#and he shouldn’t be treated as one by the animated series

[quinn-of-aebradore]

Sorry it’s on my mind again but part of the reasoning for why I don’t want M9 Animated to reveal that Essek is the Beacon thief is because it would fundamentally change the connotations surrounding him and his role in the show to viewers who haven’t watched C2 and don’t already know where his arc ends.

The way he’s introduced in C2, he’s odd and mysterious and intimidating, but there’s nothing inherently antagonistic about him. He’s never once painted as a villain for the Nein. Which allows for them to befriend him as they do, and serves to gut-punch the viewer alongside them when The Reveal happens! He was supposed to be an antagonist but he never was, because of the Nein.

But if you show him doing treason things early, before the Nein even meet him, then it changes that framing entirely! Then he is painted as a villain, especially if we see him interacting with Trent like we know he did once or twice. It turns his early interactions with the Nein from mysterious to sinister, as he’s been depicted as an ally of one of their Big Enemies and Caleb’s nemesis. All of the Nein’s efforts to befriend him get colored with the knowledge that Essek is lying to them. Which! It’s very important for me to say that that isn’t wrong, obviously he very much is. I myself went into the Xhorhas Arc of C2 knowing Essek was the traitor. But being locked into the Nein’s perspective for it changes the tone, even knowing that. But for a new viewer, going in completely blind, it makes Essek seem deceptive and villainous when really he’s deceptive and out of his depth.

This could possibly be countered by having a scene where he’s alone at his towers and we get to see him be openly anxious over how close to him the Nein are getting, the state his deal with Ludinus is in, but I don’t know how effective that would be when stacked up against other scenes of him doing Assembly things! Especially depending on how early those scenes would start; if they start very early, it makes Essek seem like a very looming figure over the narrative which he just… isn’t. He’s not looming until the Nein meet him. He’s there in the background, yes, but aside from the initial hand-off, his role with the Beacons is rather minimal. He was fed scraps by Ludinus, we know that.

However. This doesn’t mean I’m 100% opposed to an Essek flashback. You know when one would slot in very well? The start of the episode after the reveal. Imagine it, an episode ends on the conversation between Essek and Ludinus that Caleb spied on and the next one picks up a couple years in the past, showing them striking the deal and then cutting to later on, Essek handing over the Beacons. That would fit in spectacularly well.

[seungfl0wer]

*𝑻𝒘𝒐 𝑰𝒔 𝑩𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝑶𝒏𝒆*

Pairing: Snake!Hybrid Hyunjin x Reader (Fem)

Genre: Smut

Warnings: Snakes! Mentions of Blood/Stitches, Fork/Split tongue, Oral(F), Unprotected Sex, Creampie, Biting, Two Dicks (kinda double P), Sorry for any mistakes or Missing warnings!

A/N: My animal knowledge really shows here😂

Series Master List

-🖤

It was rare to see snake hybrids. A lot of them hid in fear of how others treated them. Humans were mean creatures, especially to things they fear. They knew that all too well, so seeing a snake hybrid brought into your adoption center was strange. His scales were flakey, eyes stuck with shed. You could tell whoever had him didn’t treat him well.

No one wanted to be near him most of your colleagues staying away some even squealing. However you weren’t scared, did you like snakes? Not particularly, but you knew he needed help. When you approached him in the little container he was in he hissed. You quickly shushed him picking him up to take him to the sink area. You had run him a small bath, just some water for him to soak in. “I can’t believe you’re touching that thing” someone streaked at your side.

“It deserves the same amount of love and compassion as any others here” you retort looking down at him. You cleaned him up helping the stuck shed off before putting him back with a heating lamp.

“Y/n will you take it home?” Your manager had asked.

“Why don’t you want it here?” You glared.

“Listen, most of us don’t like them. He’s probably not gonna get adopted and we also aren’t equipped to take care of him properly. You at least seem to know what you’re doing.” They rambled.

You looked back down at the snake who was now curled up by your hand. “Fine, I’ll take it home, however.” You said with a small pause. “He’s mine as soon as we leave and I want the next few days off to take care of him and help him settle.” You stated.

“Of course-“ your manager started to say before you interrupted him.

“Paid” you said sternly.

With a sigh knowing he wasn’t gonna win he agreed just wanting that thing out of the building.

You put him in your spare room, getting the necessary stuff for his set up. You watched as he explored smiling to yourself. “Listen, I know you understand me. So whenever if ever you wanna become human. This room is yours. You have free roam where ever. You’ll be safe here, and taken care of” you kept talking.

He laid under the heating lamp listening carefully. If he could laugh he would. He’s heard that before. Knowing damn well his last owner started off with “love” but quickly forgot about him. He never got comfortable enough to turn so what made you think he would here he wondered.

As days went on you grew fonder of him, seeing some of his goofy personality shine through. His scales looked a lot healthier, a beautiful dark shade with glints of goldish color in them. They matched his beautiful piercing gold eyes. He hissed at you a lot however never making any attempt at striking. After shifts at work you’d pick him up out of his tank, laying him on the couch as you watched tv. It was one of these nights that it changed.

You had done your normal taking him out laying him on the couch with a heating pad beside if he got to cold. He stayed there as you cooked dinner only to be startled from his sleep by a crashing sound. He could smell blood in the air his fork tongue flickering at the scent. “Fuck!” He heard you yell from the kitchen with a bit of rustling. He was scared something had happened that someone broke in. In his panic turning ‘human’. He ran into the kitchen only to see you on the floor holding your hand that was gushing blood.

“What the hell happened?” He said making you jump. He looked at you realizing he was ‘human’.

“You turned?” You said almost excitedly.

He couldn’t help but let out a nervous laugh “that shouldn’t be the focus right now, you’re literally bleeding” he said before grabbing a clean towel to wrap it around your hand.

You watched him looking over his features. He had a sharp jawline, slim but muscular physique, those gold eyes even prettier. When he started talking your eyes found themselves on his pillowy lips. You could see the small peak of fangs and to your surprise his tongue was split. You were just in awe taking him in not even realizing he was talking to you. Not until he lifted your head with his warm hand. “Hello? Are you listening? You probably need stitches” he said looking at you were furrowed brows.

You only nodded eyes still scanning over him. You grabbed your phone off the counter with your other hand calling your neighbor. He came over taking you to the hospital and you did in deed need stitches.

Your snake hybrid cleaned up the mess. He finished making the dinner you were working on before it happened and sat there. Waiting. Agonizingly waiting. When you came through the door he smiled sighing in relief. “Hey! Thanks for cleaning and- wait you finished dinner?” You said surprised.

“Yeah, how���s the hands?” He said.

“Ah well it’s not bleeding anymore” you said with a laugh.

“I can’t believe you cut yourself that deep, what were you doing? Dancing with the knife?” He teased.

“No this was all just a scheme to see if you’d come to my rescue” you teased back making him roll his eyes. “Since I can properly ask you now though, what’s your name?” You asked siting down at the counter.

“Hyunjin.” He said.

“Good now I can stop calling you snakey” you said laughing.

After that moment Hyunjin didn’t turn back for the most part. Sometimes you’d fined him curled up under his heating lamp, other times he’d be curled up on the couch under lots of blankets. Your routine continued coming home, cooking, sitting on the couch with him just watching tv. Now though, he talked back. He got into the habit of curling up against you when you came home. Your body’s heat always feeling so nice to him.

You came home today more exhausted than normal though. A fight braking out between some hybrids at work. You being in the middle of it when it happened. Today honestly wasn’t as normal as you thought. All the hybrids were acting weird around you. A lot more possessive and clingy. When you walked through the door thinking about it more you realized hyunjin hadn’t came out from his tank.

“Hyune, are you ok?” You asked leaning down over the tank. When he didn’t budge you picked him up like normal his skin scales feeling warm. He hissed at you baring his fangs. “Are you mad at me?” You said softly, making him stop. He slithered up your arm before slithering down your leg. He made his way to the bed before turning back to his human like form.

There was a moment of silence before he spoke. “I’m not mad at you. Ugh” he groaned. “Do you realize you’re ovulating?” He said with a loud groan.

“Am I? Is that why everyone’s been so weird today?” You questioned.

“Probably- god I don’t know how you went to work with all of them. You’re supposed to be mine” he said the end of his sentence trialing off.

“I am yours” you said quickly with out realizing your own words impact.

“Yeah?” He said looking up at you. Those gold eyes had a hint of something in them. “Then let me make you mine.” He said before grabbing your arm pulling you to him.

He didn’t give you anytime to protest before kissing you, his lips warm softer than you’d imagine. His kiss was hungry tongue quickly making its way into your mouth. His hands came down pulling your bottoms down quickly in one swift motion. He was moving so fast, his motions only driven by need. The need to have you all his, a primal need. His sharp fangs grazed your bottom lip as he moved down your neck. It was almost like he was a little vampire with those fangs. He kissed down your body, pulling your thighs up to him.

He licked his lips looking at your dripping cunt “she’s calling me” he said with a smirk before diving into your core. His fork tongue feeling way different from anything you’d ever had before. Both the muscles moving on their own as they lapped at your folds. His fingers came up to graze against your slick before pushing them into you. He curled them hitting a sensitive spot. The moan you let out only drove him to keep doing it. To hear it again and again. Your hands found their way to his long soft locks.

“Fuck Hyune” you moaned out.

“Feel good? Gonna cum on my tongue?” He said with a devilish smile.

You nodded making that smile only grow. He picked up his speed fingers finding another even more sensitive spot. With his pace and tongue lapping at your clit your high crashed quickly over you. Walls tightening around his fingers. He licked a long strip up eyes staining into yours. He wanted to keep going, wanted to keep tasting you all over him but he needed to be inside you. Fuck your smell alone was gonna make him nut in his pants.

He stood up pulling down his pants revealing his two curvy cocks. With shock, eyes widen you blurted out “you have two?!”

He couldn’t help but laugh “yeah, you didn’t know? Thought you read up on me” he said. He took your hand wrapping it around the bigger one “this one’s the main one, and th- this one” he stuttered as your hand grazed the smaller one “this one is super sensitive like your clit” he said.

You nodded staring intently at his cocks. He leaned you back pressing his body against your kissing you deeply. He slowly pushed himself into you, the smaller cock rubbing against your clit. He let out a hiss of pleasure before his mind went. He started pounding into you mercilessly. His smacking against yours. The sounds of moans and skin smacking filling the air with the scent of sex. He had his head buried in the crook of your neck his long fangs grazing so gently at it. “I shouldn’t even let you leave smelling this good, all of them got their gross scent on you.” He hissed. “I’m gonna make sure they know you’re taken.”

His thrusts continued fast before he gripped at your legs pressing them against your chest before drilling into you. The new angel letting him hit at your cervix. “Hyunjin!” You screamed hands coming up to touch his chest. He pulled out fully before pushing hard back into you however he felt bigger. You felt more pressure in your core like somehow his cock grew a size. The pornagraphic sound he let out made your eyes snap open looking down you realized why he felt bigger. His smaller cock has slipped in, your cunt sucking both of them so greedily.

“Sh-shit I- I- fuck!” His head rolled back not being able to even speak at the pleasure. The warmth overtaking his smaller cock making it twitch in over stimulation. He snapped his hips back one more time both cocks pushing deep inside of you before you were Cumming. Cumming harder than you have ever before. His body shook at the feeling. Your walls tightening more and more around him. He gripped at your hips harshly digging his nails into you. He cried out as his release finally spilled out painting your walls white.

When you stared to squirm a bit trying to adjust yourself, the movement pushing him deeper into you making him whimper. “D-don’t move” he pleaded. You realized his smaller cock was still hard. You smirked up at him before moving away only to push back on him. He gasped almost like the wind was knocked out of him. His hands tried to stop your movement but one more push back his smaller cock was cumming.

He had the most intense orgasm, his body shook body falling to the side of you. He tried regaining his breath “I’ve- I’ve never- with my smaller” his words coming out choppy but you knew what he meant.

You pushed some of his hair back kissing him softly. “M’sorry for- I should have asked” he said still out of breath.

“It’s ok hyune honestly after today kinda needed it” you said with a smile.

“Gl-glad I could help.” He said nuzzling his head into your neck. His breathing was still heavy as you stroked his back.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

💙 If you’d like to read more of my stuff you can find it Here: Master List . Thank you for reading and if requests are open or you just wanna talk feel free to send me something🩵

Taglist: @satosugu4l @do-you-remember-summer-127 @xines16 @minh0scat @troublemaker02 @tr-mha-fan @lunearta @velvetmoonlght @minghaosimp @ldysmfrst @felixleftchickennugget @jehhskz @babigriin @kkamismom12 @jeonginsleftcheek

[hopepetal]

Decided to do a bit of writing for the first session of secret life! Very slight spoilers for Grian's first episode below! (I took a lot of creative liberty)

--

There’s something achingly familiar about the sand underneath their feet. The way it shifts as they make their way through the desert– not their desert, but that’s alright– in search of resources and food. The sun beats down on them from above, and Grian has to give Scar a warning look. Don’t even think about taking your shirt off.

Scar grins back at him, and if they had been allies, he would’ve ignored that warning look to playfully annoy Grian as he had done many a time back in their desert. But this is not their desert, and they are not allies. There is no blood-forged loyalty between them, no soulbond tying their lives together. 

And yet, they had returned to the sand together, laughing softly at the awkward jokes that each other made. Drawn together by no one’s will outside of their own, Grian and Scar walk together under the desert sun like they are allies (they are not).

Grian’s feathers rustle as he notices a small grouping of cacti, hopping off of the camel with his stone axe in hand. His back aches slightly from the mildly uncomfortable ride– he still liked llamas more. This, he tells Scar as he begins to carefully chop the cacti and scoop them into his inventory. 

“I dunno!” he replies with a shrug, when Scar asks him why he doesn’t like camels as much. “Llamas are just more comfortable. And camels are really slow, I don’t know if you noticed that.”

Scar chuckles slightly, shaking his head. “This poor camel is workin’ his butt off to transport you back and forth, and look at how you treat him! Hatin’ on him, calling him names! You’re not too kind to your workers, G. Shame on you! Shame on you, I say.”

