#and on top of not having starters who played a whole season you also have a bench that isn’t as cohesive

[the-physicality]

.

[maxsimagination]

𝙧𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙞𝙚𝙨 - 𝙘.𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙧𝙠

summary: caitlin and yn are both rookies for the fever and hit it off immediately

-> ik cameron was second pick but let’s run with it for the story

𖦹 masterlist

“𝙒𝙄𝙏𝙃 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙁𝙄𝙍𝙎𝙏 𝙋𝙄𝘾𝙆 in the 2024 wnba draft, the indiana fever select caitlin clark.”

“with the second pick in the 2024 wnba draft, the indiana fever select yn yln.”

i clapped harder than ever when i heard caitlin’s name called for first pick. we’d played against each other in college, uconn vs iowa was the rivalry.

immediately after, i almost had a heart attack when they called my name. tears welled in my eyes as i walked up to the stage, had my photo taken with cathy and followed the security to where caitlin was.

she swept me up in a huge hug, squeezing me tightly.

“i knew you would make it. you always were the hardest to play against.”

she teased me as she released me from her grip.

“i didn’t think i’d make it, i wasn’t expecting to hear my name so soon.”

i tried to laugh but only ended up choking on my tears as i wiped them away. caitlin brought her hand up to my face to gently swipe away the remaining drops as she grinned down at me.

“at least we can play together at the fever.”

——

one month later

i walked into the indiana fever gymnasium, almost gawking at how big it was, and how decorated it was with accolades. many of the girls were already there and they all waved me over.

“welcome to the fever, yn. good to have you.”

erica wheeler greeted me, along with caitlin who was already there. she had come up behind me however, and slung her arm over my shoulders with a grin.

it was the first training session we had as a new team, so we started off with the basics.

i worked hard, trying my best not to disappoint anyone but most of all, myself. it took some effort but within a month of the season taking off, i was on the roster for the indiana fever. and just as everyone expected, caitlin was also in the roster.

we formed an easy link-up on the court, always nailing our passes and getting steals from our opponents. we were like the dream team.

it was a game day against the connecticut sun, one of the top teams. we knew it would be a hard game but i was confident we could do it if we tried our hardest.

when we arrived at the stadium before the game, me and cait walking in together as the paparazzi snapped photos of us and our outfits.

warm up started after that, and we were just shooting baskets. i was taking turns at shooting free throws with cait, and while she was lining up to take one i stood back and watched. i let my eyes memorise her face, her eyes, her mouth, her hair. she looked so pretty concentrated on the throw.

while i was letting my mind wander, cait took the shot and landed it perfectly. it was my turn and she snapped me out of my daydream. we continued shooting baskets for a bit then moved on, eventually going back to the locker rooms and gearing up for the game.

they announced the starters for each team, calling my name then caitlin’s, along with aliyah, nalyssa, and kelsey.

the first quarter started and it was game on. i immediately got on the ball, running it up the court to the basket and landing a shot. by half time we were up, 45-30, which was impressive for the fever.

it was just before the end of the game, the score was close and i knew that we had to put some distance between us and the suns. our coach called a break and we all jogged to the bench. caitlin and i found each other instinctively, and when the break was over we went back out there with renewed intensity.

in the five minutes left, i managed to get possession of the ball, run it down the court and pass out to caitlin who scored a three. then i did it again, stealing the ball back off a rebound and getting to caitlin who scored another three.

we worked hard the whole game to keep the score in favour of us. caitlin was basically pulling three-pointers out of her ass with the amount she had landed. when the ref blew the whistle for the end of the game, we all cheered loudly. it wasn’t an important game by any means, but it was a big win for the fever especially against one of the top teams.

i ran to caitlin and she pulled me into a hug.

“you killed that! ceo of three-pointers right here.”

i poke cait as she grins and shakes her head at me.

“nah i couldn’t have done that without your passes, they were fire.”

she nudges me back. neither of us leave each others side until we get back to the locker room. all the girls are talking about the win, and i’m running on an adrenaline high. the girls are all jumping and dancing around, shouting out to whatever music is playing on the speaker in the room. so i join in with cait, grabbing her hands and jumping around. it was an amazing vibe after a great win.

[didalexiabreakupwitholgaisback]

Got a scare there. Welcome back! Especially as I had just written a question for you :)

I would like to ask your opinion regarding mainly Ona. I’ve noticed that she is getting frustrated and not playing as well as last year. I believe the main reason is that she’s playing on the right with Hansen.

The back line is now two center backs and Ona. The left back has the freedom to attack but the RB stays back because of Hansen. Caro doesn’t really defend and on the attack she is super selfish, she will drive to the box and endline even if there are players free in good positions, she will not serve. She will cross or maybe serve to Aitana but her main move is to barge in even with three defenders on her. Of course, she gets results as well but it’s frustrating to the others.

On the left last season Ona had more opportunities because use Salma was much more open to different ideas and utilizing the other players on her side, mainly Ona.

I can see Ona is getting more and more frustrated because she is not a solely defending RB. She plays better when Caro is not on the pitch. I fear she will leave after this season if a team wants to buy her, or at the latest after her contract is up. What do you think?

hi anon - first, thanks for your kind words. so just to set your fears aside, ona is not going anywhere. she is blaugrana to the core, and i don't see her leaving anytime soon. 💙 ❤️ i think ona is not playing to her full potential (she's still playing decently well) because she's been playing nonstop for the past 2 years! it has nothing to do with cgh. 😬

for barça the problem is that we don't have another player who can play rb as effectively as ona can right now, and so she is being overworked, when you add her national team duties on top of it, where she is the starting right back. but look at this face and tell me she's not happy to be here.

that may also be a reason why she isn't moving as freely up in the attack as often as she could. we are tracking the activity rates and km run per match for the players, and you don't want to burn her out and have her tracking back on defense all the time. but if you watched the hammarby match yesterday, there were still opportunities for ona to get more into the attack, so it's not like she 'stayed at home' the whole match either.

second, i disagree with your characterisation of caro. i would not call her a selfish player at all. there is a reason why she consistently leads the league in assists, including this year. but she's also the best winger in the world and can break down multiple defenders at once. and cgh is not going anywhere, thankfully. 🙏

so bottom line, it's about managing minutes for ona and not moving her to the left because she's playing right back for both barça and the national team this season. she's a valuable member of this team, and she's one of the most consistent starters for barça and she knows it!

[goqmir]

i kind of like maybe just a little adore the new clue set cards like. the clue set itself is a weird and overpriced product and the physical cards themselves are definitely gonna be stupid overpriced because nobody wants to buy a board game to crack packs but like. the cards themselves? kind of fire?

i kind of adore that theyre not just all rares and we are getting clue set commons and stuff :3 its cute! and we're getting a new lonis too-- its not a super interesting card but i adore lonis and im very excited to play with more of her. and we get an interesting new land cycle in the cluelands too! the art for them kinda blows at the moment but at some point in the future i assume they'll be reprinted in a set that gives them fun and interesting art? maybe? please? im not exactly itching to play them but ill never turn down another cycle of duals teehee

id love to talk about some individual cards from the lineup so far that i adore! these are just my top picks but id recommend going and looking at the full list spoiled so far on scryfall :3

for starters, my favorite card from the whole spoiler season right now i think has to be scuttling sentinel. i dont think i want to play her in any commander deck, but in my opinion this is like one of the top cards for cubes in 2024 period-- like cankerbloom tier of cube card. she's awesome! a crab elf which is such an awesome creature type, playable with green or blue, puts 1/1 counters on things and its main draw is just being a decent body that offers protection :) she's great!!!! ive already slotted her into the cube ive been piecing together recently. i like her a lot.

resonance technician is such a cool spell copier <3 every part of it is kind of expensive so im not really sure where youd play it but it does a lot of cool things all at once on a single card which is fun! the flavor is cool-- we all love weirds here-- and the functionality is useful and cute. cool card. big fan

we also have portal manipulator who is like one of the weirdest and strongest combat tricks ive ever seen? this is like if aetherize also fucked your shit in. so i can absolutely see this seeing a lot of play honestly. but lets be real here this card just has amazing art. thheres portals around her skull !!! god shes so cool.

corporeal projection gets a shoutout because what a fun effect <3 it being izzet is awesome and on-flavor and the card itself is both an interesting choice to give your creature myriad for extra damage and a fun wincon :) im glad theres a simple and convenient way to give one creature myriad now that isn't a brick to run in my commander decks because it has a high-cost endgame mode. yay!

finally it wouldnt be a goqmir set review if i didnt shout out the new cards that work well in Naya Cast From Exile :3 Boros Strike-Captain seems kind of mid but it's important to remember that the card never goes away, and you can cast it any time after when you attack with at least 3 creatures even if BSC is off the battlefield. big fan of this one! im not sure if i can find the space to jam him in my Rocco Street Chef decklist but he's a very playable option.

Personally, i think Headliner Scarlett is the winner this set. She's a very good hit pretty much any time-- you're always gonna get a minimum of 4 free damage when she sticks, and if you play her early you get some pretty strong card advantage, which turns into very very strong card advantage in both Rocco and Prosper. if you pull her late, she can win you the game straight up by allowing you to swing out uninhibited-- though i can't speak for Prosper players, this will pretty much always be at minimum a knock out if you pull it lategame in Rocco. definitely making room for her in my decklist.

anyway thats just some cards i liked from the weird product thats coming out :3 i was and still am iffy on purchasing the product and expect the cards to be a little too expensive but as far as designs go they're pretty cool and im very happy that they exist! um sqrrk <3

[atthebell]

i also just can't get over like. gem thinks she had a bad season (at least she has that impression from some people-- it does seem like she genuinely had a great time herself and its just commenters and fucking redditors being fucking stupid) and thinks everyone is gonna hate her for how she played but 1. she had a BRILLIANT season from a viewer standpoint. incredibly interesting, fantastic first season, some really fun episodes that imo are some of the best of anyone in the entire series 2. the other players adored her and this is undeniable. everyone is happy to have her there, everyone sees how she plays and thinks she's brilliant and fun and fiercely competitive, everyone knew she would and now knows she does excel at this.

like, imo, she has the best starter season of anyone and if i was gonna rec povs to people, hers would be my number one for secret life and a top one for the series as a whole. she's an incredibly strong player from top to bottom and makes good videos out of the sessions (her editing is probably the best of anyone's, only person who comes close imo is joel). she has not a damn thing to be ashamed of, and i hope she knows that and knows that she would KILL any future seasons. anyway that's my ted talk on gem this season if you haven't watched her pov literally what the fuck are you doing

[lunarcovehq]

WINTER WONDERLAND EVENT

Let me come warm you up, you've been out in the snow Baby, my tongue goes numb, sounds like, "Ho, ho, ho, ho"

It’s the Holiday season which can only mean one thing- the annual Winter Wonderland festivities are back! So join in on the celebration as you wander around the shops that have transformed themselves into a Holiday market with mulled wine, hot chocolate, space heaters, ice skating and so much more! After popular demand, fan favorites like the Most Eligible Calendar Shoot and the White Elephant party are back and there is a fresh layer of snow across the Green making the cozy Seaside Town decked out for the occasion. With a week as picturesque as this, what could possibly go wrong?

