#although adding commentary might be weird

[ultratradmalewife]

MY BUCKTOMMY PLAYLIST

SONG ONE: Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered by Ella Fitzgerald

COMMENTARY: I was very hesitant about adding this song to the playlist for many reasons. The episode Buck, Bothered and Bewildered is an obvious reference towards the song, but unlike the comedic story behind the episode of Buck pining for someone romantically, this song has a more somber side to its love story. Although it masquerades content romanticism in the start, the song shifts to someone realizing their worth by the end of their relationship, and leaving their partner who they’ve come to learn is unfit to commit to in a relationship. It’s a weird song to reference for the beginning of a relationship, but I believe the writers made good use of it. This song was used only as an instrumental for their first date, which is why the writers made good use of it if it’s seen from Tommy’s perspective, but as I said it’s too weird to use it early and to not even have it on the episode that it’s title references. Still, even though I debated on where to place it in the playlist, I think it makes a stellar opening track to show how well their relationship progresses through the season, and it kinda mirrors Stormy Weather, the song that plays in the Bathena reunion, by using a classic somber love song and twisting it back to love.

ABOUT THE EDIT: I didn’t really have any inspiration for making this first one. I haven’t made edits in a while and when I did it was never fandom related, but mostly for my own stories so please be gentle with me. I am but a man with a PicsArt account and a dream. Now, I originally went in with the plan of just throwing things together until I felt inspired, and sticking with an off white color pallet. In the end I ended up with this edit that quite literally looks like a crumpled napkin, and I was disappointed because no one wants to feel like a crumpled napkin, but the colors did charm me and so did the incompleteness of their figures. And then it had me thinking… isn’t Tommy crumpled napkin coded? Let me explain, usually we have paper towels on us in case of emergency or some type of wipe, and Tommy (as far as I know) is a character that was never really given much thought outside of showing the change in the 118. As much as we love him he wasn’t a character that many of us thought would come back, but like that secret paper towel that we keep in a purse or pocket, we’ll take them out when it’s convenient and not expected. Everything fell in place perfectly for his character to come back, even when the writers themselves didn’t expect it. Only instead of using this napkin to clean up a mess, they kinda made something beautiful out of it? It’s kinda like drawing on one when there’s nothing else to draw on, and surprisingly what you drew is really nice so you keep it. It might sound nonsensical, but it worked enough for me to keep this edit.

[copperbadge]

hey sam! i was just ruminating that it's a fantastic time for authors to do dvd commentaries, and other 'ask the author' memes. it's additional material and feedback all in one package! (after we explain what a dvd extra is)

I suppose I'm of two minds about it. My immediate thought was that authors have always done Q&As, but it's true that they used to be less accessible both to readers and to the authors if they weren't big names, because they required travel (and in the reader's case, knowing the author would be traveling, plus having to go out to wherever they were doing the reading). Authors still do book tours and signings for that kind of purpose, but being able to do that kind of thing online as well now makes it easier and cheaper. Although I wonder whether there's less sense of connection because it's not face-to-face. But yeah, I would imagine it's pretty great for gauging what the overall readership is interested in. Certainly in dialogue with readers when I put my books up for review, I always learn a lot.

The idea of a DVD commentary is kind of interesting because I was like "How would that work with a book, though?" and I guess you could annotate an ebook -- like, offer a version with little widgets where if you clicked them you'd get the author adding notes about the book. I've never been a fan of actual DVD commentaries -- I don't like filmed interviews because they take so fucking long to actually say anything, and with a DVD commentary you've now got the addition of "talking over the story". But I could see how if you loved a book you might like having a version where you've got extra notes.

I struggle with the idea of "additional material" somewhat. I suppose that's ironic given how much I discuss outside-of-book on this blog, but that's just....I don't know, it's answering questions, it's not like "building the canon outside of the canon", and if I think something is good enough, it always goes into the books. The whole "They speak English with a Welsh accent" thing was amusing, but then I was like "Yeah let's actually put that in the text, why should it live on Tumblr alone?"

There's so much media now where it feels like if you aren't spending every waking moment interacting with every aspect of it, you just don't get to...be a fan, in an active sense. There are podcasts I follow where if you want to do anything other than listen to the episodes, even if you just want to attend a live show or buy merchandise, you have to dedicate significant time weekly to following them on all the social media and actively read their Patreon. And I just can't. I really like that creators can put that kind of thing out there, I think overall that's to the good, but it feels like something I'm blocked from participating in.

So, I keep all my shit here. I've had it suggested that I'd benefit as a writer from having a newsletter, which I actually agree with, and it seems like it could be entertaining to do. But I get caught up in this dichotomy of "Well, won't people be mad that they have to go subscribe to this thing instead of just reading my tumblr?" and/or "Won't subscribers be aware they can just find all this on my tumblr?" and I get real in my head about it. Because I'd struggle with having to go two separate places for stuff like that.

Uh, to circle back to your actual ask, however, because all that was just like...IDK, weird anxiety digression, I do think it's a great era for extra-canonical material, and while it does mean creators have to be much better at boundary-setting than they used to be, I like that they can adjust their level of interaction as they see fit.

Oh and uh. It's felt awkward to actually talk about it, but if you guys do want more material I do have a sideblog, @shivadh, which is where I stash everything I want to make note of for the books -- research, imagery, stuff I've talked about here that hasn't got a place to go in googledocs yet, that kind of thing. It's not extra material per se, it's just me shoving shit into a filing cabinet, and I don't do image IDs like I do here because it's more for me, plus I do delete posts once I've made use of them. But folks are welcome to follow if they want to.

[inventors-fair]

Sayo-Naya: Alara Design Commentary

Maybe it's time I devour something today. Maybe there have just been a lot of cards. Something I've noticed for this contest: there was a lot of swinging for the fences, but in a mad scientist way. I guess the question becomes: do we need that?

As evidenced by the winners, the answer is definitively no. Things don't need to be massive—they need to be precise. Stories don't have to be epics—they have to earn their flavor. There are nuances I wish I could explain better and ideas I wish I could express in a manner that makes sense. Here we are, though, on the tail end of my coffee and on hour one zillion of this slow cooker recipe.

Cards, right, Alara. I still want to go back there. Some worlds we just won't be going back to, not in Magic's lifetime. I wonder what the conflicts will be then. Innistrad is one of those where the last couple sets were received slightly less popularly than the first time—what if other worlds eclipse them, and the next time we go there will be after everyone's forgotten about the horror? What's a new world with nobody but characters to live in it? Alara is full of my characters. I ran people over with beasts. I cascaded into colored equipment. I drew and milled until the soul was sufficiently un-eternalized. How eternal, then, is the soul of a world that exists in a collective imagination. But that's not a fair question; memory is only as much a measure of truth as humanity is a measure of Earth, which is to say, not at all. Is creation a measure of humanity? What's up with measurements in the first place?

Card design, right. Card games. Cards. Here we are again. I do eventually want to go back here, but it'll never be the same, and that's okay. Can't cross the same behemoths twice. If that's a lesson learned, it wasn't learned by me. I think, for now, I would encourage people to explore the energy of the small. Roles of cards are just as important as bombastic iterations. Don't be afraid that your polish isn't worth it.

@bergdg — Etherium Deathcruiser

This card certainly plays well. Like, it's a big black vehicle with a strong unearth ability. I think adding the "creature" to the entry from the graveyard is pretty cool, although I think "this turn" might be necessary there. If you were to just reanimate it, there would be some memory issues down the line with how that'd be tracked, right? And if it's usually going to be going away via the unearth clause, it would make more sense for it to only last for one turn, IMO. Still, it's a beating body that clearly wants to be part of both the Esper-fueled artifact world and the Grixis demon cult-scape.

When that happens, the identities don't feel watered down, but they're...contested. I'm trying to imagine some other kind of art, because honestly, what we have for the Tennis concept art here is just overtly silly to me and doesn't resonate with either Esper or Grixis—so the problem becomes, what would Esper have to do with demons, and what would Grixis have to do with building vehicles? What IS a 'Deathcruiser?' Maybe this is one of those cards that would make less sense by itself and be more of a one-off weird addition, but I don't feel the strength of either shard being represented here. As a Horizons-y card I can potentially imagine this being a speculative vehicle. For a standard release and a callback perspective, it doesn't strike resonance.

@curiooftheheart — Nefarox's Damned

Ey, there's a callback. I guess the demon cults are still going strong, and I'm totally okay with that. I think that this is a totally fine utility card for the demon in question, considering that he's all about sacrifice. As much as I'd like to wax on the flavor, I think the speculative nature of Grixis is going to be more interesting here, and it IS Grixis, we can name that for sure, even though I have a inkling that this would work just fine for whatever Jund deck ends up wanting it, all things considered. A more sacrifice-centric Grixis shard archetype would be perfectly reasonable, I think. Mechanically, hey, we don't need to know that yet, but something could come from it.

I thought something was weird about the wording, and I honestly can't find precedent for what you have here, but I think that World Queller is going to be of use. It just has folks choose permanent types, so this card could be worded: "When ~ enters the battlefield, choose two different card types. For each type chosen this way, each player sacrifices a permanent of that type, then each opponent who didn't sacrifice a permanent of that type discards a card." That's not perfect, but it's a draft of the idea of what I'd suggest for wording. What I also like is that you can choose types that nobody has, and then your opponents will just discard two cards. Honestly, that's pretty neat, and I didn't consider that until typing just now. Still pretty cool overall!

@deg99 — Rafiq, Sigiled Paragon (JUDGE PICK)

That's a pretty great name. And a pretty great ability! There's no way to make it, like, easier to grok under the rules, but I do think that the buff is a little odd for "each instance of exalted." I'd honestly rather it just get a buff equal to the other attacker's power, worded like "+X/+X until end of turn, where X is the greatest power among other attacking creatures you control." Or something. It's...slightly less mechanically cumbersome to me but also nothing that needs fixing because I gotta say, this is a remarkably clever card. Genuinely makes me excited to see the Bant shell here in the archetype.

I guess that I want to extrapolate on the flavor? Like, this card's already an awesome design, but where are we now in Bant, is the other question. Rafiq's alive, he's doing well, ish. I'm calling to mind Angelic Benediction, and I think that that's kind of his schtick. Friendship is magic meets paladin nonsense. I wonder what's changed about Bant to make him feel this way, who he's talking to, what he's expressing, because yeah, nobody's alone, but the Shards are converging, and being alone means watching the world you once knew falling into chaos. What's it mean to be lonely then? Or to force yourself to not be lonely? Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it's got new context now, that expression. Poor guy.

@dimestoretajic — Tale of the Maelstrom / Nicol Bolas, Victorious

I think it's been repeated a few times, but the first saga's cascade-without-casting was a bit of a whoopsie there. Even if it wasn't, cascading into a 1-2-3 drop isn't that exciting for the amount of mana being put into this card. As for Bolas, I am going to start with the mechanics, because I almost launched into a diatribe. The plus is interesting, sure, but not the most powerful, and the minus only being able to make a body after a turn is a pain. What've you been doing for those turns after investing this much mana into casting small spells? If you're alive by that point, your opponent is, in limited at least, running a horrendously suboptimal deck. And if they haven't prepared for Bolas, that's another story, too.

Preparing for Bolas also means seeing what he's up to, and I am absolutely going to contest Bolas' five-color identity. Some five-color legends are prismatically inclined through natural creation. Some are masters of unity and cooperation. Some are older than the world itself. Bolas is as much a natural-born rainbow as Magic cards are edible. What's this story telling of? How is it spinning into a manifestation of a non-canon Bolas like this? I don't understand, after over a decade, how this would be recontextualized. Where the Alaran feeling comes into play, the effect is underpowered, and where the modernization is, I'm simply lost as to the intent of it. Perhaps this is meant to convey the new arc, Bolas coming out of the realm, or an alternate history. Whatever the argumentation is, the presentation lacks the necessary clarity and cohesion to feel Alaran to me.

@guymcperson144 — The Jundland Wastes

Did you research this name? Apparently, it's a location in Star Wars. Huh. So, this card is still not too bad, but whether or not it does much is... I don't know, I just don't feel that the card itself has much to talk about. It's a purely colorless land most of the time and that's the facts. If you've sacrificed a permanent, would you first want to have the resources in the right colors to cast the spell or activate the ability that would allow for a smooth sacrificial game plan to be made? i.e. how does this card compare to a basic land that would give you the right color without a restriction?

I guess this card's art description is pretty great. I'm absolutely baffled as to why you chose to put it in the place where the flavor text would be instead of putting in—well, flavor text. Maybe this is just a 'me' thing at this point. I want all the cards to be as polished as they can be: art description to compliment, flavor if it fits, wording as solid as it can be, resonant name. What flavor could've been there? What additive aspects could add to this card's flavor? Burnt goblin is the name of the game, I suppose. In all seriousness, I'm left uncertain at a lot of these choices, and there's not much I can say aside from that.

@helloijustreadyourpost — Grim Soultaker (JUDGE PICK)

Okay, so, I just—I'm gonna write this down after, I will remember, I swear. SO. This card! It's pretty good by itself. I'm curious about, like, the wings growing out of the corpse? Honestly I didn't think that the fleshtakers of Grixis would shape their corpses with much artistry out there in the wastes until later. Or maybe that's just a result of Grixian misshappenness and strange mutations happening out there in the void. The point is: this card's a great removal spell and/or flying horror maker and I enjoy it immensely. But. Harvest is pretty weak as a start. It did give me an idea, though, or at least it does.

Imagine it said "harvest a creature card." And if harvest read "To harvest, exile a card from a graveyard. When this permanent leaves the battlefield, put each card harvested with it into its owner's graveyard." It's completely different, ish, but it's a unique flavor resource with weird possibilities and allows for cards to be harvested after their energy has been re-used. There's the possibility of it being abused, too, and there might be issues, but in limited... I'm getting ahead of myself and getting into exploratory design space myself. The point is that I want harvest to be a little more interesting. Something simple like Bargain or whatever makes you want to build your deck around specific ideas. Harvest isn't quite there for me yet, even if this card's pretty great. I love ogres, bby.

@horsecrash — Aspirant Assistant

I want this to be an ability word so bad; Like, "Etherswear—2W/B: If ~ isn't an artifact..." etc. Right now, as a keyword, it really, really doesn't need to be a keyword worded like that. As an ability word, it's sexy as anything, and I know it would be nice to have a keyword searchable with all that nonsense, but. Interestingly enough, I'm not sure how to feel about this now that I'm picking it apart like a clockwork corpse! I want to love it but I have to wonder how the gameplay would be if you're looking to make an artifact deck but all of your "artifact" creatures get removed before they can become artifacts.

Flavorfully, this captures a unique feeling that gives the individual non-Etherium-infused citizens of Esper a calling of their own. This was touched upon in the winners, but you know what, is that what Esper...is? On somewhere like Kaladesh, I can imagine that being the goal. From the perspective of an individual's story, becomes Etherium'd would be quite interesting. Gameplay-wise, we're still in a weird removal space of mana and resources, but I guess this... Hm. This is almost monstrosity, but for artifacts. Honestly I'm fine with that, especially with ability counters. Where does that leave us, though? Where does that leave me? I think I'm willing to work with it in a story but not as a deckbuilding piece. Esper is about a precise world, the pieces that come together from the sculpted minds and underground rogues of a shining world. To become that tugs at modern heartstrings; me, I'm not quite as moved. As a designer I'm willing to get on board with a little bit of give-and-take.

@lanabutnotdelray — Etherium Armorer

I'm genuinely surprised to see how many new mechanics people made for this set and how many Esper cards got made, too. I'll do a tally afterwards. Anyway. This card's one of those that's great in a shell but I'm once again lacking the context for it. Investigating as an armorer? Why? What's it looking for? As a deciduous mechanic, sure I get it; even Scrap would make sense, though, at least in my opinion. Incorporation is interesting, I suppose? I'm not quite in the get-it stages. You want to have artifacts, sure, you want to sacrifice them, and there'll be both sacrificial artifacts on the UB side for Grixis, and on the white side, there are other cards too. Maybe. Dunno; like I said, not quite getting it yet.

What would incorporate look like on other cards, then? Would it be like conniving, where you can let other creatures do it, stack it, whatever? If so, how could this card be more powerful—perhaps by allowing it to affect any attacking artifact creature? I think what this card is lacking is context and precision. Precision, I mean, is the exact way that this card takes the best aspects of its mechanics and flavor and... Well, and incorporates them. Art direction, flavor text, some notion of what this card's doing in the world, I don't know. My own imagination regarding those kinds of notions are limited by what's given to me. I do get that this guy incorporates by putting artifact metal on their body. Why is that now what Esper does? Are they gearing up for something? Okay, soldier subtype—Esper's never had soldiers before. I'm intrigued, but not to the point where I feel comfortable saying what I know and don't know. Maybe I don't know anything. Wouldn't be the first time.

@little-red-rabbit — Obsidian the Forge Maw

Okay, let me see if I got the intended wording right for the idea you'd like to convey: "Whenever Obsidian, the Forge Maw attacks, you may remove a +1/+1 counter from it and exile target nonland permanent card from your graveyard. Create a token that's a copy of that card if its mana value is less than or equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on Obsidian." Whew. What a mouthful. But what a strangely neat card as well. Flying and devour are both excellent additions here, and I think that in an Alara set, this card could be a strong Jundian signpost legend as well as a cool commander.

