#b/c i remember not jiving with it at all

[alteredphoenix]

Reading Acaria and enjoying it to the point that I wanted to see what other works the author did only to find out they also did Helck - which was a manga I tried reading once but couldn’t get into - was a wild trip.

[leonenjoyer69]

*Inbox Invasion* Free ramble card!! Make it a long one, About literally anything, anything at all, can even switch topics constantly. This is literally just for fun.

LGOWKFLEKVK LET'S GOOO 🗣️🗣️

Okay so, starting off strong, let's go music. Will Wood and the Tapeworms, right? A few weeks ago I listened to both versions of every song twice to find which versions I liked better for when I eventually burned CDs (my car is old af, bbg ain't even got an aux, but also her ass ain't got an engine rn 💀) for the albums.

My verdict for Self-Ish? Literally all the songs are the exact same, except Self-, -Ish (which just sound a wee bit different), and Dr Sunshine is dead (which just has a longer outro in the original).

EVERYTHING IS A LOT THO? Some big differences in some songs. So here's my preferences:

6 up 5 oh- Remaster, the "oh how I know how I go.." Part just sounds better to me

(Bones)- Remaster, the radio/tv talk at the end isn't glitchy and stuff, like the OG

Front Street- Original, I like the snaps (tapping?) Behind the pre-chorus, along with the dialogue clip. But, also, I like how much clearer everything is in the remaster, so I'm kinda torn.

¡Akiado!- Original, I am,,,, not a fan of the extra end part in the remaster

White knuckle Jerk- Original. The background(?) Voices are quieter and sound kinda different. Idk I may be wrong about that tho.

Cover this song- Original. I hate hate HATE Batman will wood growling in my ear, please never make me listen to that version again, it was a genuine jump scare. (EDIT: THE REMASTER JUST PLAYED ON MY SPOTIFY AND??? HE'S NOT BATMAN ANYMORE??? IS MY SPOTIFY BROKEN?? PLZ IK I'M NOT CRAZY)

Thermodynamic Lawyer- Remaster. Not really a fan of the robot voice in the original.

Red Moon- original, his voice seems quieter or more drowned out in the remaster.

Lysergide Daydream- Original, don't remember why, so vibes ig lmao, there's not really a difference between the two

The First Step- Remaster, I think it just sounds a little clearer

Jimmy Mushrooms- either, they're literally the same lmao

Chemical Overreaction- original. WE CAN'T STOP HERE, THIS IS BAT COUNTRY 🗣️🗣️ need I say more?

Everything is a lot- Remaster, so then I don't have to listen to construction noises (or destroy to enjoy in general) 😋😋

So yeah, ig that's my dream Everything is A Lot album.

BUT NOW!! more music! But Chonny Jash this time!! Specifically the Ballad of Dr Jekyll and Bargaining/compromise.

First of all, I love the lyrical differences!! Ballad Jekyll leaning more towards blaming Hyde for everything and being way more self-pitying, while B/G Jekyll seems to have more of a subdued acceptance? Like, Ballad Jekyll is a lot more emotional and bitter, while B/C seems to take more of the responsibility. Also!! I like how in B/C Jekyll seems to be with someone else, while Ballad Jekyll seems to be alone. The contrast between the last lines ("but if it takes Mr Hyde with me, then I'm glad to hang" V.S. "so take my hand, hold it till the end") really does show that bitter self destructiveness vs that sad, duty-driven acceptance. AND LIKE UGHHH JUST THE LYRICS OF B/C IN GENERAL!! I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!

Also, the Mr Hyde Jive? I love Hyde being a silly fellow. Literally just being like "damn, I'm not the villain, smh, lemme go have some fun for you gayboy 🗣️🗣️ (might still ruin lives tho!! I am vice, teehee)"

Yk what? Fuck it, this whole ramble will be music. THE JEKYLL AND HYDE MUSICAL 🗣️🗣️🗣️ I love Anthony Warlow so much, all the Jekyll or Hyde-centric songs are so eoughhhh ughhhhh AHHHH. Favorite songs rn? Board of Governors, His Work and Nothing More, The World Has Gone Insane, This is the Moment, Transformation--I JUST UGHHH I love listening to his screams idk man. also Alive. I also love you, Gabriel John Utterson. His parts are so fun to sing.

