#and maybe some actual plot

[egophiliac]

So.... what are your thoughts on Ace's UM, if you haven't been asked this already?

sneaky magic for the sneakiest boy

no but really, I think it fits him really well! I had thought his UM would probably involve something kinda sleight-of-handy or pickpockety! and I looooved that it made such a nice loop-around back to episode 1. ❤️ I was. kind of half-expecting him to just run out and punch Riddle in the nose again. but instead this time 'twas he who offed the queen's head! it was great! and he did it while stone-cold terrified out of his mind! because Ace is the only remotely normal or well-adjusted person at NRC and therefore the only one who is like "we're going to literally die, this is super effed up". but he did it anyway!!!! I AM SO PROUD

[nataliescatorccio]

plotholes in season 4 i really don't understand now i've digested the season please feel free to explain or add your own:

- sparrow academy and especially sloane just being forgotten, luther just seeming to magically get over his wife disappearing and not fighting in any way shape or form to find her or get back to a timeline with her in it - especially as they show discovery of the phoenix academy you think five would mention that a timeline with sloane must exist out there - ben being teased on the subway train at the end of season 3 but just??? never showing up??? was that an alternative timeline? - allison doing everything last season motivated by the idea of being able to get to claire and ray only for ray to apparently leave her with zero elaboration as to why or what happened - making fatphobic jokes towards diego but actually he takes his shirt off and is still ripped as fuck? - upon regaining their powers luther getting his ape body back which??? literally had nothing to do with his marigold related powers it was because of an accident on a previous timeline? - lila getting laser beam eye powers seemingly from nowhere, but it's not as if this was ever addressed because she could still mimic powers (see: her using five's time travel ability) - very limited use of powers, there were a few cool moments in episode 2 but ultimately it felt like there was no need to even get them back as they rarely showcased them (with the exception of five's getting them stuck) - klaus throwing his marigold onto a passing man but this never getting any exploration - never explaining why jennifer was in a giant squid - never explaining why jennifer got locked up in a safe - ben apparently never discussing with klaus how he died??? - ben and jennifer not realising that the entire motel had blown up around them including murdering flocks of birds and staff when they checked out? - entire five/lila plotline but also five figuring out how to leave and not saying anything when he has always been the first to want to get back and protect his family - lila apparently hating bracelets despite the fact that diego making lila a bracelet and it keeping them linked was such a big plotpoint it was used as a teaser in previous seasons (and the bead bracelet just disappearing) - lila being so intent on saving her family and the kids by sending them to the subway and on an alternative timeline but only one 'true' timeline can survive anyway which would erase the subway - the kids existing when the parents that created them don't - the entire show being for nothing in that the umbrellas do not even exist anymore

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[oobbbear]

HAPPY 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO OUR LITTLE GAY WITCH STORY!!!

[milolovesbmc]

This might be the first ever gruesome playground injuries fanart…

Close ups under the cut!

Flower meanings (from top to bottom)

St John’s wort: Superstition

Astragalus: “Your presence softens my pain”

Sweet brier: A wound to heal

Anemone: Sickness

[spirkbitch]

people who write spirk fics that are plotted and formatted like a tos episode but just with spirk included

i love you and i want to kiss you on the mouth

[hyakunana]

The Former Most Miserable Man That Ever Stepped in DGP is found saving the future with a shield and FIVE CHAINSAWS

[nymdraws]

to give an android a heart

[pearlofthewoods]

Spuffy band-fic ramblings (long-post)

I think about this scene so frequently because…"Well, I sing.” 

Yes, of course he does. That man was a poet, he could write such gorgeous lyrics, and no one can tell me Spike wasn’t an active part of the rock scene in the 70s.

Honestly, a whole Spuffy band fic has been marinating in my brain for like a good 6 months now, (like seriously, it even has its own playlist, that’s when u know it’s getting real)… but since I’m only a baby writer I wanna get some writing practise in before I embark on the project, so that I can do it justice. 

However as I literally cannot keep these thoughts to myself, allow me to invite you into my brain for a while. 

(Be warned I'm basically spoiling half the plot of a future fic under the cut so scroll away if u only wanna read it when, or if, it gets written.)