The name and moniker aren't as Jund-feeling to me as I feel from other dragons, but that's my opinion based on the naming conventions associated with Jund's colors. The ability to copy permanents from your graveyard is cool, but that too isn't catching the Alaran styling to me. Jund cares less about reusing what it's already used up and more about how to turn that into other forms of life. What I like mechanically is, well, everything about the intent. You devour cards, you reanimate them kind of, and that's the resource cycle. It's neat! Is it Alara-themed? I'm not quite feeling this guy there. Lastly, I'm curious if you intended for this card to be a 0/0 instead of keeping it with some base P/T so that it could die and be a resource later, or if that was unintentional.

@nine-effing-hells — The Filigree Texts

You know, it took me a second to actually look up what the Filigree Texts were about. Did I know before? It's, uh, been a little while, I'll admit. All the same: while the Phyrexian Scriptures were a book themselves and the Phyrexians executed them according to their beliefs, the texts were still... Well, they were there, they were written in, they were a doctrine that could be followed. The Filigree Texts are literally blank—and what can come of those? Even the brilliant ultimatum of discovery was more about Tezzeret's spark than it was about the texts themselves. Does belief equal action in the same sphere? Can it? Does the secrecy of the texts make that more or less sensible?

I'm in the camp that this card is trying to emulate the Phyrexian Scriptures and I'm not exactly thrilled. The fourth chapter is cool for the card draw, but this is emulation that's too close a reference to stand on its own. Either there's intense subversion of the texts themselves happening here, or the reference wasn't as thoroughly researched as it could've been. I was the same way for a little bit, honestly, but regardless, we have that on our hands, and now there are sagas on Alara. Which is fine here in the context of texts. Guess I'm just still iffy on how much the execution can be said to be...well, how it can be different. Artifact sagas, awesome, cool, neat. Is this new? Is this supposed to represent something new about a return to Alara? I'm just not sure what the intent is compared to where we're already at post ARB and MOM.

@reaperfromtheabyss — Exuberant Mightwaker

Naya, how I love thee! Big Naya stuff has always been a favorite of mine. I think that this first ability here is definitely the coolest. It's not a buff in the same way as other buffs, and maybe the fact that it could be activated at instant speed is pretty nasty, but we don't need to worry about that until playtesting. Or until after blocks. Narsty. I can see that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in terms of getting back to Naya's roots. There's not a whole lot that can be done with, like, giant creatures and whatever, not in the same way as other mechanically direct causes. Maybe we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

We do have to do SOMEthing to the wheel, though, because otherwise, that's how we get stuck in ruts. The rut we have here is the rut of caring about creatures with power 5 or greater that aren't on the battlefield or whatever. That's the thing about this mechanic: it wasn't...great. Or at least, from what I can tell, it wasn't supremely popular to see as it stood, and having the core of this card rely on that property of cards not on the battlefield having power 5 or greater feels odd to me. What are you supposed to do once those creatures hit the battlefield, unless you've used them with a weird mediocre cards that has you reveal creatures for bonuses—you get the picture. If I'm getting where this card wants to go mechanically, I don't futz with it for both mechanical reasons of not being crazy useful and nostalgia reasons of not being that far off from where we started.

@snugz — Sangrite Scavenger

'Spared no expense.' Man, that's just... I dunno, there weren't a zillion entries this week, but maybe I'm just losing my mojo early, because I'm stuck on that detail. Am I really? No, I'm just curious about the economy of Alara now and what's happening here. What IS happening here. Did this guy... Are they a mercenary? They might as well be, I dunno. I'm still not certain, actually, but let's put that aside for the moment. The card is still pretty good, but I don't know about whether or not Consume is doing anything for me right now. Sacrificial convoke is pretty great in concept but I don't like how it groks. Or, like, do I? It might just be kinda weird to have on the battlefield. Sacrifice three hybrid creatures, free Sangrite Scavenger. That's not so bad. It can be powerful, and on the right card that amount of sacrifice can be intense, but all the same.

I guess this card has a lot of parts that aren't coming together yet for me. The things that I get and the things that you explained in the notes are all reasonable, but emotionally, what I'm feeling is less about excitement to go back to Alara and more about trying to puzzle out how I'm supposed to be feeling about the relationship between Esper and Jund. Whatever that feeling is, I'm feeling more wishy-washy about it than other cards. Maybe I just have high standards for nostalgia, and yeesh, that's the first symptom of being a critic. Don't like that. But regardless, Consume could be better than I'm giving it credit for, and free (ish) spells are still good even when the wording can be a little odd.

@wolkemesser — Jund Diplomacy

What. Alright. Sure. I've got nothing to lose here. Rest assured: this card won't be part of the table anytime soon and not just because of the five-color identity. Once this lands, you're almost guaranteed to have an opponent who's running the blue-white-X version of whatever in your pod, and that means your opponents will be able to have an army of unblockable creatures as a mana sink. Is that what you really want to see? I would argue absolutely not, because an army of Goblin Advisors is usually bad for my health. Not that I listen to my doctor anyway, and not that my doctor is a dragon.

Look: Jund does not have diplomacy. I can't believe that this shard would have a dragon come around and say that yes, this is what I'm after, the ability to show what our world has to offer and look for agreeable political positions. No, this is a world of dragons and chaos. Is this name meant to be ironic? If so, I'm not...there, I don't want to be there. I want to eat things and be angry and whatever. The minor wording notes about this card aren't really relevant here, but I can go over them later. It's capitalization I've been over before, mostly. What's the Jundian feel here? Food's returned. What does that matter when EVERYTHING. IS. FOOD. on Jund. Not to be dramatic, I don't wanna be angry about that, it's just the nature of the beast. The counters are a cool callback. I'unno. I'm just kind of dealing with this card as a wall of objects and less of a return-themed card. The energy of the small is important. This card's too big for me. A cake being rammed down the throat of my prized sparrow.

I'm gonna collapse. Love you all! @abelzumi

[risu5waffles]

Ope means TEN in the Midwest

It does not, but it's 4.30 in the morning here, so cut me some slack.

We talked about this one last week, but it's still pretty nifty now, so that's good.

These two are in sequence, wiv a promised third that unfortunately never materialized; but Welcome feels a lot more like a proof of concept, where Heart is the real shebang. i'd played Heart way back in the way back, and, like many things that struck me hard and i fell in love wiv, i came back to play it many, many times while never actually digging into the rest of Trindall's levels. i guess that worked out, since we could play Lightbringer completely fresh for the review show, but it is a little embarrassing all the same. At any rate, the idea of having the whole level rotate, and parts playing different depending on the current angle of rotation, is so cool, and i don't think i've seen anyone else really go to that well again. The fact that this was all done in LBP1 makes it all the more impressive. It would be years from first playing that i'd actually get to the secret dev room, and let me tell you socks were knocked off. One of the nice side effects of the lack of actual logic tools in LBP1 is everything has to exist somewhere visible in the level, so you could actually show the moving parts. The moving parts here, although i know there are levels wiv more complex set-ups, are really quite impressive.

Ehhhh... i don't know what so impressed me about this level when i played it back for the old review show that i would have given it a Green Circle when at best it's a mid-tier Yellow Square. i mean, the crabs are definitely cute, i don't want to take that away from it, but the level is, ultimately, just ok.

This is a cute little one, if maybe a bit chonkier than it really ought to be to hold interest playing by yourself. i kind of feel like the flat light blue background doesn't really serve it well, given the poppier presentation in the build and objects; tho' i'm not entirely sure if any of the backgrounds available when it was made would have been a better fit. i don't know, it just feels like it's floating in space a bit. i did really like the creator showing up periodically through the level to give commentary, tho'; that was really cute.

i think you can actually see the point where i realized if i had it on infinite checkpoint, i was never actually going to be able to get to the scoreboard. Ope. Otherwise, this is just your deeply average bomb survival level. At least it wasn't 9/11 themed.

i really, really wound up liking this one. There's so much mechanical motion going on, and that always trips my trigger. This is one where i feel like the limitations imposed by LBP1 really help, because i could see the idea getting really over-elaborate wiv the movement tools added in LBP2. And it looks so clean. A lot of LBP1 levels, they have a certain kludginess to them that you learn to overlook, and sometimes that lack of polish can be its own charm point, but Tony's levels have a certain crispness to them that really makes them stand out. One weird thing, when i came to play this one, i'd had a heart on it already, but no mark that we'd even touched it once, like no silver SackThing that'd indicate we'd played, but not completed? i think it might have been on a stream where the servers were being particularly wonky, because i remember feeling like i'd given it a go and recently.

We talked about this one Friday. It's still a lot.

In Trindall's Heart of the Flip-Side dev room, they talked about being inspired by one of tony2k7's levels, but there was just this and a Tetris one up on their moon, and... actually, now that i think of it, they were both pubbed after Flip-side, so the inspiration couldn't have come from here. Maybe there's some level tony2k7 took down and never repubbed. If so, it's lost now, unless they ever come back to it. That's a big reason why i wanted to do this series in the first place. This level here is fine. It's definitely fine.

This one's alright, i guess. The gear vehicles were kind of cool, and it was funny you could walk behind the level right to the scoreboard. it's just a deeply ugly level that's a little more difficult to traverse than it needs to be for what it's doing. Plus, there are numerous places you can softlock the level if things don't fall right, or get blown up in an unexpected way, and that's never great, especially if you've already devoted a chunk of time to it. The grabbable rocket section was cute, tho' the way the player sensor fades into the steel material of the back wall makes it really hard to tell what you're supposed to be doing to get it to work. Eh... the level's fine. Not the worst i've played of the genre. No collector, tho'; that's a definite disappointment.

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

So, that's our TEN. Some real good ones in there, a couple that are ok. Nothing that's really awful, and that's always nice. i got to hustle my buns now; it's Tuesday, and i am, unfortunately, contractually obligated to do a Capitalism if i want to keep these plush digs.

[kittytiddycommittee]

Attempting libido reboot guy here (I need a better name than that lmao)

You’re right that it’s a pretty tall order, I only made it three days, so now i’m gonna try for 5 weeks even, maybe, maybe not. That said, I’ve cum once this week, which is the lowest rate in a long time, and I do feel some benefits.

My confidence that this is at least semi-achievable comes from the fact that I inadvertently did it already a few years ago, by moving for a summer to a place with no internet or cell service. I was weird and cranky for about a week to ten days, then suddenly I was having vivid sex dreams, waking up with perfect erections, etc, it was great. I actually was able to get hard easily with a woman, although I couldn’t perform well due to anxiety about whether or not I was really better, and it kinda sent me spiraling again.

I think I had an excessively all-or-nothing approach to “resetting”. I’d get bored, pull up porn, realize that broke my perfect streak, watch a bunch, repeat after a day or two. This time I’m trying to just turn it off ASAP, and more slowly train myself to address boredom through alternate means. I have a history of perfectionism and associated anxiety and despondency, so hopefully the progression approach will be more sustainable than perfection.

anyway, it’s going ok so far, I’ve also been working on some pelvic floor relaxation type exercises, adding some supplements that should help with anxiety, and so forth. One other advantage I have is that I don’t really feel sexually denied as much as I feel bored, I don’t think this would be nearly as workable a challenge with a healthy libido. I am starting to feel more sexually aware, definitely noticing pretty women I meet in a slightly more charged way. Don’t worry, I’m not being weird about it, it’s just nice to have that awareness of, like, “wow, the way that dress clings and flows around her hips is something, huh” makes me feel like a man “should feel”. When I ever actually end up in bed with a woman again, I don’t want her to doubt that I’m hungry for her. It’s been years, but I still feel crummy about how I used to sometimes go soft with my ex.

As an aside, I’m not exactly sure what my sexual vibe is, more of a service top than anything, but idk if that’s a thing for straight people lol. Parts of femdom aren’t really my speed, as I don’t see myself in some of the standard subby guy cliches. Mainstream “capital D” dom vibes are often really awkward or corny to me though, so I don’t see exactly know where I fit in.

hope you have a great weekend!

It's entirely possible that it's not just porn/jerking off that's caused the issues you were experiencing. In my own experience, there's often a mental/emotional component to it as well. We as a society really need to chill about ED and stop seeing it as a direct commentary on how our partners feel about us. It'd help too if we didn't view PIV as the default sexual activity for couples with the necessary anatomy. I myself am pretty ambivalent about bottoming, so my only concern would be ensuring that my partner has a good time regardless of whether they can get hard.

I don't know you or your circumstances, of course, so I'm really in no position to comment on your situation, but it might be worth considering while you've got the free time. I just hate to see people be so hard on themselves about it.

[lifewithoutmeds]

august 13, 2023

sunday, august 13, 9:34 a.m.

it's been a relatively good week, that is, significantly better than i'd been feeling for some months. i was very productive all week, definitely more productive than i'd been in the last several weeks, but also just probably as productive or more productive than i'd ever been. i worked through some lunches and usually stayed a bit after to wrap up things and make sure things were getting completed. i was very on top of it. wednesday at work i barely had a chance to breathe, much less take my two break/walks, but i did get a lunch break where i had my favorite indian curry/rice lunch.

so yhea, nothing particularly eventful monday - friday. just worked, and as soon as work would be done i'd go lay down and stare at my phone. friday after work i was pretty bored and in need of something different, so i met up with lorena at tony's and we went to pizzanista, had a big slice of delicious pepperoni pizza, then to tony's for a couple beers and some ping pong, which was pretty fun. then we went our separate ways, but it was nice seeing her, and definitely nice just getting out. it felt good to sort of reward myself for a week's worth of productivity and staying at home and not spending money, etc.

saturday i didn't too much. had some coffee, looked at a lease for like 30 minutes, then met up my mom at 1pm to go look at a few open houses, condos nearby, none of which were fantastic, then we went to Bravo Cafe and got some kebab lunch plates which were quite good. she seemed glad to see me and seemed like she was having a good time and was grateful that i'd gone to see the condos with her. i guess she feels like she is seen and treated a bit differently, like we look more like serious buyers together but she gets treated like she just kind of wandered off the street and popped in.

at 6 i met up with grace to walk the rose bowl for the first time in YEARS. it was really great to be back there, like old times, and just walking and talking and working up a sweat. afterward we went to a local home state in pasadena where she got a few tacos and some tequila, while i was nursing a stomachache so just stuck to tequila-based drinks and an arnold palmer. again, it was nice hanging out, and just sharing our updates on life and feelings, etc. i went home feeling very satisfied.

today i got up around 6:30/7 and finally got off my stupid phone and went for a 47 minute walk while listening to The Read and caught myself kinda smiling a few times during their commentary. i then came home and took a FULL SHOWER, including the washing of my hair which i had neglected for possibly an entire week. i did take a quick rinse maybe yesterday or the day before but i hadn't been washing my hair, so today was a bit of a big deal.

today i'm meeting up with amy after she's done with church, about noonish, and we're supposed to go walking at this somewhat shady nature walk near JPL that i'd been to a few times before. then possibly eating, although if we finish walking around 2, i don't know what that would make it. a very early dinner? a late lunch? the tail end of brunch? i guess it doesn't matter particularly, but i have to sort of time if i have any breakfast so i don't get another stomachache from eating too much too soon.

i'm genuinely surprised at how much better i'm feeling this week than i have in weeks prior. it's genuinely shocking. today, one week ago, i was in bed, unable to move, just staring at my phone, reading weird true-crime stories off of facebook, and taking a total of 300 steps or so the entire day. i've already walked over 5,000 steps today and will definitely be adding at least 5,000 more after my walk today with amy. i feel like cleaning and sorting out my living environment. i fried some fish a few days ago and it still faintly smells like fish and it would be nice to get rid of that smell. mental health is a bizarre thing. i was completely convinced that i might never ever feel better, that i'd just feel like dying until the day i died, but i'm feeling just these gentle stirrings of .... life almost? i still don't really want to do anything, still can't think of things i'd actually like to do or have any real hopes or dreams or aspirations, but i feel okay about living today, which is HUUUUGE.

anyway, must remember that i can feel this way. that this is possible. this is again, just such a departure from how i was feeling even just one week ago. i can't believe a change could be this dramatic in such a short period.

hoping i can ride this bout of hopefulness for some time.

[inappropriatemetalfilth]

Thank you so much for the tag @hellofeanor ! I´m intrigued, mystified and slightly, somewhat a bit spooked by the “Christmas Spider” ....