BUT!! the absolute hold Board of Governors has on me is insane. Every time I hear the intro begin to play through my tv I look up. I'm literally pavlov dogged to that shit. It's basically a requirement for me to go "THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF ST JUDE'S HOSPITAL IS NOW IN SESSION!" every time it plays. I love sassy Jekyll and Stride, it's so funny, like yes!!! The girls are fighting!! The absolute sass of half that cast is crazy. I have every part memorized, I AM the entire cast and recreate it expertly 🗣️🗣️

Anyways, yeah, I love Utterson too, his voice is in my range perfectly, he's literally my bbg. All his parts in How Can I Continue On and His Work and Nothing More? Kdoelvkskfldk I love him I love him. JEKYLL THO? shaking him aggressively (lovingly) I want to chew on him and rip him apart. Warlow's voice for him is so EOUGJDJDKKD ‼️‼️‼️

OKAY THAT'S ALL FOR NOW, TYSM FOR THIS!! ILY, LOYAL SCIENTIST 🗣️🗣️🗣️

[thenixkat]

Was revisiting a lot of BB movie fics in the last few days, a common theme in them appears to be Jaime desperately wanting to know why Khaji chose him

Which made me realize that I don’t think we know why he’s the first one who activated “full Infiltrator mode” in the comics? Not that he seems to care? lol

Anyway as Tumblr’s resident pre-Jaime BB expert I’m curious if you have any evidence or headcanons!

The most annoying issue with working with retcons, which the whole Reach and "full Infiltrator mode" thing is, trying to make shit jive with previous shit.

Huh, I've not really read much BB movie fic but that's an interesting theme for folks to be focused on. Cause like, as far as I recall comic!Jaime doesn't really do any navel-gazing about why he was picked by Khaji Da? More treats it as something that happened to him but not really searching for any meaning in it. (and I love that really, very emphasizes how Jaime is just some guy)

As far as I'm aware, and take it with a grain of salt b/c it's been a long time since I watched Young Justice and the other info is from Wikipedia and I know for a fact that Wikipedia can be flat-out wrong about things ie. Every fucking thing on Mr. Calhoun's wiki page where whoever did the article confused him with two other different characters...

But as far other things go... Jaime isn't the only one who unlocked the full power of Khaji Da? In at least 3 adaptations, one of which being Young Justice and another being the very same Blue Beetle movie if I'm recalling shit from the beginning of the film right, they had Dan being able to fully activate Khaji Da. Like, it looked different on him than on Jaime of course and folks were making it look like his og costume. But like they had Khaji Da fused with Dan's spine and it being removed from his corpse after he died in those adaptations. And what it did while bonded with Dan is why folks know shit for things later with Jaime.

-> Movie Khaji Da didn't choose Ted. But in the Young Justice and some fucking live action show I can't remember the name of, Ted was the one who refused to bond with Khaji Da, because he didn't trust the alien parasite tech.

-> I've not fucking found the comics to read yet but I know the version of Ted that exists in Kingdom Come, can and does use Khaji Da and has heavy plate Scarab armor with the 'beetle backpack' that Jaime's armor also had. Tho I dislike how the Kingdom Come!Ted's armor looks, mostly on the choices in coloring and how excessively bulky it looks for a character that's a gymnast.

And really... it seems less that Jaime is some chosen one and more just he was in the right place at the right time and Khaji Da liked what it saw of him and decided to move in. (WHich is interesting given how different Jaime is from Dan [Mr. Hot blooded world trotting slut] and Ted [kind, caring, but man does he have issues])

Personally, I go with:

Khaji Da has some kind of defect that means it can't fully override a healthy and mentally stable host. Be funny as shit if it was from ramming into another Scarab like the BB movie showed.

Khaji Da had many many Blue Beetles during its time on Earth (from what it told Dan in Dan's origin story). It's 'Champions' were given the mission to protect the Earth from evil forces and villains. Given that Khaji Da was not reformed back then it probably typically encouraged its hosts to be Lethal Protectors (not me shouting out Venom but like...)

Kha-ef-re broke this chain of Blue Beetles for 3000 yrs b/c he managed to damage/injure or drain Khaji Da of power while using it for his blood magic bullshit. And Khaji was clearly being used as a heart scarab for Kha-ef-re's mummy and interred with him in his tomb that people were forbidden from opening due to curse/fear of Kha-ef-re coming back b/c he was an evil ass fucker

When Dan loots Khaji Da from Kha-ef-re's sarcophagus it immediately bonds with him, gives him the mission it gave all the Blue Beetles it had b4. But due to it being damaged, Dan doesn't have access to Khaji Da's full power. The Scarab is healing itself while bonded to Dan.