REMINDERS

This is a plot-driven event that will span from 12/19 into the New Year IC and OOC.

Please keep your eyes out for multiple plot drops that will be happening throughout the week which your character can continually react to.

The tag for the event is lunarcoveevent9. Everything from pictures, outfits, gifts & threads etc. should be under this tag. Starters should have both the starter and event tag.

This event as a whole is mandatory, but the below activities are not, so feel free to post starters/have private threads about the below activities before we drop the chaos plot drops. But, if you'd rather wait until the Chaos plot drops to participate, that is fine too and, as always, big plots should be discussed with the admins before playing them out on the dash, so if you have any big plots you want to do, please let us know.

For anyone looking to bring in new characters, we will continue to have regular acceptances until our plot drop on Friday, December 29th where we will take a small break to avoid new characters coming in admits the chaos. 

Last, but not least, we hope you have fun!

ACTIVITIES

Below is a list of the different seasonal activities occurring around town that your characters can react to (also please know that we will be having Activites of the Week after the event with more winter activities. We didn't want to make the below list too long given that we will be having chaos related plot drops soon for you all to react to, so we promise there will be more opportunities to have threads reacting to fun wintery threads too later on. These activities are just specifically Holiday themed):

Lunar Cove's Town Green's Holiday Festival of Lights Tree Lighting Contest and Ceremony- While the name may seem absurd, the Lunar Covians take their holiday decorated very seriously. From decorating their houses to the Park trees, don't miss out on the festivities. The best decorator will win the prize of getting to put the star a top the town tree.

The Nutcracker - Follow My Lead will be doing their annual performance of The Nutcracker outside the town Gazebo with extra sweet treats in store for guests from Sweet Tooth.

Holiday Market - All shops downtown will be hosting a holiday market where you can come and get last minute gifts or just shop to your hearts delight. Swing by the Daily Drip for a peppermint latte or Bubbl for homemade latkes.

(Sexy) Santa Con- Rather than a Santa convention, Lunar Cove will be hosting a Sexy Santa Contest (Con for short cause Eclipse is punny like that). Any townsgoer who posts an outfit with the #lunarcoveevent9 will be eligible to enter. The winner will take to the stage where they will sit in a decked out Sleigh as partygoers come up one after one to take photos with the winner.

Reindeer Race - Along For The Ride will be hosting their annual Reindeer Race around Echo Acres. So put on your reindeer antlers and get ready to run. The path will take you all around Echo Acres and sure to be a reindeer race to the finish line. The winner will win a $100 visa gift card.

Horse Drawn Carriage Rides- For a limited time Carriage Rides will be offered around Celestial Hills so get a loved one, a blanket, and come enjoy the lights. 

Toy Drive/Santa’s Workshop - Little Ducklings Daycare will be set up outside all week collecting toys for needy families around town. Don’t have anything to donate? That’s fine instead donate your time helping to build toys. 

Mistletoe & Tree Shopping- Just in Bloom has decked out the town by placing mistletoe all around Lunar Cove. Love is in the air this frosty season and you never know who you may happen to kiss. But, if love isn't your thing, the flower shop will also have a number of trees you can select to take home with you.

Most Eligible Calendar - What better way to kick off the year than with a spicy holiday calendar? Each townsgoer will be voted on by their peers to be assigned a month to model with the one with the most votes getting their picture on the Cover. Stay tune for instructions and an IC poll to nominate charries for each month - the voting will likely occur at the end of the event after all of the chaos.

Holiday Half-Off Dinner- Does the idea of cooking a holiday dinner give you anxiety? Well, have no fear. A Bao Time is here, open throughout the Holidays to fill your stomach with delicious bao buns and those that are half off at that.

Ghosts of Christmas Past Ghost Tour - Looking for your Charles Dickins kick? The Seen it Route might just have the tour for you and your resident Scourges. But be aware, the ghosts of the past and present on this tour and very much real and if you aren't careful, you may end up as the ghost of Christmas future.

Polar Express Experience- For one night only, the abandoned train tracks located on the outskirts of Shadow Lake will be up and running. One of the old trains has been magically transformed into the Polar Express and will run around Shadow Lake, taking to the air for a short stint before returning safely back down onto the tracks.

Candy Grams - Stay tuned for more information.

White Elephant Party - Stay tuned for more information.

[wickedsrest-rp]

Welcome to our weekly round-up! We do these every week to provide plot drops, highlight starters posted that week, and share other information about the setting. Anyone is welcome to use these bullet points in starters, plots, anons etc. Also let us know if you want us to include one of your setting-related plots in here for next week by sending us a bullet point!

What's new in town?:

Further mining efforts by EER have left Wicked’s Rest in a state of disarray as the anomalous sludge has covered whole blocks of land. People and animals alike have become encased in it as well, unable to escape as it slowly hardens around them. Check out our final plot of the week of Season 1 for ways to interact!

Local spellcaster, Molly Cooper, thought it’d be funny to play a joke on her classmates for Mean Girls Day. Unfortunately, she hasn’t quite gotten the hang of this whole spell casting thing just yet. So instead of just the college kids having everything they touch turn to pink when they asked what day it was on the fateful October 3rd, the spell has been a bit more wide reaching. Some parts of downtown may be giving visitors who ask the day a bit of a ‘Barbie touch’ for several weeks to come. 

It’s the most wonderful time of the year and as is to be expected in Wicked’s Rest, a handful of teens have already gone missing during their October games of Truth or Dare. Maybe don’t dare your friends to lower themselves into a sus looking well, kids. No cap. 

Every year, without fail, someone decides it’d be a great idea to host a music festival in the scenic town of Wicked’s Rest. Sure, all the ghost stories might seem like a good warning that it’s a bad idea, but somehow that only seems to add to the appeal. This year, the unfortunate event was an event featuring artists of the farmhouse grasspop variety. A little bit niche, but the festival goers had some interesting farmer meets raver looks… which has led to a chimera lit up with lots of glow sticks and the faint sound of a tambourine running around Seven Peaks. Members of Club Cryptid have started lovingly referring to it as the Fleetwood Men.

Starters:

Do you need a place to live? Hit up Arden or Wynne to become one of the worm-mate roommates today! (Or when the building is un-gooed, but what is a little goo bonding between roomies?)

Please read the menu before asking Van for toppings they just don't have, you're making frogs sad

Please do Dis a favor and collect your reptile, it is not wanted at Elysium Casino

Leila loves spooky season as much as the next nightmare (daydream?), but this feeling of being watched is not very cool

How is a vampire supposed to brood book and bother in these conditions when Cassius can't even enjoy a night hike without running into walking beehives

After a conversation with a not very nice classmate who might deserve burnt cookies Ariadne has to question if loving root beer is a character flaw

Who's got sculpting equipment lying around that Teddy could possibly borrow for certainly very normal reasons

If you know Archie's address you have full permission to break his door down since Wade (a truly good dog) locked Archie in a closet

Sorry folks in need of investigative services, Emilio has updated that Axis Investigations is closed for... goo? Apparently a fellow tenant named Jeff is hopeful that the update was a typo and really meant "for good".

Goo might be where Winter has really reached her limit, she's not trekking through that. If you're looking to make some cash, get a pizza to Winter ASAP

The PSA that many in Wicked's Rest sadly probably needed. Van is here to tell you, don't eat the goo. Ask Van for safer snack alternatives today!

It's a sticky situation for many in Wicked's Rest with all the sludge and Leila is feeling very generous. If you were displaced by the goo, please stop by the Party Thrifter for any clothing you may need on the house

Save Jerome, Owen's neighbor and send him two truths and a lie to prevent murder today!

Parker wants you to weigh in on the cats vs dogs debate and attach a photo if you must

[wilt3d-r0zes]

Fic Name (and link): I've Embraced The Grain Between My Wings Series: Hermitcraft / 3rd Life (Life SMP, Life Series SMP) Characters: Grian, GoodTimesWithScar, Mumbo Jumbo Pairings: N/A (Not mentioned but squintable: scar/grian) Trigger Warnings: Implied/Reference Suicide, Self Harm (Feather plucking, incredibly poor self care), Trauma, Bad Coping Important Tags: Avian/Winged Grian, Grian-Centric, Agnst, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff (Mostly w/ Mumbo), Not Beta, Not Editing, also I lost like 75% of the italics to tumblr sorry :’D

Summary:

"Having those grains between his feathers, the pinprick spots of pain that fill them, it's familiar. It feels grounding, he feels like he shouldn't just forget everything that happened in 3rd life like everybody else seems to have. Or at least is pretending to have. He knows it isn't healthy, but he doesn't really care anymore." Or, Providence is stuck in my HEAD 24/7 and inspired a fic this (title from that). Basically: Grian refuses to bathe or preen for almost two months after season 8 starts, because the feeling of dirt and sand in his feathers reminds him of 3rd Life and he isn't ready to let go, to move on.

Inspiration: Providence by Lemonaeden

It's easy, now, to not notice when his wings are dirty. When they're in need of a good preening to get the dirt and gravel and sand out from between the feathers. There wasn't much time in the chaos of 3rd life for him to preen them, and he was filled with a constant paranoia that meant nobody could do it for him. So, for the full time of them being there, he would have sand between his wings, dirt, misaligned and missing feathers, everything that made him look like a crazed mess amongst the chaos.