I´m replying on this sideblog & I´m going to bend the rules a bit and not post the full list of the WIP files, cause that´s just too much (unfortunately, I´m really trying to not start something rn without finishing something first) and keep it at seven as well.  1. “The sun shining, a warg eating and seeds not sprouting” 2. “Brimstone and Crystal“  3. “Sed lingua gulosis“  4. “The Solution of the Rat Idea“  5. “All you do is take“  6. “A nice hot bath and a glass of wine“  7. “FIC PennGuin“ 8. ......  Tagging (of course only if you want to): @greydawnrising , @miithriin  @baddybaddyadardaddy @the-winnowing-wind @vanasartis  and YOU, if you are reading this and want to share your WIPs! (I never know who to bother and not bother ^^°)   EDIT: Idk after the weird reblog thing yesterday tumblr keeps being wonky today with the asks and I´m at the end of my wits and patience trying to get a reply working soo I´m adding this here:

@niennawept Thank you so much for sending an ask! =)  “A nice hot bath and a glass of wine“ happened after that bullshit scene in the Loki series, where Loki gets kneed in the crotch by a TVA loop Sif for lolz & some odd misguided characterization;  Naturally in the fic, Loki had a “new k!nk unlocked” moment when that happened for real the first time and afterwards he took a bath for some introspection & [redacted] and that´s what he´s thinking about while stuck in the TVA loop to cope. (I´m afraid it got too convoluted although I had already cut down a lot, but perhaps that´s just what it is :D) I had wanted to have the follow up “A nice hot apocalypse and a glass of time“ with LokiXMobius ready before I post but then some other thing sidetracked the whole endeavor and it got stuck in draft limbo, annoyingly 

@hellofeanor A big thank you for your ask as well! =)  (Did you post some commentary on the "Christmas Spider" somewhere, did I miss that) “Brimstone and Crystal” is the obscure niche one, and Anton Lesser (Qyburn in GoT; The Crown, Endeavour; Star Wars: Andor) is to blame for it, he shows up as a town reverend in one episode of “Midsomer Murders” and is “a bit of a hellfire and damnation guy” [Brimstone] who is naturally at odds with the “flamboyant psychic Cyrus LeVanu” [Crystal] that arrives in town for some exorcism. Of course in the fic they are a ship, there´s two types of (religious) guilt and I guess (in)directly an answer to just why the Reverend is so awful to his wife (without even really noticing). I looked up 18 century sermons for that one and had a blast doing it, but it´s a swiss cheese kind of draft, and while it does still spark joy for me (like just having these two characters interact is a field trip, they are priceless on screen too), I fear the work I´d need to fill in the holes and I think I want to prioritize the other drafts that spark joy AND might have at least one other person as possible audience 

EDIT: Adding a link to this wonderful (ns.fw) snippet here this WIP thing is really making it obvious that there´s a lot of gems hiding in drafts and it´s cool that some of them get unearthed; also reading drafts with yet to be written gaps makes it feel a bit like reading an ancient work of art, that only survived in fragments, which is a cool vibe, I kinda do enjoy that :D

EDIT: more interesting WIPS

WIP game

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

I was tagged by @niennawept and @irisseireth and this is going to be a TRIAL because... I do not have a WIP folder. I have a writing folder, and everything both complete and in-progress is jumbled in there like one big dystopian society. So let me try to pick out the stragglers.

Adar

Christmas Spider

Distance 3

Loki from HR

Memory of Ice

Pepper already had the beginnings of a headache

Sep 16

Gonna tag uhhhhh @abner-krill, @teadrunktailor, @securitybreach, @avi17, @3hobbitsinatrenchcoat, @inappropriateheadquarters, @moriondors

[greenwaterskeeter]

i finally have a coherent personal narrative, and here it is. It’s quite long, but i think of some interest, and might be encouraging!

-Mentions of suicidal ideation, emotional and financial abuse, emotional incest, fatphobia, misogyny, capitalism. Whatever the qpr equivalent of romance is. Ends happily-

I felt for a long time that i should have died when i was 20. Not in the sense that i deserved to, but in the sense that by then i’d accomplished as much as i ever would and was therefore obsolete– taking up resources unnecessarily.

When i was 13, i felt forced to choose between my parents. My bus driver/karate teacher, a kind person who i very much admired, advised me to flip a coin and then, if i didn’t like the result, pick the other. I chose my mother and (privately) pledged absolute loyalty to her (I was obsessed with LOTR at the time and felt that it was the purpose of my life to be a Sam for somebody).

While she was single and struggling to keep the farm and raise my brother (a toddler then), that devotion was used and rewarded. There were times i thought with satisfaction that i might as well be her husband, as well as a parent to my beloved brother. I was proud. I felt righteous. The joy of supporting and protecting her was real. The intermittent anguish of being a minor who could legally only do so much to help was also real. (I believed in laws then).

When I was 17, she remarried (a perfectly nice, wealthy man, as devoted as me and much more powerful) and i went to college. I slowly imploded across all four years, though I didn’t realize that until nearly the end. I think now it was because nothing i could offer her was needed anymore. Every time she treated me like a child instead of the valued partner i had been, i was crushed. Emasculated. i began to feel positively Tortured without understanding why. It sounds like a villain’s origin story, doesn’t it?

When it started affecting my performance, i could only think the trouble was that i was pining for a married professor, as you do. I had fallen in love with him, and made myself his best student (and then his TA, and then began to feel gross about it, quit, and started avoiding where i knew he’d be, all without telling anyone). Once my decline became known and answers were demanded, this was all i could offer in explanation.

I didn’t blame anyone consciously then, but i think now i felt betrayed by how my friends and family reacted. They all thought i must have seduced him (or vice versa if they were generous) to be so torn up. It was too foolish to become suicidal over a crush. They didn’t believe me, or accused me of grandiosity, when i said the professor didn’t even know how i felt. I have always struggled to keep in touch with people, and once my oldest friends gave me the Adultery is Bad talk, it was hard to keep trying.

Everyone did their best and we were all very young. I didn’t understand any more than they did. But still, i can acknowledge now what it would have meant to have just one person who believed in me regardless of understanding. On a deeply hidden level, i felt that my mother, at least, owed me that, after years of faithful service.

But horribly, once it became clear my suicidality was almost entirely passive, she turned on me. She was very frightened. I guess she had also been thanking her lucky stars all that time that i wasn’t turning out like my dad, but here i revealed myself at last to be a freeloader, just like him. I was supposed to go to medical school. I had been the pride of the extended family, the eldest and purest of my generation, a marvel of the local intelligentsia, and i wound up dragging myself back home inept, directionless, cringing, the same as so many unfortunate young cousins and neighbors who’d used to have me pointed out to them as an example. Who would my brothers look up to now?

I endured living at home for a few years. My mom couldn’t keep up the punishment constantly, so although there was no telling when she would start in on me again, or whether she might finally go through with evicting me, there were beautiful things too.

I worked for her husband’s business for no pay, which i understand now was abusive, but i have always enjoyed working with my hands, and when they left me to it, it felt like the old days, like i had a use, even if it was now peripheral. My brothers weren’t sure what to do with me, but we still had fun when we could. The animals comforted me, and it’s special to be able to give affection and gentleness to a creature who depends on you. The woods and mists and early mornings and silent moonlights were still beautiful, and gradually i could appreciate them again. When i was with people, i felt my disgrace abjectly. But on the farm there were many chores to be done alone.

The more i recovered, the more trapped i felt. I even, very alarmingly, spent about two hours one afternoon silently consumed with resentful feelings towards my mother (this hadn’t happened since i was 10). I began to be afraid of losing control and doing something desperate (I totaled two different trucks during this time, on roads i knew well, for no apparent reason). I had given up my spot at a medical school i would not get into twice, and the obvious escape was to reapply elsewhere. I attempted this, and sabotaged it, multiple times.

I got a job at a nursing home, which was hard on my back but full of wonderful people, and was forced to quit when it made me late to my shift at my stepfather’s business too many times. By this i understood that a local job was not getting me out of there. I asked for money to get an EMT certification and was refused. I applied to many online jobs, none of which i had enough time to make money from. I called up one or two branches of the military, and was rejected for being too fat, thank God. I applied to medical school again, and managed to not sabotage it enough that i was accepted into a master’s program instead. It was across the state, five hundred miles away.

And still it might have come to nothing, as i had no conscious plans, actually, of staying away once i was done with this master’s program. The expected thing would be to go on to medical school, but i was only anticipating the first day of being free and couldn’t imagine anything more than a week in the future. I looked at the amount of debt i was taking on for this, knowing in my heart that i would not get a job that could pay it back, and was only relieved that they hadn’t caught onto me and i could still get loans.

There are a lot of things in my story that aren’t what they say is healthy or proper. I shouldn’t have romanticized my own parentification, i should not have had feelings for a 50 year old man, i should have kept trying with my friends, who have good hearts and only made one mistake before i ghosted them, i should have kept telling the truth, i shouldn’t have taken moral injury from things that weren’t my fault, i should have been properly angry with my mother at some point, i should not be grateful that my tendency is to harm myself rather than others.

One person alone should not have been able to save me.

In the second month of my year away, i was in a study group with my roommates and some of their acquaintances, and i laughingly shared some anecdote or other that i thought was harmless. I don’t remember whether anyone else laughed, but one person said: “That sounds kind of fucked up.”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. “Eh, well.”

Nothing more was made of it, and we went on studying. Later, this same person saw me sitting in the cafeteria alone and came to sit with me. We met to study again, just us two, and they showed me a video about white tears and watched me closely for my reaction. We compared ideals and found them the same. We came up with a project to collectivize flashcard-making for our class and had to meet frequently to carry it out. “We’re colleagues,” my new friend said, firmly, when people asked if we were together. We discovered ethical problems with the program and protested them, formally and informally. We were accused of being too insular. We talked about our families, and they said things like: “That’s not okay, you realize that, right” and “I think if more people loved the way you do, I’d have a reason to smile in the morning.” It became normal for my eyes to be sore from crying.

Neither of us got into medical school that year. We got an apartment together after graduation, and worked together too until i was fired (I was new to challenging authority and not very subtle in my distaste for our bosses). My friend’s parents wanted them to quit too, to come home while they reapplied, but they said: “Not without Autumn.” So after some negotiating, we went to live with their folks for a while…

We’ve been together for 5 years now. At first I did the same as I’d always done, but my partner made it clear they don’t want self-abnegation from me. I started trying to have boundaries, paradoxically, to make them happy. I’ve dipped into therapy as money allows. I’ve been reading and thinking and writing. Above all, I’ve been loved.

And all this time, I’ve still been deeply ashamed. I’ve spent the last ten years in some degree of emotional pain 24/7. But somehow, two weeks ago, another thing happened that shouldn’t, and i suddenly knew that i was a human being like any other.

I still feel that I should have died when I was 20, but now it’s in the sense that people say, “You shouldn’t have survived that! What a miracle!” Still existing feels like a bonus. I might live a long time from now and i might not. Either way, I’m incredibly lucky to turn my face to the world and know that i am a creature in it, like other creatures. I am well. It’s good that I’m alive.

[sirisuorionblack]

James the mother hen

James Potter x Hufflepuff!Reader

Requested - dude hi!! could you maybe do james potter x hufflepuff reader where the reader plays quidditch and gets hurt during a gryffindor v hufflepuff game and he feels really guilty about it and is really overbearing because he wants to help her feel better? or maybe just a sick day fic where james is helping her lol i’m just a sucker for mom friend worried james. thank you!!

Warning - Minor injuries

Authors Note - This is my first time writing in second POV so, sorry if its not great. Hope you like @riddikulusweasleys! 

“Hey, prongs, look who is coming,” Sirius dragged his syllables at the last word, looking at his best mate with a wide smirk on his face. 

James looked up from his single piece of toast - healthy breakfast before quidditch, he said when the rest three of them gawked at him - to Sirius, who was wiggling his eyebrows then across the great hall to spot you in your mustard quidditch robes, grinning as you walked toward him. 

Remus chuckled at his best friend whose hand immediately flew to his hair, making them even messier and adjusting his glasses, “Your drooling, mate,” 

“Well, I have every right to drool seeing she is my girlfriend,” James said cheekily, his focus slightly faltering from you towards his best friends rolling their eyes. 

“Hello, Mr Potter,” you greeted him, smirking.

“Hello, Ms (L/N),” he said, chuckling. 

“You two are weird,” Sirius muttered, looking between the two of you in disgust although his eyes held a shine.

“You're just jealous, pads,” Peter mumbled. 

“Hey!” Sirius glared at him and soon engaged in a nasty conversation that may or may not have cost the pumpkin juice. 

“You ready for the match?” you asked James, raising your eyebrows and smirking slightly.

James’ stomach suddenly churned anxiously. Now the matter is - he loved quidditch, he loved it more than anything but it was particularly hard for him to play against Hufflepuff ever since you became the captain of the quidditch team a year ago. You had always been a part of the reason why James loved quidditch, your moves and flexes made him much more drawn to you -smitten as Sirius would say- and one of the multiple reasons he finally mustered the courage to ask you out the start of the term.

You knew it, you knew how James felt playing against you, it was rather tough to play against...loved ones? Never have either of you actually muttered those three words to the other.

“Yeah,” James said, his voice cracking in between. 

You smiled softly, and winked, “Your gonna rock it,”

 The two of you after the conversation in the great hall only met at the quidditch pitch. 

“Shake your hands,” Madam Hooch said, motioning you and James to do so.

 A smile on both of your faces as your handshake was more than friendly compared to any other handshakes on the field. 

 The Hufflepuff and the Gryffindor teams were high up in the air, clenching the broom handles, waiting for the quaffle to release because this, after all, would determine the quidditch cup for the year.

Madam Hooch’s whistle echoed through the air as the quaffle was thrown to the players. The whistles and hollers of the crowd were so much that it almost made the players anxious. 

 “The Gryffindor captain first caught the quaffle. You're doing great Jamie boy!” The commentary was given by, of course, Sirius. He was appointed as the temporary commentator after the previous one had a major injury after very strict instructions given by Professor McGonagall. 

“Mr Black,” McGonagall warned. 

“Alright, alright. Minnie is getting mad,” he quickly added, “Oh, look at that. (L/N) has the quaffle, she is flying to the goal. Now, come on, let your boyfriend win, will you?”

You flipped him off with one hand as you flew through the forthcoming Gryffindor team players, diving and serving. 

“Woah! Hufflepuff scores one goal!” Sirius glanced at the parchment before him, “1-0, Hufflepuff to Gryffindor, very bad performance lions, I expected more,” he shook his head as though in pity.

“Mr Black, you're demotivating the players!” McGonagall warned.

“Sorry, Minnie,” Sirius apologized, not so apologetically, “Now, the quaffle is back with the Gryffindor chaser! Yay!”

You dashed to the chaser, circling around them and with one calculated, gentle push the waffle was back to your hands.

“Alright, ladies and gentleman can we give a big round of applause to my best friend’s one day, to be wife,” Sirius asked looking at the crowd expectantly and for his satisfaction, the crowd roared. 

Both James and you came to a halt on your brooms, a dark pink blush on your faces as the crowd roared even louder. But someone in the Gryffindor team had realised it was the best time to knock the quaffle out of your hold.

It was a great idea, you must give that to the red flash that passed by you but the way execution was worst. As the player swished past you, there was a harsh gush of wind and the player missed and had hit you on your elbow evidently knocking you out of your broom. Holding on the broom with one hand you dangled off it, trying to climb back on. 

As though it all were perfectly timed, a loose bulger was aimed at you by Merlin-knows-who and you lost the only balance you had that held you in the air.

The air around you felt colder as the blank spots danced dangerously before your eyes. Your boyfriend’s terrified face was what you saw last before losing your consciousness. 

 “Mr Potter, please stop fretting,” Madam Pomfrey said to James who paced before your bed nervously in the hospital wing, “Nothing is wrong with her,”

“Except?” He insisted.

“Except her ankle is broken,” She said calmly. 

“Broken!?” 

“Her ankle, Mr Potter!”

“It's still broken!”  

“Potter, if this continues I might ask you to leave the room,”

“When will she wake up?” James asked, ignoring Madam Pomfrey's threat. 

“‘M wake,” You mumbled and coughed. James rushed to your bed with some water. Madam Pomfrey sighed and left James to take care of you. 

“You alright?” James asked, taking your face in his hands and scanning every inch of them for him to admire and memorize your beauty with the reason as “checking for injuries”. 

“Yes, James, calm down,” You chuckled. 

“You scared me, did you know that?” James asked, sighing, "I'm sorry,"

"Why are your sorry?" You asked, placing your hands above his.

"I should have caught you or done something instead of Dumbledore at the final moment doing the spell," he looked down, pulling his hands out of your grip and holding your hands.

"James, you couldn't have done anything and it's okay. I am alright now, look," you pointed to your ankle that was heavily wrapped in gauze. 

You heard through your half consciousness Madam Pomfrey say to James that although Dumbledore had performed the charm to stay you afloat but you had hit the ground and broke your ankle.

James winced, "I'm going to ban whoever did that from the team,"

"James," you warned, "This is a game and that happens,"

He sighed, "I feel guilty, you know." He leaned towards the bedside table, fetching the blue potion Madam Pompfrey instructed him to give. 

“Mhm, figured it out,” you smirked.

“Drink,” James said, seriously and rolled his eyes.

You scrunched your nose in disgust looking at the blue semi-liquid potion, “No, that's-”  

“I don't need to hear it, just drink,” James said, looking at you pointedly. 

“Later?” You knew it wouldn't work but it was worth a try nonetheless.

“No,” he narrowed his eyes, “Come on, love, just gulp it,” 

With your nose still scrunched, you glanced at the potion warily. James sighed, moving closer to you and pressed his lips to yours, “Please,” he mumbled against your lips.