Dan passes the title of Blue Beetle and the Scarab to Ted as he's dying. Khaji Da didn't agree to it but Dan passing it on of his own volition is as good as a magic contract so Khaji has to be bonded to Ted and hates it. For several years while Ted is heroing and has Khaji Da it gives him no access to anything but its most passive of powers (the warding against evil spirits) while its focusing its energy on healing Dan's body and then reviving him and siccing Dan on the 'unworthy' Blue Beetle

Ted manages to turn the tide of the fight with Dan in his favor which impresses Khaji Da who decides that Ted is worthy of being a Blue Beetle after all and tries to force Ted to accept its power and kill Dan.

After Dan's death Ted technically could access the full power of Khaji Da (what it has available at least as its still healing itself as well from what Kha-ef-re did to it) but refuses to do so given Khaji Da was a major dick and he doesn't trust it

Later Khaji Da gets more or less stolen from Ted by the Wizard Shazam who kept going on about Ted mucking around with forces he didn't understand and the Wizard puts Khaji Da in the Rock of Eternity.

Inside the Rock of Eternity, Khaji Da soaks up power and finishes fixing itself from the damage that Kha-ef-re did to it. It's bond with Ted gets broken (free choice why).

The Rock of Eternity gets broken and everything sealed inside escapes/is flung across the country. Jaime Reyes finds a neat looking beetle rock in the dirt at a construction site on the way to school

[cairolen]

I think I might use dust off this sideblog and use it for Dimension 20 stuff. I forget why I started it in the first place, all I remember is that it was fun to bag on TFA at the time.

Things I want to do:

- various thinky thoughts about Neverafter and other D20 campaigns as I get through them. So far I’ve been binging (in this order): Escape from Blood Keep, Fantasy High, A Court of Fey and Flowers, The Seven, Tiny Heist, Unsleeping City (ch1-2), and about to start Pirates of Leviathan. Trying to save Crown of Candy and Starstruck Odyssey for after I get through the sidequests.

- write a post-sophomore year (?) fic about Riz Gukgak and Baron... Premise: Somehow Baron survives, their nightmare powers are nerfed, but they don’t want to go back to their stark father, so they turn to Riz and appeal to Riz’s sense of justice and hopefully figure out a solution to their existence. Might post more about this as I rewatch Fantasy High and think of ideas. 

Some challenges with this fic that I forsee: A) most people’s expectations of how I might write Riz’s asexuality/aromanticism might not jive with mine?, B) it’s kind of shippy even though I don’t think their relationship consummates, C) might run afoul of readers that ship Riz and Fabian, because I might briefly invoke some jealousy on Fabian’s part, D) what up with that “stark father”??

[2700k-moogie]

here here the tierlist

this is a mix between personal preference and actual quality, along with some grudges, list under the cut

S:

Diamine - Brilliant Red: gorgeous blood red, my go-to for writing and linework. Literally looks like someone got murdered when spilled or in droplets, and stains my hands really hilariously.

A:

Organics Studio - Copper Turquoise: a nice sheen & shader ink, very pretty in scan, picture, and person. Fucking hates coming out of pens though, and congealed into a weird booger one time.

Diamine - Golden Honey: my general use shader ink, very pretty, and the first ink i ever got, accidentally spent 30 bucks on the bottle. It's great for everything, but a bit inconsistent and prone to being illegible. Despite not being in S, it is my favorite.

Pilot - Iroshizuku Yu-Yake: very very pretty deep orange, i got it recently and haven't used it much, but the color is thick and beautiful. Contrasts nice with $10 Teal.

B:

Van Dieman's - Night Series Moonlit Lake: really pretty glitter sheen shader, all of the favorite sorts of things an ink can do! Comes out of pens nicely and is dark and legible. Unfortunately it looks like crap in diffuse lighting when you can't see the glitter or the beautiful pinky red sheen.

Robert Oster - Ten Dollar Teal: I haven't really used this ink at all, but it looks pretty fantastic, especially against the Yu-Yake. It has a stupid name though, but apparently that's because it's based off the color of Australian $10 bills.

Diamine - 1:3 ratio Golden Honey and Yellow: mixed by me, a very broad color range and more vibrant than golden honey by itself. Haven't really used it and i don't really like it mostly because the pen i put it in is complete ass.