Once Season 8 begins, he loses himself in the work of getting the dragon egg, founding Boatem, getting things together and building his starter base that within the first few weeks, he hasn't even bothered to preen. Barely bothered to shower, actually. 

His hair is greasy, and he's almost always covered in spots of dirt. His sweater has definitely seen better days, but he has bothered to clean that at least. His wings, however, are the worst. He can barely fly with them, resorting to curling them up under his elytra. It's not so much forgetting, at that point, as being scared.

Having those grains between his feathers, the pinprick spots of pain that fill them, it's familiar. It feels grounding, he feels like he shouldn't just forget everything that happened in 3rd life like everybody else seems to have. Or at least is pretending to have. He knows it isn't healthy, but he doesn't really care anymore. 

It isn’t until the peace tree-ty that people start to say something, almost a full month after Grian starts visibly deteriorating.

…

“I’m waiting for you because- I, I need you to sign the peace tree-ty, the treety.” “The tree-ty?” Grian grins, staring down at Mumbo from his rooftop, “Is the war over?” his voice is full of excitement, because that means he won.

Mumbo sighs, “Yes. I mean,”

“Cease fire?”

“It kinda has to be, doesn’t it?” Grian adjusts the elytra fastened over top of his wings, barely even reacting to the way a small pebble falls from between the feathers and tinks on the rooftop, gliding down to the front step of his home, “There’s nothing that I can do that really competes with what we have going on here. And, frankly, there was no way I was going to remove it, I don’t know if you’ve seen but I’ve turned it into my base. So it’s now my base.”

“I have! It’s beautiful, I love what you’ve done with it. In fact, I think this has worked out brilliantly.”

“Yeah! I mean, y’know, who would’ve thought that I would– yaknow, this whole tree war would’ve started, and then ended with me getting a free base out of it!” Mumbo laughs, following Grian as he ambles over toward Treeresa, pulling on the elytra straps to get an extra boost, “Even though technically, on paper, you’ve kind of one because you’ve played the last move, I feel like–,”

“I feel like you’ve won,” Grian replies, hands over his mouth and arms resting on an azalea bush to look up at the tree monster build. Mumbo laughs, quick to agree.

“I feel like I’ve won!” he grins, his potato skin curling and wrinkling oddly under the movement. Both of them burst into light laughter, “Oh! Right,” Mumbo turns back towards Grian, drawing the avians attention, “Will you sign the peace tree-ty?”

“Tree-ty,” Grian echoes, still snickering, “Yeah, sure! Where is it?”

“Uhhhm,” Mumbo spins on his heel, looking between both sides of Treeresa, “Somewhere! I think it’s back here? Hopefully?” he leads Grian around the side of his new base, “It’s somewhere around here, I mean,” he gestures at a hole that Grian almost jumped into, “There’s all sorts of, like, various different–,”

“Moles.” Grian jokes, pulling off his elytra as they approach what is likely the entrance, certainly too fancy to be much else. 

“Access points and things that are going on down here, but yeah, this is–,” he leads Grian down a simply decorated staircase and into a room with a lectern and oak sapling behind glass, “the tree-ty room. It’s nothing special, but I designed it so that we have to both–,” he pauses, like he’s trying to figure out what to say, “Because we are the only people involved in this war, right, okay?”

“Yep.”

“We both have to hit buttons on either side to gain access to the tree-ty. You ready?”

He gestures towards the opening in the wall behind Grian, where two buttons side above oak saplings, “Yep! Any one of them?”

“Uh, yeah, either one. Either one, that was just for symmetry.”

“Okay, yep.”

“3,

2,

1,”

They both hit their buttons with a quiet click, click, and it’s followed by the loud pistons pulling the wall and glass away from the lectern.

“Cool! Okay!”

“You–,” Grian gapes, “Beautiful, beautiful!” he praises.

“Yeah! Some nice redstone engineering there, and this is–!” he flips open the book, “The peace tree-ty! I’ve already done my signature,” he steps back, gesturing towards it so Grian can take his place to sign with the feather pen beside it.

Grian stares at the decorative squiggles on the page, adorned with dots between each one, “Peace Treety… oh!” he laughs, “It’s just a bunch of squiggles!” Mumbo laughs behind him, “You got fancy, you got all fancy on there!”

“Yeah! Yeah, I mean, it’s like– yknow, it’s a squiggle but it’s also kinda in the shape of my name?”

“What’s the, what does the K stand for?” Grian asks incredulously, entirely unaware Mumbo even had a middle name.

“Oh that’s my middle name!” 

“Kubo.” Grian guesses, trying to come up with any other K middle name and drawing a blank.

“It’s not Kubo,” Mumbo replies, the former confidence in his response replaced with something nervous, “Well, it’s, I, given current circumstances of the season it’s… it is, it is slightly embarrassing,” he stutters, “It’s, uh, yeah. Mumbo Killsalot Jumbo.”

Grian bursts into wheezing laughter, hunching against the lectern with the force of it. “Is that,” he wheezes again, “That’s the nickname your parents gave you. Straight away. They knew.”

Mumbo laughs, “They saw this face!”

Grian grins, recovering from his laughter and grabbing for the feather pen, “Oh, right,” he stares at the parchment book, “I need to come up with a fancy squiggle like this!”

“I’m excited,” Mumbo snickers, watching Grian’s hand move around the letters from behind, failing to even create a proper sentence over his soft laughter, “Is this the new war?” he finally comes up with, just as Grian puts down the pen and says.

“There we go!”

“The ridiculous signature war?” Mumbo jokes, stepping forward into Grian’s spot.

“Just–,” Grian starts, getting Mumbo’s attention from the book, “Just to clarify, what happens if this book goes missing, gets destroyed–,”

“I don’t– I don’t know.” Mumbo shrugs, staring at Grian’s silent, slightly baffled face, “What happens to peace treaties that get destroyed?” he asks, turning back to the book. He goes to keep talking, but then starts laughing raucously at his friend signature, “Have you– have you been transported from the Egyptian era?” he jokes, “You’ve done hieroglyphics!”

“I’ve gotta admit, it looks like Griam.”

“I was gonna say that!” Mumbo laughs, “Griam,” he repeats.

“Griam!” Grian parrots, grinning. 

“I’m likin’ that i, it is bustin some moves.”

“Look, I build and fly well, I don’t write so good,” Grian jokes back, gesturing at his goofy signature.

“Well! This is excellent news, so we,” he stutters, “Is this–? This is now locked in, I guess I’ll hit the button. The peace tree-ty has been sealed in the chamber, uhm.”

“Let’s hope and pray that no one disturbs it.”

“Yeah.”

“At any point.”

“Yeah. Yeah, alright, I guess we can go now.” 

Grian nods, and the two of them turn to head up the stairs.

“This war has been a- a monstrositree,” Grian grins, fluttering his wings on reflex at the top steps and feeling the burn of displaced barbs and rustling misaligned feathers.

Mumbo bursts into peels of laughter, nearly tripping over the first step as he comes out behind his friend and only causing more laughter between the two of them. They make it back out to the front, Grian clearly ready to head back to work on his settings up for the season, “Oh, wait!” Mumbo starts, stopping his friend just as they make it around Treeresa’s arm.

“Hm?” Grian turns around, rocking back on his heels, “What now?”

“I wanted to ask, uh, I know we haven’t really done it in a while, especially after, uhm,” he shifts his weight awkwardly, diamond armor clacking with the movement, “Y’know. But, do you need help preening?”

Grian puffs up, actually wincing for once at the pain that spikes through his usually colorful parrot wings, which have since been reduced to a muddy color from dirt and loose or lost feathers.

Mumbo straights out, rushing to wave his arms away, “Forget it! Sorry, forget I said anything, you don’t have to, I just saw that they’ve been a mess for quite some time and I thought maybe you were having trouble doing it yourself again and maybe you wanted some help, but it’s totally fine if not!” 

“I just haven’t gotten around to it, yaknow? So busy with the start of the season!” he laughs awkwardly, ruining any chance his lie had at standing on its own.

“You need to take better care of yourself!” Mumbo scolds, “I won’t help if you don’t want me to, but,” he shifts his weight again, “I know you haven’t been bathing and clearly you haven’t been preening, and, Gri!” he waves a hand out, “You have bald spots in your wings!” It actually sounds like he’s just noticing it, and when Grian turns to see if he’s telling the truth it’s because he’s been unconsciously spreading them in the presence of a perceived threat.

He is right, though, he’s lost so many feathers to poor care and stress that there’s patches of his wings that you can see the skin beneath, dried blood in some places that likely came from the Elytra rubbing up against them.

“Isn’t that a stress thing? Have you been pulling your feathers out? I read somewhere that birds pull their feathers out when stressed!” he starts rambling, but Grian tucks his wings back in and quickly pulls his elytra from his inventory to cut him off.

“Mumbo, seriously, I’m fine,” he replies, voice firm, “Just let it go, okay? I’ll try to take care of myself better,” he lies, but nothing in his voice lets Mumbo know that. That potato man slumps, but nods anyways.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Grian’s fireworks provide a dissatisfying end to Mumbo’s worries, sending him back into the task he was working on.

…

“You haven’t cleaned your wings since 3rd life,”

The comment comes out of no where, Grian and Scar sitting on the edge of the Boatem hole. They had been talking a few minutes ago, but it’d tapered off into a silence that Grian had thought was just them enjoying each others company, but was apparently Scar bringing up the confidence to announce that.

“Really?” Grian fibbed, “I hadn’t noticed, I’ve just been so busy getting started,” he shrugs, resisting the urge to puff his wings up. They’d gotten worse since the last person had brought it up, Mumbo, maybe a week ago. He’d thrown himself into his work again, primarily gathering resources while he came up with new plans. The concrete powder hadn’t worked itself out of his feathers for a few days, bringing ugly bits of color back into his dull feathers.

There’s silence again, but now it’s awkward and uncomfortable for Grian. “Do you need help?”

“No.”

“Why, then?”

More silence.

“Doesn’t it hurt? It looks like it hurts. Mumbo said you have bald spots.”

“You guys are gossiping about me? Really?” Grian replies, annoyed. He doesn’t get angry at his friends easily, but this is something he just wants them to leave alone. He’s fine. He’s coping. Going a month or two without cleaning his wings and– yeah, sure, pulling out his feathers, isn’t that big of a deal. He’s fine, “I’m fine, Scar.”