You huffed but obliged. Downing the nasty drink and trying not to distract yourself from the bitter taste, you pulled James once again into a kiss. 

After pulling away, James chuckled and blurted, “I love you,”

Both of your eyes widened in shock. You were the first one to regain your composure and grinned at him, “I love you too,”

“Well, it's about time!” They heard a voice very much like Sirius yell, crashes, grunts and then three people running. 

You chuckled, pulling James closer to you, “You're not gonna walk for another month with that broken ankle of yours,”

And true to his words, James carried a blushing yourself to the classes almost every day, you werent complaining though.

[jostepherjoestar]

Ah I was sitting on this idea while waiting for requests to open! I loved your ask that had La Squadra meeting Risottos daughter from the future that got me thinking what if La Squadra had a memey s/o from present time? Would they ask lotta questions about the future and get confused when they speak in vine or tiktok references? 😆

La Squadra with a meme-y s/o from the future

gn reader // sfw

ahh that was such a cute ask and glad it made you think of this idea! thank your for requesting this and omg so so so so sorry it took so long, hope you’ll still enjoy it none the less! 💖✨ (you and your LS bf have a good comprehension of each other’s timelines and are used to traveling back and forth a bit :D)

Risotto

He knows the complications are endless and at times it all seems incomprehensible- having an s/o who can literally time travel; but your sheer knowledge of memes and the way you seem to effortlessly drop them into everyday conversation is astounding to him.

He doesn’t understand them that well, no amount of context or explaining will help. It’s simply a language he does not understand that well. And the memes or slang he kind of does understand, he just doesn’t find that funny. 

However, he will never actually find it a bother when you drop a few weird jokes. The way they make you laugh and sometimes even dry-heave from the hilarity makes him love you even more. 

In moments like that he’ll dryly let out a few slang words he remembers. You will never forget the time he let out a serious and deep “yeet” when you were already hysterically laughing, his addition might have made you stop breathing for a minute. It still makes you grin when you remember him shaking your shoulders and telling you to “breathe dammit!!”

Overall this man does not really get it or find it that entertaining himself, but he’ll gladly tease you and make you smile with the stuff he picks up. Risotto just can’t stop staring at your beaming grin.

Formaggio

Although he doesn’t truly grasp the layers of certain jokes or memes, Formaggio is your man! He’ll start using jokes and memes he learned from you and is so pleased when he makes you laugh with them. 

Formaggio is great at continuing a bit but once he loses interest he just...stops. Which is kind of perfect since your knowledge of vines is a lot bigger than those of tiktoks so those quick six seconds are easy to get the point across. 

He’ll still get some stuff wrong but he gets the gist of them. He loves annoying his teammates with his newfound references and they all can’t stand him. The second he opens his mouth with that smug look in his eyes, they all sigh in unison and prepare for the incomprehensible babbling that’s about to commence. 

The rest of the gang likes you but when you and Formaggio are hanging out at headquarters together, they tend to keep conversations quick because they know once you two team up, the suffering will never end. 

“Babe, wake up! New meme just dropped!” 

You two are a menace to deal with but god if it isn’t sickeningly cute and funny when he calls you his baby, his cinnamon apple!

Illuso

Don’t get Illuso wrong, he loves you but dear heavens you are on thin ice with him. He isn’t the most joke-y type, he likes a good chuckle but please do not oversaturate him with references he does not get. 

He has little to no interest in the videos you wish to show him and even less interest in remembering the ones he begrudgingly watched. 

At this point you’re allowed a couple jokes a day, he doesn’t count or literally prevent you from saying them, but you know each other well enough to see when he’s actually getting annoyed. 

To shut you up he’ll try and fluster you! He’ll look into your eyes so intensely as you continue talking about a meme, one eyebrow cocked and one side of his beautiful lips curled up into a smug grin. 

He’ll place a single hand on your cheek, his thumb gently swiping across it while the rest of his large hand and fingers rest on your scalp. As he hears you stumble over your words and can feel your cheeks heating up he’ll get in nice and close to your lips. Ghosting his over yours and placing a single kiss that you wish would last longer. That’ll keep you quiet for a bit 😌

He accidentally (re-)invents “that’s cringe” without your help. (he’s referring to you, sorry bestie)

Prosciutto

Why are you saying these weird words AT him? Why must you crease his brows even further?

Prosciutto’s patience is getting tested with you and your innate need for adding incomprehensible colourful commentary to everyday things and situations. He truly doesn’t get it and there is no amount of explaining you can do to change his mind. Even after the memes make even a little sense, he won’t find them funny.

He does love you, so much in fact, that he knows asking you to stop isn’t going to work and it wouldn’t be a fair thing to do. He sees how your smirk feeds into the satisfaction of landing a joke in your present time where most of your friends know what you’re talking about. 

However when you come around his part of the space time continuum, playtime is over. Well mostly. He does enjoy being a bit goofy around you, his snarky comments get a sarcastic edge that parallels your need for adding a fun flair to mundane things. 

The only time you made him laugh with a meme was when you kept repeating “i can’t believe you’ve done this” over and over while poking his cheeks during a playful mood. After a final poke, Prosciutto’s resolve finally breaking, he couldn’t help but snicker. With one final addition of the line, ever surprised by the wonderful sound he makes when he finally breaks, you stop and stare. Enamoured by your wonderful boyfriend and his gorgeous smile. 

Pesci

He’s the most supportive partner out there! Anything that makes you laugh and giggle, like the memes you keep showing him, fills his mushy heart with joy. 

Pesci will kind of get them? They all make sense in a way, but some of them just go above his head because of the layers of internet knowledge he does not possess. Although he really loves it when you show him stuff that reminded you of him.

🥺🥺🥺🥺 <-- his face the entire day after you show him cute pictures of animals and said they made you think of him. He’s just so in sickeningly smitten with you.

He’ll try out a couple of internet slang terms and blush really badly when they make you laugh. If Pesci could, he’d play your laughter on loop 24/7. Him baby, ok?

When the whole internet was debating their existence and that of every object because everything is cake, you quizzed Pesci on his cake-recognizing skills. He failed horribly, they all looked way too realistic and he might have had a small existential crisis. 

You playfully bit his wrist to show he wasn’t made of cake, planting some kisses along the sensitive spot. He shivered at your tickling pecks, relieved he wasn’t just a tasty confection and even happier that you’d love him regardless. 

Melone

Your meme comrade. 

The first mistake was showing him what the internet was like in your future timeline. He got so invested in its machinations and the entire culture surrounding it. He studied every single social media outlet. Every niche he could find only fuelling his curiosity. 

Pandora’s box has been opened and there is no turning back now. Not only does he get all the memes and vines you show him, he memorized them too. Melone will artfully display his knowledge in daily life when you’re around and show off.

Do you regret showing him? Maybe...but is it hilarious to hear him quote terribly long copy/pastas? Yes. Yes it is.

He will steal your phone so he can feed into his meme needs, saving the most fried up images that barely make any sense, to your gallery. You sorted the ones he saves into a special folder so you wouldn’t have to strain your eyes so much. 

It’s all fun and games until he starts referencing stuff during more intimate times. At first they made you laugh but as time went on you had to ask him to stop. 

Hearing Melone whisper “eeby deeby” while kissing his way down your neck might not be the mood you’d preferred. (hearing him sigh and say “so, no head?” was pretty hilarious tho)

Ghiaccio

To your surprise, once he understands the memes and gets the references, he becomes quite good at using them as well. Steering clear of the misspelled ones, of course. (one bad gloop might actually kill him)

Ghiaccio is such a big softie once he’s alone with you, letting his guard down and finally calm, not irked or stressed by his surroundings. 

He loves it when you show him new weird pictures you saved because they made you think of him. You don’t allow him to have a smartphone no matter how much he wants it (it’ll mess up sensitive time stuff) so when you’re scrolling through your preferred meme gathering app with Ghiaccio alongside you, he’ll point out ones and snicker a “that’s you”. 

It makes your heart melt how cute he can be with the stuff he picks out. Once he actually said “you’re baby” and you felt your soul leave your precious body as his cheeks turned redder than plush tomatoes in summertime. 

When he’s around the rest of the squad or in a more public setting, the usual stressors return. But with you around to offer quick witty jokes, things tend to become less focused on irritation. 

You are 100% sure you’ve heard him yell the famous words “AM I WRONG?!” during a heated argument with Melone. You had to leave the room to prevent worsening things, holding in your laughter and silently dying as you heard him rave on. 

[nicoleanell]

final part of commentary stuff:

No comment on the centipede-snorting because they're busy talking about Teddy's tattoos. There were a lot of details in the tattoo design and references to New Orleans.

A real ass actor had to lay in a fancy coffin as Teddy Lobo's dad, Bellafrancesca's husband, for like five days straight and they never had a shot of it in focus lmao. Also they point out how funny it is that they can bring people back to life with Dracula blood but nobody bothered using it on him.

Because the Lobo gang all have familiar powers now, the sound effect for punches had to sound different from normal punches.

Rebecca's PARTNER was the originally in the climax pushing out Kate's body. Because they cut him out of the scene "he never has his comeuppance, he's just somewhere out there in the world, having gotten away with it." Producer Samantha adds: "Motorboating his wife."

Not gonna recap the discussion of Teddy's internal-punch death, just that some very weird convos needed to be had about exactly how gross it was gonna be.

Renfield with his "Wolverine-style fang hands" after he pulls Dracula's teeth out, heh.

Fully cutting back to Mark and the CODA group when Renfield has his inner power moment was a late addition, I think it was even the writer saying he didn't know about that until watching it now. Came from director Chris McKay feeling very strongly about it. (cough Some people use subtext and they're all cowards . gif but whatever I love it too.)

LMAO Cocaine Bear shout-out. "Now I thought this movie was going to be THE cocaine movie of Universal's release schedule… and somehow… we got upstaged."

The Protection Circle involved a ring of LED lights and they painted out the wires. They added the flames and stuff with CGI but the light source was actually there (pretty) and worked better in that scene than in the opening.

Again shouting out @pinkiepiebones because they praise the song choice over the Murder Besties moment although none of them know what it is. It's not Willie Nelson but sounds like it.

CAGE CAME UP WITH HAIL SATAN AND PUT IT IN AN EMAIL lmao. (And you know, that whole line which was an absolutely baller set of final words.) I knew this already but it's still funny. When he saw it apparently he was like "I can't believe they let me keep Hail Satan."

They don't bring up the dance sequence until very late in the commentary when someone accidentallly mentions dancing and there's like an "oh mannn" moment all around. Hot producer take: watching the whole movie back, "emotionally it didn't track in a way that felt holistic to the film." (And is also maybe treading the same ground as the makeover scene?) Even though the sequence is great on its own, and Hoult is a good dancer, he's good at everything, etc.

During the very last group scene: "We had a dance scene here too that we tried." (WHAT?) And something showing Rebecca's partner and fuck-you-Kyle in jail.

Final thoughts: "EVERYONE DID A GREAT JOB." Lol these people are so Me.

This got mentioned here and there during the commentary but a lot of the stuff over the credits are bits that got cut from the movie - the dance sequence, the too-violent Bob death, a guy's hand coming off in the SWAT team fight - and other things like the different shots of Dracula are from screen/camera tests. In the one shot where he's, like, creepily lurching toward the camera, you can see Renfield crawling around in the background like a puppy and now I've seen that you have to also.

There was a cut bit of Robert/Rebecca dialogue at the end (or it might be what they're discussing that we can't hear) where she's amped to find more monsters to fight (Frankenstein etc.) and Renfield is like… unaware of any of those existing or being real. Which was basically a funny subversion like no, we are NOT doing sequel bait, we are not part of a Dark Cinematic Universe in the slightest.

"BUT GUYS, IF YOU DO WANT A SEQUEL TO RENFIELD, START EMAILING THIS GUY PETER KRAMER AND LET HIM KNOW."

FYI not two minutes into the "Renfield" DVD commentary someone asked what inspired the codependent support group stuff and the screenwriter dead responded "Living it. Life." I love this silly movie to the ends of the earth y'all.

[variousqueerthings]

Tom Hardy Movies rated least to most queer

I made a list of some Tom Hardy movies and I rated them based on my own, non-specific criteria about what makes a movie queer. Results below the cut.

(Some films not included, because I haven’t watched them yet, because Mr Hardy’s only in them for a few minutes, because the subject matter doesn’t lend itself to this list, or because I just don’t want’em here. TV series also not included. The list is organised into both groups and ratings, because I’m doing The Most.)

Movies are divided into four groups and rated from 0 – 10 on the Queer-Scale, scroll down to the bottom if you want the ratings without the commentary.

Disclaimer: This list is subjective. Don’t come at me because I didn’t rate Inception higher, Nolan himself is as queer as cargo shorts. 

1. This movie would make more sense if it were queer

If this movie were queer it… might not become a perfect film all of a sudden, but it’d make a hell of a lot more sense than what’s actually going on. With an occasional dose of “are the cis-straights okay?”

This Means War (2012): So Chris Pine and Tom Hardy are ostensibly both in love with Reese Witherspoon, but say “I love you” to each other pretty much constantly throughout the movie and their friendship is often presented as a domestic partnership. Cool, cool, cooool.

Queer Rating: 2 out of 10. This movie hate-crimed me by having Tom Hardy literally spell out his relationship with Chris Pine, only for the script to then have him say… “can you imagine all that… but with a woman…” Later on the movie explicitly denies polyamory is possible. Fuck this film.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012): Batman movies should always be queer. Mr. Hardy’s the only one who acceptably camps it up, despite Nolan’s best attempts to make him “acceptably gruff.” No matter what you do, Bane is a massive daddy in a mask and thanks to Mr Hardy’s honestly iconic fucking speech pattern in this film, it goes from pretty atrociously straight to just queer enough to imagine a future where Robert Pattinson plays batman and maybe adopts a bunch of kids.

(the only truly decent mask in this franchise tbh)

Queer Rating: 3 out of 10. Mr Hardy’s back is the one that’s actually broken carrying any semblance of fun in this overly long movie all on his own.

Lawless (2012): Wow, this really was the year of the not-queer-enough, wasn’t it? Look, it’s “based on a real story,” but it’s also a movie and movies don’t need to stick to the truth, and this one certainly doesn’t. Was the guy queer in real life? I don’t know. But that doesn’t matter, what matters is that it’s just kind of an eh movie and maybe being queer would add something to it. One of those “but why make someone queer? because it’s always more interesting to do so,” movies.

Queer Rating: 3 out of 10. It’s just not queer. But Tom Hardy wears cardigans and described his character as a “mother figure,” which adds an interesting dynamic to him.

2. Actually Queer but in a homophobic way

Tom Hardy plays a canonically queer character, yaaay. The whole movie contains a strange sense of the director being too not-queer to actually engage with that and everything around him is almost aggressively straight, noooo.

RocknRolla (2008): Honestly this movie has the funniest coming out scene ever + that familiar undertone of “all these manly men secretly want to fuck each other” is only heightened by one of them actually being gay and in love with his best friend. It’s such a fucking… it’s such a movie. Personally I find Mark Strong, Idris Elba, Thandie Newton, and, of course, Tom Hardy to be really hot in it, so that’s a plus. There’s a scene in which Strong’s character teaches another gangster how to do a proper backhand. It’s really gay of him. Also slow-dancing at a gay club. Butler’s character needs to get himself together, you really don’t think 2008 Tom Hardy is hot? Mate.

(left to right: functional queer, disaster queer, distinguished queer)

Queer Rating: 6 out of 10, for having an actual gay character who is played by Tom Hardy doing a sexy phonecall voice to another guy, but then there’s that feeling you can’t shake that the whole movie is vaguely uncomfortable about it, like a family member awkwardly patting you on the shoulder after they found out you were queer second-hand, but they’ve still got 50 years of bias to unlearn. Also Thandie Newton is killed, fuck that noise. 

Legend (2015): If I had a nickle for the amount of times Tom Hardy’s played a gay gangster, I’d have two nickles. Which isn’t a lot, but weird that it happened twice (looks at Peaky Blinders and thinks it ought to be three times). I’ve watched Legend three times and every time it just… loses me. And because this is a biased list, I’ll only specifically mention that it fails to make Ron’s queerness anything but a way for him to shock others. Gangsters could be gay? Gasp! On the upside Tom Hardy has so much sexual tension with everyone in this movie, including himself (why would you do that? Asks Ron, bemused. Because I can’t kill you, no matter how much I fucking want to, hisses a blood-soaked Reggie right into his ear. It’s hot).

Queer rating: 5 out of 10 because the film is just not very queer for a movie with several queer men in it.

3. Straight as a forced family dinner

It’s straight.

Locke (2013): He’s a married man who had an affair and trying to deal with the fallout of it. This isn’t a spoiler for most of the movie, it’s a pretty neat movie where we look at Tom Hardy having a bit of a mental breakdown and taking lots of phonecalls (my personal hell). Is it queer? Not in the slightest.

Queer Rating: 2 out of 10 for Hardy’s face being in almost every shot.