Diamine - Kensington Blue: apparently this ink was used to sign some nuclear arms treaty. It's a shader, but doesn't vary much. Kinda wishing i had got something more akin to a cheap blue ballpoint's ink though, so kinda miffed.

C:

KWZ - Azure #4: What i'd assume i'd get from mixing Copper Turquoise and Kensington Blue. Has a very slight silvery sheen to it, but i haven't used it much so i deem it average.

Diamine - Earl Grey: I got this one to color my character Milk, but it's kinda an icky greenish color i didn't expect. Diamine has a yellower grey that i should have gotten instead. It comes out very nicely though.

La Kaligrafica - Nero: I got this ink today, it's a thick black with a slight purple tint. I'd been thinking about getting a black ink, but i realize they're kinda boring. Does bode well for fine lines, though.

Diamine - Meadow: I like this color a lot but it just doesn't super jive with me, if i'm gonna be honest. Has a nice shader quality with a light green to a dark green, but i wish i got something more vibrant. Comes out of pens like a motherfucker, too.

Diamine - Aurora Borealis: I don't even remember how i got this one and i just am not a particularly a big fan. Very dark and a bit green along with a silvery sheen, but boring.

Lamy Crystal - Peridot: Deep greeny blue. Like Aurora borealis but slightly better. Still kinda boring.

D:

Papier Plume - Pecan: My sister got me this one. I just don't like it. It is icky and not even a very rich brown.

Diamine - Yellow: completely illegible and way too vibrant for my taste.

Octopus - Red Turtle: kinda a purpley brown. It stains the bottle and just kinda looks diseased.

Wearinguel - Juliet: My first glitter ink. Largely illegible and the glitter doesn't stick to the page very well. Pretty tho.

F:

Deatrementis - Lavender: i hate it. boring and lame as shit.

The Fucking Guys

Hello all 18 of my inks! (plus 2 mixes)

It may be somewhat surprising to note that i only got one ink today, but i did as well get a fancy pen. So i decided, since it is a pretty great dip pen, to try out all of my inks.

Here they all are!

And some low angle shots to show off the sheen inks!

Its fuckin fantastic

merry joddamn chrystler

[dannythedog]

I saw your post about what to say to a celebrity when you meet them. It really just depends on where you are tbh. I’ll break this down into two major parts after a show and just out and about. I’ll further break it down to who I met. Just a heads up, his is going to be very long.

Part 1 a: When I met Danny, it was outside of the venue, and there were other people around, additionally it was his choice to come out and say hi to us. We all were kind of like “hi Danny” we didn’t want to take up too much of his time so we did a group photo, he signed some stuff, took some individual photos and then went back inside.

Part 1 b: I met Palaye Royale in 2018 at warped tour. I got tickets to their TEI QNA class, I asked what positions they played in Hockey. Then they made fun of the way midwesterners say hockey. But then answered my question. After the TEI class, we took a “class” photo and got ready to walk back to the area where we could walk around the Summerfest grounds. Sebastian (palayes guitarist) walked back with us, I asked for a hug and just said “you’re tall”. In my defense that was like my first real interaction with a celebrity. Sebastian then retorted with “you’re just short” and then we both laughed. I was 4’11 at the time, so I was really short compared to him, He’s like 6’1.

Part 1 c: When I met Hannah Wicklund, it was after her show and she was standing by her merch booth signing things and taking pictures. I waited in line to meet her, and when it was my turn, she asked if I enjoyed the show and we chatted a little bit about keeping up with curly hair. I also gave her the sharpie I keep in my purse when she first came out to sign stuff, she gave me it back when I went up to talk to her and said thank you again.

Part 1 d: I met Carson Mac after Mac Saturn opened for Dirty Honey in Oshkosh with my little sister. He asked if we enjoyed the show, where we were from, and then told us that they’re definitely coming back to Wisconsin. I answered all of his questions since my sister was too stunned to speak, and said that we would definitely try to go to their headlining show in Milwaukee.