“I have nightmares about it,” Scar says, instead of continuing to press about Grian’s health. Something like an olive branch of trauma, “Of trying to hit you and falling into the cacti. Sometimes I k–,” he clears his throat, like the word refuses to come out of his mouth, “Sometimes I win, and I think those ones are the worst.”

It’s a chance for comfort. A chance to let out all the stress he’s been holding in. To apologize, and talk to someone who gets it. 

He stays quiet.

“I guess, I just,” he pauses, trying to find the right words, “I’m sorry. I wish it had gone another way.”

“What other way?” Grian replies hoarsely, not expecting his voice to sound so fragile but not reacting anyways, continuing to stare into the hole he’s dangling over, “You win? I have to remember getting beat to death by my ally, my friend, and you have to live with killing me?”

“I don’t think it would’ve hit me as hard,” Scar replies, shrugging, “I don’t have, it’s,” he huffs, “I don’t know. I feel like it’s all numbed. Like all the memories and feelings are all there but it feels like I’m watching a movie when I see them. They’re all fuzzy, so they don’t affect me as much now.”

“Guess I’m just special,” the avian says, bitterly, scraping one of his talons on the stone when he swings his legs. He wants to leave, go back to work. He should just be avoiding Scar. Maybe he could avoid anybody, everybody, for the rest of the season. 

He won’t. But he could. Maybe it would be easier that way.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

Silence reigns again.

“I miss the desert,” Grian says, finally. Pulling his talons out of the hole and up onto the grass, where he rests his arms and head on the feathers that make the transition between bird-like legs and human thighs.

Scar nods in the corner of his eye, “Me too. I miss Pizza.”

“I always used to have sand between my feathers,” the avian continues, “Sand got everywhere, but we never had the time for me to preen properly even if we could bathe or wash our clothes in the river, so I just always had sand scraping at my skin and getting stuck in my feathers.”

“Is that why you haven’t preened since getting back?” Scar asks, his voice quiet, like he’s scared if he says it too loud Grian will run away, “We should go find a new desert, build a grave for Pizza and the Sandlands.”

Grian cracks a smile, chuckling, “We could build our own graves.” he jokes.

Scar laughs, “Yeah! Maybe we could rebuild the tower, put my face on it this time!” 

“Nah, that’s too much work, we’ve got to work on our megabases before the season ends. Didn’t X say this one was going to be a bit shorter?”

“Yeah, I guess. We should still make the graves though. At least for Pizza, it’ll be like closure since everything happened so fast,” Scar suggests, and he says it so casual, as if they aren’t talking about building their own graves from a permadeath server.

“Sure.”

“Can we do it now? While we’re both awake?”

Grian sighs, but stands nonetheless, stretching everything but his mangled wings, “Sure, we can do it now.”

…

The graves weren’t difficult to make. Pizza’s was identical to the one on the hill, while Scar personalized Grian’s grave with his face and a feather he apparently found that fell from Grian’s wings over the last month. Scars grave, on the other hand, Grian had surrounded in potted flowers and saplings. Neither of them commented on it.

Grian

Friend, Sandman, Ally

RIP

Scar

Friend, Enemy

It wasn’t a prank this time

Scar had cackled at his own sign, and Grian complained about not having a funny quote on his even when Scar said he couldn’t think of anything. They sat at their graves for a while, talking about 3rd life and any good times they could think of.

Grian’s elytra, at some point, had been discarded off to the side, but his wings lay tight against his back, tense and visibly missing feathers now. Before, you couldn’t tell unless he spread his wings completely that there were bald spots.

Scar did his best not to look at them, to not draw attention to the entire reason this interaction was even happening in case it threw Grian off.

It seemed to work, though Grian didn’t offer for Scar to clean his wings or make any promises to do so, Scar was pleased to find that the next time the avian was seen he was visibly cleaner, no more dye or dirt on his skin and hair that didn’t seem to be weighed down by it’s own grease.

It took longer for his wings to recover from the damage, but the few times Scar interacted and he took off his elytra he saw that the feathers had been straightened to the best of his abilities. More were missing, but Scar tried to assume that they were damaged beyond repair, and not perfectly good feather that had been ripped out.

By the first official Boatem meeting, Grian was flying with his own wings again. Scar had loudly cheered him on the first time he saw the bright, multicolored wings soaring over him, resulting in a loud, displeased shout from the avian above.

Worth it.

[crplpunkklavier]

out of curiosity, what are your favorite seasons of dimension 20? like idk maybe a top 3-5? I'm trying to get into it to decide where to start and I think you have good taste so I trust your judgment

oh thank you!!

i will say they're all good. there's no season i find especially weak or even found unpleasant, personally (i honest to god zoned out during most of crown of candy because it's that gritty high fantasy stuff that i personally just don't like, but it's not objectively bad). i think mostly it depends on what genres you're into, and what player energy you mesh with.

for me, my absolute top favorite that i keep wanting to rewatch is starstruck odyssey. it's with the main cast, it's sci-fi anarchy, and tonally, it's pretty light. i mean it's fucking hilarious is what it is. if you're looking for mostly laughs and cool scifi stuff that's it.

i'm also still really partial to fantasy high--both seasons, and the live shows! i do think it's worth starting out with that one because you can see the main group start to work with each other and build up fun dynamics. some of them play dnd for the first time there, but not all of them, so you don't have to worry about it feeling amateurish or anything. (once you're done with fantasy high, DEFINITELY watch the seven. i wouldn't recommend it for starting with, because it's an off-shoot thing based on fantasy high, but it's so fun. so chaotic. #girls)

i would actually put mentopolis, the most recent one, on #3! i REALLY enjoyed it. i miss the main cast, but that season was SO well done, and just genuinely beautiful.

ok let's do top 5, because i just remembered mice and murder. it was filmed remotely, which i think unfortunately it suffered for a little bit, but not that much. if you're here, you probably enjoy murder mystery :] and well mice and murder is one. and it's extremely good. you never see grant or sam in other d20 seasons, but my god do they shine in that one.

and then let's put unsleeping city on #5. as someone who has only been to nyc once when he was so young he doesn't remember, the whole thing felt like a fantasy world to me lol. there's a lot of stuff about new york that i didn't necessarily understand, but it was told in a way that still made it fun. and i just love myself some urban fantasy. i think the second season here is weaker than the first for sure, but it's still enjoyable. as it's also main cast and an easily understandable concept, i think this one is also a solid d20 starter.

[redwineconversation]

in 50 years will this all be declassified (Paris FC - Lyon Postgame Thoughts)

I was going to finish the WOB-Lyon postgame thoughts but then changed my mind and decided to put this one out first.

Let's be honest with ourselves: it was not a good game, Lyon did not play well, the draw was generous in terms of the style of play Lyon had on display. Lyon was bad. Let's not lie to ourselves about that.

But was Lyon predictably bad? Yeah, kind of, and I think there's a bit of selective outrage going on on Twitter/social media.

Lyon played really, really bad but that was to be expected after Wolfsburg away and then Paris FC away. There wasn't going to be much rotation because I don't care what the Lyon armchair experts say, you're just not going to be playing academy kids against Wolfsburg or Paris FC. Those are big teams and you're going to need your top players and the experienced players. I don't know how many times I have to repeat myself but Lyon is not a development club. Academy players are only going to get playing time against big teams if there is a massive injury crisis.

So for me the sluggishness was kind of predictable just because Lyon was always going to be tired. There's always a mental crash after a UWCL game no matter who the opposition is. Then take into account it was against Wolfsburg and then take into account it was Paris FC and yeah, in many ways, this shit performance was really predictable.

And it was also really, really shit.

I don't think anyone played well. There were players who didn't play as badly as others - I think on the whole the defensive line was pretty solid. My grip about Carpenter getting Player of the Match is that it probably should have been Gilles or Svava but I am not going to lose sleep over it. Not my choice but I can see why it was the choice of others if that makes sense.

There were players who were absolutely terrible. There are times when I feel like Horan's critics have dogpiled on her because it's a trendy thing to do; this was not one of those times. I'm glad that she wants to fight for her position and I appreciate the philosophy about whining about being subbed off - I'd much rather a player fight for their spot than be desperate to get off. But she played an absolutely terrible game. It was genuinely bad and she doesn't get to sulk about being subbed off when she puts up those sorts of performances. You want to stay on the field then earn your place. End of discussion.

Van de Donk was invisible. The only noteworthy moment was when she sent a shot at goal and it was deflected by Diani, which actually perfectly summed up Lyon's performance on the night. If she wants to be a starter and keep Marozsan on the bench then she needs to do better than whatever that was tonight. We know she is a player capable of pressing and finding spaces but we only saw carelessness and sloppiness from her tonight. This is a player, too, who is used to the UWCL-league schedule and who has played Paris FC before. There are no excuses for her performance tonight.

Lyon played better once Hegerberg, Chawinga, Dabritz and Marozsan were on, the latter of which I would have bet genuine money last season on not saying. But it goes back to what I was just saying. Horan and van de Donk were invisible. They should have been subbed at the half and replaced by Dabritz and Marozsan. That being said, Chawinga still needs to start justifying her price tag and Hegerberg needs to start justifying her extension. Lyon put the money down, time for the players to step up.

Now I've seen a lot of outcry about Montemurro and it's too soon, for me at least, to say whether he needs to be kicked out. Lyon has kicked a coach out after several months only before (Jean-Luc Vasseur) but that was after he: lost the locker room, was kicked out of the UWCL, lost the league. Montemurro isn't there yet. If Lyon loses against PSG in November and they collapse in the UWCL group stage and then he loses the locker room: yeah, he could be kicked out. But there's a lot of things which need to happen before then. He has to lose both Hegerberg and Renard to be fired and as far as I am aware we're not even close to that if-then-else scenario.

And let's be honest, I'm not Montemurro's biggest fan, far from it, but it's way too harsh to judge him on this particular game considering the circumstances behind it. I'm not clutching my pearls after a game like this. I'm grinding my teeth hard enough to give myself a headache, sure, but pearl clutching? No. Lyon was always going to be exhausted after this game and there was always going to little rotation due to the calibre of the opposition. Let's not lie to ourselves about that.

