuring a jet skier who looks like Thor? l.m.a.o.)

Loki interrupting things to explain the difference between illusions vs the other power (I can’t remember which one, off hand, and if I stop writing to go look it up I will lose my train of thought and not finish this) was great, but his overall input and contributions to the missions inspired very mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, I loved that the narrative, via Loki, is reminding us of all these things that he’s capable of that the films generally left out or brushed aside or ignored - but, every time he spoke, he was met with eye rolls and sighs and just a general feeling of “someone please shut this guy up” and I didn’t like the narrative treating him that way.

But also, it’s understandable bc none of the people on his team are actually on his team. None of them want him there (story of Loki’s fucking life), none of them trust him, and none of them are particularly interested in hearing what he has to say. So it’s like, I understand why they reacted the way they did, and I don’t think their reactions are meant to support an overall narrative undermining of Loki’s skills and input - but, the tone is hard to read for me bc I am very defensive and protective of Loki. I can’t quite determine the line between the TVA agents being unreliable narrators (ie, they’re annoyed by Loki bc of who he is to them, but that doesn’t mean the audience is supposed to feel the same) and the TVA agents validating that Loki is just being a nuisance (and, thus, the audience is supposed to feel the same).

That is, I know how I am consuming the narrative (that they’re unreliable narrators), but I’m not sure if that’s how tptb are intending for me to consume the narrative - and I guess it doesn’t really matter, but it’s worth mentioning.

In general, I really liked, again, Loki existing in his own space and watching the way he carried himself. I especially found it interesting that his hands were almost always in his pockets - for one thing it's a stance I tend to imagine him taking often in fic, but also it’s kind of a weird choice bc pockets don’t seem to be a thing in Asgardian clothing. It makes me feel like Loki is the kind of person who never knows what to do with his hands but is always conscious of them, as is common among anxious and self-conscious people, and I just find that relatable on a weird level.

I am really kinda torn on Mobius in this episode; when not interrogating Loki, he’s much less antagonistic toward Loki and therefore I’m more inclined to take-him-or-leave-him but I’ll go ahead and take him I guess. Yet at the same time, bc he’s not interrogating Loki he’s also not trying to put on a show for Loki and when you take that away, he really doesn’t seem to like Loki at all. It supports that Mobius only wants what Loki can do for him and doesn’t actually particularly care about him as a person, which is fine and more or less what I figured, but it contributes to me not really being able to decide how I feel about him in general. Idk, though, I kinda like their dynamic? Like I want them to end up friends?

Regardless, Tom and Owen have amazing chemistry and it’s really funny to me bc (not to be a jerk) I honestly didn’t know Owen Wilson could act. Like, I’ve never seen him in a role where he wasn’t just playing Owen Wilson. So for him to not only be playing Mobius so well but also having such chemistry and a sense of holding-his-own against Tom Hiddleston is like, color me surprised but pleasantly so.

I like B-15 a lot, even though she obviously hates Loki, so idk why I like her but I do. I like Renslayer less, but meh. (Side note - when I was in undergrad in Syracuse, I took the Amtrak from Syracuse to Boston and back more than a few times, for reasons that aren’t relevant, and that route always had a layover at Albany-Rensselaer and every single time I see Renslayer’s name, I want to call her Rensselaer instead.) Shout out to the guest appearance by Casey, sorry Loki stole your juice lmfao.

The moments from the trailer that were very cringe were less so in context (though still kinda cringe, tbh). I think we’ve seen most of the content from the trailers in the first two episodes now, though, which means going forward, it’s going to be like 95% previously unseen material (aside from the brief apocalyptic shots and so forth).

One thing I fucking loved was how Loki, reading about Ragnarok, was visibly affected and even teared up a bit, and you could tell he was in his feels about it, but then later when Mobius expresses sympathy, Loki is just like, “Uh huh, very sad, but anyway.” It was a subtle (well maybe not that subtle) but effective way to remind us that what Loki presents to other people is more often than not a mask and he keeps his true feelings close to the chest. It makes last week’s breakdown have even more of an impact, I think, bc clearly Loki was at the end of his rope to allow himself to show that much raw emotion and vulnerability, but also - for me - there’s a niggling little doubt there that wasn’t there before, in that there was probably more performance in it than I thought.

By which I mean, I think his reaction to the film of his life when he was alone was genuine but, while I previously thought his admission to Mobius later was also genuine, I now think was probably half genuine and half performative. I know others already figured that out, but I’m a little slow and, also, I don’t mind changing my opinion and interpretation from week to week.

Along the same lines, I wasn’t exactly surprised to see that Loki is “undercover” in the TVA, but it was nice to see it acknowledged fairly quickly. Not sure I buy that Loki wants to overthrow and rule the TVA - it’s still a little too “Loki only wants a throne” for me, but again, just because that’s what he told the variant doesn’t mean that’s actually what he’s after.

And, finally, I like the variant, I love Loki’s reaction to seeing her, and while I realize that the show has acknowledged Loki’s gender fluidity and we’re meant to assume that Lady Loki (I guess? Not sure if we’re going with that or not here) is Loki, I saw a theory somewhere about how this is actually not Loki-Loki, but - I wanna say her name Sophie but that’s the actress, again I can’t go look it up bc I will lose my train of thought - but it’s a character who is similar to Amora and who was created by Loki and models herself as Loki but she’s actually someone else.

Ugh I can’t remember the details of the theory, but I am kinda going with it bc I don’t think that Loki would look so - not surprised but just kind of “oh, well, I wasn’t expecting that” if he were seeing the female version of himself. Like, he doesn’t seem to recognize her the way I assume he would recognize himself, male or female. Not only does that make me feel like she’s actually someone else, but also not recognizing her as the female version of himself doesn’t necessarily mean Loki doesn’t recognize her at all. He may very well recognize her as this other Amora-similar character and, if so, I really want to see how that character fits with MCU Loki (as I think she’s a comic book character but, again, I’d have to go back and find that theory).

Edit: I found a version of it here.

Overall score, B-. Mostly solid, but needs moar Loki breakdowns and tears. (That's just me, don't fucking judge me.) Also, I really hate that we have to wait a week between episodes. I wish they were following Netflix’s method of dropping the entire season at once but, then again, if they did that, I’m not sure any of us would survive.

I gotta get ready for work and I deleted and rewrote so much of this and it still seems nonsensical to me, lmfao fml. Anyway feel free to interact/send me asks/whatever, it’s going to be a long fucking day with all of this on my mind. I’ll be working my way through my dash as best as I can.

Oh, also! Loki is so fucking pretty in this episode! The TVA suit is ugly, but he makes it work, and his hair's combed nicely and he looks like he finally got an opportunity to sleep and shower and eat something and, yknow, it's working for him.