Part 1 e: I went to Mac Saturns headlining show in Milwaukee a couple months after I saw them Oshkosh. My sister was busy that night, and I was just going to go alone but my friend decided to come along. We went to the merch booth, and I got my CD signed by Carson, Nick and Jive. I said that I loved the show and gave Carson a necklace, he gave me a hug. Then I told him that my cousin, who had seen Mac Saturn in California, was the one he traded necklaces with for the cherry necklace he now has. He said that my cousin was the sweetest person ever. And I overheard someone say “Small world”, it was either Nick, Jive, or someone else who was waiting to meet them. My friend then asked if they wanted to do a shot with us, Jive did a shot of New Amsterdam Vodka and Carson did a shot of Malibu while we did fireball. After that, we went to talk to Angelo. We then started talking about drumming, my dads a drummer and I kind of know how to play but I prefer the keys. Then we talked to Mike, I offered to take a picture for the girl who was talking to him before I got over there he said thank you to me for that. Then we started talking about the weather and how fucking cold it was outside. . After talking to Mike, we went to talk to Evan, we somehow started talking about smoking for some reason. I said something about how drug cigs and post gig cigs are the best, and Evan agreed. After that we left, because I had been in class all day and my blood sugar was dropping since I hadn’t eaten much that day. (This was the most recent one so I remember it a bit more clearly).

Part 2 a: I don’t know if you’ve seen Cheer on Netflix, but I also got to meet Gabby Butler, who on the Navarro team and she has been a huge influencer in the cheerleading world for years. I was walking around the ESPN world at Disney with my mom and ran into Gabby. My sister had gotten a picture with her earlier in the day, and I didn’t want to bombard her with more photo requests. So I just was like “you were a huge inspiration to me when I was in cheer” and we chatted for a little bit before my mom was saying it was time to meet up with my sisters team.

Part 2 b: they’re not really famous outside of my area, but I had been listening to this local band for a couple months. I had learned of them through a friend who had seen them at a bar downtown, and I didn’t know that one of my coworkers was dating the lead singer. So I saw my coworkers when I was out for lunch, and I went to go talk to her. She had been off work for a couple weeks, so I asked how she was doing. Then she introduced me to her boyfriend, who then I realized was the lead singer of the band I had been listening to. I made a polite hello, and then I left the both of them to get my food.

I think it’s harder to talk to a celebrity when there’re out and about. But that may just be me because I don’t like to be bothered even when I’m walking the neighborhood.

Bestie how does it feel to be god's favorite

[cuttlefishkitch]

I figured I’d actually make a post about this instead of burying it in the replies of some other post but I did some math about Micheal, Eric, Gertrude, Mary, and Gerry. This is mostly using the wiki and a couple quotes cause I don’t feel like digging through all the transcripts right now. Before getting into it though I did this b/c I was curious about what if any relationship Gerard and Micheal could have had, how old Micheal was when he got Spiraled, and how old Gerry was when he died. I’ll put the conclusions at the end.

Okay so

Gerry was born in the (probably late) 80s: I don’t think we get anything more concrete than that but he’s a teenager in 2002 and is old enough to be tried as an adult in 2008, and described as a young man in 2009, so my guess is he was probably around  22-23 around then so he’d be 15-16 in 2002 and be born in late 80s, like 1987 or 88.

Eric is working at the institute when Gerry is born: So from the way Eric says it, “ You know, you were never actually all that nice to me when I worked for you, Gertrude. Not like Michael, or Emma.” it does really sound like he probably worked with Micheal, cause how else would Micheal be nice to him if they hadn’t met in person. So Micheal was working as an archival assistant at least at the same time as Eric, which will be important later.

Eric quits the institute and Mary kills him: This is where there’s some wiggle room in the timeline. So Gerry says he never knew his dad, and that Eric quit once he was born. What could have happened is a phenomena called childhood amnesia, which basically means that as your brain is developing it stores memories differently than it does when growing up, so most people can’t recall memories from when they were very young because they’re encoded differently. The feelings of those memories are still there, even if you can’t remember the actual events. This phenomena usually lasts until about 5 or 6 so technically Gerry could have been up to 6 years old when Eric was killed and still “never know him” especially if Mary lied to him or didn’t talk about Eric at all. So story wise it would make sense if Eric quit within a year after Gerry was born, putting that in either 1988 or 89, BUT timeline wise it makes more sense to me if he got to know Gerry a little bit as he was growing up and decided to quit and help out later, when Gerry was about 5 or so, lets say 1993 or 4.

Micheal is working as Gertrude’s assistant at least a little before Eric quits: So, depending on what you think about when Mary killed Eric the farthest back Micheal could have been brought on as an assistant is 1988 or 89, and the earliest is 1993 or 4. We know Martin and Jon were in their late 20s early 30s when they started working in the archives, and we assume Tim and Sasha were as well. It seems like most hiring into the archives is probably done from other departments in the institute, which would make sense, as Jonah/James/Elias would want to watch and get a feel for his people before sticking them in his precious archives (gross ass man that he is). So assuming Micheal is probably a fresh hire when Eric is on his way out, let’s say he’s like 27-33.