Karchaoui withdrew from the France game which annoys me because it's blatant game management from PSG but Lyon doesn't exactly have a ton of players selected for France so I am not clutching my pearls for that. What I am clutching my pearls over however is Carpenter's lack of rotation. She has played pretty much 90 minutes every game since preseason. I'd love Australia to at least consider trying someone else at RB even if it's just for one of the gams but I feel the odds of that happening are not great. Also Norway tends to send Hegerberg back to us broken, so that's not exactly a reassuring call-up either.

Anyway. I'm annoyed as fuck about this game because we played so incredibly badly. I'm not panicking because there were legitimate reasons why we played so badly. It'll be a crisis if this happens against PSG. So let's wait and see what happens then.

[bravertzposts]

the loyalty part was about running off to rivals because there's no european football. i think i didn't make that clear enough though. but rivalries in the premier league are a big thing so it would make many people furious.

and the getting minutes part.... while he is our top scorer it's still only 9 goals (3 pens) and 1 assist in 50ish appearances this season. not exactly impressive. his inconsistency would bench him faster at real than anywhere else because they're very strict. which is also why clubs won't bid fees he is actually worth but chelsea would need a replacement desperately since félix is gone and mount is also definitely getting sold. it was communicated kai is in pochettino plans and they won't push him out actively. hence why they would demand good money. we won't rely on nkunku alone because he will need his minutes managed a lot after injuries.

arsenal already have 3 CAMs/10s. and are concretely linked to a 4th.

i'm a chelsea fan first but also a big fan of his as an individual and neither of these transfers sound like he's guaranteed more minutes than at chelsea. at chelsea he was almost the first on the teamsheet despite the 400 attackers (which will definitely be cut down too - so more opportunities). at real he won't be a priority (if minutes for the euros are on his mind... reports called him a hazard replacement which isn't exactly positive considering his shit time at real). they usually play a whole different system with no CAMs + are getting their loanee brahim diaz back. and at arsenal he'll not just compete with 1 CAM (one of which is odegaard who is a guaranteed starter) but 3 or maybe even 4.

i'd get a decision to leave on a personal level - because his progress has stagnated a lot and he's sometimes unrecognizable to leverkusen days - but i'm not convinced he'd get more time at the clubs he's linked to. maybe other more realistic options will arise in the next weeks... but it's also sad (to me personally lol) because we're getting the first GOOD attacking coach since kai's joined chelsea who reportedly likes him as a player and now he might be going..... i'd still prefer real over arsenal personally though. at least they have less attackers and his versatility could give him minutes on the wings or as false 9 too. but anyway. ramble over! sorry lmao

i don't mind the rambling, it's fine haha x

i got what you meant with the loyalty part, i just don't think that seeing it this way is entirely fair on him, nor do i think that it's something that'd be a deceisive factor for him. i think i agree on what you said about a potential move to arsenal, though. i didn't even know that he's been linked to them, like. just seems really random. i guess i could see arteta being generally interested in his potential and even able to utilise it, but i don't know if they'd be willing to spend a sum that chelsea would be satisfied with and i don't see why they'd be actively looking to fill his prefered position this summer, which is what you were getting at too, so that's probably just hot air? madrid, though - i dunno, i could really see it. it's not only eden, karim is leaving them too, so they will be looking out for someone who can play as a striker. asensio will be gone as well next season and kai has successfully played as a RWF in the past, so there's another open spot. plus, they've been reported to be generally interested in him for a while now and they have the money to pay a bigger fee. it just seemed realistic when that rumour was still going strong. which, apparently, it isn't anymore, so who knows if they've ever even been in contact with him or if that was just the typical transfer tea insanity...which is probably going to go on until the season starts...🫠

btw, don't get me wrong, i'm really not that opposed to the idea of him staying at chelsea (i might come off as an avid madrid fan, which... i'm really not, lol), i just get why he might feel the need for change (international competition, his stats...). but sure, that change might as well come from within the club and he'll definitely consider that.

[dorianepin]

🥅

article on goalie positioning, health and equipment: thinking about how we’re witnessing historic offensive seasons from so many players right now (stats guys: mcdavid tops the war charts since 2008 by a significant margin / me furthering my own agendas: jrob top 5 LFGGGG) and (by consequence) a further downward trend of league-average sv%, which again goes into how goaltender performance is explicitly antithetical to nhl marketing practices and is reflected systematically in both technological advancements and equipment regulation, but also how these facts extend in practice beyond the vacuum of game-by-game output and into specifics of injury and longevity and workload.

the physical and mental strain of goaltending is something that i think is very ambiguous to a lot of people and thus the idea of a workload, or playing a game and having to actually “make saves,” and specifically the quantity and quality of the saves themselves, also comes with its own ambiguity; it’s interesting to hear varying mental approaches from goalie to goalie on how they manage themselves because there are guys who view optional skates as purely additive and guys who view them as potentially detrimental to their preparatory process. being a goalie requires an extremely specific understanding of the mechanics of your body in a way that being a skater doesn’t necessarily because of how self-contained and athletic the position is, and i liked hearing spits & suds talk about otter forgoing optionals in preservation of game-day energy and how fans often misunderstand what really goes into being able to handle the physical component of back-to-backs. on the other hand dlevi has a very different approach to practice (which is interesting because he’s transitioned so well into other leagues and it makes you wonder whether his development in the nhl will change this or whether it’ll just become part of his own game; starter psychology is never universal and requires a unique marriage of persistence and adaptability) yet i think sean on pdo was also like, he and otter are very similar in terms of mental management and how they perceive their own game and the accountability of the position which is a fun little thing to meditate on (i said that guys who are most impervious to pressure are the ones who exist within a singular anticipatory moment instead of chasing the accumulation of their efforts and i do think they both manage that well)

also with how skill has come to inform marketability in the league nowadays (there are no stars because everyone is a star!), i love the increased “resurgence” of undersized goalies or at least the conversations facilitated by guys who are like, Actually shooters are going to be able to pick their spots no matter how big you are so it’s useless to put disproportionate stock into that stuff. dlevi Student of the game, specifically saros (“there's a stat on him that he's the goalie who gets hit the most in the chest—at 5'10. so that comes from him as a goalie being forced to work on his positioning his whole life, so now his positioning is better than all the other guys at his level. he makes up for his size with great positioning; he understands his box, he's always square, and for him he has a bit less room to make mistakes than bigger guys, but the thing about this guy is that he doesn't make mistakes.”) is so perfect to me, especially with levi being the #1 sense arena user in the world and how smartly he tracks the puck. anyway i just love seeing dwolf and dlevi getting their starts this season considering their parallels and respective draft stock

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

The Thrilling Saga of Connie paying real life money for the Worst Sonic TV Show

Let’s begin with the simple fact that me and my sister, @birdsareblooming​ “Cori”, have both been hyperfixating on Sonic the Hedgehog since last March. During this hyperfixation, I was on Sonic Wiki to copy-paste song lyrics onto my stolen mp3s, and I called my sister in and pointed at the template at the bottom. 

“What is this Sonic Underground thing?” I asked. “It has one shit billion songs.” 

So we clicked on the page to read about it, and each sentence we read was a punch in the gut and this quickly became the funniest thing we’d ever read. Highlights include:

It looks like this:

“Sonic[...] is known to be a prince” 

Sonic has two siblings who actually have good characterization but their names are literally just Sonia and Manic. Like. Sonic split into two names. jesus christ 

Also Sonic and his siblings all share a voice actor. honestly Jaleel White does his best with it but 

“The three siblings possess enchanted medallions that transform not only into musical instruments, but also into weapons.”

“Some fans consider Sonia to be a clone of Amy Rose, minus the attraction Amy feels for Sonic.” YEAH I SURE HOPE IT DOES

“Manic is the most often captured of the siblings” himbo king 

Knuckles shows up, and for the first, like, two sentences his description is very similar to the game, and then you get immediately pulverized by “He has a pet Dinosaur called Chomps.”

Literally so many sentences on Sonic Wiki are lowkey salty about this show. The page features lines such as “Sonic Underground bears little relation to the often complex Sonic universe (including previous animated series, as well as Sonic comics and games), and shares only three established characters” and “many of the characters in the Freedom Fighter group that were in Sonic the Hedgehog are completely left out (including Tails).”

“The show met with mostly negative reviews.”

*checks air dates* It only lasted two goddamn months

So after seeing this we thought it was the funniest thing and we showed our older sister, @patema-introverted​ “North.” To our surprise, our at the time “knew nothing about this sonic bullshit” sister recognized the show. Turns out she’d seen trailers for it as a child and that was her sole exposure to Sonic canon. 

We were in quarantine at the time, so we ended up finding it on YouTube and binge-watching it all together as a sibling bonding activity. It was just as hilarious as we thought it would be- some stuff was legitimately good, like the sibling dialogue for instance, but good lord were the character designs ugly, the plot all over the place, and pretty much every song, um, not great. Also there was one episode that we skipped because it got, um, I think “stereotypical” is the nicest word I can use here. 

But the point is, we had a jolly good time watching it, and afterwards we binged all the other Sonic shows and bonded as a family. 

After quarantine, North and I go back to college. My roommate gets groceries at Walmart, while I get them elsewhere, so while she and North collect food I wander the DVD aisle to look at the cool movies and also dumpster-dive in the bargain bin for Cats (2019). I am also short as fuck, so the top shelf of movies I cannot see, I can only read the labels. 

So one day I was browsing the DVDs, and glancing over at the labels for the top shelf. I read over the final one before the shelves end. 

And then I stop, do a double take, and have a heart attack, because there is a label that reads “SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74″

I immediately climb the shelf but there aren’t any DVDs atop the shelf. However, the label is still there. I excitedly tell my sister and roommates, freak out with them a bit, and then give myself a mission statement:

I will buy the $4 Sonic Underground DVD from Walmart

I did not want it as a gift, I did not want to find it online. I wanted to walk into a store, pick up the Worst Sonic Show on DVD, walk it straight to the checkout, and in front of the cashier and God, pay for it with my own money. I did not care if it was the whole series or two episodes; I needed to do this for my own serotonin.

We would go to Walmart about once a week. Every time, I would go to the DVD aisle, and go right to the end of the shelves. I would stare at the label SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74 and empty space above it and wonder who the fuck was buying this other than me. I would occasionally ask employees if they had any copies in storage. I would build a shrine to Manic in my room. Okay, no I didn’t, but only because my RA would have murdered me. 