Grian rolls his eyes as he moves to collect the next cactus. “You’re so dramatic, Scar. I never said I hated camels.” The cactus falls, and Grian pushes it into his inventory with a little less care for the needles that prick his skin. “I just like llamas more. More comfortable on the rear, y’know?” 

Scar scoffs playfully, tutting softly in disappointment. “I never thought you’d discriminate based on butt comfortatibilital–” He cuts himself off with a slight frown– “comforta– comfortability!” His lopsided grin returns to his face as he moves over to the camel and reaches up to gently pet its rough fur. “Don’t listen to the meanie, Mr…!” He pauses, looking over at Grian. “Any name ideas?” he asks, and Grian lets out a disbelieving laugh.

“Scar!” Grian pauses in his cactus gathering and turns to face the other man, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows. “You shouldn’t start naming every animal you see. It’s the life series, for goodness sakes. You know it’s either going to die or be stolen, and what are you going to do when you retaliate and then no one wants to ally with you?”

Scar pulls his lips together into a frown, pouting. “That’s just not gonna happen! Just you wait, G– I’ll be so useful and kind to everyone on the server that they’re all gonna be my allies! Yes sir, Scar Goodtimes is going to be a friend to all this season!”

Grian laughs. “Can’t wait to see how that one turns out,” he teases. “You have a bit of a history of either going off alone, or only having one friend.”

Scar gasps in mock surprise, though the hurt that shines so briefly in his eyes is real. “Grian! You can’t just say that to a man! And you know that is not true! I had Cleo and Bdubs last season! We were family!”

Grian rolls his eyes. “Yeah, so was boatem, and look at how we ended up.” He folds his wings behind his back as he turns back to the cacti, pulling his axe out once more as he begins to chop down the desert plants. He didn’t really even know why he wanted the cacti so bad– it wasn’t as if they were actually all that useful, other than some dye. 

It was at this point that Scar realizes just what Grian was doing, and stumbles forward with a yelp. “Hey! Hey there! I’m not letting you get the monopoly, mister!” He struggles to pull out his axe before swiftly chopping into the base of the cactus. “I’ve learned better by now!” he crows, scooping the fallen plant into his hands. And for a moment, he pauses, and silence falls over the two of them.

Scar seems to consider something, green eyes darkening from memories. He cups the small piece of cactus in his hands, careful to not let the needles prick into his skin. He looks up at Grian, down, then back up again. The silence continues to ring. 

Grian swallows, and the anticipation (fear? he thinks it might be fear) building in his chest makes him think that the stakes of this moment should be higher. That the number of lives should be lower. It makes him think that there should be a ring of cacti around the two of them, and that he should be gazing into red eyes.

But the eyes he meets are lime green. Wrong, but not red. The only cacti around are in Grian’s inventory and Scar’s hands. And the sand that shifts slightly beneath their feet is not pitted with explosions nor stained with blood. Grian realizes his feathers had begun to puff out and forces himself to calm down. 

It’s fine. He’s fine. 

Scar’s expression tells Grian he’s thinking the same thing. The silence crescendos into a deafening roar. 

Scar steps forward, and carefully places the cactus down on the sand in front of Grian. “I’ll let you have the monopoly,” he murmurs, and Grian chokes out a laugh as he picks up the cactus and puts that into his inventory as well. Scar gives him a grin and breathes out his next question. “Can we still be friends?”

Grian slowly blinks, and looks up at Scar. He takes a deep breath. Then another. The silence does not ring; it screams. 

Scar glances up and sees Grian there, staring at the cactus, and frowns. “Hey, G? You good?”

Grian blinks back tears, and nods. “...yeah. Yeah, I’m good. We can still be friends.” 

Friends. Not allies. Neither were quite ready to be the latter just yet. But it was a start. They left that desert– not their desert, they’d never quite leave that– alive and feeling the light sting of cactus needles pricking into their skin.

[fumifooms]

so glad you posted that compilation cus i literally can't stop thinking about chilchuck's succubi... everyone else's have so much to be said about them and are so much less straightforward than just classically sexual, but then chilchuck's Truly goes straight for the jugular. when i saw that one panel i could not stop jawdropping at how explicit they went with that implication like it's actually insane to me. i feel like it says a lot about him, what you said about him enjoying the simple pleasures of life like alcohol and sex, and he's really such... a guy. but if this is the most alluring form to him he really should get that divorce even if he still loves his wife i have to be honest LOL poor thing

YEAH literally it’s insane 💀I feel like due to the tension and action of the scene and the way the page is paneled it’s soo easy to brush over it and focus on other things without our eyes actually processing THAT. I have no clue how they’ll make it in the anime without just making it straight up obscene lmao, a friend joked that the sucking sound effect should be like a straw and I’d die laughing if Trigger does that. Maybe like slurping noodles instead. No clue what they’ll do genuinely.

I do believe Chilchuck is just Like That™️, but yes I also like to think that it reflects how deeper connections have hurt him in the past so he prefers relationships where he’s just there to do his job or just there to have fun without thinking and not have to worry about betrayal etc etc. He’s not there to think and have emotions he just wants to feel good for a while and be seduced and those things (succubi, sex alcohol etc) sure do that.

I wouldn’t say that this is the line crossed for why he shouldn’t get back with his wife though!! I do get the feeling that he and his wife just aren’t compatible and that they don’t communicate well, and with Chilchuck saying "I don’t know if it’ll go as well as in the stories, but I’ll try" about reaching out to her, and with idealization vs the actual person/thing being a big theme in Dungeon Meshi where we don’t know just how much he loves her or if he loves the ideal/memories of her, I do feel like they should reconcile but not get back together. BUT! I think the whole "most alluring form" thing shouldn’t be treated as the ultimatum that people often treat it as, the succubus chapters really reflect a bunch of themes that are present in the whole series, like ‘irrational instinctive desire vs what you actually want and need’ and such.

Again I’ll be spoiling a future analysis I want to make but… If the characters were to have their full minds in those chapters, what they rationally want most is very different than the succubus they got, something can be alluring but you’d still refuse it, like idk a cigar, hence why the succubi need to freeze their victims by reading their irrational desires so well. Chilchuck has gone 4 years since his separation with his wife still being faithful to her!!! FOUR!!! Had he his capacities he would not be cheating on her no sir. He’s marriage man have some faith. Had they their minds Laios and Marcille would be imagining Falin safe and welcoming instead. It’s much like with the Winged Lion, where the desires it twists the characters into aren’t the one they actually pursue (well, in Laios’ case at least. It emphases on them a ton even when it is a desire they show in everyday life), the monster twists the desires to have the outcome they want, it’s manipulation.

If your point is that the succubi don’t look like his wife though like come onnn you can’t either be asexual or think your partner is the literal prettiest person on Earth supermodel-like level to be with them and truly love them and be devoted come on… If that new blackhaired half-foot woman is her, then we saw with the succubi that he does favor her kind of eye shape, and idk that’s so much more romantic to me than hair color 🥺 Come onn he’s just a lil birthday guy he wants pleasure but he can’t fantasize about his wife bc it’d make him sad come onnn come on don’t hold it against him come onnn… Oh although I do read his "All your succubi are blonde, is your wife too?" "Shut up, don’t bring her up now!!" as guilt, bc he has a hard time thinking of himself as virtuous so I imagine in that moment he’s like "Man maybe this is why she left me… Maybe I really am not a virtuous husband…" and it’s like BUDDY a monster is playing you like a fiddle don’t make yourself feel bad over it 😭😭 I did write a fic around that concept though hehe 👈 But yes just defending my guy’s VIRTUES a bit out there. I do agree his wife had it rough, it must be so lonely and a lil devaluating to be his wife and always waiting on him and he can’t even work up the emotional maturity to voice that he loves you regularly when he is home 💀 Man is NOT a storybook prince charming

[snowandglasslabyrinth]

Damn, the Velma show really sucks. All the characters seem wrong and one-dimensional. There’s nothing funny, I genuinely laughed once and it’s because sarcasm gets me always. Also, specifically it was Velma’s line after climbing the wall to perform a break and enter into Fred’s family’s mansion.

Velma is painfully mediocre as a character, she is contradictory and evidently treats people poorly, laughs in Norville’s face when he says he has a crush on her, and just seemed really mean and poorly written. I also really hate the fat phobic jokes. That’s not right, it’s not funny, it’s just in poor taste and mean. Having it so that she eats french fries out of the garbage is insulting and just pointless. She’s got some massive crush on Fred cause he’s ‘hot’, she’s fairly shallow as a character but loves to point out (see ep. 2) that all the other characters are shallow. People in her school think she’s ugly until she wears revealing clothing, then everyone pays attention to her - in my humble but angry opinion that is a bad message to spread to young adults and teens.

Norville is a whole case, the drug references and jokes are neither funny nor entertaining and after his ridiculous and clunky line about being anti-drugs early in the first episode he pauses as if the audience needs a moment to laugh. It was awful. I get that it’s meant to be a play on the idea that Shaggy was a stoned character but that doesn’t mean it’s funny.

Daphne is vapid, and she’s always been a little bit vain (the stereotypical girl character to an extent because in the original series she was a round character full of depth) but in the show she has become a high schooler obsessed with sex who treats everyone horrifically. The obsession with sex is a thing for all of the highschool girls in the show, I don’t know who had that kind of experience in highschool but I certainly didn’t so it feels uncomfortable and inappropriate (also feels like that because they anime bubble censor a bunch of naked teenage highschool girls as they talk about sex in tv, that shouldn’t have been allowed.)

Fred is just a douche. I mean I know that’s a choice that the writers made but I strongly hate who he’s become (and yes I know I’m supposed to hate him but I think it’s supposed to be because he’s a jerk not just because he’s poorly written uninteresting and a man child that acts like a stereotypical ‘macho’ man). And the amount of times he calls himself a ‘puss’ is annoying and, unfortunately for the show, still not funny, so only sarcasm points for comedy right now.

Some side character notes: Velma’s dad’s girlfriend is an awful and boring stereotype. The show leans on cliches and stereotypes heavily I.e. any character in that show practically. The other students are boring and not memorable. There’s a moment where Fred stands up for Velma and accidentally cuts a student’s foot off, reminiscent of the comedy in those bad adult cartoons that are overpopulating Netflix right now (Paradise PD, Hoops (is that what it’s called?) and others). If I didn’t mention other characters it’s because I don’t remember they exist.

Okay tl;dr the show sucks, it’s not funny, I loved Scooby Doo as a kid so this hurts me, I hate what they’ve done with the characters.

So, I know I usually don’t make my own posts or write reviews but I literally got 10 minutes into the second episode and had to stop because it was bad, very bad. The first episode was bad enough but I thought I would torture myself and then I gave up because I just couldn’t anymore. Thanks for reading all of this if you have, and don’t watch Velma.

:)

[ghoul-slime]

Ghouls & Their Favorite Horror Movies (1980s edition)

In honor of Halloween being just a few days away (!!!) have some thoughts about the ghouls and their favorite horror movies. Narrowed down to the 1980s because that's probably my favorite decade for horror (shoutout to the 70s though).

Dew: City of the Living Dead, The Evil Dead, Pieces, Cannibal Holocaust

Resident horror snob and ultimate gorehound. The bloodier, sleazier, and more fucked up the better. Huge fan of the Italian horror directors, especially “Godfather of Gore” and king of onscreen eyeball trauma Lucio Fulci. City of the Living Dead (aka The Gates of Hell) is his favorite, it’s gory, blasphemous, and just obscure enough for him to feel smug when nobody else has heard of it. The biggest horror fan of the group, he’s seen it all and is always on the hunt for something weird and new that he hasn’t seen yet (a difficult task). Introduced pretty much all of the other ghouls to their favorite horror movies.

Aether: Return of the Living Dead, Re-Animator, Night of the Creeps, Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Lover of all the best 80s horror comedies. Silly and fun without being too intense or mean-spirited. The more over the top the better. Aether movie nights are always the most fun. Loves Return of the Living Dead because of the awesome punk rock soundtrack and 80s punk aesthetic. Secretly loves horror comedies the best because he gets to see Dew laughing the whole time. He and Dew are the most annoying about quoting movies back and forth to each other nonstop.

Mountain: The Thing, They Live, Aliens, From Beyond

Loves his horror with a side of sci-fi. Major John Carpenter and Stuart Gordon fan (who isn’t). Also a huge fan of sci-fi horror with amazing practical effects and The Thing is the king of them all (he loves the original too, for the plant-man monster of course). 

Swiss: Hellraiser, Videodrome, Society, Street Trash

Body horror enthusiast. If it's slimy, horny, and taboo then he’s all about it. Unsurprisingly the biggest Cronenberg fan of the bunch. Huge fan of the Hellraiser series, what with all the leather and the chains and the flesh. Will also sit you down and force you to watch Society if you’ve never seen it (you will thank him later).

Phantom: The Monster Squad, Fright Night, The Lost Boys, Near Dark

Of course it’s gotta be The Monster Squad. Phantom loves the classic Universal Monsters and Monster Squad has them all, wrapped up in a super fun 80s horror comedy with great writing and memorable characters. Will undoubtedly yell WOLFMAN’S GOT NARDS at the most inopportune times. Loves vampire movies the most and secretly thinks of his pack a little bit like the group of vampires in Near Dark.

Aurora: Night of the Comet, Slumber Party Massacre, Phenomena, Sleepaway Camp 2

GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS. Loves seeing pretty women absolutely kick ass onscreen. And any horror movie with a female villain will almost always become a favorite. Loves Night of the Comet because why shouldn’t a couple of valley girl cheerleaders get to enjoy a mall shopping spree while also mowing down hordes of comet zombies with machine guns?

Cirrus: Possession, Altered States, The Shining, the Ninth Configuration

Queen of psychological horror. Her picks usually toe the line between horror and other genres. Cirrus movie nights almost always have to come with a “palate cleanser” movie right after (usually a Cumulus or Aether pick). Dew secretly thinks she has the coolest taste of the bunch.

Cumulus: Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Blood Diner, TerrorVision

80s horror comedies (horny version). Like Aether, Cumulus loves horror comedies. But for her, the sexier and more ridiculous the better. Always thinks a movie would do better with more boobs and full-frontal. Vocal advocate for more male nudity in movies. Linnea Quigley is her horror idol.