Nothing relevant happens for a while.

Micheal is heard on Gertrude’s tape in 2007: And he doesn’t really sound that old. The youngest he could be by my calculations is 40, which like, good for him, long time to last in the archives. But the oldest he could be is like 52, which is really doesn’t jive with how he’s most often described or how he sounds both on the tape and as the distortion. When I took a first pass at this I got him down to like 34 but I’m pretty sure I screwed up some math and I was REALLY PUSHING IT.

Oh boy a lot went down in 2008: 2008 is the earliest Micheal could be Spiraled. It’s also when Mary gave Eric’s page to Gertrude before attempting to bind herself to the book and subsequently getting Gerry arrested and then unarrested. He’s probably around 22 or 23, but if you wanna push it he could be as young as 19.

2011: The latest Micheal could be Spiraled, making it possible that, by my (incredibly shaky) math he could have been anywhere from 41 in 2008 to 56 in 2011. Hardly the young twink everyone pictures him as. Also Gerry would be around 25 to 26 but could be as young as 22.

Gertrude frees Gerry from Mary in 2013: So unless you think Mary would share her son with the Institute, which I suppose is up to your own headcannon, but I have a hard time believing considering her “one last screw you to the eye” and hatred of “ivory tower idiots.” This is when Gerry actually has any chance to interact with the institute.

Gerry dies in 2014: This isn’t relevant to anything I just realized poor Gerry only had about a year to enjoy a life without his mother, and most of that time was probably spent being at least subtlety manipulated by Gertrude, and that makes me really sad. :( He was probably in his late 20s by now, the age where it would have been reasonable for him to become a proper archival assistant.

In conclusion: Micheal’s probably AT LEAST 41 at the time of being Spiraled, but if you REALLY PUSHED IT you could probably put him in his mid to late 30s, but that would make Gerry REALLY YOUNG, like younger than Jon by a couple years, so he’d be in early 20s when Micheal’s that age. Also Gerry probably never met Micheal, and even if he did it was while he was being actively haunted by his mom. Idk what to do with this information, especially since I also can’t really see Spiral Micheal being any older than like mid 30s so wtf jonny??

[birb-tangleblog]

☕️Zhan Tiri being treated as a plot device rather than a character was a bad decision because it didn’t leave any room for canon to explore her motives for getting the drops or what her endgame was. ☕️Where TF did all of Ziti’s Disciples go? It made no sense for the show to introduce us to them, show them to be a threat, & then ignore their existence. They would’ve made great mini bosses! ☕️Also, why didn’t they ever talk about Gothel being a Disciple if they made Cass’s whole motive about her?

☕️ “X being treated as a plot device rather than a character was a bad decision” YEP THERE IT IS

I do agree tho! We already had Cass and Var as morally grey antagonists with nuanced motives, so I would’ve been cool with Ziti being a big bad who just wants to destroy stuff. But more on the why there- her history, her grudge against Demanitus, and the connection btwn him and Corona- would’ve been v cool, esp after all the build up. Like c’mon, I know that lil flashback in the finale wasn’t it. Where’s the rest.

☕️ I sometimes think abt Matthews yelling THIS ISN'T OVERRRRRR, but then it actually was over and we never saw him again.

Idk if I was really expecting the disciples to return- like I remember based on how the season was progressing it didn’t seem promising, but not impossible. The theory that Matthews was behind a lot of the strange magical artifacts in S3 was a fun one. 

But all 3 of them vs. the Corona and DK chars would’ve made for a STACKED final battle, and given us the opportunity to have a real banger of a villain song, so I can get on board w/ that!

☕️ For a show so hung up on Gothel, you’d think so. Tho actually, I can get why they wouldn’t bring up her being a disciple in relation to Cass b/c it might’ve... distracted/undermined her motive? 

Like Cass is stuck on the idea of Gothel being a mother who was stolen from her, and she wants to believe she wasn’t really that bad- her very long history and TWO previous betrayals doesn’t jive with that. So I can see Cass willfully overlooking it, if she knew. Although that doesn’t mean other chars like Raps or Var couldn’t have delved into it more so we could see the lore, or even brought it up. 