So in my fic idea, there’s a huge underground vampire music scene (particularly in LA), since because vampires are immortal, they’ve lived through so many different eras of music that they have a really deep understanding of music history. They’ve seen so many famous bands live etc (which obviously is one of the few human experiences open to vampires, since so many gigs take place at night and are tied to nightlife culture). 

I’d also say that since vampires have no need to work, if they can get their hands on instruments they'd have plenty of time to practise/dedicate themselves to the craft. 

One head-canon that I have comes from the idea that Billy Idol “stole Spike’s look” from him. What if he stole something else too?

Bear with me here. 

Vampires don’t age, so they could never risk becoming famous in the human world, since people would very quickly notice that they weren’t human. Vampires need to keep a relatively low profile. They also can’t really make money easily from music by playing for other vamps, cause it’s quite unlikely the vampire scene has much money flowing around. Why would it? Everyone can just steal/mug to get what they need.

So in the vampire music world, they’d mostly just be playing for each other to stave off the boredom of eternal life, but with no worries about finances or putting food on the table. 

And dear God that music would be experimental, with none of the usual restraints of human life.

Like I think their music would be very interesting/ outside the mainstream. Perhaps they’d play stuff from entirely different decades which had completely gone out of style, but not amongst vampires who never aged/got uncool (unlike the humans who played it)….

Vampires would also have so many different first-hand musical influences that they’d create the most weird and wonderful sounds. Think Spike’s Victorian musical upbringing mixed with jazz mixed with rock, mixed with… well, you get the picture.

And tbh I think some people would try and capitalise on that, on that raw vitality. Perhaps there’s a demon who records demos secretly in the crowd or steals entire songs and sends them to someone in the know in the music industry. And since vampires don’t exactly have passports, social security numbers or any real documented presence at all, there’s nothing they can do about it. Like what if, in this fictional world, Billy Idol didn’t just steal Spike’s look, but his music too? Frankly, it'd explain the resentment.

Anyway, in my head Spike hasn’t played music for a while, he took a break to look after Drusilla and then got wrapped up in the scoobies and their shenanigans. 

But after Buffy dies? He needs somewhere to put all those emotions. He needs to write goddamn it, he hasn’t felt heartbreak like this for a long, long time. He’s not used to death, he doesn’t know how to deal with it. No vampire does.

So when he’s drinking away the pain in Willy’s one night, some demons he used to know are down from LA and offer him an open spot to sing with them at a new demon club. Spike’s about to turn it down, but they tell him things have changed. Like Wolfram and Hart, demons are all in business now, and this new club will pay.

Spike doesn’t need money… but Dawn does. Tara and Willow won’t tell him anything, (they don’t want to be put in the moral position of whether to accept mugging-proceeds from Spike), but he knows that finances are tight. And this is something he can do for Dawn, and in a way… for Buffy.

So Spike joins a band!

I think he’s probably pretty famous from his past in the 70s vamp rock scene, but this time he wants to change up the music genre. He wants a fresh start. It’s the nineties goddamn it, and he’s certainly not the same vampire he was twenty years ago. He’ll play, but he’ll play on his terms. 

I imagine his newer music to basically be Jeff Buckley’s (my fave 90s musician), which I know might seem a bit melancholy for Spike, but with his current grief, it feels quite appropriate.

Tbh since I basically know nothing about music and can’t even imagine lyrics for toffee, I'd probably even just give him Jeff’s discography and call it a day. It’s fanfic I can do what I like. Grace? Spike wrote it. Job done. 

For example, the lyrics to “Opened Once”?

"In the half-light where we both stand

In the half-light you saw me as I am

I am a railroad track abandoned

With the sunset forgetting I ever happened

That I ever happened"

Half-light = the twilight, the safest time of day for vampires (to quote Edward Cullen, sorry lol). also a metaphor for the place between the vamp world and the human world. A place where Buffy and Spike "both stand", as she’s the slayer and he’s a vampire that can’t hurt people.

‘You saw me as I am’ - After Buffy's resurrection, Spike’s the only person who truly understands what she’s been through, and the experience of crawling out of your own grave. They meet each other where they are.

‘Railroad track’ - ‘railroad spike’. Railroad is a pretty unusual and archaic way of phrasing that word. At least where I’m from. ‘Railroad spike’ is too good of a coincidence. 