Sunshine: Slumber Party Massacre 2, Black Roses, Trick or Treat, Slaughterhouse Rock

Number one champion of the rock & roll horror subgenre. Horror and rock music were both public enemy number one during the Satanic Panic of the 80s, and Sunny loves movies that lean into it. Slumber Party Massacre 2 is the most fun with the leather-clad rockabilly slasher facing off against members of an all-girl rock group with his massive (unmistakably phallic) electric guitar-drill.

Rain: Jaws 3, Humanoids from the Deep, The Fog, The Abyss

Absolutely nobody is shocked to discover Rain is a fan of underwater/nautical horror. He doesn’t even care if a movie is “good” as long as it’s wet and full of weird monsters or creatures. Avid defender of Jaws 3 (it has dolphins, hello). His taste is all over the place quality-wise, from b-movie creature features like Humanoids, to the cozy coastal ambiance of the Fog. As the only ghoul who can breathe underwater, he loves to watch others squirm during the breathing fluid scene in the Abyss.

[aliypop]

Soldier Boy

Word count: 1,761

Prompt: December 25th, 1957 Elvis Presley receives his draft papers moments after his Engagement

Warning: None so far

Note: This may become a series

Chapter 2

Taglist:

@darkmoviesquotespizza

@sissylittlefeather

@richardslady121

@thegettingbyp2

@presleyenterprise

@dkayfixates

@rjmartin11

@thetaoofzoe

@your-nanas-house

@zayurir

@60svintage

@sillybookmarks

@leapresley

@everythingelvispresley

@dreamondina94

@elvismylove04

@pocketfulofpresley

@elvispresley1956

@poeandmoonknightgirl

December 25th, 1957 Graceland,

“Oh, isn’t it stunning!”Cecelia exclaimed, her eyes sparkling as they fixated on the engagement ring that adorned her finger. The radiant pink garnet caught the light, casting soft, rosy hues that danced across her skin. “How on earth did you find such a unique gem? she inquired, her voice filled with wonder. Deep down, she knew that even if Elvis had presented her with a simple candy ring, she would have cherished it just the same, the meaning behind the gesture far outweighing the material value."Ya know, I ask myself that every day just lookin' at'cha." He kissed her cheek. Their loved ones looked on, captivated by the radiant joy of the newly engaged couple, who had been basking in the warm glow of their exciting new chapter together.

“What’s all this excitement about?” Alfonso asked, stepping inside from the chilly air. His cheeks were flushed from both the frosty temperature and the smoke of the cigarette he had just been smoking outside, despite knowing he really shouldn’t indulge in such habits. The warmth of the house enveloped him, contrasting sharply with the biting cold he had left behind, but the thrill of whatever was happening inside stirred his curiosity. He glanced around the room, trying to catch a glimpse of what had everyone so animated.

"Daddy, we're engaged!" Cecelia giggled as her father looked between the pair. Elvis had a crooked smile, while Cecelia beamed with a wide grin. "It's about time," Alfonso said, patting Elvis on the back, "You treat my little dumplin' good ya hear," Alfonso smirked as Elvis gulped but shook his head, "Everythang okay my boy?" Alfonso asked. Typically, Elvis would have had a clever remark ready, but this time, he appeared somewhat lost in thought.

"I'm doing okay, so you just go ahead and enjoy yourself," Elvis said with a friendly smile. At that moment, Alfonso tipped his hat, a gesture of camaraderie. "If you ever want to have a good chat, country boy to countryman, I'm right here for you," he added, his voice warm and inviting. "Thanks," he replied, feeling grateful for his kindness.

Sitting by the gleaming white grand piano, Elvis drew in a deep, shaky breath, the weight of the moment settling heavily on his shoulders. He fished around in his pocket, pulling out a few crumpled papers that seemed to carry the burden of his unspoken thoughts. His heart raced at the realization that he would soon have to break difficult news to the two most important women in his life: his mother, Gladys, and his beloved Cecelia. As he mulled over the impending conversation, he glanced up, and his heart momentarily lifted at the sight before him.

Cecelia sat on the plush sofa in the living room, the dim winter sunlight filtering through the window, casting a warm glow on her hair as she laughed effortlessly with Gladys and Denise. Their voices danced through the air. The sight of the three women so engrossed in their lively chatter, filled him with joy and trepidation. A soft, genuine smile spread across his face, momentarily pushing aside his worries as he observed the warmth and connection they shared. These were his three favorite ladies, a source of comfort and strength in a world that often felt chaotic.

"So, what colors are we thinking for the wedding?" Gladys asked eagerly, her voice filled with excitement as she leaned forward, anticipation dancing in her eyes. She was keen to hear Cecelia’s thoughts.

Denise quickly interjected, feigning seriousness as she raised her hand dramatically, "And please, for the love of everything beautiful, do not say pink!" Her tone was light-hearted, but there was an unmistakable edge of genuine concern behind her words.

Cecelia let out a soft sigh, a blend of exasperation and amusement washing over her. “Well,” she began, her brow furrowing slightly as she considered her options, “I was thinking of a soft pink, something delicate, like the blush of dawn paired with a rich, inviting blue, reminiscent of the evening sky.” Her voice grew more animated with each description, prompting Gladys and Denise to lean in closer, intrigued by the imagery that swirled around in Cecelia’s mind.

She paused, a warm smile appearing as she continued, “But honestly, I don’t care what the color scheme is. The most important thing for me is that Elvis is there to celebrate this moment.” A dreamy look crossed her face as she added, “We could even get married right there on Beale Street, surrounded by music and laughter, and that would mean the world to me.” Her heart swelled at the thought of the day, underscoring her belief that love and companionship outweighed any hue or theme.

"You love him don't'cha."

"Mama Presley, I love you with all my heart," she gleamed.

"Not to interrupt, but, um... Mama, I have some news to tell you... alone." Elvis said pulling his mother into the secluded piano room,

"Elvis what's this about..."

"Well, mama... I-I... got drafted..." As those three words hung in the air, Gladys felt the very foundation of her world begin to crumble beneath her feet. A deep ache settled in her chest, a familiar pain that she knew she was powerless to change, yet it stung fiercely nonetheless. Her thoughts spiraled into a dark abyss of fear. She simply couldn't fathom the possibility of losing another son. With her heart racing, she choked out the question, "Does Cece know...?" Tears streamed down her cheeks, warm and bitter, as she confronted the crushing weight of uncertainty and loss.

"Is everything okay?" Cecelia asked, her voice trembling slightly as she noticed the stack of papers clenched tightly in his hands. A sense of dread settled in her stomach.

"Cece..." he began, his voice barely above a whisper, filled with unspoken pain.

"Please tell me those papers aren’t what I think they are..." Her voice broke as tears spilled down her cheeks, glistening in the dim light of the room.

Elvis felt a heaviness in his chest, unable to meet her gaze. Whenever Cecelia or his mother cried, it pierced his heart, leaving him feeling helpless. He looked away, his thoughts racing, unsure of how to respond to the overwhelming emotion flooding the space between them.

Cecelia's brow furrowed with concern as she studied Elvis's face. "They are..." she started, hesitating as she tried to find the right words.

"And are you going..." Gladys pressed, but Elvis nodded slowly, cutting her off with a gentle affirmation.

"For how long?" Her voice trembled slightly as she continued. "And where will you be going?"

Elvis took a deep breath, his eyes drifting to the floor for a moment. "Three years," he finally said, his voice steady but filled with an underlying heaviness. "Germany… I-I’ll write to you every day, I promise." He sighed, the weight of the upcoming separation evident in his expression.

"Just promise me," he added earnestly, looking from Cecelia to Gladys, "that you'll take care of each other, and of Dodger too." As he made the request, a small, warm smile broke through his anxious demeanor, shared between him and Gladys, hinting at their unbreakable bond even in the face of uncertainty.

As the sun dipped below the horizon and the last echoes of laughter and conversation faded into the night, Cecelia found herself alone in the cozy kitchen. The remnants of a lively gathering still lingered, the smell of the evening’s feast, scattered utensils, and half-empty plates told the tale of a joyful gathering. With a contented sigh, she rolled up her sleeves, ready to tackle the mess.

Beneath the warm glow of the overhead lights, her mind began to shift gears. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the cleanup, she felt a familiar tug towards the comforting ritual of baking. It had become her method of coping with stress, an intimate ritual that transformed chaos into something delightful. She gathered her ingredients: flour, sugar, and eggs, intending to whip up a batch of cookies that would fill the home with warmth and sweetness.

As she meticulously measured out each component, the rhythmic sound of her mixing bowl seemed to drown out the remnants of the chaos from earlier. The kitchen filled with the soothing scents of vanilla and chocolate as she creamed the butter and sugar, her mind drifting peacefully with each fold of the dough. In these moments, amid the solitude and the gentle whir of the oven, Cecelia found solace, allowing her worries to melt away like the chocolate she was about to stir in.

"Are you okay?" Elvis asked gently, settling behind Cecelia, his voice laced with concern. She turned her head slightly, feeling his warmth, but he quickly added, "And before you say yes, I couldn't help but notice you just dropped an eggshell into your batter."

Cecelia let out a resigned sigh, her shoulders slumping as she faced him. The mixing bowl, once brimming with a creamy, sweet mixture, suddenly felt heavy with her worries. "No, I'm not okay," she admitted, her voice trembling slightly. "I'm worried about you, and you know that."

She paused, her heart racing as she thought of the dangers he faced. "I can't lose you out there," she said, her lips quivering, betraying the anxiety that clutched at her.

"Cece—" he began, his tone soothing, but she cut him off, a surge of emotion bubbling to the surface.

"As your best friend and as your fiancée, I just..." Her words faltered, the weight of love and fear pressing down on her.

Elvis smiled softly, leaning in to kiss her neck, and she couldn't help but giggle despite herself. "You stop that..." she replied, trying to regain her composure.

"And you listen to me," he insisted, his gaze earnest. "I'll be back in your arms right before you know it."

She searched his eyes for reassurance, her heart aching with the impermanence of his words. "Promise..." she whispered, holding onto the hope that it wouldn’t just be a fleeting moment.

"Promise," he affirmed, the corners of his mouth lifting in a warm smile as he watched her resume her baking, carefully spooning the batter onto the wax paper. The kitchen, filled with the sweet scent of vanilla and sugar, felt like a cocoon against the uncertainties of the world outside.

"Aht! Aht! these are for tomorrow..." Cecelia swatted at his hand, "You have to go to bed,"

"I think you mean we darlin." He scooped her up as her laughter reminded him things would never be the same after tonight.

[stephsageek]

What projects do you have lined up right now?

I'm glad you asked! Irl, I'm a very busy girl, so there will be times when I can only spare an hour or two to brainstorm, outline, write, and edit. Tough with ADHD 😅 but I AM currently chipping away at "He Sleeps with the Fishes: The Hoffa Job," the latest installment of my ongoing Five x Lila AU. If you like action-packed comedy hijinks and have a love for history-- this is the series for you!

I'll post under the cut what I have written so far (there is no Five and Lila, but for readers worried about our intrepid FBI agents-- this will be a treat! It also features a sneak peak of the next story in the series, "A Killer From A World Filled with Killers: The Kennedy Job"):

Agent Bill Reynolds found himself blinking.

His vision was totally filled with a brilliant white light. The light was blinding, a physical, all-consuming thing. Kaleidoscopic prisms cascaded across his vision. For a brief delirious moment, he felt far from his body, an airy nothingness that made the light all that existed. He hung momentarily, suspended.

Jesus fucking Christ. Am I dead?

He couldn’t seem to move, too stunned to even try. He couldn’t hear anything, besides a persistent ringing in his ears, and a steady rhythmic noise, hidden underneath.

Bill could not seem to parse its origin. It seemed to come from all directions at once.

Slowly, the sound became clearer.

It was a voice, calling, over and over.

The word it kept repeating was garbled, a nonsensical bleating noise like the yelp of an animal.

It was like hearing a language you don’t understand, the tone conveying concern, but what it meant hung at the edges of his understanding, just out of reach.

Was it a siren? An alarm?

“—ill! Bill! Bill!”

Agent Bill Reynolds gasped as his blinked into the bright afternoon sunlight, no longer ‘dead,’ but lying suppine on the side of the road, just beside his damaged Federally issued vehicle, his young partner on his knees beside him, trying his best not to have a panic attack.

The noise was his name. The ringing was probably a concussion.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to banish the light that burnt his retinas, melting his eyes into puddles of goo within his eye sockets.

“Bill! Bill, God damnit, answer me!”

Bill felt frantic movement beside him, the voice growing clearer and more familiar.

“Stevie?” he groans, realizing all at once that he cannot possibly be dead—being dead wouldn’t hurt so damn much.

Everything ached and Bill belatedly realized that his back was damp. He prayed it isn’t blood, but he doesn’t think it is. This feels cold and he knows the sickly warmth of his blood. He flexes his fingers into fists experimentally and comes away with blades of grass.

That’s good. If I can feel that it must mean I’m not paralyzed.

He tries flexing his toes for good measure and finds them responsive inside his shoes. Bill squeezes his eyes shut as a shadow falls over him. Even behind his eyelids, the added shade is a blessing.

“Yes! Jesus, I thought—”

Bill opens his eyes to find his partner’s face above him. Stevie is bleeding from his forehead, the streak of red running nearly into the corner of one of his eyes. His glasses are gone and Bill blinks as he realizes he’d never seen the kid without them before.

Bill groans as he tries to sit up. “Whoa! Wait—no! Y-you shouldn’t do that!” Stevie rambles, his hands hovering near him.

Bill puts a hand to his head and squeezes his eyes shut once more, trying desperately to will away the sudden feeling of vertigo and nausea.

“What—what the hell happened?” he hisses, his hand going to the back of his head to check for any blood. His head is throbbing, but his hand comes away clean.

“W-w-well, we-we crashed,” Stevie feebly explains, rubbing his neck and lowering his eyes like a chastised schoolboy.