The Revenant (2015): Yeah, yeah, DeCaprio’s and Hardy’s characters are obsessed with each other, yeah it’s a man’s world where the only women are dead wife, kidnapped sexually assaulted native princess, or background whore, yeah, they fight each other and there’s a ton of grunting, but also… I just fucking don’t like this movie. The thin line where a storyline like this one becomes queer might be crossed for others, but not for me. Fuck these guys and their stupid  bear fights.

Queer rating: 3 out of 10 for it being about dirty men in the middle of nowhere (but you could just watch Brokeback Mountain or The Lighthouse or God’s Own Country or any Mad Max, or, or, or…)

4. Queer? Queer. Queer? … Queer…

The plots, aesthetics and/or characters played by Tom Hardy lend themselves to a queer reading, even if there is no overt intention towards queerness. Often this is because of a deliberate lack of heterosexual and/or cisgender writing, which in this day and age is still pretty uncommon not to include within a plot.

Inception (2010): Okay, I don’t even need to write about the added “darling,” or the “go to sleep Mr Eames.” I don’t need to go on about the absolutely bonkers amount of fanfiction written for Eames and Arthur, based on a few minutes of film and a boatload of chemistry. It’s queer.

Queer Rating: 7 out of 10, because the actual plot of the film isn’t very queer, but between the Arthur/Eames dynamic and Elliot Page, Nolan was really given a gift he didn’t deserve.

Warrior (2011): Okay, so first off, this might be my favourite Tom Hardy film, at least some part of my brain is fixated on it at almost all times and I’m considering watching it for the third time in two weeks. I don’t only consider it queer based on Mr. Hardy’s character, although he has no romantic or sexual interest and could be read as aroace, but because of the themes, especially those surrounding said character, who is coded as a caregiver to women and through close emotional connections to men. It’s got possibly unintentional deconstructions of masculinity and two men (brothers) who need to forgive each other and can only do so through the catharsis of violence. It speaks to me as a transmasc with several cis brothers, struggling with my own masculinity. It’s not at all written for me, but I find myself all over it. I could talk about this movie forever.

Queer Rating: 8 out of 10. I’m not allowed to say any more or I’ll never stop writing about it. I love you Tommy…

The Drop (2014): Bob’s lack of sexual and/or romantic interest in Naomi is so strange to her that she doesn’t know what he would want from her otherwise. Bob really just wants to raise a dog with her (and also forgiveness for past sins). Bob is such a rare ace and possibly aro coded character, it really throws me every time I watch this film how obvious it is. Bonus points for also being autistic-coded and not in the stereotypical ways.

(Tom Hardy’s most challenging role: pretending he doesn’t know dogs)

Queer Rating: 9 out of 10 because it’s so fucking rare to see ace and aro coded characters that aren’t, you know…. serial killers. Also Tom Hardy adopts a puppy and has a very cute, kinda lispy voice. How often does Tom Hardy play softer men like this?

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015): Very deliberately no sexual or romantic writing included in Max’s and Furiosa’s relationship. Sure, there’s not a lot of time for that in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, but it was also done with a purpose! “It was always going to be two warriors on par, starting off with very little respect for each other and ending up with a massive respect for each other.” - Charlize Theron. “So of course they meet, of course there’s a relationship, an unspoken understanding. A recognition.” - Tom Hardy.

Queer Rating: 9 out of 10. It’s not just the characters, but the world and it’s apocalyptic BDSM leather scene, the questions it asks about sustainability and about people as tools, and the found family. It’s about overcoming violence through multiple kinds of love. And it’s about watching a guy playing flame-thrower guitar. What could be queerer?

Venom (2018): Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same… No, but Eddie is queer. The only question is whether the sequel will acknowledge that aspect or not, but even if not. Even if it manages to straightly bypass the reality of a symbiotic relationship with a genderless? genderfluid? being from another world that is linked to you down to your very cells and understands you more intimately than any other person possibly could… even if all that: Eddie is queer. Venom and Eddie are in a relationship. Any relationship Eddie ever enters into will automatically become a thrupple. He makes out with Venom in the movie! Eddie is queer.

(aw yeah that tongue is going down his throat)

Queer Rating: 9.5 out of 10, because it’s still coded by the creators in the language of bromance (hey, bro, is it gay if we’re physically and emotionally closer than any other people on earth?), but the movie is so, so camp and Mr Hardy’s acting choices are beautiful – the screaming? The lispy soft voice and lack of taking up space? The lobster tank? The only people who don’t know how queer this is are the people making it apparently. Fingers crossed for that sequel!

Hon. mentions:

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002): Star Trek – even at it’s worst (especially at its worst?) – is camp af + Hardy is a straight-up baby in this film.

Bronson (2008): It’s about a real person who’s still alive, so I won’t comment on the actual man. However the film seems to code the character Bronson along an ace line and also has genderqueering Vaudeville. Someone let Tom Hardy do more of whatever was going on in those stage-bits.

(this right here: this the good shit)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011): Another ensemble piece not massively about Hardy’s character, but it’s a movie that centers around queerness in a strange, depressing way. Tom Hardy’s character isn’t queer. Colin Firth and Mark Strong are though. The book makes me cry.

Peaky Blinders (2013-): Because it’s a TV series I left it out. There’s a lot of straight nonsense going on there, but Alfie Solomens is gay. There’s nothing in the series that disputes that and plenty that lends itself to the reading.

Dunkirk (2017): Tom Hardy plays an RAF pilot in a deep emotional connection with the other main RAF pilot. That’s immediately gay. However he’s not in the movie much because of the way it’s constructed, so I left it off.

Queer Ratings (least to most)

No queer to be found here traveller:

This Means War: 2 out of 10 - illegal movie, Tom Hardy swore he wouldn’t do another rom-com after

Locke: 2 out of 10 - straight Welshman and his straight problems. He pretty though

Lawless: 3 out of 10 - cardigan-Hardy being a mother-hen, but very straight for all that

The Dark Knight Rises: 3 out of 10 - a superhero movie that doesn’t deserve Mr Hardy’s camp talents (unlike Venom)

The Revenant: 3 out of 10 - doesn’t give me what I want out of a movie full of dirty, bearded men

Queer but we deserve more:

Legend: 5 out of 10 - timid homosexuality, considering the source material. 

RocknRolla: 6 out of 10 - hey bro, is it gay if we kill the only female lead in our massive ensemble cast

The queerest of Hardy’s:

Inception: 7 out of 10 - Elliot Page and JGL kissing was an all-around terrible choice that made no sense, we know the truth, Nolan

Warrior: 8 out of 10 - I’m still crying, Edgerton’s crying, Hardy’s crying, we’re all crying, and I think that’s really emotionally healthy and queer of us

Mad Max: Fury Road: 9 out of 10 - non-romantic love in the time of BDSM post-apocalyptic wastelands is something that can actually be so personal

The Drop: 9 out of 10 - “Fucking punk. Go out to dinner dressed like you're still in you living room! You wear those big hippity-hoppity clown shoes! You speak to women terribly! You treat them despicably! You hurt harmless dogs that can't defend themselves! I'm tired of you man. I'm tired of you. You embarrass me!”

Venom: 9.5 out of 10 - Sometimes a relationship is an anxious reporter, the sentient goo inhabiting his body, his kinda-ex-girlfriend and her new doctor boyfriend, and I think that’s beautiful

[sophlubbwriting]

Shifting to your arms - 02

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Summary: This is a slice-of-life series where you, the reader successfully shifted realities with the goal to spend time with Loki. Nothing too intense.

A/N: I was quite scared to write a fight scene, especially since my knowledge about actual fights was... limited... but here it is! I hope y'all like it!

Feel free to shoot me a request and I'll see what I can do!

Taglist: @gingerspicetalks​ @adoreyou976​

Feedback is always appreciated!

Chapter Summary: Fight training with the god of mischief. There isn’t much else to it.

Chapter warnings: fight training, self doubts, Loki being Loki

Word count: 2016

9:50pm.

Lucky for you, a pair of black sweatpants plus an oversized zip-up hoodie just waited for you in your wardrobe.

You couldn’t waste any more time and felt comfortable with your choice of clothes, so you opened the door and stepped out on the hallway. The whole tower felt more silent than it had been a few hours earlier which might be caused by the time Loki had picked. Everyone was following their respective evening routine, but it isn't too late to be seen in the corridors.

While strutting to the gym, you checked whether you had everything with you. You got a bottle of water, that's it. After all, what else did you need?

Contemplating your choice, you were doubting yourself. Would Loki be a good teacher? What would he teach you? He is a true genius when in regards to all things magic, he was also a master manipulator, but the god of mischief doesn't seem like someone well-versed in hand to hand combat.

However, Loki really seems to love his daggers. Honestly, it's kind of weird how he isn't the god of daggers as well, it would surely be a fitting title. Maybe you can somehow convince him to give you a dagger and show you how to fight with it.

Receiving one of Loki's truly beautiful daggers sounds like a great idea, but it would probably hit too close to home for Loki. Giving someone their dagger, is a huge tradition in Asgard connected with courting someone after all.

So, looks like you won't get a dagger.

As you entered the gym, the smell of new gym mats and sweat flew in your face, but what ended up taking your breath away was the backside of someone's infamous asgardian combat clothing. Why was he standing there? Has he been pacing up and down while waiting for you? You couldn't help but smile at the thought of him waiting for you impatiently.

“Oh look at that, right on time. I didn't expect that  from a midgarian.”

Of course Loki would talk down on you based on your midgarian heritage, that was predictable. It would have been out of character if he didn't, honestly.

He sighed and he finally turned around, a hint of a smirk was still visible on his face.

“But at last you're here, so let's...”

Slowly mustering you, he took a moment to finish his sentence, dropping his smirk.

“...begin. Is that what midgarians deem as 'fashionable'?”

And with it the grin you wore was washed away. His mischievous tone vanished rather quickly, causing you to feel quite self aware. Your confidence from earlier? Gone, just like that.

His words hurt you more than you anticipated, but you tried your best to hide your vulnerability.

In an attempt to defend your choice in clothes, you told him that you valued comfortability over style. “Unlike you, I don't have to dress to impress.” you added. Scrunching his nose the god wanted to drop another sassy comment, but he decided otherwise.

You shook your head. Being still a bit salty after his rude comment, you voiced your doubts.

“Honestly, I don't know anymore if you were the correct choice.”

Nothing.

You both just stood there and looked into each others eyes. For a second you thought Loki's eyes looked... disappointed?

The silence was unbearable, but neither of you knew what to say, until Loki found his voice again.

“Pardon me?” he asked, finally breaking the silence after what felt like hours, but could have been only seconds.

In an effort to do some sort of damage control, you couldn't stop yourself from rambling and explaining yourself.

“You're an awesome sorcerer and I can't even imagine what you're capable of doing with those... those daggers, but... how much do you actually know about hand to hand combat?”

Now, he stopped being disappointed, if he ever was. He chuckled and started acting offended:

“I know my magic abilities are... out of this world, but I can assure you I have earned my fair share of experience in hand to hand combat.”

“But having experience doesn't mean you're good”, you intervened his arrogant praise with a sly smirk. Having seen a glimpse of emotional vulnerability in his eyes, you felt oddly calm around him. Your newly found confidence manifested itself in one sassy comment after another. “If I recall correctly, Valkyrie easily bested you.”

“Why don't you go ask Valkyrie for help then?” Loki asked boldly.

“Touché.”

Just like that, you both stepped into the boxing ring.

“I would assume I'd have to explain the basics to you first, now.”, Loki exclaimed whilst spreading his arms. “Everyone has their very own distinct style. Whereas Valkyrie” - he made sure to stress that name derogatorily - “likes to show off and tends to pride herself with... well, everything she possibly can, whereas I personally-”

“You prefer debating, silver-tongue. I get it.” you taunt him with a smirk. He didn't seem touched by your commentary. While you rolled your eyes, the god of mischief continued his speech.

“It's usually easier to complete the missions stealthily or to talk yourself up the ranks. Infiltrating the enemy, that's my speciality. You shouldn't underestimate the power of subtlety.”

You knew he was good, but you couldn't help yourself but to keep teasing him. To see him mildly annoyed filled you with joy, letting him taste his own medicine, although you felt as if you started to understand, why he made the comments he made.

“Is that because you can't-”

Loki requited your comment so quick, you hadn't the opportunity to finish it. The next thing you knew was how your back hit the floor and you saw Loki towering over you.

“First lesson: You shouldn't aggravate your opponent unnecessarily, you might end up with a... disadvantage.” He emphasized the last word with his raspy voice, not imaginable what he was alluding to.

With a slightly hurt pride you stood up again. “You're quick.” you stated the obvious. Acting like you would know more than you did, you put your fists up and in front of your face the way you saw it in movies often. The adrenaline rushed through your veins, you could feel it, and you glared at the god in front of you.

With a quick jab, you aimed for his stomach and were sure to hit, but with a swift step he avoided your punch altogether. Astounded by his quick movement, you weren't able to retrieve your arm quick enough to protect yourself from his counter.

He grabbed your arm and stepped a foot behind your leg. In one fluid motion your legs were kicked up and you were sent flying with an involuntarily backflip. Lucky for you, your forearms were at least quick enough to protect your face.

“Oh dear, you really don't know anything about fighting, do you?”

With an exasperated groan you pushed yourself up, back on your feet. This was way more exhausting than you thought it'd be. With heavy breaths you assessed the situation for the first time.

Loki was way quicker than you, a surprise attack wouldn't work. A feint attack? He'd probably still be quick enough to evade, if not counter. But what if...

“Al...right” you panted demotivated. “I...” and you fell forward and followed through with your plan.

Loki's reflexes forced him to catch you. Predictable. You slithered your arms around his neck, adjusted your position and swung your legs around his waist. Due to the momentum of your legs you were able to make the god stumble, but it wasn't enough to make him fall yet.

In your books, that was a win. Not only have you been able to make contact at will, you have successfully tricked the god of trickery.

Who would've imagined that thinking before doing something would ever turn out to be so efficient?

Of course he was quick to push you off and have you land on the floor again, but that wasn't enough to negate the sense of achievement that was flooding your mind.

You didn't even try to hide the grin.

“I have tricked you” you joyfully retold the event, small giggles escaping your lips.

“I'm still standing” he nonchalantly stated. While he wasn't wrong, you felt like you made progress.

“But I made you stumble.”

After a few more rounds of your attacks and some sparse tries to defend yourself, you didn't have any more energy to focus on fight training. It must have been midnight already, two hours filled with training have passed. Your zip-up hoodie was thrown in a corner, discarded a while ago as you felt like you were sweating too much, and you had revealed the plain t-shirt you wore underneath.

“Alright, my dear, I think this is the time to finalize the conditions of our little deal.” Loki tried to conceal his heavy breathing and knelt down next to you, not bothering helping you up. Reluctantly you sat up and told him to go on.

“Since you want to learn how to fight properly, we'll have to train more often, however I am not going to do so without... compensation.”

This simple sentence rang alarm bells in your head, especially since you are already planning on baking a cake which you intended to be enough. There was no way he had forgotten it already.

“You can't have forgotten it already.” You shot him a quick glance as he followed up with something that lead you to believe he was planning something.

“Lemon cake, I didn't forget, but I'm afraid that won't be enough for all lessons, darling. Let's just say... you owe me. Plus, today I was just assessing your skills. I have yet to show you a few exercises to train for yourself.”

Scrunching your nose at his not very concise proposal, you decided to bluff an told him you were just going to ask someone else to teach you, if he was being serious, but to no avail Loki saw right through it. He proclaimed “If I were you, I wouldn't do that. I figured you would prefer me to keep these interactions a secret, wouldn't you?”

The god of mischief clearly had the upper hand in this negotiations.

Albeit you were visibly displeased by his threat to tell everyone you couldn't fight, you gave him your final reply with a scoff.

“Well, I don't really have much of a choice now, do I?”

There it was. That mischievous twinkle you saw in his eyes earlier, paired with a smirk. You don't know how, but you couldn't stay mad at him. You just couldn't.

You shook your head and smirked again. “It almost feels like I just sold my soul.”

Surprising to you, Loki tried to calm you down. Did he think you were actually afraid of losing your soul to him?

“Don't worry, my dear, even if it would be possible to separate one's body from one's soul, I would never intend to steal yours. Quite frankly, I wouldn't even know, what to do with it!”

He even put his hands up in front of him to show you, he wasn't trying to 'grab your soul' or something. It looked rather adorable and made you laugh, which left Loki staring at you confused.

You were contemplating whether you should explain it to him in full, but ultimately decided against it, it would take too long. Instead, you said the next best thing. “I was kidding, Loki!”

After some more laughing you asked him what has been on your mind since you sealed the deal.

“So, when will we meet again?”

The raven haired god turned to you and thought about it for a second while looking at you. You looked in his eyes for longer than you should have, but the answer he gave you with a smirk was quick to grab your attention.

“Tomorrow, same time. If you want to see me only at the gym, that is.”

You copied his smirk with a quick glance at lips.

“You'll see.”