‘Sunset forgetting I ever happened’ - Spike doesn’t get to live in the daylight. the sun (and the sunset) are both out of reach for him without the danger of dusting. He doesn’t fully feel like a true vampire anymore, but the human world won’t accept him either. In fact, his human life was so long ago that even the sun itself has forgotten William Pratt.

I also think Spike/ Jeff Buckley is a fitting parallel  since, if I stick to major-canon events, Jeff’s unfortunate passing very early in his career would also fit roughly timewise with Spike’s death at the end of season 7. 

The last unfinished album that Jeff struggled so hard to write? The one Spike wrote when he was getting over his ensoulment and entirely reevaluating who he is, and what that means for his music.

Unfinished final album? Yes. Unpublished? No. 

Because when he accepted wearing that amulet, Spike had a pretty good idea he was going to die. So he did something a vampire never plans to do. He wrote a will. 

If he’s dead, there’s no more worries about fame exposing his immortality right? So his music is published posthumously in the human world (with some bullshit about his talent going undiscovered by the industry during life).

And combined, the proceeds pay for Dawn’s college bills, and lift all of Buffy’s financial worries from her shoulders. 

In the end, that’s Spike’s last gift to Buffy, his music, his poetry…and it finally allows her to rest. 

[fisherrprince]

You have made me interested in balloon smp but I feel so old and of touch because I cannot find the past streams on twitch. Cannot figure out where and in which order to watch...can I ask where you've been watching the videos/streams?

ok, so, there’s ~36 people all doing it concurrently, which is a lot. But! Here is the list of players, if you know someone you like on that list pick them and just watch sequentially day 1->finale. if you don’t know Anyone on there and you want a point to start at for just. Getting most of the plot, pick someone from A B or C. Or E. Team F has a really great plot but they stay a bit out of the overarching plot until the last weeks, and I haven’t gotten to team D yet so I don’t know what they know im sorry team d 🥺

Many of the players have VOD channels up on YouTube or playlists of balloon vods specifically, lots of people who don’t have the streams in their twitch archives somewhere (like, “past broadcasts” usually), look for player vod channels. Some don’t have saved archives and some didn’t stream it! I know for certain sophie robby skull kuu gibson buggle and jame have up to date vod channels because I’ve seen them… woops and skullvolver are making edited videos rn but theyre Both team a… and im not sure who else is planning on it!

tldr, pick someone and watch them in order and peek in on other peoples’ vods from time to time when something Happens because sometimes seeing it from another angle is cool. Also, sometimes seeing it from another angle is Important because there’s Lore no one else got to see. Search “playername vods” on YouTube and it should direct you to the right place.

more specifics that kinda get into spoilers:

Here’s some plots of interest that certain people see and others don’t (ONLY BASED ON WHAT I KNOW I am not a lore master I don’t have 36x8x32… uh… good gravy 576 possible hours. of content. I DONT HAVE 576 HOURS TO SIT AND WATCH STREAMS someone was going to put together a lore doc somewhere though):

woops: tries to keep track of lore, goes on ghost knight swordquest

sophiebaybey: unwitting accessory to world murder, sees WAY more of PG and balloons lore than most people on account of The Events.

skullvolver/socksbx: revenant revengequest x2 and soul link plot, also socks is a mod and they get up to some funny business. poke in and watch one of them for the end of day 14 trust me 🫵

robbydude: doomer gnome made me cry but that’s not important. ghostquest continues upon the holy land even if we DONT WANT IT TO. jerry mouse is there

jame7t: sees kind of all of it from a distance, good coverage, citadel time (I like building streams)

shinigamieater: it’s possession clues. What if you were 15 ants of dubious morality in a human body

padabana: instigates the end of the world, once if you’re realistic twice if you’re being pedantic. it’s paranoia clues

kaoiji: there’s time travel, and it gets worse from there but I can’t FIND their vods so im redirecting you to robbydude

renobee: GOD??????????

[zer0point5ive]

it’s the picture of diana in lawrence’s wallet with her arms wrapped around a dog, it’s the horse riding awards in her bedroom and and the snake toy she has draped over her headboard .. it’s adam who wanted so badly to be a vet, adam who loves cats and brings them saucers of milk despite there being barely anything in his fridge .. it’s them bonding over their love of animals, diana showing adam her amazing animal facts book and adam asking for one every time he sees her, it’s adam saving up his own money so he can surprise her with a trip to the zoo for their next adam-and-diana day when lawrence and alison are at work and need someone to watch her, it’s him taking his camera, getting pictures of her with her favorite animals and developing them, it’s diana telling adam she wants to be a vet when she grows up and him getting excited, grabbing lawrence’s stethoscope when diana says she wants to play vets and taking his job oh so seriously when diana says that he’s gotta be her assistant, it’s .. its ..