“No shit, Stevie!” Bill snapped, the movement of turning to tell his partner off, making his neck strain. He winced and closed his eyes again. “The broad! What the hell happened with the broad!?” he barks, his eyes still held firmly shut as he pinches the bridge of his nose.

Brooks swallows, nodding, because, yeah, that was a pretty dumb thing to say.

“S-sh-she must have used her cuffs—”

“—I remember that part,” Bill sighed. “That damn slippery bitch pulled one over on us. God damn, rookie mistake!” Bill growled. It was always risky when a perp was cuffed with their hands in front of them, but in the middle of a car chase, neither agent had much of a chance to re-cuff her. “Did you see what happened to her!?” he demanded.

He felt a slight pang of guilt as he watched Stevie flinch at his tone. Bill sagged as watched his partner tremble, likely still feeling the effects of the accident. Just behind Stevie’s tangled mess of blond hair, Bill could make out that the noise that he had originally mistaken for a siren, was, in fact, a siren—there was an ambulance pulling along the embankment they had landed in, followed by what looked like several unmarked cars.

Bill frowned at the black cars, a feeling of foreboding settling like a stone in his gut.

He didn’t recognize those cars, nor the men that exited them.

“W-we hit the e-embankment a-and that-that slowed us down enough that the crash wasn’t s-so bad!” Stevie stuttered out, momentarily distracting Bill from the sight of men in dark sun glasses, dark suits, and even darker expressions. “W-we hit the tree though. I-I opened my eyes and realized that s-sh-she was gone! B-but you were unconscious Bill!” Stevie implored, his voice growing more confident, his expression resolute. “I wasn’t about to go pursue an escaped assailant while my partner was injured! I had no idea if she was armed or not, but I highly suspect so, since I found our trunk opened and all of the items, we confiscated from her gone!”

Bill felt his eyebrows climb toward his hairline at the conviction in his young partner’s voice. Bill felt himself smile crookedly.

Just as he opened his mouth to praise the kid for his judgment and his sticking to his guns that said judgment was sound, a man’s voice cut through the air between them at the same time as several paramedics ran toward them, one of them a dark-skinned Asian woman shouting orders as she hurriedly began to pull things from her pockets.

“Gentlemen—”

“Sirs! I need you to stay where you are—!”

Bill tried to address both parties, but the man began to speak with an air of authority once again.

“—Special Agent Gregory Mahn,” the stranger thrust an ID toward Brooks and Reynold, both too stunned to react. The man had pale, almost sallow skin, his short hair graying at the temples. The other two men who followed him looked eerily similar, though each had a different hair color.

Bill felt himself growl deep in his chest, even as the paramedics fluttered around him and his partner, checking their vitals and shifting them to assess their injuries, giving them polite but direct commands.

“What exactly is the meaning of this Age—” Bill tried to question, only to be cut off.

“This operation is now under my personal jurisdiction, under an executive order by—”

“Like hell are you spooks coming into our operation—!” Bill roared only for one of the paramedics to sharply order him to remain still.

“My orders come from up top, gentlemen,” Mahn smirked, his smile revealing yellowed teeth. “There have been very concerning reports that this operation has gone wildly out of control. Not to mention that there has been word of extremely suspicious even—”

“This is horseshit! We are in the middle of a months long operation that could put some of the worst criminals within the Detroit Partnership behind—” Bill shouted, his face purpling in rage. An EMT yelped as her stethoscope was nearly knocked from her hands as Bill wildly gesticulated.

Brooks sputtered indignantly beside his partner, finally gathering enough courage to interject. “Y-yo-you can’t do this! This is an officially sanctioned operation in league with the Federal Bureau of Investigations special un—”

“I just spoke with your superiors Agent Reynolds and Brooks. You have been ordered to report to local headquarters in Detroit effective immediately.”

Both men stared, mouths hanging open.

Agent Mahn continued to simper before he reached into his trench coat pocket and produced something. “I just need you to take a look at this photograph, gentlemen.”

Brooks and Reynold squinted at the grainy black and white photo before them. It featured a man in a suit, carrying a briefcase in each hand. He appeared to be mid-stride, the blur indicating that he was walking quickly. He wore a suit and a hat. A woman with darker skin and a suit walked purposely beside him.

Brooks didn’t have to look beside him to see the color drawn from Stevie’s face. Bill swallowed.

“I believe these are the perpetrators you were pursuing, correct?” Mahn pushed, his expression unreadable behind his dark glasses that he had yet to remove.

Beside Mahn, another agent thrust another picture toward them.

Bill frowned.

The picture appeared to be another black-and-white photograph, taken of the same alley that had been the backdrop for the pair of strangers.

Only this one was of a young boy, complete with a schoolboy uniform. The boy was young, slight, and dark-haired.

The hell?

Bill opened his mouth to respond once he squinted at the photo. There was something familiar about the brick walls and surrounding buildings. Something that nagged at Bill's memory.

Bill’s eyes widen in sudden fierce realization.

This was the alley just outside the Texas School Book Depository.

It wasn't just a big case.

It was the big case.

He remembered it clearly as he had been assigned to gather any evidence that might have been left behind there. He remembers the exact spot where he’d found a discard casing from an Italian Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle that had fallen just beneath a dumpster.

“What the hell are you doing investigating this?!” he hissed, causing Brooks to blink at his tone.

“Bill…wha-what is—?” Brooks stuttered, his voice reedy.

Bill carried on as if his partner had said nothing.

“What do these two have and a kid got to do with the goddamn Kennedy assassination!?”

[sueske]

The anime has done a lot of damage to the story of Naruto for a multitude of reasons— other than just cheapening the story with constant unfunny gags and just giving unnecessary attention to characters who don’t actually help push the plot, they also just ruin the characterization.

I’ve seen the whole “Naruto is an idiot pervert” thing being flown around for awhile, sometimes as an excuse for why people treated him badly throughout the series and I never understood why. Until I caught a few filler scenes and saw the reason why people saw him this way.

They make him a straight up pervert in some scenes, just as bad as jiraiya sometimes which is insane. They also tended to make him very dumb, like he was often portrayed as the dumbest member of Konoha 11 in fillers as an excuse for characters to just talk down on him.

Like no wonder people completely misinterpret his character, the anime bastardized his character and made him emotionally inept expect for moments where he was pining over Sakura.

Of course he’s not the only character affected by this, it’s just egregious to me how badly they portrayed the main character of the series to the point you question if the people working on the series even read it themselves. Which shouldn’t be a question for a studio adapting a series, but it is.

It just annoys me. Thats not Naruto. But now he’s considered stupid by the general community.

>episodes marked as filler should be taken as such. though not everyone checks or cares. tho we know certain fandoms like to edit that page around…

>sp also inserted filler moments into canon episodes and try to pass them off as fully canon. like vote2, they completely missed the point of that.

>the last, which was a complete retcon of naruto’s character, was suggested by sp. where naruto can’t even tell the difference between love for a person and love for ramen. he’s just too stupid. like, if you defend that in any way or think that’s plausible then u just don’t know naruto. and the fact sp was the one to come out with that says a lot.

tbf, even people that read the manga misinterpret naruto’s character. just another day in the naruto fandom.

[ilikekidsshows]

I’m starting to form a theory of how The Owl House introduces characters. I’ve seen a lot of people point out the dichotomy between Hunter’s introduction here and how he’s characterized later in the series. Similar complaints of a first appearance making a character seem more unsavory in their first appearance have been levied against other characters as well, usually to claim that fans shouldn’t be so quick to view them as good people and how they need to make up for their previous villainous deeds. But here’s the thing, this dichotomy is interpreted by the audience as a sign of the characters’ duplicity, not the writers. Meanwhile, I am very much convinced that the characters being more villainous in their first appearances is a writer choice first and foremost, and a choice with a purpose.

It all comes down to how I described how a lot of characters on this show are introduced: villainously. Many recurring characters in this show are introduced as “villain of the episode” characters, even when they are intended to become allies at the end. Eda and King consider possibly eating Luz and then treat her like family ever since (King even jokes about this in the season one finale), Amity tries to get Luz dissected in her first appearance and ends up a love interest, Bump tries to do the dissecting and is shown to be a reasonable authority figure, Edric and Emira plan to bully and publically humiliate their sister but are incredibly supportive and helpful with her schoolwork, Hunter is fully supporting the Emperor’s reign and becomes an ally, and no doubt the ending of ‘Any Sport in a Storm’, another episode people complain about, will match the pattern. What I’m getting at is that The Owl House has a pattern where a character’s introduction will rarely give us much useful info on them, merely presenting a simplified version of the character that can serve as an obstacle first and it’s only after that obstacle role is played out that their characterization gets more room. It's function before consistency.

In reference to a mega hit series that does this same thing, I’ve taken to calling this characterization trope the Jojo Phenomenon. The manga and anime Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure had a pattern where the main character (the Jojo) will collect many colorful allies, but not before beating them in a fight, and the fights happen because the future allies will act as villains in their first appearances due to outside influences or misunderstandings, changing their manner to be much more friendly and righteous after they join the heroes’ group. Sometimes the difference is so stark that the character seems to change personalities entirely.

Now, as to why JJBA does this, it’s for the purpose of misdirecting the audience, subverting expectations, if you will. Any even slightly story savvy reader or viewer will guess that, since most stories need supportive casts, some of the people the main character meets will become their supportive cast. When the supportive cast is presented as villains first, the viewer won’t guess the character’s role the instant they’re introduced. The most effective subversion of expectations is to build up your own story’s expectations and subvert those. This way your audience doesn’t need to be familiar with specific other works to get their expectations subverted.

[wild-grinders]

Wild Grinders: The Fan Analysis (Pt.3)

First Previous

if anyone has finals, consider this as a gift for making it through

Alright, it’s time for the third part of the analysis. It took awhile to actually begin writing this because I don’t want to dive into my self-indulgent yuri-beam reboot. And we shouldn’t nitpick to make the series ‘better.’ However, there’s a lot for Wild Grinders to improve on that that leaves you thinking, ‘Actually, we should rework it entirely.’ And that’s what this is. The best way was to organize it into 3 categories: Theme, Plot, and Characters. Most of this analysis is going to focus on the writing because animation is not always in our control. (And we kinda covered animation in the last part and said it needed a whole renovation).

That being said, this part of the analysis is primarily focused on keeping the structure of the TV series and the original vision that Rob Dyrdek has. (To the best of my ability).

[Part A]

Let’s assume that the script is taken seriously. Wild Grinders need to have a better overall theme because the wacky skate tricks didn’t do enough to draw in attention.

The current theme of Wild Grinders doesn’t exactly work. As mentioned in the second of my analysis, the writers were trying their best to appeal to the Gen Z audience. Usually by means of implementing modern pop culture references and putting social media in the spotlight in the latest episodes. While the writers aren’t wrong about the technology/socmed obsession amongst children, they missed out on an extremely alarming picture. They didn’t notice why children were becoming gravitated to this era of internet.

Recently, I have been learning about the way that society treats children and teenagers. (Awkward sentence, sorry). But I find myself learning more and more about the ways that society puts control on what kids can and cannot do. Many adults make the decisions to remove places to hang out such as parks and even skate parks (reason: to prevent drug dealers). In the age of our digital era, theaters and physical media are diminishing in favor of online subscriptions. Basically, kids are losing public spaces where they can hang out safely.

And it does NOT stop there. Cops are constantly being funded to ‘handle’ teens who are loitering (Why? Because they don’t have places to hang out). I don’t want to go on an off-topic rant in this analysis, but this post sums up what I’m trying to talk about. It really makes your brain think about the ways that society fails to let kids… be kids. Society uses harmful tactics to remove teenagers for ‘the greater safety’ of property. And I doubt that adults will listen to younger people who speak up about it. Instead, society would rather complain about raising a generation of phone-addicted youths. Older children and teenagers will be threatened and put into dangerous just by being outside because cops have control on where they can be. And by having ‘suspicion’ on teenagers is absolutely allowed in their rulebook to put a kid in a police station.

This is what Wild Grinders should have focused on as the whole theme if you consider the setting it takes place in (2010ish). If the writers wanted to talk about the phone-addicted kids, then they should have questioned why it was happening in the first place. Not only that, but it’s just a perfect theme for Wild Grinders. Reason one, it’s completely different from Rocket Power (their main theme was the history and safety of extreme sports). Reason two, it fits for the main cast. Lil’ Rob is literally the embodiment of ‘screw your authority!’ Jay Jay and Spitball are literally POC characters that the police often go after and the series could have delved into this. In Ketterville-canon, Jack Knife is homeless and lives under a highway, he’s 100% anti-cop. Emo Crys could have went to Linkin Park territory and his archetype was meant to be an intensely rebellious soul. And Goggles? He has the camera to capture video evidence of everything they go through.

Is it possible to air an anti-cop TV series? Nope. But it’s very possible to write and utilize it for what Wild Grinders is. A group of preteens who want to just hang out and skate. In fact, a few of the episodes featured the Wild Grinders being turn away by security and cops when they wanted to find a place to skate. However, they just obeyed in favor of ‘sending a good message to kids about obeying the rules.’ And the script writers didn’t think to push it further than this. But man, they could have done something else entirely if they went to the territory of police brutality used on adolescents. The Monster High Movie, Ghouls Rule! actually did something like this! The movie managed to present a family-friendly version of what ‘police brutality on teenagers’ feels like. To be specific, it wasn’t until 2020 when MH fans became aware of this hidden message and began openly talking about it on Tumblr and TikTok. But to keep it brief, Monster High movies were able to explain police brutality and racism incredibly well. And it’s possible for Wild Grinders to use this a whole theme for a series about kids who want to skateboard in an anti-children and anti-loitering system.