[melanielocke]

Lost in the Shadows - Chapter 23

AO3

Taglist: @nott-the-best @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @justanormaldemon @styxdrawings @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised

@alastair-appreciation-month

Previous Chapter: Chapter 22

Next Chapter: Chapter 24

Alastair was exhausted. By the time they made it back, it was seven in the evening even if they’d been in the land in between for much shorter. He was cold, still soaking wet, and he didn’t want to know what had been in the water that had flooded the dungeon. He imagined he and Cordelia both smelt terrible, but completely covered in it, Alastair could not smell it himself. It was frustrating, because Thomas and Lucie did not indicate anything about their scent, but Alastair suspected they did smell whatever had been in that water and were just too polite to mention it. Thomas didn’t touch him and kept a little more distance than he usually did.

All the way back to the Herondale’s manor, Cordelia and Alastair were arguing about who could use the bathroom first, until Lucie pointed out there was a second bathroom connected to the master bedroom.

‘Why do you both want to go second anyway?’ Thomas asked. ‘I’d imagine you’d argue about who gets to go first.’

‘Because I am cold and dirty and want to use the bathroom for at least an hour, and if I go first, Cordelia will start yelling at me to hurry up after about ten minutes,’ Alastair said.

Thomas tilted his head. ‘And if she goes first?’

‘Then I will yell at her to get out after ten minutes,’ Alastair said. ‘And since I am freezing I’d be completely justified.’

‘We both have very excessive bathroom rituals,’ Cordelia added. ‘Especially when we’re this dirty. But staying in there for an hour would be rude if someone else also needs to use the bathroom. So whoever goes second can yell and be completely justified, and then has all the time they need to get warm and clean. It’s a good thing there are two bathrooms and we can both go take a shower.’ .’

Two separate bathrooms sounded good. He remembered his childhood home had had that too, before his father had been forced to sell the family home when Alastair was around five. Jem had bought it back a couple of years ago, but Alastair found it difficult to imagine why one person needed a house that big. Although he guessed Jem had grown up there too and had lost his parents at a young age, so perhaps there were sentimental reasons.

Both the Herondales and the Lightwoods were at the manor. Will and Tessa were reading as usual, Sophie was tidying something up in the kitchen and Gideon was pacing back and forth until he noticed the four of them.

‘Finally, you’re back,’ Gideon said, concern written all over his face. ‘What happened?’

‘We got the skin,’ Cordelia said. ‘Grace is free. But the dungeon the skin was hidden in was completely flooded, so if you don’t mind I want to use the bathroom. Alastair and I both do, and Lucie mentioned there was a second bathroom.’

In the end Cordelia took the bathroom connected to Will and Tessa’s bedroom while Alastair took the one upstairs, glad to finally have some peace. He was exhausted as well as cold and dirty. There was a huge bathtub in there and Alastair turned on the water while getting in the shower to first rinse off the worst of the filth and to get warm again. He got out of the shower when he felt like he was semi clean and the bath tub was nearly full. Even if he’d been in the shower for some time and felt a lot cleaner than before, he was still so cold. He got in the bathtub. There was even a bubble bath function, exactly how rich was Lucie’s grandmother?

Perhaps he should ask Thomas to join him here sometime. He imagined that would be nice. Alastair allowed himself to relax. Although he was exhausted, he did feel a lot better than yesterday. At least with Grace freed, he felt like he’d accomplished something. Like he wasn’t useless and deserved to be liked again. That was something he often struggled with.

He sought out memories, but unlike other days he didn’t seek out the bad ones. Right now he wasn’t seeking to make sense of the past, nor was he interested in hurting himself. Instead, he let himself settle comfortably into a memory of Thomas confessing his feelings to him, of their first kiss. It wasn’t all bad, the memories.

When he was younger, they didn’t have a lot of movies at home, so sometimes they would rewatch movies Cordelia had seen at Lucie’s place instead. His mother had been a little concerned about that, usually children being too quiet was bad news but them sitting on the couch for over an hour in the same position was just weird.

Lucie had a tendency to talk through movies, so Alastair had come to associate certain scenes in the Little Mermaid or Aladdin with her commentary. Alastair had always loved Aladdin as a child. Although now he was far more critical of the strange way in which the movie mixed together Persian, Arabic and Indian culture and architecture, at the time Aladdin had been one of the few movies with a main character who looked like him.

He returned to reality after a while, finally warm again and decided to stay in bath for a little longer. Bubble baths really were nice, Alastair guessed if he had ever had enough money for one he’d buy a bubble bath. In the current economical climate he doubted he’d even be able to buy a home, but he could dream.

***

Thomas was busy in the kitchen with his mother. He liked to cook, and was quite good at it. From a young age he’d wanted to go into the kitchen and look at what his mother was doing there, or help out. Barbara was a decent cook but didn’t love it like he and his mother did, and Eugenia had been banned from using the kitchen, but Thomas had picked up cooking quite easily. Now, they were making a vegan shepherd’s pie, Thomas was cutting the onion, trying to cut the pieces as tiny as possible. Compared to his mother, he was less sensitive to onion and was therefore always giving that task while cooking together.

‘Were you surprised?’ he asked out of a sudden. ‘When you and dad found out I like boys?’

His mother threw away the potato peels. ‘Not really. I remember when you were fourteen and would come home from school. You could only talk about this older boy you’d met, about how beautiful his dark hair and eyes were.’

Thomas realized his mother had a point, that wasn’t exactly subtle. And he couldn’t talk about his feelings for Alastair with his friends, so instead he’d talked about him at home. ‘That boy was Alastair,’ he said.

‘Really?’ his mother asked. ‘Now that you mention it, that was his name, but we never met him.’

‘I think dad suggested I invite him over for dinner, but Alastair barely acknowledged me back then and I didn’t dare. Nor do he think he would have accepted.’

‘And while you were singing his praises, James and Matthew could only complain about him. So we figured there had to be a reason why you thought he was perfect when your friends thought he was awful. We weren’t sure it was a crush, or if there was some other reason, we figured it was best to let you figure that out on your own.’

Thomas hadn’t realized it was so obvious, but looking back it was a miracle anyone had missed it.

‘Thanks for that. I don’t think I was ready to talk about it at that age, even if I wasn’t exactly subtle. We do have a bit of a history. While I was in love with him, he was awful to us. I think I idealized him then, because he was beautiful and smart and appeared so confident, and I downplayed his rudeness. But he isn’t like that anymore, he grew up and changed and he apologized for his behavior at school.’

‘People change,’ his mother said. ‘I believe people deserve a second chance. Especially when someone was so young when they made mistakes.’

‘Exactly. And now I feel like I’m getting to know the real him. You and dad, you do like him right?’

‘Of course we do,’ Sophie said. ‘He’s been nothing but polite, although a bit blunt. Your father sees himself in Alastair, he thinks Alastair struggles with connecting to people because of his past, and wants to help.’

‘Alastair thinks you only like him for his ability and his willingness to save me,’ Thomas said. ‘I’m not sure why he thinks that, it seemed unlikely and he couldn’t really explain his line of thinking either.’

Sophie sat down at the kitchen table, cutting the carrots. ‘When you’ve been treated badly in the past, it can become difficult to accept kindness. At some point, you start to expect people aren’t sincere, they can’t be trusted, because that’s all they’ve known.

It was difficult for me, at first, to trust your father’s kindness because I knew people were not always genuine, because I’d been hurt before and I was scared it would happen again. Because I thought, with this scar, who could believe I’m beautiful?’

Before meeting his father, his mother had been in a relationship with a man who’d cut open her face when she’d broken up with him. He’d claimed that if he couldn’t have her, he’d make sure no one else would want her. The cut had left a scar across her cheek and her ex had eventually gone to prison.

Thomas didn’t know the details, but suspected her ex had been abusive before the break up already. People didn’t always realize how dangerous leaving could be for an abuse victim. His mother’s ex had turned to carving up her face with a knife. Benedict Lightwood had decided to sacrifice his wife when he realized she was leaving. He had to admire Alastair for being brave enough to leave his ex. Even if someone wasn’t physically violent it couldn’t be easy.

‘Do you think he distrusts your and dad’s kindness because of that?’ Thomas asked.

‘I think that’s likely,’ Sophie said. ‘I think he blames himself for what happened to him, and might not believe it’s possible for other people to genuinely care for him. Perhaps he thinks people have treated him badly because he’s a bad person, or perhaps he thinks that he’s too broken to be loved. Perhaps to him it is so unlikely that we care for him that it makes more sense that we are kind because we want something from him.’

Thomas figured it was something like that. But what did to mean for Alastair’s feelings for him? Did Alastair think he too would abandon him if things became too difficult? Or did he think Thomas would only stay with him as long as he could satisfy his needs, with no care for his own? Did he feel guilty about falling into that flashback last night when Thomas had touched him, like he was not good enough? Thomas wanted to make him understand that it wasn’t true, that he loved Alastair and wouldn’t abandon him, but he wasn’t sure how.

‘How do I convince him that’s not true?’ Thomas asked.

‘The only thing we can do is let him know we care,’ his mother said. ‘And be patient with him. Does he communicate his feelings to you?’

‘He tends to be honest and rather blunt with his feelings,’ Thomas said. ‘I like that about him.’

When Alastair wanted to be honest, he wasn’t one to dance around the message or his feelings. He was very straightforward and blunt in what he wanted to say, not much like what was common in Britain, to hide behind politeness. Thomas found it refreshing, to know that when Alastair said something nice he meant every word of it.

‘So make sure you communicate with him as well,’ his mother said. ‘I know you struggle with verbalizing your emotions, but you have to let him know how you feel or he might end up believing you don’t really care for him.’

Thomas nodded. His mother was right, he did struggle with telling people how he felt. Most of the time, it was because he was scared his feelings would inconvenience other people. He was determined not to do that to Alastair though, he knew his feelings for him weren’t inconvenient and they weren’t shameful. Nevertheless sometimes it was hard just to get the words past his lips. Perhaps that was why he’d waited so long to come out when he’d wanted to for some time. Ultimately, kissing Alastair when they would see was easier than telling them, but he knew he could not communicate with Alastair the same way, he’d have to tell him how he felt as well as show it.

‘Was it difficult for you, entering a new relationship after the last one had ended so badly?’ Thomas asked.

‘It took a while until I was ready,’ his mother said. ‘At first, I thought, who would want me now that I have this scar? I think Alastair might feel the same way, even if his scars aren’t literal like mine is. It took some time before I started believing Gideon when he said I was beautiful. That is a process, and all you can do is support him and be gentle with him while he works through that.’

‘Last night, something I did triggered a flashback,’ Thomas admitted. ‘I thought he was okay with it, I think he thought so too. Or maybe he was scared to refuse because of how his ex used to treat him. Something I did reminded him of his ex and he panicked.’

‘Did you communicate what you both wanted?’ his mother asked.

Thomas had to think. He’d asked, of course, and Alastair had said yes. But perhaps what they needed was a more in depth discussion of what they both liked and what Alastair was comfortable with.

‘Yes. He likes it when I ask for consent before kissing or touching him. I think he didn’t see it coming. That it would trigger a flashback, I mean. But I don’t want to hurt him, and I think maybe he feels like he isn’t a good partner if he’s not ready to have sex? I’m not sure exactly, but I think his ex was very demanding when it came to sex.’

‘It’s best to ask him,’ Sophie said. ‘You said he usually honest and blunt with his feelings, so I think if you ask him how he feels about sex, he’ll tell you. Those aren’t always easy conversations, but it’s the best way to make sure you don’t accidently hurt him. And I think when you accidently trigger something, it’s best to apologize and move on when he does. Lingering on it might make him feel worse.’

They finished the shepherd’s pie and put it in the oven. Thomas always struggled with preheating the oven at the right time, he didn’t want to leave it on for a long time while he wasn’t ready to put anything in it, but it was also annoying when everything was finished but he had to wait for the oven to get warm. It was another half an hour until it was done, which would give Alastair and Cordelia plenty of time to finish bathing. Thomas hadn’t wanted to say anything but they did smell awful after coming out of that dungeon soaking wet, and he could tell they were both chilled to the bone. He hoped neither of them would get sick.

Thomas sat down on the couch with his father and Lucie. ‘I’d been waiting for you,’ Lucie said. ‘I thought it would be better with you here.’

Gideon frowned. ‘What’s going on?’

‘This might be difficult to process,’ Lucie said. ‘While I was waiting in the land in between, I saw a ghost. Not like I usually see ghosts, she was only half there, transparent like in the movies. Until I asked her to show herself so Thomas could see her too. When I was back in our world, I could do the same thing. According to Grace, I stole a soul back from the thief of souls.’

‘You stole a soul?’ Gideon asked. ‘I’m not sure I’m following. Is she a ghost now?’

‘She’s right here,’ Lucie said. ‘A ghost, yes, but no longer trapped. She’s your mother.’

‘My… mother?’ His father seemed in shock, his voice a whisper. ‘You mean to say she’s here?’

‘She’s been trapped for a long time until I found here. She didn’t realize how much time had passed until we told her and she found out Thomas was your son. She wants to talk to you if that’s alright with you.’

Thomas found it difficult to imagine what his father must be feeling. Would he be happy for a chance to see his mother, or would it only tear open old wounds? He knew Lucie had done the right thing to set her free, and hoped she could find peace and way to move on from this world, but he wasn’t sure it was kind to his father. Not telling him was infinitely worse though.

‘Yes, of course. How does this work? Do you tell me what she’s saying?’

‘Actually, I can make her visible,’ Lucie said. ‘Barbara, show yourself.’

Barbara Lightwood appeared once more, standing in the middle of the living room. She looked a bit disoriented, glancing around before settling her gaze on his father.

‘Gideon. It has been so long,’ she said. ‘Last I remember you were still so small. I’m so sorry for leaving you.’

‘That wasn’t your fault,’ his father said, tears in his eyes.

Thomas wondered if he should leave, if this was a private conversation, but Lucie couldn’t leave since she had made Barbara visible. Perhaps he should stick around for emotional support?

His father had a long conversation with Barbara, telling him about his life, about Thomas’ sisters. Barbara started crying too when she realized Thomas’ oldest sister was named after her.

Thomas imagined Barbara had to be devastated to learn what Tatiana was up to and hoped she could find peace with it. He didn’t think Tatiana could be persuaded to stop by a mother she didn’t even remember. Gideon was the only one of her children who remembered his mother at all, although uncle Gabriel claimed to have a few very vague memories even if he could not recall her face and had no concept of who she had been.

Alastair entered the living room, his hair still damp but otherwise dry, wearing a clean dark green button up shirt with black jeans. Thomas went to him, he didn’t think they’d explained to Alastair what had happened or who Barbara was.

‘That’s the soul Lucie took back, isn’t it?’ Alastair asked.

‘Yes. Her name is Barbara, and she is my grandmother.’

‘Benedict’s wife? The one he sacrificed?’

‘Exactly. Somehow Lucie saw her and when she made her visible, she pulled her through to the world she was in, and now she’s here.’

Alastair looked concerned. ‘Do you think the thief of souls will try to take her back?’

‘I’m not sure. But if she moves on, we think she should be safe. How are you?’

‘Tired, but feeling a bit better. The bubble bath was nice, you should try it sometime.’

Thomas wondered if Alastair meant he should try it because it was nice or he wanted them to use the bubble bath together. He didn’t dare ask for clarification. He’d be far too embarrassed if it turned out Alastair had no desire to take a bath together. Just after he’d told himself he’d have a conversation with Alastair about sex and what he wanted.

‘Maybe I will,’ Thomas said, not sure what he meant he’d do. He wasn’t opposed to taking a bubble bath with Alastair, but wasn’t sure Alastair was ready for something so intimate. He’d ask later, he told himself. ‘You smell nice.’

All traces of whatever dirt he’d been in were gone. Instead, he smelt sharp and minty, but also sweet.

‘Just my shampoo. And I guess also the scrub, bath oil and body cream, but they all have the same scent.’

‘I like it,’ Thomas said. ‘Like eucalyptus, maybe?’

‘That’s in the products I use, yes,’ Alastair said. ‘Are you alright?’

Thomas guessed Alastair had read some worry on his face. ‘Well, I never knew my grandmother so it’s mostly confusing. I think it’s hard for my father though. He lost his mother when he was five, it’s been a very long time and seeing her again has to be painful.’

‘I can’t even imagine what that’s like,’ Alastair said. ‘But I’m happy for him that he gets the chance to talk to her even if it’s only once. He deserves that.’

‘They really do care for you, you know,’ Thomas said, returning to the kitchen with Alastair in tow to check on their shepherd pie.

‘Your parents?’ Alastair asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t know,’ Alastair said, head bowed down, avoiding eye contact.

‘I just asked my mother, she likes you and you remind my dad of him when he was younger. They both care. I’m not sure why you have this idea that they don’t, but I thought you should know.’

‘I don’t know how to explain,’ Alastair said, still refusing to look him in the eye.

Thomas guessed eye contact might be difficult for him. Lucie was the opposite, staring into people’s eyes so much it became uncomfortable. She was a writer, after all, and how else was she to know Thomas’ hazel eyes had both hints of green and gold in there?

‘My mother thinks it’s because you were hurt so badly you find it difficult to believe people could love you. If you want, you could talk to her about it. I may not know what it’s like, but she does. Her ex hurt her too.’

‘Not everyone is as easy to love as you are, Tom,’ Alastair said with a sigh. ‘Now that you’ve seen the extent of my scars, how long until you realize that I’m just not worth the pain?’