Christmas break comes, and we have to go home. We have a nice Christmas, and Cori and I infodump at each other about how we would make Sonic Underground a good show (note: we’re both galaxy braining) and also play Bendy and the Ink Machine. Fun times. 

When we finally get back to College, it’s late January- long story short we have a very long winter break. My roommate who gets food at Walmart got food without us the first week cause she showed up first, so we take her out to Walmart the first time in the year of our lord 2021 on January 29. 

I wander the Valentine’s aisle, immediately grabbing a sequin puppy. I go to the DVDs and see Animaniacs Season One, also grab that. 

And then.

There it is.

The Holy Grail. 

Above the label SONIC UNDERGROUND $3.74, is one DVD left. 

Already I am losing my mind. It’s roughly seven hours of episodes- I couldn’t find an episode list, but I think that’s half the show, for $4! And the cover is amazing. 

That’s a png of Sonic from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) with a medallion badly photoshopped over it. The medallion is too small. 

Manic is shoved into the corner. He doesn’t have his medallion at all. 

Sonia isn’t even pictured on the front cover, probably because they realized she was the worst designed of the bunch. I’m not ragging on her though, because she’s still one of the better designed characters of the show. Those background characters make me cry 

So you bet your ass I finally paid my hard-earned $4 for this shit. Upon getting home, I discovered that there was even wilder shit with this DVD than I thought. 

For starters: the bonus features listed are as follows:

Original Concept Art - did not expect that these character designs were the final draft

Storyboard-to-screen - did not expect they bothered to storyboard this 

Music Video Jukebox - that’s cute, they thought we liked the music 

Interviews with original screenwriter & executive producer - I fully expect the only questions to be “why.” 

On the left of this list are screenshots from the show, where people can finally see Sonia, who we Know™ is a girl because she is pink and has hair and also an actual body shape instead of just circles like her brothers. 

But wait... what’s that in the lefthand corner? 

That looks like some kind of robot. But it’s not a robot from Sonic Underground! That didn’t appear once. Why is it here? 

The mystery continues upon opening the DVD case: inside are advertisements for other collections, including other Sonic DVDs: two volumes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) and the final episodes of Sonic the Hedgehog “SatAM” (1993)

First of all, the first volume of AOSTH has the exact same PNG of Sonic as the Underground Volume 1. Not even trying to hide it. But second... the second volume of AOSTH also has this robot on its cover. 

And THIS ROBOT IS ALSO DECORATING THE THIRD DISC IN THE SET?

So you may be asking, who is this robot? Is it from AOSTH or Underground?

IT’S FROM FUCKING SATAM. The one show that doesn’t have it decorating the DVD covers.

Also, not only is it from SatAM, it only appears in one fucking episode. Not a major character! AND IT HAS A DIFFERENT DESIGN ON THE PROMO ART, WITH HAIR AND FANGS.

Why is it showing up everywhere? What is going on? 

I have not yet had the opportunity to watch this glorious piece of animation, but I am so glad at the confusion I have felt upon receiving it. 

But before I go, I must share with you the best part of this DVD purchase. And it was flipping to the back, scanning the details, and discovering the exact runtime of the episode collection. 

Guys, gals, and enby pals, friends and enemies, Nintendo and Sega, the first Volume of Sonic Underground has a runtime of...

420 MINUTES.

Maybe I’m wrong and this IS the best Sonic show. 

[ashescroissant]

If You Love Arcane Play League of Legends - But Please Understand A Few Things

I’ve seen a lot of posts going around about League of Legends, most of them telling folks not to play the game. When in fact, you should play. We need more people to play the game and keep it alive. I’ve been playing League of Legends since Season 2, here’s some tips, advice, and a handy guide to play League safely, some resources to get you started, and what to expect from the game.

1. League of Legends is a hard game!!!  If you don’t like hard games, that’s okay. You can play against the bots. But if you want to play the meat of the game which is PVP, you need to understand that it is hard, and complicated with a lot of depth. 

People have literally spent years trying to master this game and even those at the top of the ladder still feel they have much to learn. It’s one of the main reasons that the community is so toxic. Because League is already difficult for one player, if another player isn’t playing well, it effects every single other person in the match.

If my Jinx, Vi, or Caitlyn is 0/10/0 that effects me as Fiora your mid lane Yasuo, your jungler, and your support, even if we didn’t start on the same lane. It makes it harder for all of us to win. 

The main thing to understand is that League is a strategy game, and you need to play it like one. I’ll link to some helpful resources to get you started.

2. The League Community is toxic, but that doesn’t mean you have to be, or need to interact with them.

Typing /Mute All in the chat mutes literally everything that could ever be said, or spammed in the chat. Use it. There are also mute buttons for specific people. Or. Within the game settings, you can turn the chat off entirely. 

3. The champions featured in Arcane are not good starter champions, with the exception of Caitlyn

Jayce - Is a Hybrid champion who is pretty hard to learn, but really fun once you do learn him.

Jinx - Is easy to pick up, but hard to master, and has a lot of flaws in the grand scheme of the game. 

Caitlyn - Is incredibly strong right now, easy to learn, and has the longest attack range in the game. (Aside from late game Tristana.) She is very safe and pretty easy to learn. If you want to pick up the game, I strongly suggest starting with Caitlyn. 

Vi - Vi is a jungle champion, jungle is a difficult role with a ton of responsibility, but lots of agency for the player in that role. Vi herself is rather easy to play, but the role she plays in is not. Only try picking her up once you have a better understanding of the game as a whole. 

4. There are some really great champions, that haven’t been featured in Arcane yet, who are great for newbies and deserving of your love and attention! Please check them out!

I couldn’t even begin to list all of them here, but I will show off a few of my personal favorites.

Illaoi - Top Lane Juggernaut

Big strong lady who brings the fricken kraken to battle with her! Illaoi is an awesome champion, a very strong top laner for beginners, and really not that hard to learn. You can check out DirtyMobs on youtube if you want to learn more about her. He is a GrandMaster Illaoi one-trick and is a super nice guy with great informational content for you to learn from.

https://www.youtube.com/c/DirtyMobs

Samira - Riot’s love letter to Devil May Cry - Bottom Lane ADC  While Samira is not as strong as she once was (and by that I mean completely overpowered.) she is still incredibly fun to play, has a really awesome backstory, in game lines, and great style abilities. I would not pick her up as your first champion but definitely one to pick up after you’ve learned the game a bit. 

Diana/Leona - Mid Lane Assassin - Tanky Support

While Diana and Leona are quite different in terms of their roles and their gameplay, they go together in the lore. Quite literally! They are canonically gay, and both are great introductions to a more aggressive and tanky support in Leona, and a great starter Mid Lane assassin in Diana. 

And that’s only a few! League has some amazing characters and incredibly cool lore behind all of them. I truly adore this game and all of it’s characters and have loved them for years. 

5. We Need You!

Part of the reason that the community is so toxic, is because no one wants to play because of it. As we all know, the best way to change things is to enact that change. I for one would love to see a surge of new and friendly faces on the rift! Please help those of us who love the game and aren’t toxic, breathe new life into our favorite game and keep it alive!

Lastly some helpful resources!

Starter Guide To League Of Legends - From SkillCapped https://youtu.be/u9JdENUoGik While Skill Capped is totally a scam. Their youtube videos such as this one can be incredibly helpful for new players.

Neace (Youtube/Facebook Streams)Coach:  https://www.youtube.com/c/NEACE/videos - While Neace might not be the nicest guy in the world, he is a coach for League and has tons of content for you to learn from. 

RossBoomsocks: https://www.youtube.com/user/RossBoomsocks While not a coach or pro-player of any sort. Ross does some great comedy videos, silly builds for champions, and is just all around fun to watch. He does also have some helpful tidbits in there.

Virkayu: https://www.youtube.com/c/virkayu Virkayu is youtuber who mainly focuses on educating players about the jungle role. (Basically if you want to play Vi, start with this guy.)

xFSN Saber: https://www.youtube.com/c/xFSNSaber If you wanna learn how to play Caitlyn and Jinx, this is your guy. He is a Challenger ADC coach and Caitlyn main, and has tons of educational content and coaching videos for you to learn from.

[himbeaux-on-ice]

Its funny that Vegas saw the criticism that they were weak down the middle and went after the most expensive available center and he is going to be the number one center I believe. But for the cap hit I feel like that is going to be a problem later in the season since Jack is going to be on LTIR for months due to injury (also tbh it is probably why the traded MAF, get rid of one 9 million dollar player and replace him with a 10 million dollar one lol)

See, see this is why this move today drives me insane, bc that’s NOT WHAT THEY TRADED MAF FOR.

The whole idea in the off-season was, need to reallocate some of the money being used to pay two equal starting goalies (instead of just one starter and a backup) into more depth forwards who can score, because we keep running into a scoring problem late in the playoffs when tight-checking defensive teams are able to shut down our top 6 (the “big line” and the Misfits line), and then there isn’t enough offence in the bottom two lines (aside from Nic Roy and *checks notes* OH YEAH, ALEX TUCH) to pick up the slack or draw attention of opposing defenders enough to create opportunities for the top two lines.

And they went okay, well then to solve this therefore we will essentially liquidate Marc-Andre Fleury (because he is the older and more expensive goalie of the two goalies) to turn his $7 million (not 9) in cap space into free space which we will then spend on: 1) guys like Patrick, Dadonov, Howden to reshape the 3rd and 4th line to be more offence-focused, 2) a cheaper backup goalie, and 3) re-signing Alec Martinez because he’s awesome for us. And then they even said no, we don’t think we need to chase a “true 1C”, because we believe Chandler Stephenson is that player, and has shown us he can be — what we need is more depth.

Which was like okay, cool! Great! Controversial, in many quarters, due to the whole goalie liquidation thing, but sure, as far as offseason plans go it at least has a coherent philosophy and goal that is being worked towards! You were essentially taking the cap space that was one (1) goalie and turning it into several less expensive but hopefully offensively productive forwards, gambling that you really only need one starter anyway. That would honestly be a pretty smart strategy as far as the copycat league goes, given that you’ve watched Tampa’s ability to roll four offensively potent and extremely deep lines LITERALLY beat the EXACT teams that eliminated you for Cups TWICE in the last two years.