[midnight-mismanagement]

I think it would be funny if in season 2 it becomes a running gag of Vox sending spies to the hotel who just end up captured into the net of found family and friendship and become part of the clientele and Vox doesn’t get why he keeps losing contact with them (and assumes Alastor probably killed them) until one day Charlie comes to personally thank him for bringing her so many souls for rehabilitation and for believing in her cause and Vox just. Doesn’t know what is happening. And short circuits.

[icewindandboringhorror]

Pages from trying to keep a little sketchbook-scrapbook type thing going for two weeks lol. I gave myself specific rules in hopes they might all end up more cohesive/consistent seeming, but alas, scribbly chaos reigns, it seems

[xxplastic-cubexx]

sorry to my classmate next to me who's gotta look over my shoulder as i proofread my cherik fanfiction i have problems and i cant go five minutes without thinking of old people

[harbingersecho]

[sympathytea]

So this is a sequel to this post mainly because there was some crucial details in the finale that I missed, but this is specifically going to be focusing on Parrot rather than Evbo, although Evbo is still going to be part of this whole theory. Lets start.

[Transcript Start] Evbo: -My iron sword, so their swords will never break. Thats why I have to get out of here, so that I can prove to people that there is a way out! Obviously, to do that, I need to make it to level 4. But its a bit tough to do that, since theres no way to rank up apparently. Parrot: ...Wait, what do you mean theres no way to rank up? Evbo: Oh yeah! I probably should've mentioned that every time I try to rank up to a golden sword- Woah, getting up close and personal. But..yeah, theres no water at the bottom, I've died-

[End of transcript.]

This exchange to me, at first, read as rather inconspicuous. Other players have killed Evbo before, or straight up hit him. So it didn't particularly click with me that this was something to pay attention to, but it was a bit weird considering how Parrot is first characterized. His whole introduction with Evbo and Tabi, and him talking about the iron sword layer being peaceful, and trying to protect Evbo's immortal identity, being depressed and isolating himself in a mansion.. It seems odd that this would suddenly shift when the situation becomes "Theres no way out" and him almost getting violent here, like every other character in the series. But he shows restraint in his anger rather than lashing out. Good right? Well... Next time we "meet" Parrot the implications are less than ideal. We learn he is a bow, and that he attempted to tell Evbo this, but the message about Tabi's betrayal got through to him too late. Then something else happens. Evbo, post betrayal and probably wanting to let off some of the stress that has most definitely been bubbling under the surface, Kills the entire iron sword layer. Or atleast very heavily implied that he did, along with Parrot's help. In Evbo's words, he "Killed all the people that were against me." which could either mean like, two people or the entire layer, and I don't think Evbo was particularly keeping track of the "bad" iron swords that came into his cell depending on how populated that layer actually is. The way someone would typically twist this, is that Parrot is willing to do terrible things for his friend's safety and comfort. Which is fine, but hear me out. Considering that Parrot got very close to snapping at Evbo back in episode 4, and was pretty absent throughout the arc where Evbo trains until he gets to the diamond sword layer, and then out of nowhere, helps with a murder spree despite him being one of the more peaceful residents? One that doesn't appear to get into fights, nor is seen going into Evbo's cell for kills? Evbo lets something slip near the end right after describing the massacre that he and Parrot did together. Parrot says:

"I will do my best to make a difference in this world."

Now, this sounds good in theory. Great, even! But consider the stuff we learned from him up until this point, the tiny details that you could easily miss or disregard entirely. Now, what does that phrase imply? Especially with the surrounding context being Evbo and Parrot killing a layer together?

What difference does he intend to make in this world? We don't get more than what Evbo tells us in the narration, but he does mention that he isn't willing to see Parrot just yet, and needs to piece his feelings towards him. What went down between these two that went unseen that left Evbo not wanting to talk to him let alone see him? Fishy, fishy, fishy.