His mother was right, Alastair did believe he could not be loved. He believed Thomas would grow tired of him? That it was painful and difficult to be with someone like him and it wasn’t worth it? How could Thomas make him see that he was wrong, that he was loved and that he deserved that?

‘You are worth it,’ Thomas said, running a finger through Alastair’s soft dark hair. ‘Having a mental illness doesn’t make you unworthy of love, it doesn’t make you too difficult.’

‘You realize that this might never go away, right?’ Alastair said finally looking up. Thomas realized with a shock there were tears in his eyes. ‘I still have hope for EMDR, but PTSD is a very difficult disorder to treat. Perhaps it will get better over time, but it might not.’

Thomas imagined that was a difficult idea for Alastair to cope with, knowing that he might never get better. He’d read a lot on PTSD in the past week, and it was true that it was difficult to treat, especially when caused by prolonged childhood abuse. But according to his admittedly limited internet research, even then people could learn to cope better, find better support. One metaphor he’d found interesting was how the symptoms were like waves of the ocean, Alastair might not be able to stop them but he could learn to surf.

‘And if it doesn’t go away, I’ll still want to be with you,’ Thomas said. ‘I’d still do the best I could to support you. My feelings for you are not conditional on you getting better, although I certainly hope you do. For your sake.’

‘It’s easy to say that now,’ Alastair said softly, once more refusing to look him in the eye.

‘I’ll prove it to you then,’ Thomas said. ‘I don’t care how long it takes until you believe me, but I’ll keep proving I care about you.’

‘Just how do I intend to do that?’ Alastair asked.

‘Well, I’m still figuring that out but it would involve lots of cuddling. And my mother thinks it’s important that I tell you how I really feel, so I’m going to do that too.’

Alastair’s expression changed, showing a small smile someone else might have missed. ‘I’d like that. When will you be next available for cuddling?’

‘Give me a moment, I need to check on the shepherd’s pie. You need to eat and I couldn’t feed you burnt food.’

Thomas checked the oven, everything looked fine and needed a little more time in the oven. He set the timer and returned his attention to Alastair.

‘I am available right now if you want. Another ten minutes until we can eat.’

[commentaryvorg]

Digimon Data Squad Dub Comparison Episode 5 - Digital World, Here We Come!

This is a companion to my commentary on the original Japanese Digimon Savers! Reading my commentary on the original version of this episode (which you can find here) is recommended before reading this dub comparison.

Original name ~ Dubbed name

Masaru Daimon ~ Marcus Damon

Yoshino Fujieda ~ Yoshino “Yoshi” Fujieda

Tohma H. Norstein ~ Thomas H. Norstein

Captain Rentarou Satsuma ~ Commander Richard Sampson

[Since several characters share the same name between the original and the dub, quotes from the dub will always be in italics, while quotes from the original will not, in order to distinguish them.]

A fun thing the dub does with recaps is that the narration is done by one of the characters, commenting on the events of the episode in-character. This time, it’s Thomas. (It’s actually usually Thomas, far more often than it really ought to be, but it makes sense for this one.)

Recap Thomas: “Marcus couldn’t take orders if he were a waiter in a restaurant.”

The in-character-ness of these recap lines helps add a little more flavour to the recaps than the original has, which I appreciate.

Recap Thomas:  “So in order to clean up Marcus’s mess, I took it upon myself to disobey orders…”

Thomas definitely did not do this out of believing this was solely Marcus’s mess and he was simply being gracious enough to clean that up for everyone. But, it does make a lot of sense that he might frame it that way when describing the situation to somebody else rather than admit that he felt like he’d failed, so I don’t mind this at all.

Agumon: “Quiet as a sleeping mime!”

Agumon how do you know what a mime is

Yoshino:  “What are you doing.”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “What are you doing?!”

Alas, Yoshi’s delivery of this line is very much loud and frustrated, rather than delightfully deadpan at their terrible stealth skills.

Masaru:  “Tohma did a Digital Dive? Damn it, he got away before us!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Thomas did a Digital Dive?! I’ll teach him to be sneakier than me!”

He was definitely sneakier than you, Marcus.

Yoshino:  “Before?”

Agumon:  “Nothing, he’s just talking to himself.”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “Huh?”

Agumon: “Aw, don’t be jealous.”

Though I enjoy the “sneakier” line, as a result we do lose the fun bit where Masaru accidentally pretty much told Yoshino his intent to follow Tohma, and Agumon awkwardly tried to cover for him (and Yoshino didn’t really notice anyway because she was too busy worrying about Tohma).

Yoshino:  “Doing a Dive when the equipment hasn’t even been tested on humans…”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “What was Thomas thinking, going into a Digital Dive when it hasn’t even been tested on humans yet?”

Yoshi isn’t mentioning this specific equipment and appears to be saying that any Digital Dive has never been done with humans before. …But then again, she probably doesn’t know any better.

Masaru:  “I’m just going there to settle my fight!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I’m not gonna let Thomas finish the fight that I started!”

Marcus brings up the notion that this is partly about not wanting Thomas to steal away his fight a little bit earlier than Masaru does. (Even though this can’t have always been about that, because he didn’t even know Thomas had gone over there too until Yoshi told him.)

Yoshino:  “You’re just going to make things worse!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “You’re just gonna make things worse for me and everyone else at DATS!”

The dub apparently had some extra lip-flap for this line and filled it with Yoshi making a pretty relevant point about who’s going to have to clean up their mess.

Agumon: “I’ll help you break it ‘til it’s fixed too, Boss!”

Here’s some fun oblivious dub-Agumon snark-that-isn’t-snark.

Yoshino:  “Return to where you first entered by 0500. That’s where I’ll bring you both back.”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “Make sure both of you are back to your port of entry by 0500. Otherwise I won’t be able to bring you back.”

In the dub, apparently the time limit is for Yoshi being able to bring him back at all, rather than the implication I took from the original that this is mostly about her not wanting Satsuma to learn that this ever happened. I guess it could be reasonable to think that the return-transfer without any actual equipment on the Digital World side has to happen within a certain time window after the initial Dive or the signal’s too weak?

Masaru:  “Bah, it’s like having a curfew.”

~~~~~

Marcus:  “Oh boy, it’s like havin’ a curfew again.”

Heh, that added “again” makes it even clearer that Marcus has definitely had curfews before.

Agumon:  “Aniki, I’m kinda nervous…”

Masaru:  “Don’t get scared now, idiot.”

~~~~~

Agumon: “I’m getting’ kinda scared, Boss…”

Marcus: “N’agh, don’t be a big baby.”

Bah, the dub loses the interesting nuance of Masaru calling him an idiot for getting nervous and instead turns this into a very simplistic and derogatory “being scared is for babies”.

Agumon:  “You sure this is okay?”

Masaru:  “You think I know?”

~~~~~

Agumon: “You sure this is safe?”

Marcus: “Let’s find out.”

I am also sad at the loss of Masaru letting slip a tiny hint that he isn’t sure about this at all. Marcus’s line does have a non-enthusiastic, very firm “shut up and stop trying to make me freak out” tone to it, which is better than it could be, but still.

Agumon:  “Aniki… You’re the one who’s upside-down.”

Masaru:  “I knew that.”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Boss, you’re the one who’s upside-down.”

Marcus:  “I see.”

The dub goes with the “I see” translation of what Masaru said in Japanese rather than how the subs interpreted it, and I approve.

Masaru:  “So this is the Digital World…”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Wow… My first time in the Digital World!”

You… you talk like you’re planning on making coming here a regular thing, Marcus. (I mean, he will be, but he shouldn’t have any reason to believe that right now.)

Agumon:  “It’s my first time seeing it too.”

~~~~~

Agumon: “It’s mine, too.”

…Though I guess this was just so Agumon could say the same thing about it being his first time here despite having less lip-flap to say it with.

The BGM cue is weirdly sinister leading up to Agumon telling Marcus to come over and see something… because it’s about to go to a commercial break. Cut back from the commercial break and Agumon’s just pointing out some perfectly non-threatening Digital World weirdness. The troubles of having to fit in more commercial breaks than a show was originally written to have.

Agumon:  “Look, Aniki! They’re here, too!” [some Airdramon fly past in the sky]

Masaru:  “They’re flying!”

Agumon:  “And them!” [some Tsunomon bounce past nearby]

Masaru:  “They’re bouncing!”

Agumon:  “And them!” [some Pyokomon walk by]

Masaru:  “They’re walking!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Look, a flock of flying dragons!” [some Airdramon fly past in the sky]

Marcus: “You don’t see that every day.”

Agumon:  “Or them, either.” [some Tsunomon bounce past nearby]

Marcus: “Wow, they’re cool!”

Agumon: “What are they?” [some Yokomon walk by]

Marcus: “Walking plants!”

The original bit here always struck me as weird, the way Masaru was just excitedly exclaiming “they’re verbing!” at each Digimon. Possibly it sounds more natural in Japanese somehow? But either way, the dub did well to change this to remarks that are a lot more sensible for Marcus to make.

Yoshi: “‘Forget him. Let him figure out how to get back on his own.’ I mean, what’s stopping him from just saying that?”

Yoshi actually tries to do an imitation of Marcus’s voice for this bit. And she gives it quite the moody tone, because she is understandably rather frustrated at the thought that Marcus might really just ignore finding Thomas. It’s pretty great.

Lalamon:  “You’re over-thinking it.”

~~~~~

Lalamon: “Marcus would *never* say that!”

Lalamon in the dub is somehow way more sure of this and sounds like she’s trying to defend Marcus, which doesn’t really seem right.

(Marcus does in fact then deliver the line with a bit more pointed emphasis than Masaru, who was just being unbothered and nonchalant, so I guess Yoshi was somewhat right to imitate him saying it like that.)

The BGM while Marcus and Agumon explore the Digital World is not remotely equivalent to the original’s Main Theme that evoked the sense of discovery and exploration. Instead this BGM just seems to want us to feel like this is ominous and alien (even though the Digital World really isn’t that alien at all).

Agumon:  “I feel like I’m having déjà vu, Boss.”

Marcus: “How would you know what that means?”

Exactly, Marcus! Agumon knows way too many terms that he shouldn’t know; apparently the dub finally felt like lampshading it for once. (Though honestly, déjà vu is more reasonable than most, because it’s not an inherently human concept.) This isn’t going to stop them having Agumon continue to do this, of course.

Sampson: “What are you doing?”

Yoshi: “Just helping the hopeless. Why does this stuff always happen to me?”

I approve of Yoshi complaining even more about always having to be the one to clean up after those idiots.

Kudamon:  “Looks like you are searching for something, but just what are you searching for?”

Yoshino:  “Um… A rich bachelor! …Just kidding… La… Lalamon…”

Lalamon:  [slowly backing away] “I think I’ll stay out of this…”

~~~~~

Kudamon:  “It looks like you’re searching for something. What exactly?”

Yoshi: “It’s, umm… mm… An earring! That’s… it…! Right… Lalamon…?”

Lalamon: [slowly backing away] “I think I left my bathtub running…”

I approve of the dub changing this joke to not be about Yoshino apparently looking for romance (although, since she was joking, that doesn’t necessarily mean that she actually cares about finding a rich bachelor just because she’s a woman). Lalamon’s bathtub comment doesn’t make any sense, of course, but it doesn’t need to since this is just a comedic excuse.

Masaru:  “Doesn’t matter where this is! Let’s go, Agumon!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Now’s our chance! Let’s go!”

Lost that line in which Masaru is either still straightforwardly ignoring the terrain, or only trying to tell himself to ignore the terrain and the fact that Drimogemon is at a huge advantage here.

Agumon:  “Aniki!”

Masaru:  “Idiot, don’t get scared over something like this!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “We’re done for!”

Marcus: “Don’t get all melodramatic on me now, Agumon!”

The dub takes away the fun nuance of Masaru’s opinion about getting scared again… but at least this dub line is still perfectly reasonable in its own right.

Agumon:  “At least we had these soft rocks to break our fall.”

This sounds like another obliviously-not-snarky Agumon line… but surely he has to know that the rocks aren’t actually soft? (Maybe this is just the dub writers taking a shot at the fact that they somehow didn’t get badly hurt from that fall, which is fair.)

Masaru:  “What’s this? Does that mean the same thing happened to you?” [he and Agumon burst out laughing] “I see, you’re just like us!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Hold it. So basically, you were outsmarted by a giant gopher.” [he and Agumon burst out laughing] “Get a load of the ‘genius’!”

Ugh, nope, I don’t like this version. Masaru’s line made a really clear point of him realising that Tohma is just the same as him. He’s not shying away from the fact that he fell into Drimogemon’s trap as well, and he’s not looking down on Tohma; he just suddenly finally feels on the same level. But Marcus completely avoids mentioning that he and Agumon met the same fate, and instead this is all a mocking “ha ha, look at the genius being an idiot”, trying to drag Thomas down and feel above him.

In the original, Tohma’s leg injury was visibly bleeding, but the dub edited the blood out because I guess even a small patch of blood was too much for the dub’s censors. It’s still reasonable that Thomas could have some kind of non-bleeding injury like a sprain, but it does mean that the shot focusing on his perfectly unhurt-looking leg as Marcus realises he’s injured looks kind of silly.

Tohma:  “Stop that. I don’t need you to help—”

Masaru:  “When you’re a man… When you’re a man, there are some things you just have to *do* despite yourself.”

~~~~~

Thomas: “Let go. Whatever help you have to offer, I don’t need—”

Marcus: “Yes you do. Wake up. Put aside your stubbornness for once and let us help you.”

Don’t really like this either. If the dub had removed the manliness mention like it insists on doing and otherwise kept Masaru’s general sentiment intact – he’s putting aside his stubbornness because this is the right thing to do – I’d have been basically okay with this. But instead, this is putting the focus entirely on Thomas needing to put aside his stubbornness. It comes across like it was easy for Marcus to help Thomas without any kind of hesitation, almost like he didn’t even have any stubbornness of his own to put aside in the first place.

(And this is despite the fact that Marcus was being more of a dick to Thomas than Masaru was just a moment ago.)

The change in sentiment also doesn’t quite fit Masaru’s expression, which is one of firmly declaring his manly principles. When he’s making a point of offering help like this, I’d have expected Marcus’s expression to be something a little softer.

Agumon: “You’re making me cry, Boss!”

Agumon’s moved response to this – exactly the same as in the original – also doesn’t fit quite as well here when it’s not in response to any kind of manly principles and making compromises to do the right thing on Marcus’s part.

Masaru:  “Let’s get outta here first. Then we can think about other things.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “First we need to get out of here. After that, we can start arguing again.”

Marcus bringing up the arguing is fine, I guess, since that is definitely what he’s thinking, but I did really like how Masaru didn’t even outright bring it up while they were in this truce situation of needing to work together.

Masaru:  “It’s that way.”

Tohma:  “No, it’s this way.”

Masaru:  “Why?”

Tohma:  “I’m not like you. If we move around randomly, we’ll never get out of here.”

Masaru:  “But why?”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Let’s go this way.”

Thomas: “No, that way.”

Marcus: “How come?!”

Thomas: “Don’t argue with me. If we go with your no-plan method, we’ll never get out of here.”

Marcus: “Just say how come!”

In the original, Masaru was genuinely just wondering why, but in the dub, Marcus’s tone is notably angry and argumentative. Thomas’s “don’t argue with me” is also harsher, but then it’s kind of called for with Marcus’s tone.

Masaru:  “Hey, you’re pretty smart!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Hey, maybe you are a genius!”

This is still Marcus acknowledging Thomas’s intelligence for the first time, but I like it less because he mentions the genius thing. For one, it really doesn’t take a literal genius to think to mark their path with something, and this is just making Marcus seem stupider for him to think it does. But mostly, I really liked how Masaru acknowledged Tohma’s smarts on a regular down-to-earth level that he himself could understand and relate to, which doesn’t work when Marcus still makes it about him being a genius.

Tohma:  “As I said, I’m not like you.”

~~~~~

Thomas: “Compared to you? Believe me, it doesn’t take much.”

This and the earlier part of the argument loses the bit with Tohma still trying to make the point that he’s not like Masaru despite Masaru having started to see them as similar earlier, because the dub messed up that part earlier. Instead, Thomas is still just implicitly calling Marcus stupid.

Agumon:  “Aniki… When are we gonna get outta here?!”

Masaru:  “Don’t worry! Keep up your spirits and we’ll use it to work this out somehow!”

Tohma:  “Spirit has nothing to do with it, but we *are* heading up.”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Boss… When are we gonna get outta here already?!”

Marcus: “Stop complaining and think positive! We’ll get outta here soon!”

Thomas: “Being positive has nothing to do with it. However, we *are* heading towards the surface.”

This is almost exactly the same – “spirit” and “positivity” mean basically the same thing in this context. But I did like Masaru saying that keeping their spirits up will help them to escape in and of itself, which Marcus didn’t say. Masaru’s not wrong to say that! If they didn’t believe it was possible to get out, it’d be a lot harder for them to do so.

Masaru:  “You’re really unbearable.”

Tohma:  “You too.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “You know, you really are a downer sometimes.”

Thomas: “You too.”