But anti-cops won’t be the only theme in Wild Grinders, there’s another theme that I would love to see; a coalition of diverse skaters. Rob Dyrdek’s vision when creating the Wild Grinders’ characters was to have a diverse cast who were brought together by their love of skating. The idea of diversity has always been intentional for Wild Grinders, but the writers did NOT utilize it enough! They attempted to make the cast be diverse in personality, but they made all of their backgrounds vague and look like they were all normal American kids by hiding their families. Not only that, but they missed out on multiple opportunities to create other skaters outside of the Wild Grinders skate crew. (We’ll talk about this later). In the second season, they were close to introducing the ‘Street Rats’, the crew that Squeaks was apart of. But 2015 happened and Rob Dyrdek packed up his TV series because he didn’t have the motivation to continue Wild Grinders. But we can’t really blame Dyrdek, he was going through a rough patch at the time and the studio screwed Wild Grinders over (in animation and the writing). And that’s why I’m here to talk about what should have been done. And most of it is to improve the writing! The writers were adults who didn’t bother to understand what kids wanted more of at the time and began to parody off of other kids’ TV series.

But yeah. If the writers weren’t bent to the idea of kids-being-incapable-of-thought-processing, then we could see more effort being put into the theme. And not just that, but some of the writers just weren’t here to write for kids and wanted to write Adult Swim jokes. Do I have a passive-aggressive voice about these adult writers? Definitely. Children deserve to consume media that has good writing about meaningful messages in the world.

[Part B]

Next step, Wild Grinders needs to use these two main themes for the plot.

We know for a fact that Rob Dyrdek never planned for a real plot in Wild Grinders. If we were to take his route, Wild Grinders will eventually become boring because a good plot draws people more than the quirkiness. In order to draw people through quirkiness, the visuals need to exceed expectations (clearly something that Wild Grinders failed to do in animation). Therefore, we need to think about a plot for Wild Grinders because it does NOT have the budget for a Kyoto Animation or BONES Studio anime. The plot is compensation here!! It needs to be worked on well!!

Let’s diverge from Rob Dyrdek’s ideas. He wants to make an amazing, cool, and crazy series. But in order to do something like this, you do need some sort of plot. Conflict in writing can lead to all sorts of situations that causes to the characters to be cool, crazy, and amazing.

There is some plot in the writing of Wild Grinders, each episode being 13 minutes long and trying its best to implement one. Most of the episodes have decent plots, but these plots didn’t grab the audiences’ attention, unless you actually liked Wild Grinders as a whole. I don’t know the most professional way to explain this, but Wild Grinders needs a build-up to a greater plot, it needs an actual ‘Big Bad’. Or it just needs a longer run time to build it up better. Some of my favorite small, plot-driven episodes were ‘Midas Touch’ and ‘Skater Who Cried Wolf’ because it didn’t rely on wacky quips to make it entertaining. ‘Skater Who Cried Wolf’ made the animation put extra effort in enhancing the setting, by having Lil’ Rob and his friends watch a horror movie on a school night and then making a ghost-hunting green-filtered screen chase around in the woods. It was just a cool episode compared to the rest. But ‘Midas Touch’? That episode will always be my weakness in Wild Grinders. It focused on a character other than Lil’ Rob, but the plot would be rushed because of the runtime. I wanted to see deeper into Goggles’s character when he decided to become popular. Hell, I wanted to see him be mean to his friends and let the popularity get into his head. (Well, we did see this in ‘Going Hollyweird’, but even that was short). But the resolution to ‘Midas Touch’ was simplified where Goggles’s just cries about not being able to nerd out. No. I want more inner conflict on his side and his to feel deeper regrets other than rejecting a movie screening. While these episodes are both quick and easy plots, ‘Midas Touch’ contributed to the greater idea that is known as character development. Something that is essential for a greater plot. Can I elaborate why this is? Not really, but you just have trust me that it does work.

Anyways, let’s get into the real idea here. Using the themes of diversity and cops abusing their authority on the youth. The main plot will have to involve a large-scale conflict against the police force that bans skateboarding. That’s it. That’s the plot. But it will need to developed throughout the series, carefully placed in different episodes until it becomes a more blatant problem. Think about it for a moment. The first episode makes an off-hand reference to the way that police ‘warn’ skateboarding kids to stay away from the mall. Then it leads to episodes where characters are being arrested for ‘loitering’ in an outdoor public space. Finally, there’s an entire ban on skateboarding in the whole city and you’ve got a group of kids who are willing to challenge it. This is what the writers completely missed out on because they didn’t put themselves in the same shoes of Gen Z youth.

And we can add more to this mix. We need to add in a diversity of skateboarders, they all come from different backgrounds and have different experiences, but they share their love of skateboarding and do their best to protect each other in a world where adults rule over them. Wild Grinders needs LGBTQ kids, teens who want justice for their POC friends, and young adults who are willing to listen to them. They all love skateboarding and they’re sick of adults who want to take their skating spaces away from them.

Wild Grinders was able to make this a plot, but they didn’t.

[Part C]

We need to talk about the characters. We’ve got a lot and we’ve got nothing going on for the cast. As stated before, Rob Dyrdek wanted to create a diverse cast of skateboarders. But he didn’t do the best job at balancing them as characters. Obviously, Lil’ Rob was the main character and got all the attention, but it got to the point that he was considered a Gary Stu because of it. There’s such an imbalance between him and his friends. The TV series didn’t do ALL of the Wild Grinders any justice. They were all watered down to adore Lil’ Rob and when they never got any real development. There was an attempt to balance the characters, but they were lacking. They were always reduced to their conventional personalities and felt static and sterile. Lil’ Rob clearly has the majority of episodes that focus on him.

It’s shocking that Emo Crys has the least amount of episodes considering his popularity and the fact that Rob Dyrdek always hyped him during the first wave of toys. But it’s important to note that the rest of the cast often got their spotlight stolen by Lil’ Rob when they were meant to have an episode dedicated to them. ‘Wild BFFs’ is an oddball on here because it didn’t really contribute to Jack Knife’s characters, but it was an episode where Lil’ Rob didn’t take it away from him. Either way, these were the episodes where the writers tried to put some spotlight on the rest of the main cast, but these episodes fell short. Jay Jay and Emo Crys had the most lukewarm episodes where Lil’ Rob usually has to solve the problem. ‘Wild Grinder with Two Heads’ was the only episode where Lil’ Rob was actually cut off, but both Jay Jay and Emo Crys had to share this episode. Honestly, it wasn’t exactly the best episode because it was one of the ‘wacky’ ones and it’s just brings secondhand embarrassment to watch it. It’s great to see 2 different characters (one of them not being Lil’ Rob) have to work out their problem together, but I would rather have it be a handcuffs situation where they were forced to work out their differences. Spitball is clearly the quiet character and that makes some excuse for his lack of episodes. To keep him mysterious. Goggles had the best development out of everyone in most of his episodes, but it still feels underwhelming until ‘Midas Touch’. While it looks like Jack Knife has a lot of episodes, there’s something that pisses me off about them all. It’s his Sprawl City-canon personality. He was reduced to being the dumb, uneducated American with a southern accent. This funny persona basically demolishes him from having a meaningful character arc. I want the Ketterville-canon Jack Knife for a lot of reasons, but mostly because the whole point of his character was being the kindest out of all the Wild Grinders despite the fact that he was poor and made to always be the joke. Before the production of the TV series, all the Grinders had expression sheets drawn by Tracey, only Emo Crys’s sheet being released. However, there was a tweet that revealed a glimpse of Jack Knife’s sheet where he was like full-on, pissed-the-hell-off.

The only reason why they could never let Jack Knife be angry in the series was to probably avoid him from looking like an angry redneck due to his strong southern accent being permanent later on. If they stuck to the Ketterville-canon and original voice actor for Jack Knife, we could have had an episode where he finally snaps after being docile for long enough. My boy was meant to slash tires and defend his friends when they are mistreated!!

Speaking of Ketterville-canon, it was very fleshed-out and made the characters unique and interesting. You want to know why Spitball got his nickname? He used his spit on people because he thought it would heal wounds from a story he heard. The writers should have made Emo Crys way more moodier and Jay Jay deserves more screen time of his hobbies. The rest of the cast needs to have conflicts (both internal and outside) of their lives and be able to resolve them. The writers avoided anything that would truly challenge the characters in favor of keeping a conventional typecast. And we aren’t done yet. Another improvement on characters we need is: less antagonists and adults that appear for an episode. There’s too many one-time villains in the TV series than like, actual kids who are the same age the Wild Grinders. No, this doesn’t mean we need a girl skate crew to play as girlfriends. Absolutely not. We need different kids who love to skateboard. We need gay and trans kids. We need to see black and brown skateboarding kids. We need to see new designs for characters and skate crews who can make challenges and befriend the Wild Grinders. If kids are going to watch the TV series, they deserve to feel seen because Wild Grinders make more celebrities and adults in the cast where they don’t do a lot. (Unless it’s Lil’ Rob’s mom. She contributes more to the story than the actual antagonists).

Anyways, we need better development for the main and reoccurring cast. But we need to see a diversity of skateboarders as well to create unique plots and encourage character development by having them interact with the Wild Grinders. I’m tired from writing all of this in one shot, but it’s sincerely tiring that the script writers wrote everything the way it is in the TV series.

Apologies if any part of this analysis feels rushed or incomplete, it’s the week of finals and my brain isn’t working (and threw off everything I was supposed to write about the analysis). To the few people reading this, thank you and hope that this enhances the brainrot. Feedback is very appreciated on my end.

[wqintraining]

NEW X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES - SEASON 2, EPISODE 1

Season 2 opens in media res as the Blackbird flies toward Genosha. The only ones still on the plane are Storm, Kitty, and Sunspot. While Kitty panics and screams, and Roberto tries in vein to assure her it’s going to be okay, barely maintaining his own plastered smile, Storm is communicating with Captain Britain, who thinks she shouldn’t have left, but Storm insists her priority needs to be getting all the kids home so they can be tended to properly, and securing Nova. 

All three of them uncontrollably go silent as they arrive at their destination and look out the window, Genosha has been completely annhlated, reduced to ash and rubble, with smoke filling the sky. 16 million people, almost all Mutants, potentially including Scott, Jean, Emma, Magneto, and Kitty’s dad, are all dead. 

With Storm blowing away and working to clear the smoke, the three heroes, wearing respirators, rush onto what’s left of the once great Mutant nation. All around them, they seed wrecked buildings and corpses, and Sunspot accidentally steps on and breaks a bone. 

Kitty and Sunspot are barely holding it together as they stand on the site of a holocaust, unable to believe so much death could have taken place so quickly, and struggling to not cry or puke, but Storm, somber and sullen, but keeping her emotions in check for the moment, tells them they can’t break down yet. They have a job to do. There’s a chance some people may have survived, and are just trapped under rubble. They have to do everything they can to find them. 

Before they start searching the whole island, however, Kitty “needs to know”. 

Back at the school, Tag, Wind Dancer, Wolverine, and Bling! stand outside the medical bay. Laura’s face is practically right up against the glass, while Brian has a comforting arm around the nearly-sobbing Roxy’s shoulders. 

Inside, Beast, as well as Dr. Cecilia Reyes, who was called in to help treat everyone else who was wounded in the global battles with the sentinels, are tending to the kids. Cessily and Sooraya are still unconscious, but are stable, Noriko is awake in bed, but can’t stop shaking and looking at her gauntlets, even though all the blood has been cleaned off of them, and Julian is being prepped for surgery. Betsy is also having her wounds treated, with Rachel hugging her,  relieved she survived the battle, but disturbed by what Betsy told her happened. 

BRIAN, to Roxy: “Hey, Cess is gonna be okay. You heard what Dr. Reyes said, right?” 

Roxy just hangs her head. 

BRIAN, to Sofia: “You don’t need to worry either, Sofia. It’ll take more than some sentinel to keep Julian down.” 

Sofia maintains her blank expressions, staying silent, and tiny whirlwinds surround her fists. 

Brian sighs and walks over to Laura. 

BRIAN, to Laura: “You know, a sentinel did come by here. Ms. Grey was all ready to take it out, but I tagged myself so she could get rid of it away from the school. It wasn’t much, but it made me feel pretty good. And I was just thinking about how good all of you must have been feeling taking out a ton of these tincans.” Brian punches the glass. “I’m such an idiot.” 

It’s unclear if Laura heard a word Brian said as her wide eyes continue to stay focused on her injured friends. 

On Genosha, Kitty drops to her knees. The site of her father’s old home has been completely annhilated, along with the rest of its surroundings. It doesn’t even look like there’s a skeleton. 

KITTY: “Daddy…Daddy, I’m sorry. Daddy, please crawl out of there. Please!” 

Storm and Beto try to comfort her, but they phase right through her. 

KITTY: “Did you know in Judaism, it’s believed that cremation results in pain after death? Even if someone makes it to Heaven, the pain doesn’t stop. How could I do this to him? He was my Daddy.” 

SUNSPOT: “Kitty, you didn’t–” 

Kitty breaks down in tears, hysterical. Storm sheds her own tear, wishing there was something, anything she could do for her daughter. But there’s nothing she can do but push forward. Ororo instructs Beto to stay with Kitty, and get her on the Blackbird once she’s calmed down. She’ll handle the search by herself. 

We get a brief montage as Storm scours the island for any signs of life, but is met with death at every turn. She’s almost ready to break down in tears herself when she hears something rumbling. 

Flying up, she clears away the rubble around where the sound heard like it was coming from. Underneath, she finds Emma Frost, with Cyclops unconscious in her arms, a blank expression on her face, and sporting a new look - diamond skin. 

Storm swoops down and swiftly takes Scott from her, checking his pulse and breathing a sigh of relief that he’s alive. Ororo demands to know what happened here, and what happened to her. 

Emma…isn’t doing okay. 

EMMA, in a monotone: “The path to Hell is paved with good intentions, but over brimstone we must walk to reach paradise. Do you hear them, Ororo? Do you hear the children’s screams?” Emma forms a tiny smile. “I do. And I feel all their pain. How many children are there? As many as the grains of sand on a beach?” Emma’s face falls as she hangs her head. “Yes, Daddy, I am a bad, worthless girl.” 

Storm has no idea what to feel here, or what to stay, so she simply instructs Emma to follow her. 

In the medical bay, Sooraya’s eyes flicker as she wakes up. She struggles to sit up, seeing that Cessily is still unconscious, before she’s told to lay back down. 

SURGE: “The others are waiting outside, but aren’t being allowed in yet. You should rest.” 

Sooraya lays back down, grunting in pain as she expresses how much everything hurts. She then notes that Noriko doesn’t look like she was hurt at all. 