So WHY in the name of FUCK have you now decided to UNDO some of that by re-concentrating $10 mil of cap into ONE guy, ostensibly to play in your top 6, thus making them even more top-heavy??? WHAT was the point of all that!! I hope to god Buffalo was on Fleury’s MNTC list, because that’s the only reason I can truly accept not just TRADING HIM FOR THAT INSTEAD OF FOR NOTHING. [muffled screaming into hands] I’ve heard some say that if he gets the surgery he wants and it works, Eichel could be skating in as little as 3 weeks and rehabbed up to game conditioning by the new year, possibly even back in the lineup sooner than Tuch would have been. So like, they’re GONNA need to figure it out.

Anyway with regards to the 1C thing, I’m really only half joking when I say they should either play Eichel at 3C, or move the Misfits (who I really think work better with each other than any other linemates, but Pete may fight me on this) down to 3rd line and play him as 2C with *hand wavy motion in the direction of some wingers*. Fuck it! Roll 4 lines with relatively equal minutes and let the opposing coaches struggle to decide how the fuck they’re gonna deploy against THAT (who do you glue your Phillip Danault-esque shutdown player/line to now, as an opponent? Stone Pacioretty and good ol speedy Stevie? Marchessault Karlsson and Smith? Jack fucking Eichel? The surprisingly effective Kolesar-Patrick-Dadonov 4th line? you can’t cover ALL of them and SOMEBODY is gonna score on you). I think it would be very VERY funny and just might even work. But Chandler Stephenson has earned the 1C job on this team and is incredibly effective with his linemates (just look at the one game we had this season before everybody DIED for an example), he deserves to keep it regardless of his cap hit. You don’t build lines based on price tag.

The Pens have had plenty of success out of being like “here’s our 2C, fuck you it’s Evgeni Malkin, die” for a long time. I legit double-dog-dare the Knights to try the same.

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Comics: Spies Like Us and Dime after Dime or Weblena: The Preschool Days (Lena Retrospective) (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Shadow Into Light, My Lena Retrospective, which fittingly has now come to Women’s History Month! I sadly do not have anything besides this arc prepared for the month. This month is pretty packed for me with two shows a week to cover, as while there’s only two weeks of Ducktales left final space starts up right after to take it’s spot, two arcs to cover, and two time specific movie reviews: animal crossing the movie and the 1990 TMNT film. I will try to get more than the currently planned top 12 superheroines list out there... but this month is very tight as is, so if I do not I deeply apologize.

Now that’s out of the way, it’s appropriate we start Women’s history month on some likely lesser known parts of Lena’s history, with some comics stories focusing on our faviorite emo lesbian duck and her 87 counterpart. Before I get started on that though Kev my patreon pointed out something intresting a few weeks back i’ve been forgetting to get to and since we’re looking into Minima, I felt this was the perfect time to do so: Lena’s Concept art. 

There’s quite a few things to gleam from this. For starters as pointed out in the reddit thread I got the image as a whole from this was made in 2015, meaning Lena was one of the first new characters designed for the series and was part of it from the VERY early stages, as evidenced by the fact that despite clearly having their new personalities established, Beakly and Webby still had the old designs. 

The other notable change is that her first design was way more like both Magica nad Minima, a bit more modern, but clearly far more obvious who she was related to. She also had all black feathers making the shadow twist a bit more obvious and was likely done away with both to avoid giving that twist away, the same reason for the fake lestrange name, and to avoid accidently black coding her, as while Lena being black would’ve been intersting, it also would’ve invited a firestorm of controversy given that their one black character in season 1.. woul’dve started off as a homeless, manipulative antagonist, and none of that would play well nor was it something the progressive crew of this show couldn’t spot from a mile away.  And even this early on they have an almost final design ready, simply changing the shirt to fit her personality more, and her hair to be pink because it honestly looked better She also had green eyes throughout, but for whatever reason they phased them out. That part I don’t quite get as they look nice but probably they were hard to translate to the reboot style once they settled on their own. Her purple eyeshadow and haircut though have stuck since and were good calls. 

One last VERY obvious note.. Webby was gay for Lena from minute one. While Dana helped it is now VERY obvious they gay coded this relationship from the design phase, and the crew was entirely aware the whole time and I gave them less credit than I should have. They clearly had this in mind, and it’s very likely ONLY subtext because Disney, while making more and more progress, is very reluctant to have queer characters as Owl House was a struggle and since they have a tighter leash on properites based on the sensational 6, that means Frank knew they had the same odds of making Webby or Della queer in anything but subtext that a pig has of suviving in a slaughterhouse. I bring this up because I fear the series getting accused of queerbaiting somewhere down the road instead of doing what they could with a bad hand and hoping they could make the show as gay as they could. Penny is as out as they posisbly could get her, and Violet and Lena’s dad’s got a full apperance, if no speaking role that made it obvious beyond a shadow of a doubt their gay and did it in a plot important episode. So they did their best and I want them to get credit for that. 

But while this is all intresting stuff, join me under the cut for the meat of today’s review as I dig into Lena’s only apperance in the tie-in comic that was never punished here, and the only apperance of her protoype Minima.

Spies Like Us:  As I mentioned this comic was never published here which is doubly weird to me because of how I knew this story existed. Since I follow comics weekly and buy trades reguarly, I read the solicits companies put out eveyr month to see what new series are coming, what the ones i’m currently reading are doing, and what trades are coming out. That sort of thing, and it’s something I love. I know their basically adds.. but their well put together adds that really pull you into the books you like. The big two and the indies are all very good at it and sometimes i’ts the only way to know a comic is coming if the company dosen’t make a press release for it ahead of time. 

So naturally given there are several comics I follow at idw, paticuarlly the TMNT comics, I read those solicits and found they were going to do an issue with Webby and Lena becoming spies, and was excited about it. I ended up forgetting about it and never really followed the Ducktales comic as it came out, and upon reading an issue or two recently, one for another comission by kev as one story, happy happy valley, was particularly terrible. For those who haven’t read the story or my review, it involved the family getting stranded on an island where their forced to partake in activites and smile..that somehow turned into an aseop about Louie wanting to be rich. It ended with this

Yes.. really. That actually happened. But even with this, I fully planned to cover the issue when I covered Lena, and brought it up to Kev when he commissioned the retrospective. He gave me the discord equilvent of a blank stare and had never heard of it. I soon found out why: the story was replaced as, and fair play to disney, it spoiled Beakly’s past from the agent 23 episode which wasn’t going to air in time.  What dosen’t work is they never reprinted the story in The US.. didn’t put it in a future issue and just swap it’s place didn’t put it in the nothing. And the story was fully complete as we’ll see, with a cover and everything so they had no excuse whatsoever to NEVER use it, even with what happened to Lena in the season finale, this clearly took place before that and it was weird to just shelve it because of that. But thankfully when a bunch of the stories were reprinted overseas, this and another one, also webby centric got published overseas. But not in english.

Lucky for me, I was able to find an english translation of an english story which you can read RIGHT HERE. It was translated by @neopuff and I thank them for it as without them this review would not be possible and want to give them all the credit. So was it worth all their hard work translating it? Well let’s take a look. 

We begin at the Manor where Lena is skulking around suspiciously.. though it turns out she and Webby are just playing hide and seek. Though Lena accuses cheating. The dialouge here is pretty flat though that’s not Neopuff’s fault at all. As I can attest from reading other stories a lot of the early IDW comics are just this flat in dialoguge no matter the writer as they were likely given character descriptions and basic info about the show they likely had written up for merchandising and Frank and Co were given no involvement and likely weren’t made avaliable to consult on the comics to help them be a bit more fleshed out. It’s very obvious to me Disney just tried to get these pumped out so they’d have a series in stores to tie in without carring about qualities and given Scrooge debuted in comics, their lack of care toward that side of things in general, but especially in the first american published original duck comics in a while, bothers me a lot. It’s inexcusable. 

That being said the story isn’t half bad nor is the setup as the two hear a beeping and find it’s Beakly’s phone going off with a mysterious message from Q, Webby thinks she’s been reactivated, and is encouraged by Lena to go look after her while she stays along. While Webby says in response

It just feels grossly out of character for both. Lena is far more subtle about manipulation as shown five minutes ago and Webby blindly trusts her. Because she has a massive crush on her and is naïve about how the world works. It just seems very odd of her to get suspicious as she never does on screen, and again it comes off as Disney having barely given the writers any materials on them when i’m sure Frank or Matt would’ve been happy to write up a thing for them to help outside of the usual press materials they were given. 

Though hte last line isn’t all that out of character and has an obvious answer as within a jumpcut Launchpad’s taking them to London and is told to blend in.. which he does with an australian flag and accent.. good gag. 

So our heroines do some heroic breaking and entering and look for the package, but soon find while hiding it’s already in transit.. and had obvious bows on int. Whoops. Our heroes trie the old follow tha tcar bit and refreshingly, it dosen’t pan out as the guy stops and tells them to get out. A nice twist. Unable to follow, our heroes instead find launchpad lost, as his map is upside down

So Lena dares him if he can follow that plane, a nice bit of character for both. I will give Joe credit. While the dialouge’s a bit flat and there was that out of character moment.. for the most part he does nail the actual character down and does use it decently enough. He’s just not given enough page room or actual details to work  with is all. 

So while our heroes follow they end up having to crash as they run out of fuel.. lucky their with the expert but end up near home where the package is delivered to. Turns out this wasn’t a spy thing, this was just a thing with her aunt. That’s fine and a nice gag.. it’s just ruined by just sorta.. ending. Lena leaves disapointed and Beakly scolds webby for “playing spy” and she’s sad. That’s it that’s how it ends. Which dosen’t fit the characters, as while Beakly would defintely scold her, it just dosen’t FIT that she’d be that tearse or not appricate the effort or give her an actual lecture and it feels like Joe had no idea how to end this after the gag and just.. ended it. 

Final Thoughts for Spies Likes Us: This was okay.  It is a bit of a disappointment as for the only story not available.. i’ts just okay and not really above an average Ducktales comics story, with some nice character bits but feeling a bit weak overall, as do at least the first half of the idw comics. I haven’t read the later stuff to see if it got better. It’s worth a read if you like Webby and Lena as characters and it’s not BAD, it’s just not anything impressive and is a simple hyjinks filled misunderstanding story. 