The original made sense as both of them agreeing that the other’s opposite attitude can be frustrating for them personally. But Thomas agreeing that Marcus is also a downer kind of completely contradicts the part where Marcus was literally just encouraging them to stay positive.

Satsuma:  “Hurry!”

~~~~~

Sampson:  “No excuses, just do it! Hurry!”

This is as Miki and Megumi are trying to find Marcus and Thomas’s Digivice signals but are struggling because there’s too much static. Which isn’t an excuse; it’s a legitimate reason why this is taking so long. There’s no way they’re deliberately slacking off and making excuses to do so, so Sampson comes across as a lot more unreasonably harsh here. It’s still easy to read it as him only being harsh because he’s worried, but still. Chill, Sampson, they’re doing their best.

Masaru:  “Hey, are you okay?”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Hey, what’s the matter *now*?!”

As Tohma tries to walk back from the opening to the big cavern without Masaru but stumbles due to his leg injury, Masaru is just checking if he’s okay – but Marcus is being a jerk and acting like Thomas has been constantly making up reasons to complain. As if Thomas wouldn’t have been stoic and refusing to complain about the pain the whole time, and as if Marcus wasn’t just willingly helping him with this exact problem. Geez. Dub, stop making Marcus more of a jerk, especially when it doesn’t even make any sense among the rest of his actions here.

Thomas: “Earth to Marcus! Didn’t you hear me when I said the caves are unstable?”

I do enjoy this English-specific way for Thomas to get across his frustration at Marcus ignoring how it’s dangerous to fight in here. (And implying that he lives on a different and very fighty planet to everyone else is fun too.)

Masaru:  “I’m not gonna run or hide! A man takes his fights head-on!”

~~~~~

Marcus:  “A real champion doesn’t run and hide! Let’s meet the enemy head-on!”

Since the dub insists on removing the manliness, changing it to “champion” and keeping the rest of the sentiment intact is just about the most adequate thing they can do here. But it still loses that delightful connection this kind of thing has to all of Masaru’s other manly principles (such as helping out people who need it even if you don’t really like them!), and it makes it seem like his fighting thing is just about winning rather than that it’s connected to this concept of being a good person in his head.

Gaomon:  “Master!”

~~~~~

Gaomon: “Thomas!”

Sometimes Gaomon yells “Master!” on its own with no other dialogue, and since that’s two lip-flaps, the dub can’t replace it with “Sir!” – so instead they have to have Gaomon use Thomas’s actual name in these instances, which gives a bit of a different feel.

Masaru:  “Yo.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “…Hi there.”

Marcus’s line as he reaches the Drimogemon’s head is a lot more nervous in delivery, which is less fun than Masaru’s audaciously bold “Yo.”

Thomas has a comment specifying that the colosseum is made of ice. Its composition is never actually stated in the original and I assumed it was crystals, but I guess ice works, too? …Maybe not, though, because you’d expect GeoGreymon’s attacks to melt it, and they aren’t shown doing so. And digging through ice would probably be a lot easier than crystals and maybe still possible for Drimogemon.

…Oh dear, they cut out the brief moment of impact when Marcus punches Drimogemon. Apparently that’s too violent or something, a guy punching a huge cartoon mole. While I think this is the first time this has been done so far (unless I wasn’t paying attention in the earlier episodes), this will be happening a lot. It’s really quite bewildering to me why the dubbers have been required to cut the punching out of this anime which is a lot about its main character punching things. If the execs don’t want punching in their anime, why the hell are they licensing this anime for their channel?

Unlike in the original, the dub’s evolution music does play while they evolve their partners. Rather than being used to highlight triumphant moments, it feels like just an obligatory fanfare of evolution. It even essentially plays twice, starting in the exact same way as each of them begins their DNA Charge – though in fairness, the second loop of it has some extra elements and layers added to the music so that it isn’t completely repetitive.

Thomas: “Wait!”

Marcus: “What now?”

Marcus’s delivery of the “what now?” is amusingly deadpan and sounds so Done with Thomas constantly coming up with new reasons why he can’t just fight the thing, and damn it, it made me chuckle.

Thomas: “Marcus! Do you remember the last battle?”

Marcus: “The last *what*?!”

Marcus’s response here is weird. Why would the mention of a battle be the part that he’s questioning? Since that doesn’t make any sense, the only way to read this is that he’s being pointlessly argumentative again.

To make up for the dub’s unyielding insistence on only using the evolution music for literal evolutions rather than triumphant moments, at least they use Probably Marcus’s Theme for the actual victory moment, which has a similarly triumphant sort of mood. However, it does kick in a bit later, only when they begin to attack, rather than as soon as Tohma decides to try the Masaru-like strategy, which is a bit of a shame.

Tohma:  “Their combined powers enhanced each other and became amplified to more than before!”

~~~~~

Thomas: “With their powers combined, I wonder how much the strength of their attacks increased by?”

Since Thomas phrases his line as a question, it reads a lot less like a metaphor of him and Marcus working together. I… don’t know if the dub writers actually realised this was a metaphor in order to keep the line sounding like that.

Masaru:  “Did you see that?!” [he starts laughing]

~~~~~

Marcus: “He’s an egg!” [he starts laughing]

Masaru is laughing out of exhilarated excitement at their win, but Marcus meanwhile just sounds like somehow the fact that Digmon is now an egg is the most hilarious thing ever. Uhhhh? You’ve seen Digimon turn into eggs when they’re defeated before?

This also has a bit of a different tone in the dub because the triumphant music has ended and there’s no BGM here, while Believer is still wrapping up at this point in the original.

Speaking of BGM, the heartwarming acoustic guitar version of Probably Marcus’s Theme plays during this scene where he and Thomas officially become friends, and it’s cute.

Masaru:  “Nah, that was just spirit!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Nah! That was absolutely pure luck!”

It wasn’t pure luck, though! There was deliberate strategy involved of directing Drimogemon towards the surface and then towards the colosseum – he even mentioned that he was looking for a suitable battleground. It wasn’t something he had planned from the very beginning when he jumped down and was instead improvised as he went along, but calling it luck is completely wrong. Masaru’s a lot more appropriate to call it “spirit” – he used his spirit to make those in-the-moment decisions!

Marcus’s laugh here again sounds like he finds something weirdly hilarious, rather than that he’s just being an excited dork.

Thomas: (How do you make the illogical logical?)

Come on, Thomas, the illogical is logical! All you gotta do is make it so! Obviously Marcus doesn’t even worry about how, that’s completely the opposite of the point there.

Agumon:  “Aniki’s got himself another follower!”

Gaomon:  “Master is no follower!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Looks like the Boss has got himself another employee!”

Thomas: “Let’s not push our luck.”

I am sad that they took this sentiment away from Gaomon. Let him be a good dog who can’t see his Master ever not being a master!

Satsuma:  “As members of this organisation, you must uphold the rules!”

[pause; everyone looks ashamed; Satsuma turns his back to them]

Satsuma:  “You four… Well done in returning.”

~~~~~

Sampson:  “As members of this organisation, you must follow the rules! I have only one more thing to say to you two!”

[pause; everyone mumbles in nervous anticipation; Sampson turns his back to them]

Sampson: “…Well done. It’s good to have you safely back home.”

I like the presentation of this moment better in the dub! The added angry-sounding “I have one more thing to say,” like he’s about to reprimand them even more and then subverting their expectations works well to make the sudden praise and concern for them hit harder.

Overall differences

This one’s very similar! A lot of the stuff I pointed out here is really quite minor stuff, and some of those minor changes – not all, but a higher proportion than usual, I think – were lines I actually kind of liked a little more in the dub. Wow. (Though there are of course still some minor things I like less, such as the usual Marcus being more of a jerk.)

The only real significant differences I want to note are the changes to Masaru’s “You’re just like us!” and “When you’re a man, there’s some things you just have to do despite yourself” lines. Those are some of the most important lines in this episode in showing why Masaru begins to bridge the gap between him and Tohma, and the dub watered down that interesting nuance quite a bit.

[fangirlinglikeabus]

hello, here is part three of ‘i decided to read every dr who novelisation and now i’m making it other people’s problem’

galaxy 4 by william emms see, i like the tv version but even then i kinda had an inkling that this dude just Does Not Like women, and unfortunately the book only confirmed that! not just through the weird obsession with the drahvins’ beauty and the way the characters think about them, but i’m pretty sure there’s some added dialogue about it too. rip steven, whose character is assassinated once again by an author arbitrarily deciding he’s going to be a misogynist. also, bizarrely, this is the second novelisation where he’s been described as blond (or ‘fair’, this time). like, what? absolutely don’t recommend this one lol, which is a shame because i do actually like the whole idea of having a sympathetic alien race which looks really horrifying from a human point of view, and everything around that. uh...maybe if you’re super into reading the few references to regeneration that william emms put in?

the myth makers by donald cotton not quite as Out There as the romans which i thought was a shame but the myth makers is a fave of mine so even though there are a few points that i didn’t like (cassandra’s compared to a man in drag, pederasty is referenced in the context of achilles/patroclus, there’s a reference to rape which might seem blasé, there’s a conversation where the trojans are sarcastically called reactionaries and the greeks progressives which left me a bit ???is this an attack on progressive politics??) i still had a lot of fun. it’s told from the point of view of homer, taking some of the role of cyclops in the original, and as such we get his sarcastic commentary and slightly rejigged elements of the plot to explain how and where he’s getting his information. he even gets a bit involved at points, although he is by and large a commentator. this also leads to an epilogue that i really liked, personally. one random comment: it’s a bit bizarre that the dr’s trying to get vicki and steven to the 60s - maybe there was a bit of miscommunication there from production team to writer on where they’re from? anyway despite some reservations i do think this one’s worth reading, if only for the most...original description of the tardis materialising that i’ve come across yet. oh, and the terrible chapter puns. 

mission to the unknown by john peel two parter baby! despite its flaws, there’s something in me that finds an obnoxiously long dr who story fundamentally appealing, so i am a Fan of the daleks’ master plan. and for the most part this is a solid novelisation! however, john peel has decided to get Weird about women in it, which manifests in an uncomfortable number of comments on their attractiveness and the decision to make 1) katarina’s dress skimpier 2) sara’s uniform a form-fitting catsuit, so there were lines in this that made me cringe in on myself and hindered my enjoyment more than i’d’ve liked. plus there’s a line where mavic chen’s like ‘he had never felt the attraction of women himself’ so ig we’re getting queercoding added to ‘cruel compassionless and megalomaniacal asian man out to destroy  the planet which is otherwise exclusively represented by white people’ in terms of Unfortunate Tropes he embodies. other than that, we get a recap of the escape from troy, a few things that are slightly expanded on like bret’s confrontation with sara, her argument with steven ‘he was my brother’ scene in a cave instead of walking, and For Some Goddamn And Slightly Disturbing Reason, the implication that at least FOUR separate characters have been/are about to be eaten by native wildlife. 

the mutation of time by john peel this had less creepy stuff with women (although that did pop up occasionally) so it’s already better in my book. sara’s explicitly been travelling in the tardis for a few months and i liked that the story kept her thoughts of bret a bit more central than on tv! steven has a crush on sara which i’m uh. indifferent to and basically goes nowhere except for being mentioned in like 2 scenes. there are a lot of little things there, like a few references to earlier stories, a change in the egypt stuff so that one of the daleks gets killed, naming the police officers after z cars actors. dr who no longer wishes the audience merry christmas and steven doesn’t list the names of the dead at the end but we do get 2 extra scenes, one on skaro with the dalek prime and one where chen’s collaborator gets arrested. a few continuity points: the reason the tardis keeps going to earth is that the doctor spent so long trying to get ian and barbara there that it got stuck in a pattern; the doctor claims he’s over 700 but this directly contradicts the second doctor in tomb of the cybermen so i guess we’ve got more evidence of dr who lying about their age for the records. 

the massacre by john lucarotti oh this one is interesting. i know there was behind the scenes stuff in the 60s that led to this one being rewritten - did not realise that with the changes undone we’re given an entirely new plot thread! and it’s one that explains the burning question of the television version - where the hell was the doctor for all that time? he gets caught up with the huguenot apothecaries as they flee to the catacombs, and ends up being roped in to impersonate the abbot in order to gather information, all while steven is mostly kept in the dark. also, the tardis gets burned at the stake now. i think all that added stuff definitely makes this one worth reading, although honestly i don’t like the ending so much as the one on tv - the intensity there works better for the subject matter, imo, whereas here it’s bizarrely upbeat for a story about a religious massacre where several characters we meet are confirmed dead. the doctor does definitely intervene to save anne though, so that’s nice. oh, and the time lords get an appearance in both the prologue and the epilogue, in case you wanted to see those guys.

the ark by paul erickson ngl was not a fan of this one. it tries a bit to emphasise the monoids being mistreated and the dr criticising it but really this highlights a problem with the original: an ‘everyone was wrong’ moral doesn’t work when one side is ignorantly patronising and the other wants to commit genocide. like, the guardians are wrong, yeah, but the monoids are too over-the-top villainous for it to ever feel balanced. there’s a lot of expansion on the world (both on and off ship) in the first half that’s mildly interesting (even if the statements about genetic engineering are a bit disturbing - you bred aggression out of predators?), including a trek to several different ‘zones’, but after that all the stuff added in the second half just drags the plot (and also has this weird bit where the refusians adopt earth names? i guess aliens are just rushing to assimilate with the earth culture that’s going to colonise their planet). plus there’s way more criticism of the way dodo speaks, which i don’t like. this does technically mean that dodo never gets an introduction in the target books though, because her entrance was cut out of the last one and it’s not here either - instead there’s at least one line that gives the impression she’s been around a while.

the celestial toymaker by gerry davis and alison bingeman  this is written by two whole people and it’s still one of the most unremarkable novelisations i’ve read since an unearthly child. on the one hand, you’ve got a book that seems largely to have been churned out at an industrial speed (although i do like the description of the toymaker’s study as merging with space, and it gives us some nuggets of information like dodo being a ballet fan and steven reading military history books). on the other hand, at least they don’t include the racial slur this time? there’s this one line about soldiers liking the fair sex though, and i’m like...she’s sixteen. i don’t particularly recommend this one, but i do feel compelled to tell you all that one of the few significant and easily marked on changes to the original is that the dance floor now compels dodo and steven to dance to several different styles of music, including tango, foxtrot, and, uh, disco. 

the gunfighters by donald cotton it’s a deep tragedy in my life that they didn’t work out a way to keep the ballad of the last chance saloon, but after the last book i was glad that this one at least had a distinctive prose style to it - although the narrator’s slightly less remarkable, since he’s just someone writing up an account of what happened after interviewing the dying doc holliday. like cotton’s other works he plays a bit fast and loose with what happens on screen (expanded/altered dialogue, there’s a few scenes added to or curtailed, some stuff summarised, extra background) - and there’s like, sex jokes in this one?? they’re not particularly extreme at all but given that kate’s also allowed to say the word bastard as an insult i do suspect the bbc had stopped caring about overseeing these children’s books. there’s a few uncomfortable references to people thinking dodo might be in relationships with grown men (it’s 1881, i guess, so that might explain it cos they’re all made by 19th century characters but i don’t think it needed to be there in this light-hearted dr who book) which i didn’t like. wyatt is super religious now, also? highlights include johnny ringo, classicist; the phrase ‘steven, who had not hitherto realised he had a jib to cut’; dodo deciding that love doesn’t seem all that great and she’s just fine without it, thank you, which made my aro heart happy. not my fave of cotton’s novelisations and there’s definitely bits that made me go Um, but i don’t think you’ll be wasting time with it either!

the savages by ian stuart black my notes are so lacklustre for this because basically nothing of note gets changed. i like black’s prose when he writes it, but this is another one with large swathes of dialogue and not much flourish to them. not even things that the original could do with, like a more focused justification of steven’s stay, are there. steven says ‘not even dodo could be that silly’ instead of ‘stupid’, which is good because he already spends a fair bit of time delegitimising her viewpoint in this without attacking her intelligence so directly. i think having the narrator refer to the oppressed underclass as savages kinda undermines the moral - sure, they’re called savages by the people who want to view them as inferior to justify the way they treat them, but why does the neutral voice have to when we know what the implications of the word are? mainly i just wish black had written more, because there are some genuinely nice moments when he’s not just using what was there in the original.

the war machines by ian stuart black it was fun reading this back to back with the savages because it definitely doesn’t have the same problem: this feels like an actual proper novel with thought put into it, rather than a script with some bits added. i really liked the fight scene, it actually makes an effort to substantiate dodo’s departure (although she still doesn’t get to say goodbye, it mentions the doctor suspecting she’s wanted to go home pretty much since steven left), and ben no longer accuses polly of leading on a man who was harassing her - a minor victory, i guess, but there are definitely novelisations that haven’t cut dodgy parts of the original out even when they were written years later, so i’ll take what i can get. ian gets referenced too, which is nice, although given the progress he’s made in his career and references to things he did ‘at the beginning of the decade’ and the doctor’s belief he’ll have trained today’s scientists, it gives the bizarre impression that black’s backdated ian and barbara’s travels slightly. aside from this weird line near the beginning that implies ‘womankind’ value the ‘primitive safe space’ more than ‘mankind’ (???) i would really recommend this one.