Noriko bites her lip as she looks down at her hands and generates a small amount of electricity between her fingertips. The Sentinels weren’t fast enough to hit her. Physically, she got out of the fight completely unscatched. But seeing her and Mercury nearly get killed? Watching Julian get his hands blown off, and having to grab his bloody nubs to cauterize his wounds so he didn’t die too? It was too much. She’s not okay. 

Dust doesn’t respond for a moment, just staring at Nori. 

NORIKO: “What?” 

SOORAYA: “Julian…lost his hands?” 

Noriko swears under her breath, having forgotten she was down by the time that happened, and confirms to her what went down. 

SOORAYA: “I see.” 

Noriko narrows her eyes at Sooraya. 

NORIKO: “Okay, what’s your deal? I know being all calm and zen and peaceful and quiet is your shit and all, but you should not be that way right now. You almost died! Where’s the panic?!” 

Sooraya sighs. She really wishes she hadn’t woken up next to Nori. 

SOORAYA: “I was hurt physically, yes. And I lack experience in all this directly. But nearly dying? No, that’s not enough to get me. Not with what I’ve seen before. Not with what I’ve done before.” 

Noriko falls back, slamming her head on her pillow. 

NORIKO: “Shit, Soo. I forgot. I’m sorry.” 

Sooraya smirks. 

SOORAYA: “The fact that you’re apologizing for your foolishness at all is a clear sign of progress.” 

NORIKO: “Aww, thanks.” 

PAUSE

NORIKO: “Oh, screw you.” 

On the Blackbird, which hasn’t taken off yet, Cyclops is still unconscious, Emma has passed out, and Kitty is curled up into a ball. Storm and Sunspot are awake and sitting up right, but they need this brief moment of silence. 

The silence is broken as the ship shakes. Storm and Sunspot leap to their feat, unsure of what’s going on as, from an exterior shot, we see the ship being raised into the sky on its own. Storm tells the others to stay put for a minute while she goes to investigate. 

Ororo flies out of the ship and quickly finds the one responsible for its movement: Polaris. 

ORORO: “Lorna…” 

Before Storm can say anything else, Lorna throws the Blackbird, wrapped in green magnetic energy, right at her. Ororo just barely dodges the attack, shouting at Lorna that they aren’t here to fight, and, over the coms, shouting at Kitty to get everyone off the plane. 

As Lorna takes another shot at Storm with the Blackbird, Kitty phases herself, Beto, and the unconscious headmasters out of the plane and onto the former shore of Genosha, while Storm summons a fierce lightning blast to annhilate the Blackbird in one shot, denying Polaris her weapon. 

Storm tells Polaris that she can’t imagine what she’s feeling right now, but she assures her slivers of that pain are shared by them all. Polaris just continues to shout in rage as she drags up rubble from Genosha to throw at Storm. 

POLARIS: “You X-Men killed our nation! It’s only fitting the nation kills you!” 

On the shore, Kitty and Beto are panting. Beto tries to tell Kitty he knows Lorna from his time here and he’ll talk to her, only to be decked across the face by an equally pissed, super fast Quicksilver. 

Knocked to the ground, Roberto is covered in ash. He freaks out as Pietro gets on top of him and begins punching him over and over again. Kitty doesn’t move, only crying out for him to stop. 

In the sky, Storm is exhausted both physically and mentally from the day’s events. She fights against Lorna to the best of her ability, but she quickly runs out of steam and is overwhelmed. 

As Roberto is beaten to a bloody pulp and Lorna traps Storm in a metal cocoon, ready to crush her, Kitty continues to shout, begging for everyone to stop fighting. 

The fighting is brough to a halt, but not by Kitty, as a single blast of red energy flies into the sky. 

Cyclops, having woken up, rises to his feet. 

All eyes turn to him. There’s a silent moment of tension before Polaris and Quicksilver release Storm and Sunspot from their respective grips, flying and running over to Cyclops. 

QUICKSILVER: “You have five seconds to tell us what happened here in a way that makes us want to spare your lives.” 

Scott, standing tall and proud, looks around at his surroundings instead of answering. 

QUICKSILVER: “SPEAK!” 

Pietro slugs Scott across the face, knocking out a tooth, and sending him to the ground. 

QUICKSILVER: “SPEAK NOW!” 

Tears stream down Scott’s face. 

Quicksilver is about to give him the same treatment as he did Roberto, but Lorna puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him. 

POLARIS: “One chance, Cyclops.” 

Scott swallows. 

CYCLOPS: “Magneto is alive.” 

Pietro and Lorna are baffled by how that could possibly be true. Everyone here died! Scott tells them that he and Emma were here when the attack happened. They only survived because Emma developed a secondary Mutation, enabling her to transform her skin into diamond. He only lived because she shielded him from the blast. And before the attack happened, Magneto had disappeared from where he’d been fighting sentinels. 

Pietro calls him a liar. He’s just trying to protect himself this way because he knows this is all his fault! 

Cyclops agrees that he shares blame with Cassandra Nova. Cassandra Nova, who, from the fact they’re here right now, he knows his team defeated. He knows his team defeated her, while he and Emma were saving the world, even if they couldn’t save Genosha. 

CYCLOPS: “Nova wasn’t the first mad woman to try and kill us all, and she won’t be the last. Whatever I’ve done, the mutants of the world still need the X-Men. And you both need us and our resources if you’re ever going to find out what happened to your father.” 

Pietro, breathing heavily, thinks about his offer, before still electing to go in for the kill. However, Polaris holds him back by his metal belt buckle. Lorna agrees that he and his team are still needed, but they will never be forgiven for this. 

CYCLOPS: “I wouldn’t expect to be.” 

With the situation calming down, Storm approaches, offering to do whatever they can to help pay tribute to their fallen. 

LORNA: “If you wish to respect our dead brothers and sisters, you’ll leave this place now, and never return.” 

With no more words, Storm summons a calm wind to lift herself and the rest of the team away, and begin the long flight home. Beneath them, Lorna breaks into tears and cries on Pietro’s shoulder as he holds her. 

CYCLOPS: “Ororo…” 

STORM: “Not now, Scott. Not now.” 

In a private room inside the Institute’s medical bay, Hellion has gotten out of surgery and is awake. All the usual life and energy from his face are missing, replaced by a dower scowl. That’s not the only part of him that’s missing, as his nubs have been wrapped in bandages; they couldn’t re-attach his hands. 

There’s a knock on the door, with Julian growling not to come in if this isn’t a doctor. Beast enters, happy to see him stable, and asks if that attitude applies to ALL non-medical personnel. 

BEAST, with a sly smirk: “Your girlfriend wants to speak to you. She’s been positively worried sick.” 

Julian’s eyes widen, but only for a moment, before he shuts them, clenches his teeth, and shakes his head. 

In the hallway, Sofia and Laura sit outside the private room, both in complete silence. Beast comes out of the room and informs Sofia that, unfortunately, Mr. Keller doesn’t wish to speak to anyone right now. 

BEAST: “I’m sorry. But I’m sure you can imagine what he must be going through.” 

Sofia glares at Beast, small whirlwinds once again surrounding her fists and expanding rapidly as a breeze fills the hallway. Beast is concerned, but before things can do any further, Sofia breathes and halts the use of her powers. 

SOFIA: “I understand, Dr. McCoy. Thank you.” 

Beast, still not entirely at ease, acknowledges her and walks away. Sofia tries to hold Laura’s hand, but, without looking at her, Laura bats it away. 

With the sun rising as a new day dawns, Emma’s woken up and is completely composed, but Storm is still flying her, herself, Cyclops, Kitty, and Sunspot home. Everyone is silent, until…

STORM: “What happened to Jean?” 

Scott takes a moment to answer. He informs her that she’s gone. She wanted Genosha dead, and she wanted them dead with it. Then, she flew off into space. Even if she does come back to Earth, the Jean they knew doesn’t exist anymore. Now and forever, she is Phoenix. 

Storm finally allows herself to breakdown and cry over the loss of her sister on top of everything else. Scott wipes his own tears from his eyes with his arm. 

EMMA, telepathically to Scott: “It isn’t the type of advice I usually give, but if there were ever a time to let your emotions out freely, it’s now.” 

SCOTT, telepathically: “You’re not my therapist, and I don’t want your advice on anything. Especially when you’re not even following it.” 

EMMA, telepathically and mockingly: “Oh no, you caught me, I’m as devastated on the inside as the rest of you. I have a heart. Sew me. But I do what’s best for me, and you should do what’s best for you.” 

SCOTT, telepathically: “You don’t know the first thing about what’s best for me.” 

Emma scoffs. 

EMMA, telepathically: “A “thank you” for saving your life would have been nice.”

As Storm continues to sob, Kitty hugs her. She was comforting her all night, and she wants to return the favor. But she also needs help. Her father’s body may be good, but he still deserves a funeral as soon as possible, as per Jewish tradition. 

KITTY: “Maybe working on that would help keep our minds off everything else?” 

Storm sniffles as she smiles and nods. 

STORM: “Yes, Kitty. I’d be happy to help.” 

In the back of the pack, Roberto is literally steaming, hate in his eyes. 

Storm, completely exhausted, lands the team in Central Park. They can walk from here. However, as the other four members of the team start heading toward the school, Beto walks in the opposite direction. 

CYCLOPS: “Where do you think you’re going, Sunspot?” 

SUNSPOT: “Relax. I’m not quitting or anything. But you’ll excuse me if I need a couple weeks to myself. I’ll be back soon. Try not to miss me too much.” 

Scott calls after him as he departs, but he doesn’t have the energy for that right now, and let’s him go. 

In the medical bay, Roxy excitedly hugs Cessily, thrilled her new girlfriend is okay. She does accidentally hug a little too tight and hurt her though. Brian is also inside the medical bay, helping the still injured Sooraya in getting into position for her morning prayers. Noriko is noticeably no longer here. 

Sofia floats above the school. The bodies outfront have all been cleaned up, but the foul stench remains, causing her nose to wrinkle. 

LAURA, over the winds: “Hey.” 

Sofia turns her head and sees Laura, out of costume, standing on the roof. 

SOFIA, over the winds: “Hello, Laura. I’m glad you’re speaking again.” 

Laura takes a deep breath. 

LAURA, over the winds: “I…I’m so sorry.” 

SOFIA: “Sorry? For brushing me off before? Do not worry about it.” 

LAURA: “No. No, not for that. I’m sorry I took you all out to fight. None of you were ready. And most of you were hurt. Especially Julian. Because of me.” 

Sofia tells her that’s not true, and no one’s thinking that, but Laura snaps back that she’s not a telepath, and none of them are stupid enough to not know she’s the one to blame. 

Sofia, keeping her cool, flies down to the rooftop to look the brooding Wolverine in the eyes. Wind Dancer insists if what happened was anyone’s fault, it’s her own. Laura wasn’t entirely wrong. Herself, Surge, and Dust? They WERE ready. Hellion and Mercury weren’t though. If she just followed Kitty’s orders and got them out of there instead of encouraging them to fight, they wouldn’t have been harmed. 

Laura counters that Sofia can’t blame herself. She’s just a student. She was the X-Man there, and she should have been more responsible. 

LAURA: “I wanted to keep you all safe. But I didn’t want you all thinking I didn’t trust you. You’re some of the only people I do.” 

Sofia appreciates that, but reminds Laura that SHE’S a student too. She may be the best there is as what she does, but there’s still a lot she doesn’t do. But she will. And they’ll learn. Together. 

Laura continues to hang her head in shame in spite of Sofia’s kind word, only to start giggling uncontrollably as Sofia uses the wind to tickle her nose. 

LAURA, giggling: “Stop that.” 

SOFIA: “I would, but I like it more when you smile. I’d rather not have to force it.” 

Laura laughs for real as Sofia takes her hand and flies them off the room. 

SOFIA: “Come. Brian texted me Cessily woke up. We should go say hello.” 

As Sofia flies them to their destination, Laura makes puppy eyes at her. She clearly still isn’t over her. 

In his office, Scott is being swarmed with phone calls. As much as he’d love to be resting, he can’t sleep yet, even as he’s barely keeping his eyes open. Xavier’s old friends and allies demand to know what’s going on, parents are hearing about what happened on the news and are worried about their kids’ safety, old X-Men are freaking out just as much (Cannonball is the one we hear calling, with him worried about his sister Melody), and mixed into all of this are the usual prank calls Scott receives from anti-Mutant bigots, with them today calling just to shout that the rest of the Muties are next. 

Scott is working with multiple phones and computer monitors and trying to keep track of everything, but it’s all too much. Sweat drips down his face, his heart pounds against his chest, and it seems like the worst may be about to happen. 

Before that can happen, however, his seat is rolled away from his desk, forcing him away from all his screens. Emma, as she’s one to do, leans against the doorway with a flask in hand. 

EMMA: “You’re not going to do us much good if you kill yourself, darling.” 

Scott knows he says this a lot, but right now, he really does NOT have time for her. Emma laughs, coming further into the office. He can’t seriously want for things to go back to how they were between them, can he? 

SCOTT: “What we did caused all of this happen. All of those Mutants are only dead because of us.” 

EMMA: “No, they’re dead because your mentor loves his secrets, his bitch of a sister is a monster, humans hate us as much as they ever have and were happy to do all her dirty work, and your wife is a vengeful god whose been ready to snap at the slightest provocation.” 

SCOTT: “Do NOT talk about Jean.” 

EMMA: “I’m not insulting her. I’m calling it like it is. We played a role in Genosha’s destruction, yes. But it was a tiny one. We did not destroy Genosha. Like you told Magneto, WE saved the world.” 

Scott stands up and walks over to Emma. 

SCOTT: “You don’t believe a word you just said.” 

EMMA: “Excuse me?” 

SCOTT: “Exactly what I said. You’re blaming yourself as much as I am. You’ve never forgiven yourself for the Hellions or Synch and Skin, and I’m supposed to believe you don’t wish you’d died with the rest of them like I do? Please.” 

Emma tries to maintain her front, but her wall is broken down as she hangs her head in shame. 