Dime After Dime:

So now  we go back a bit to the original. I didn’t do these in chronological order because frankly, Dime after Dime is the better story of the two and the bigger one at that, so I have more to work with here. But the original also had comics and honestly from the few i’ve read much BETTER comics. I chalk this up to two things: The Ducktales 87 comics seem to have come out AFTER the series was already a hit, and since Ducktales is pretty close to the original uncle scrooge comics minus it’s own tweaks here and there, it’s easy enough to just write the stories like you would a regular uncle scrooge story, just with Webby and Launchpad added, whereas the idw writers were staffed with writing for all new versions of the characters with noticable differences without much to go on.  It’s why to me with tie in comics you have two options: Wait long enough so you can put your story inbtween the episodes like the Steven Universe and Regular Show comics did or just make your own continuity entirely like the Adventure Time Comics and the Archie TMNT Adventures series did. The ONLY time i’ve seen a comic work like this is the Bravest Warriors comic, which had a talented writer and fit well enough in the margins until it sadly ended.. and honestly is BETTER in some cases than the series. I might get to it someday. The point is this comic shows why you need to have a deft hand adapting something instead of just falling your arms about and hoping it’ll work. 

So today’s comic was part of some Disney Series called cartoon tales, which clearly repackaged comic stories from wherever, and put them together. I don’t know much about it and the only other issue avaliable collects the disney adventures adaptation of “Just Us Justice Ducks”, which I might cover at some point. This book does have two other stories which i’d be happy to do on comission or on my own at some point, one involving gladstone the other gizmoduck, but for now, i’m just sticking to the title story and the reason you all came here. 

So we open with Magica gazing into her crystal ball from her Mt. Vesuvies base saying that Scrooge will never know what hit him I know exactly what and who wiil hit him thank you very much. 

Scrooge is seeing Webby off to her first day of day camp, getting all teary eyed which is touching. Beakly apparently goes with her as the story never SAYS Sshe does but she’s not also not around when the story moves on, as Launchpad says it looks like rain. Scrooge dismisses him, though Launchpad turns out to be right. Scrooge had good reason for once though, instead of just being a dick good on you comic for making me not want to punch him in the face, trust me that is a high bar to clear with the scrooge comics, as the weather was fine just a minute ago. Naturally it was Magica All Along! Nothing scrooge can do now that eveyrthing has gone wrong! Her entrance though is sadly not a catchy earwormy tune, but .. this confusing line

I think your thinking of Gladstone. And he’s still single so.. have at that but no Scrooge is the one who values hard work over anything else and brags about THAT or being rich. I .. I don’t get this line and frankly I don’t want to. Even in stories where the dime is supernaturally lucky and the source of his wealth he dosen’t boast about it because he’s not stupid and dosen’t want everyone knowing how to bankrupt him instantly. This line will baffle me until I die, presumably, given my life’s tragetctory, after reviewing an episode of mighty ducks and slipping on some a jerky wrapper. 

Scrooge asks what she wants... 

No this isn’t that kind of story sadly. Her plan is to.. zap the bin with lightning and take the dime. Really just went with your first draft didn’t you magica? But as stupid as this plan is Scrooge has prepared for it. He installed a lightning rod on the bin to save on power, and to power his new super soaker traps. So all Magica did was save him money. She flies off and nothing is acomplished. 

So we get back to Webby at the Teenie Weenie Day Camp.. and just so you don’t think that was a terrible joke on my part...

My theory for how this name got approved at all is the editor KNEW how that sounded and just wanted to see if Disney would actually print a comic with the phrase Teenie Weenie without getting what it means in slang or how hilariously inapproriate it is to namme a children’s camp after it. 

Your probably wondering who that grown woman calling Webby a dweeb is. Well story wise, she’s SUPPOSED to be another kid at the camp around Webby’s age. In practice, she looks like THIS in closeup

So it looks and plays like a 30 year old woman snuck into the day camp and no one’s noticed she’s not actually a children. Or their just humoring her because she had a week to live. I don’t know. I do know she doesn’t get to judge on names. 

Snippy Von Glitz, proof rich people really do hate their kids and this this comic is trying personally to give me material. Snippy is your average alpha bitch, taking a chair from Minma and being obnoxious and classist and all that jazz. Minima gets hers back by making the chair bouncy then returning it to normal so Snippy gets in trouble when she makes up things about the chair, with the lady in charge getting ready to call her Dad. You cannot convince me that her “Dad” is just what she calls her husband, this is how they both get off, and that the lady at the preschool only tolerates it because they pay her a lot and so far the kids haven’t noticed Snippy is 30. Webby likes minima finding her name pretty, proving that the ho yay is alive no matter the webby and magica relative, and Minma returns the favor by saving her from a block. 

Minma is reluctant to make an actual friend, finding they aren’t worth anything and given most of the kids here apparently pick on her and her aunt is well.. Magica, it’s understandable why she’d be so cold. But Webby presses on and says something from Scrooge about friends. Which given Ducktales scrooge has none goes weird but it gets Minma to find out she knows and lives with Scrooge, so she cons webby into taking the dime for show and tell, showing that she can manipulate them with her powers, and that he won’t notice it’s missing, getting her with “I thought you wanted to be friends” 

So let’s pause for a second and compare and contrast the two: Both are the niece, or at least sorta in Lena’s case, of Magica, both manipulate webby, and both are her first real friend: The 87 boys are little monsters and I don’t consider them friends or even brothers, while the 2017 ones are just that: brothers. Their her siblings in all but blood, not friends and have hteir own long complicated history. 

But otherwise the two are vastly different. Lena is a far more complex character as she’s been abused her whole life, is a rebel because Magica hardly gave her agency, and while she starts wooing webby out of self interest it’s clear even as far as the first episode she cares. Lena would gladly be part of the world if she could and this whole scheme is to gain that choice. 

Minma is still sympathetic but very different: She walls herself off because the other kids laugh and mock her for being herself and lashes out at them.. not unreasonably mind , but still feeling she needs no one else.. but as we’ll learn later she’s only helping Magica to finally feel accepted, to get all the fancy clothes and stuff that will make her popular instead of that grown woman masquerading as a kid for disturbing reasons. Minma is at her heart just a hurt kid desperate to fit in. And while Lena shares the desire for a place to belong.. it’s at it’s core much sadder. Lena.. wants a family. Someone to love her and to care about her and actually look after her. Minma has that she just wants to be loved. it’s similar but very diffrent and I can see why Lena evolved into what she did, as Frank and Matt ended up going in a far darker but ultimately more interesting direction. Minima is not a bad character at all though and without her I don’t think we would’ve had Lena, but at the end of the day the 87verse is just not that complicated, so the reboot needed something more and that more evolved into who we have now. 

Both kids excitedly talk about their new friends, with their respective guardians being distracted. Scrooge is distracted by the fact his car is a bit bumpy and Launchpad offers to fix it up for free with some parts from a buddy, which given the sentence “This won’t cost you anything” makes him erect, Scrooge agrees. Magica meanwhile, whose watching Minima while her mom is away which raises a LOT of questions we don’t have time for like who she is, is she’s poes wife or does Magica have other siblings... it’s a lot of questions we’re never going to get answers to. 

The next day Webby got the dime easy as Scrooge was distracted. so Minima swaps them while she’s distracted. But while swiping it was easy, which to be fair Webby is likely approved in his security so it woudln’t match her.. or the story just needed to progress. You make the call. 

Magica does the logical thing and goes and get sthe dime and the story ends there.. and i’m shitting you, she of course brags to scrooge, reveals minima as her spy, and offers to RACE him for it shortly after he realizes he has a fake.

The only major flaw in this story is Magica’s overconfdience, which isn’t BAD persay, but here has gotten to dumbass proportions. She just can’t plan for anything and a CHILD has a better plan than her that only dosen’t work for reasons we’ll get to. And that plan is almost ruined by Magica taunting scrooge!

So a race is on but Launchpad has transformed Scrooge’s old Model T into this

Damn that’s cool. Scrooge of course dosen’t like it, but honestly you get what you paid for. Oh that’s right you paid nothing for something you NEED to use every day for transportation. 

At  the rickity thickity bridge, Steve Buschemi’s worst roll and her minion ask Webby to roll with them and Minima mistakes this for betrayal planning to soak them all.. only for Webby to DEFEND HER, pointing out minma’s her friend, how she dresses is fine and she loves her no matter what.. the last part’s implied. The 30-year old asshole and her minon leave Webby and Minma is genuinely touched, as no one’s done that for her before. She put up so many walls... she didn’t realize someone could ACTUALLY care about her, so obessed with thinking she had to be like that soccer mom in preschoolers clothing, she just had to be herself: kinda werid but in that fun adams family way. Webby says she knows Minma would do the same.. so while she prepares to let’s get back to the race. Magica realizes Launchpad’s roadster is actually gaining and spreads some tacks, but Scrooge counters with some money.. because of course he has a lot of money in the trunk. But Magica takes out the bridge and while scrooge awesomely JUMPS IT... he’s still too late. 

As you probably guess though, Minima had a change of heart, and gave Webby the real dime back, and Scrooge confirms it. Minima TRIES to tell Magica, and Magica is horrified her niece is a goody goody “I”ll never hear the end of it at my astral aerobics class”.. I.. I want to see that. Let’s raise those spirit ladies and kick kick that soul, doge that shadow king punch them in the soul. Yes! Now eat it eat it and absorb it’s power!

We end on a button joke as Webby apologizes for taking the dime., Scrooge accepts it and Webby tells them magica learned to carpet and they gulp for some reason. 

Final Thoughts on Dime after Dime: This story was decent. It has problems, some jokes don’t land and Magica is made horribly incompetent, but minima’s character arc is endearing, and Webby herself is precious as always and her winning Minima over feels genuine. And Scrooge is in prime adoring uncle mode with her and i’ts just so cute. And the roadster race is pretty awesome to watch honestly. It’s an exceptional and enjoyable tie in story.. and not the last ducktales 87 story we’ll be covering here. Wink wonk. 

Next Time: Things get DARK as Lena and Webby head into the depths of Scrooge’s hidden bin and Lena heads into the depths of her own soul. 

Tommorow: Woo-Ooo mofos as we go back to the very beginning of the reboot! A family restored, a lost city to explore, and a glomgold rises! Be here or be square.