EMMA: “If we’re stuck going on, we owe it to the four million of us still alive to do everything in our power to protect them.”

SCOTT: “I couldn’t agree more.” 

EMMA: “Good.” Emma picks up her head, and, with it, puts back on her usual game face. “Then scootch over and let me handle half those screens so we may share the weight of the burden.” 

Scott hesitates before agreeing and making room for her behind his desk. 

SCOTT: “Thank you, Emma.” 

EMMA: “You’re welcome, Scott.” 

PAUSE

SCOTT: “Scott?”

EMMA: “We’re a little past, “Mr. Summers”, don’t you think?” 

The two share a smile for just a moment before they get back to work. 

Surge walks through the school’s hallways. Word of what’s happened has spread, but with the details only known by a select few, rumors are mixed in. 

“Is Genosha really gone?” 

“They can’t all be dead, right? No one can kill Magneto.” 

“I heard it was aliens.” “You mean like the Shi’ar?” “No, stupid, Mutants are friends with the Shi’ar!” 

“How long before we’re next?” 

Noriko arrives at her destination and knocks on a door. Kitty tells her to come in. 

Surge enters Kitty’s bedroom, which Noriko mutters under her breath could be confused for any teen girl’s here if not for her wall of degrees. She and Storm are seated on her bed, binder on their laps, deciding what to do for Carmen’s service. 

Noriko tries to say hi and ask how they’re doing, but it all ends up coming out super fast and incomprehensible. 

Kitty gets up and hugs her, Noriko’s uncontrolled electricity phasing right through her. 

KITTY: “I’m living. More importantly, how are you?” 

NORIKO: “I…really don’t need a therapist right now.” Nori pulls away. “Shit sucks. We all know it. We’re all scared. We’re fucked and probably going to die. I was kinda hoping I could just hang out with you and take my mind off things. Not like any of my squad are up for that.” 

Kitty, first off, promises her that they aren’t going to die. The X-Men aren’t going to let that happen. But right now, if she needs a distraction, this isn’t the place to be. 

KITTY: “My daddy lived on Genosha. He’s gone now, just like all those Mutants. Storm and I are just trying to figure out what to do for him.” 

To Kitty’s surprise, Surge jumps at the chance to help. As Nori explains, Kitty’s always been better to her than any other teacher here besides Dani. Even when she was a bitch to her. And she wants to support her in turn. Plus, a task to focus on is a task. 

Kitty smiles, and Ororo offers Noriko to come take a seat with them. Kitty and Nori sit down, and the three get back to work. 

Still alone in his private medical room, Julian seethes with his eyes clenched shut. Opening them, he attempts to telekinetically bring a cup of water left for him up to his lips, instead of bending over to sip, but he ends up dropping it and spilling the water all over himself. 

JULIAN: “DAMMIT!” 

Julian re-shuts his eyes and is about to start crying when the door creaks open. He tells McCoy to go away, but Beast isn’t here. 

“I do hope that isn’t a desire to give up I’m sensing, Mr. Keller.” 

Julian opens his eyes and sees Emma. 

EMMA: “After all, you still have so much potential. It would be a pity to waste it.” 

Julian rolls over on his side and asks how she could possibly still think that looking at him now. He’s a damn cripple! Emma is quick to remind him that the founder of this school, and one of the most powerful and accomplished Mutants alive is wheelchair bound. Especially with the gifts he possesses, there’s nothing he can’t do now that he couldn’t do before. 

Julian brushes that comment off and asks if they’ve told his parents what happened. Emma tells him she just got off the phone with them. The hung up as soon as she confirmed he was still alive. 

JULIAN: “Yeah. Sounds right. Bastards.” 

Emma tells him that, while this specifically isn’t something she’s experienced, she can imagine how he’s feeling. To go through such horrible trauma and pain, with your parents not giving a damn. To feel like all is lost and it’s not worth it to keep going. She knows these feelings well. 

EMMA: “But you have something important that I did not. You have friends who care about you. Who’d do anything for you. You have Sofia. When I was at my lowest, I hardened my heart so that I could never be hurt again. Doing so only served to make me even more miserable. Don’t repeat my mistakes.” 

She believes in him. And from Kitty’s report of what she witnessed in his battle with the sentinels, she knows she can still make a hero out of him a yet. A great one. 

Julian seems like he’s gotten the message, but remains despondent. He thanks her, but he’d really like some privacy. As she leaves however…

JULIAN: “Wait…what ended up happening with Nova? And Ms. Grey?” 

EMMA: “...get some sleep.” 

We cut directly to Cassandra Nova. She’s in a secured jail cell, fully restrained, with a device on her head to block her telepathy. In spite of this, she has the widest grin on her face. 

Scott and Emma enter this underground level of the Insitute, where they find Betsy and Rachel, who’ve been guarding Nova. Rachel in enraged upon seeing her dad and flies over to him, encased in her fiery aura. 

RACHEL: “You have a lot of nerve coming down here with her.” 

SCOTT: “There’s work to do, Rachel. Right now, we need to speak with Cassandra. But…please stay. I was actually hoping you might–”

RACHEL: “Dad, if you’re about to ask us to stay here and join your team, I’ll burn you where you stand.” 

Scott hangs his head once again, while Rachel’s angered is somewhat quelled as a purple aura surrounds her, her wife mentally comforting her from a distance. Betsy then walks up to her and hooks her arm around hers. If they have this covered, they’ll be taking their leave now. 

BETSY: “Well done proving you’ll never be anything but a bitch, Emma.” 

EMMA: “Thank you, Captain. It’s what I strive to do everyday.” 

As the two telepaths depart, Betsy telepathically tells Scott that she and Rachel will be returning to protecting the rest of the multiverse. 

BETSY: “Do try to not let this one universe burn on your watch.” 

With that, Captain Britain and Prestige leave. 

Scott sighs. Emma tells him Rachel will forgive him one day. Ideally by then, she’ll actually understand what her deal is. 

Scott and Emma enter Nova’s cell and confront her. She opens the conversation with mockery, asking how the ashes of Genosha smelled. Oh, how she wishes she could have smelled them herself. Losing to Storm and the others was very much not part of her plan, she wasn’t going to stop until all Mutants were dead, but she’ll just have to settle for slightly over 75% of them. 

NOVA: “What ARE you planning on doing with me now? Hmm? Are you just going to keep me locked up here forever? Surely you could never trust SHEILD to keep me secure. Or maybe you’re going to kill me. Just like you did Stryker, Cyclops. Just like you have COUNTLESS people, Emma.” 

Scott asks if he she truly feels no remorse, with Nova answering that she isn’t capable of feeling such a thing. Say, has he TOLD anyone what he did to Stryker yet? She imagines that will be a fun conversation. 

She cackles. 

NOVA: “Hmm. No. No, you haven’t. And that’s not all I’m sensing.” She looks right into Emma’s eyes, with hers bulging out. “You have no intention of leaving this room with me alive. Are you going to let this happen, Scott?” 

Rather than answer, Scott has one more question for her. Her plan HINGED on Dark Phoenix. If she’d just unleashed those sentinels without her present, they would have been able to stop them, AND take her down much more easily. 

Nova cackles. Oh, she’s so glad he asked. 

NOVA: “Did you think the Purifiers popped into thin air? No, no, no. My plan began over one year ago. Just after the old X-Men broke up. Not only did I make contact with Styker and begin building my army of gullibe expendables, but I made contact with someone else - the Phoenix. While you and Jean were enjoying your vacation from do-gooding, I was speaking with the primal force inside her. It respected my power, and way I’d fought to cling to the life I was owed. And in turn, I respected it. The most powerful force in the universe. The most perfect. And I was sure to remind it of this. How it was beyond all other beings. And how if it was going to choose to continue living among humans, it deserved the best from them. Slowly but surely, it began to influence Jean more and more. And you didn’t even notice. Because while she may have been acting too good to be true, that was how every single one of you saw her already. All it would take now would be one good push to send her flying over the edge. One betrayal.” 

Nova cackles again as a horrified look of realization materializes on Scott’s face. 

NOVA: “I had no way of knowing you and Emma would sleep together though! That was Christmas morning for me! My plan was just to have William break you and force you to kill him, and let that one act slowly break apart your relationship, but then you went and betrayed her in such a more personal way that very same night! All of this was inevitable, but thank you so much, Cyclops, for speeding up my timeline!” 

Nova continues to cackle. And cackle. And cackle. And cackle and cackle and cackle and cackle. 

Until she can’t cackle anymore. 

With a single blast, Cyclops blows her head off. 

Scott is frozen. He shows no signs of regret over what he just did, but he needs a moment to process it. Emma holds his hand. 

EMMA: “There was no other way.” 

CYCLOPS: “Nothing she said changes anything. We’ll never know if her original plan would have worked, or if she only succeeded because of us.” Scott pauses. “You don’t need to take the fall for Stryker’s death. Or for this. I’ll tell them everything.” He pauses once more. “Thank you for saving my life.” 

Emma weakly smiles and rests her head on Scott’s shoulder. Scott rests his head on hers. 

With sunset having arrived, Storm, Kitty, and Surge are gathered in the school’s cemetery. There was no body to bury. They couldn’t even tell which ashes were his. But they could at least give him a tombstone. 

Wrapped in a tallit, Kitty reads from a Hebrew prayer book, while Storm and Surge struggle not to cry. The prayer ends with them all saying “Amen”, and Kitty’s mother and student holding her. 

In his room, Julian is eating dinner, struggling but managing to use his form with his telekinesis. Once more, there’s a knock on his door. He sighs and tells whoever it is to come in. He knows they will anyway. 

His eyes widen as Sofia enters. 

Julian starts asking her not to look at him like this, but she cuts him off, exclaiming how fully of joy she is that he’s okay. 

JULIAN: “Okay? Do I look okay?” 

Sofia flies over so that she’s next to him. 

SOFIA: “You are alive. That is all that’s important to me.” 

She slowly places a hand on his face and tells him she’s going to help him get through this. His whole crew will. Things will be better soon. And then they can resume training to assure their bright future. She’s so sorry she pushed him to keep fighting when he wasn’t prepared to, but she saw how excellent he was when he did join the battle. She never wants to go into battle without him at her side. 

Julian nods. He hears her. 

And then he telekinetically removes her hand from his face. 

JULIAN: “I appreciate the apology. Now fuck off.” 

SOFIA: “Wh…what?” 

JULIAN: “Leave! You hear me?! We’re through!” 

Sofia instantly begins crying. 

SOFIA: “You…what are you saying?” 

JULIAN: “Suddenly so dumb you forgot how to speak English? I’m over you! So get out of my life.” 

Sofia is fully sobbing. 

SOFIA: “You do not mean this. You would never be so cruel to me.” 

JULIAN: “Surprise! Ashida was right! I’m a jackass, and you never should have gotten involved with me!” 

With her face red and puffy, covered in tears and mucus, and her makeup ruined, Sofia flies out of the room, blowing a powerful wind behind her that knocks over some equipment, and knocks Julian’s dinner onto him. 

JULIAN: “Fuck. Fuck!” 

We cut back and forth between an X-Men team meeting, and a school assembly. In the assembly, Scott makes clear the tragedies of all that’s transpired clear to the students. The world will always hate them. No one is coming to save them, even after this. But that’s why the most important thing they can do is protect each other. 

While he’s speaking, we see Julian still in bed, not present at all, Cessily and Roxy in attendance, holding hands in fear, Sooraya seated next to them with more firm confidence, Noriko and Brian ditching to go work out, and Sofia, alone in the dark her room, crying into her pillow. 

In his office, Cyclops has Emma, Storm, Kitty, and Wolverine gathered. He’s just finished telling them about Stryker and Nova’s deaths. 

While Laura is surprised by Scott going against everything he’s been teaching her, “X-Men don’t kill” and all that, she has no issue seeing why these two would be exceptions. Storm to Scott’s relief agrees with Laura, while Kitty continues to be disappointed in him. 

That all said, there’s the issue of the future of the X-Men. They must continue. They must protect the 4 million of them left, and see to it that they can restore their numbers, no matter what it takes. However, he completely understands if the team doesn’t want him and/or Emma to continue being a part of this. Or, even if they do, if they’re prefer Storm be put in charge of both the team and the school. Beto gave his right to vote by not being here, so it’s solely up to Storm, Kitty, and Laura. 

CYCLOPS: “Emma, first. What do you all want?” 

The three take a moment to think. Laura is the first to answer. Yes, the two did a bad thing. But it was a bad thing largely unconnected to the mission. They had no idea what would happen. And from the sound of things. Nova’s plan would have gone off either way. Tactically, Scott is their best tactician, and Emma their most powerful fighter left, alongside Storm. She gets all three of her votes out of the way, wanting both Scott and Emma to stay, and for Scott to remain in charge. 

Storm is quick to follow Laura’s vote. She wants Emma gone. Regardless of everything else, it’s undeniable that this wouldn’t have happened if she’d never come here. Scott never would have done something like this if she’d never come here. It’s time for her to leave. 

Emma’s fate is left in Kitty’s hands. 

KITTY: “You’re a bitch, Emma. You’re a monster. For most of my life, you were what I pictured when I thought about the concept of evil.” She sighs. “But Laura’s right. You’re one of our strongest. And with Betsy and Rachel not staying, you’re the only one left who can operate Cerebro. Finding new Mutants and keeping them safe is more important than ever. To say nothing about the kids. They just lost one headmistress. It would just scare them even more if another one disappeared. And with Hellion in the condition he is right now, he needs you most. I hate having to say this, but we need you.” 

Emma grins, delighted that her staying here is settled. 

As for Scott, Storm and Kitty make it unanimous that he should stay, but only Storm votes for him to stay in charge. 

KITTY: “I’m sorry, but I don’t trust you as much as I need to right now.” 

Scott understands. Still, that’s 2-1. He thanks Ororo for HER trust. 

Storm knows he’s made mistakes before, but the Scott Summers she knows, the Cyclops she knows, learns from them. And she trusts him to not be duped or manipulated by witches again. She also clarifies that her vote comes with a condition. If Emma MUST stay, she may continue to help run the school, but she wants it very clear that SHE is second in command of the X-Men. Scott easily agrees to this. 

SCOTT: “Thank you, my sister.” 

ORORO: “Do not let me down, my brother.” 

Scott takes a breath. This isn’t going to be easy, but he knows they’ll make it through this. It’s time to get to work. 

SCOTT: “To me, my X-Men!” 

[sharkdays]

ok finally got to watch the new horizons ep (HZ014) and HOOOLY SHIT

i guess this is still new so spoilers under the cut

first of all Liko, Murdock and Friede reassuring Dot that she shouldn’t stress over the system too much was really sweet, as well as Murdock later thanking Liko for being friendly to Dot. Also, it’s very small but Murdock brought Dot her breakfast and she ate it! it’s a really good way to show the slight development Dot’s having, while still being kinda subtle about it.

Roy and Hogator helping Kaiden fly was super sweet as well, it’s nice that we’re finally getting a new pokemon added to the roster. Roy and Hogator have quickly become one of my favorite parts of the series, and catches like these where there’s some bonding beforehand with no expectation of the catch always make me emotional. (Also, Hogator’s little antennae(?) flopping down when they got wet was super cute!) Nyahoja is personally a favorite of mine but this series has made me really like Hogator too.

Seeing Friede’s genuine frustration when he was cornered by Beeheeyem and Rarecoil was really interesting when compared to his more lax nature we usually see, especially in contrast to his interactions with Amethio. Seeing them terrastalize was cool, also. I understand he probably didn’t want to stress the crew out, but not saying anything regarding the flock of Rarecoil, or even warning them to be careful/not allowing Liko and Roy to go off on their own is really gonna bite him in the ass soon.

It seems at this point the RVT aren’t aware of what happened to Liko, either. It’s at times like these that i remember how op pokemon like Beeheeyem can be, esp in the anime. It seems Liko and Nyahoja got their memories wiped, if the preview for next week is anything to go by.

Spinel makes for such a scary villain, unironically. His sleuthing and clever use of his pokemon give him a huge advantage, and seeing a competent villain is really thrilling and nice. It’s a good thing he hasn’t seemed to connect the importance of both Liko and her pendant, he could have straight up snatched her and taken her to the Explorer’s HQ and everyone would be none the wiser.

Anyways, this episode was a treat and well worth the wait, i already can’t wait for next week (but that’s pretty typical at this point, heh)

[xerozero87]

saw an article this afternoon titled ‘sonic the hedgehog fans want to see maria die in the third movie’ and you know what? yeah, a lot of us do, and for good reason.

one of the most important things about maria’s death is that it’s not just a death for the sake of death. she doesn’t die for no reason. her death makes sense within the canon of sa2 as a self contained story. even if shadow actually died at the end of that game like originally planned and we never got to see more of his backstory, never got a more fleshed out past for him, maria’s death would still make sense. it doesn’t come out of nowhere and have no actual impact on the characters or story like a lot of other side character deaths.

maria’s death shapes shadow as a character in sa2 and shadow the hedgehog 2005, it causes him to make the decisions he makes, gives him his motives, his drive, his worldview. shadow may have been physically made in a lab by gerald robotnik and black doom, but he was built and shaped emotionally and mentally by maria and her death. he has the opinions he has about the world and humanity because of maria’s death at the hands of the gun soldiers, and he takes certain actions because of those views. he saves rouge in sa2 because he couldn’t save maria, at the end of the same game he sacrifices himself for the safety of the planet and the life on it because of the promise he made to her before she died.

maria’s death isn’t just important to shadow’s character and story either, it contributes to more within the full canon of the franchise. it’s because of maria’s death that gerald robotnik makes the ark head towards the planet so that, even beyond the grave, he can have his revenge, he can avenge his granddaughter. it’s because of maria’s death that shadow is able to change his opinions and views later on, in spite of his trauma and history, and can work with sonic to defeat the biolizard and help save the world. not to mention, it’s because of maria that shadow exists in the first place, it wouldn’t make sense to end their story together without actually seeing her die.

most fans probably haven’t seen maria actually die anyway. sure, they may have seen the original animation planned for shadow the hedgehog 2005, or the censored static version in the final game, or may have seen the scene in sa2 (I believe) where she sends shadow to earth, but for the most part, fans have not seen maria’s actual death, only the moments before. in recent years, it’s become a rule of storytelling that viewers shouldn’t believe a character is dead until they see a body or the moment the character dies. if they really want to send the message that maria is dead, that people do get affected by things that happen in the sonic franchise story, if they want this to hit as hard as it should, then fans need to see that maria is dead without a doubt.

in other vein, the sonic movies are to reignite old love for the franchise and to introduce younger people to sonic. these younger and newer fans aren’t likely to know the full story of the games if they’re just being introduced to sonic now. they deserve to know the full story the same as the game fans do, even if the timeline has become incredibly convoluted and it’s difficult to tell just what games, comic series, etc. are canon, and considering that (at least as far as I know) the movies are reasonably close to game canon while tweaking some things appropriately for the different setting (ie., introducing tom, maddie, wade, stone, etc. and making them actual, at least semi-important characters, changing robotnik’s motives in the first movie, stuff like that), so it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to suddenly divert from something so important in game canon.

personally, I’m also part of the camp who want to see shadow portrayed the way he was back in sa2, not his more recent characterisation. since the second movie treated knuckles with the respect that sega has lacked for a while, and showed him more in line with his original portrayal - naive and misplacing his trust in robotnik, a proud warrior who knows what he’s doing for the most part, a character with his own responsibilities and drive and trauma, someone with an actual personality who isn’t just there to be the comedic punching bag - it isn’t too much to ask for shadow to be treated the same, is it? sure, he was never the most kind character in the franchise, but he also wasn’t originally just the edgy asshole of the group who didn’t actually like anyone. his friendships meant a lot to him back then, with maria and later with rouge and omega. we want to see shadow have actual emotions, real motives, and showing maria’s death as it happened instead of censoring it too heavily or cutting away so we don’t see it at all would remove any possibility of that.

shadow himself is such an important character in the sonic franchise canon. not including his main drive and motive, not fully telling his story and fleshing him out properly like everyone else in the movies, would not only make no sense, but would also be a huge slap in the face for shadow and his fans.

there are some brilliant videos out there that talk about shadow’s character, motives, development, etc. in more detail and better than I could, so I’ll be leaving a couple here for anyone who’s interested.

tl;dr: shadow’s story hinges on maria’s death, and if we don’t actually get to see that happen, then the third movie and shadow’s involvement in it will not have as much of an effect as they should. shadow deserves the same respect the other established sonic characters got.

thank you to anyone who read this. I’m sorry if it’s way too long, if there are a bunch of typos, if it loops a whole bunch or drives points until they become redundant, I’m typing this in a bit of a rush just because I want to get it out there and empty out all my thoughts on this so I don’t forget many. if I did miss anything, feel free to add it on. thank you again. have a good day.

[venusenvvvy]

Re: The Last of Us (Season 1, Episode 3) - no game spoilers or post episode 3 spoilers.

I can’t get this out of my head so here is a short, rough, unedited and rambling essay.

This episode was so important and necessary. Because of the world it takes place in and the wider story of The Last of Us, this answers an insanely pertinent question: “Why try?”

The Last of Us is dark. Throughout the series and game respectively, you see the characters fight to survive day in and day out. In the game specifically, you fight to survive. Every day is a struggle. Food and medicine are scarce and the government is authoritarian. Anyone you risk getting close to you are in danger of losing. After losing his daughter Sarah, like most trauma survivors Joel goes into survival mode. He distances himself from his only remaining family, his brother, who joins the rebellion to fight for a better life. He refuses to get close to Tess, who it’s revealed has been by his side - his literal partner in crime - for over a decade. He pushes her away, scared to love her and lose her, and loses her anyway.

You see a lot of jokes online about how people would immediately kill themselves if they saw a zombie apocalypse coming on. Jokes about seeing a clicker and immediately giving up. But in your heart, you know they wouldn’t. Just like you, they’d fight to live. But why? Surely it can’t all be biological, animal instinct. Why do humans, even in the worst of times, fight so hard to survive against all odds?

This episode is the answer. Because in-between all the hardship, and the pain, and the fear of losing the people you love, there’s all these little moments. All this joy and life and beauty and love left in the world, if we allow ourselves to build it. Only in the aftermath of a long and beautiful life full of joy and love and good food and art, when Frank’s quality of life is almost nonexistent, does he make the decision that he is finished. Like leaving a party when it’s over and everyone has gone, when the lights and music are off and the wine is empty. And at the end of it all, when Frank and Bill are old and sitting at the dinner table with a poisoned bottle of wine, you don’t ask yourself: Was it worth all the work? The struggle? Because you already know it was.

(There’s also something to be said about this storyline and the parallels one can draw to older gay couples and how they’ve had to fight for their happy endings, and to experience queer love and joy in the face of danger; of violent bigotry and homophobia. Especially when Frank develops and incurable, terminal chronic illness that seems to slowly eat away at his quality of life - but that’s a different, tangential essay.)

Those moments are why these characters are fighting to live. That is why they struggle every day to make the world a better place. That is why Joel is taking Ellie across the country in hope of a cure. That is why he should let Ellie into his life - shouldn’t give up on connecting with other people. That is why you should root for these characters.

So, yeah. This episode a masterpiece of well made television. It’s a masterclass in cinematography; screenwriting, characterization and development, acting, prop and set design, presenting the passage of time on screen in a natural and non-jarring way (I could go on, of course). It’s an incredible step forward for queer representation in popular media, and the normalization of gay love on screen. It’s a whispered apology for how Bill and Frank’s relationship is treated in the original game.

It’s all these things: But it’s also absolutely, without a doubt, crucial to the atmosphere and plot of the series, that will recontextualize future episodes. Anyone that claims it adds nothing to the narrative, or brushes it off as HBO dragging the plot to a standstill so that they can “appease the woke mob” by “shoving gayness down the audiences throat”, is an idiot bigot that can suck my tr*nny clit-dick.

[seiwas-interact]

HI i was gonna tag you at first but i figured it’d be easier to just write here :D i’m sorry in advance if this turns out rly long!! i just really wanna take the time to show my appreciation for everything you said on that satoru piece <33

first of all THANK YOU???? SO MUCH?????? like i literally can’t describe in words how happy it made me to read all you wrote, i was giggling n kicking my feet and everything. no but really tysm!! <3 for being so kind and for taking the time to comment on it so thoughtfully!!! it means so much you have no idea!!!!!!!🥺🥺and pls never apologize for the rambling i got sosososoo happy reading all the lines you liked and all your thoughts, i can’t thank u enough!! <33

i thought you couldn’t top the shoujo anime comment but comparing it to an indie movie scene is. so kind. ”scenes that feel almost stolen if anything” like that’s such a nice thing to say??!!! i was definitely going for that kind of vibe too so i’m so happy it came across well :’3 subtle intimacy is also like. my FAVORITE thing to write ever so i was ecstatic that u enjoyed it!!!!!

oh and the reader too!! i’m so relieved you liked them!! it’s not even intentional atp but every time i write for satoru reader ends up extremely down bad bc my love for him bleeds thru😭😭i’m sick and tired of it tbh but i’m physically incapable of pairing him w anyone who isn’t constantly like ’i love my dumbass bf’….. he deserves to be praised for all he does!! god knows no one else in that series is telling him good job and patting him on the head and giving him treats. smh.

overall i’m just. genuinely so, so happy you liked my take on satoru and love, it’s such a huge part of his character even in canon so i try my best to do it justice!! i feel like satoru would just benefit soooo much from a really sweet, gentle, easygoing love bc like you said he’s just. carrying so much weight on his shoulders, and especially after his love w suguru ended so tragically and was so heavy i just think he’d like something light.

for the record i absolutely adore your take on it too!!! how being loved makes him feel small but not in a bad way, how he feels so safe w you……… how he can just be satoru. like it made me insane when i read it bc you’re so RIGHT. i love your satoru sm, you make him feel so human and capture that vulnerable side of him so well that it kinda hurts to read LMAO… it’s just so…!!!! yeah. it’s so tender and good and achey

aaa and and and…. it makes me so soft that u thought my writing was homey….🥺🥺mine def leans more towards introspective thoughts and feelings too!! it’s just too fun to dig into your fave’s psyche lol.

anyway i feel like i’m just rambling away in your askbox so i’ll leave it there but pls just know how much i love and appreciate you <33 no need to answer this btw i just needed u to know!!!!! i feel like we all need some gojo fluff after those leaks LMAOO (i am in extreme misery) so i hope the fic could be a small comfort…… i’m just here writing sickeningly fluffy gojo content to distract myself from the manga atp…………

hi darlin omg 🥺 help we’re both just apologising for rambling on eachothers pages omg 😭 pls don’t apologise aaah!!! this is so so sweet of you 🥺

OF COURSE i had to comment thoughtfully on your fic omg it’s what you deserve!!! 🥺 it rlly tickled so many parts of my brain when it came to understanding satoru’s perspective!! tugged at my heart just as much too 🥺 i love introspective works a lot 🤧

i’m so happy i was able to get the vibe of it right too omg 🥺 as a reader who writes i think i get a lot more conscious now if what i understabd overlaps with what the writer is trying to portray omg akksnxkd but yes subtle intimacy omg 🥺

and yes to lovesick reader too 😭😭 i enjoy all dynamics but i have an extremely soft spot for when both are whipped for one another and for satoru especially !!!! our baby boy 🥺

& re: satoru and love, i think so too !!! i think that guy needs some luvin in his life and it shouldn’t be any more difficult than all the shit he’s been thru already 😭 that lil scene u added the ‘be careful satoru’ one i think omfg IT ACHED

AND AAAAH how u like my satoru too omg 🥺 thank u thank u 🥺 that’s such a compliment!! tender and achey 🥹 i do try to humanise him as much as i can so i’m glad it came across 🥹 ur satoru 🤝 my satoru 🥹🫶🏻

i hope u’re ok after the leaks!!! i’ve also just been thinking up all the fluffiest, most comforting ideas to cope 🤧 josnxkdn

read ‘i’ll relearn love at our kitchen table’ (super soft n comforting gojo!!! ☹️ tugged at my heart!!!!)