[soviireign]

OH BOY IT’S ANOTHER PLOTTING CALL.

Busts this out 209381038 years late to the party. So I heard there was this bandwagon going own called a PLOTTER CALL, and I figured it's nigh time to make one for Siete!

Like this post or reply with the number corresponding to the ideas below that you think would jive well with Siete and your muse. By default I'll use Tumblr's messaging system, but if you don't prefer that/have other options my Discord ID is also available for the taking - just ask if you want it, cause I don't really like showing it publicly. I'll also make sure to send any memes I find interesting, poke you when the brainworms come out, etcetera.

01. FRIENDS. 

As a very outgoing and laidback individual, it's actually very easy to get on Siete’s good side. Armed with a smile and a (questionable) leadership charisma, it’s not that hard to feel at ease around him...that is, until he starts being way too pushy. He’s basically the annoying friend that doesn’t know when to stop talking, and it’s rather exhausting when you’re an introverted fellow (which happens to take up the majority of the Eternals). Still, if you need someone to push your boundaries, or just to get someone to hang out and do stuff more, Siete’s your guy.

02. SOMETIMES YOU NEED A [loud sighing] SIETE ONII-SAN

It’s quite natural for Siete to take up the big brother figure role. Whether the person wants a big brother figure in the first place is another issue altogether. Fortunately (or unfortunately), Siete’s the kind of person to look after people he thinks needs looking after! Are you a kid who has to rely on your own wits to survive? Are you someone who needs to bonk to you some good advice every now and then? Are you Quatre and Esser��in need of awkward found family to groan at whenever they do something ridiculous? Having one (1) Siete to look over you ain’t as bad as it sounds! Promise. Maybe.

03. SO I HEARD YOU LIKE SWORDS

And oh boy, does Siete love his swords. If you happen to a) like swords, b) uses a sword, c) make swords, d) is a sword, chances are Siete would love to have a good ol’ conversation with you. He loves sparring with other swordsmen to test out his skills, or to hear exploits and legends any blade might be surrounded in! Things can get a bit blurry at what he considers to be swords - katanas are kinda on thin ice - but he would definitely love to find someone to talk about his One True Passion.

04. SO I HEARD YOU LIKE CLOTHES

Sword aficionado might be Siete’s true calling, but his second true calling would probably be sewing. (A needle is kinda like a blade, if you think about it.) Those fancy uniforms he and the other Eternals wear? All his design, baby! He also loves gifting his friends custom made clothes for special occasions or such. Just don’t be surprised if yours happens to have a bunch of belts with it - his tastes can get, er, flashy.

05. SO I HEARD YOU LIKE PASTRY

Another piece in Siete’s Mysterious Past™ is his apparent previous job as a pastry chef. While no prodigy, his cakes and baked goods are still pretty tasty! He doesn’t dabble on this as much as he does on swords or sewing, but it’s still another gift choice for him to rely on. He can cook savory dishes too, but you’re better off asking someone else for that. Otherwise? He’ll probably won’t mind teaching other people how to bake if they’re interested. Just remember to ask for specific design tips, or else all you’ll know is how to make your desserts sword shaped.

06. TERRA

Terra is the Eternal’s resident pet and housekeeper of sorts - in a literal sense, as their base was situated right on top of her back. Things are a bit different now though, since Terra isn’t island sized and all. Normally she’s very self-sufficient, but being a normal tortoise meant that she’s gonna need a bit of help from Siete. If you interested in pet care or just tortoises in general, this is a plot idea we can start off with!

07. ENEMIES

The Eternals was a crew founded in order to fight against potential sky-ending threats, being nerfed to hell and back in a different world isn’t going to stop Siete from doing his job. For better or for worse he’s not beholden to any form of law or government and he will take means to his own hands - sometimes even without output from his fellow crewmates, much to their own frustrations. He’s a good person at heart so chances are he’ll only target anyone planning to do something terrible at a large scale, and only to beat reasoning into their own heads more than anything.

08. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE YEARNING

Wow what kind of idiot would fall in love with this guy Oh boy do I love me some shipping. But here’s the problem - you’re going to have to go through like twenty chapters of slowburn pic to get to him. For starters, Siete has this problem of keeping things to himself and joking as a coping mechanism. At best he’s insensitive and at worst he never lets himself be vulnerable towards anybody. He might care a lot for the people likes, but he hardly pays any attention when it comes to his own personal needs. Chances are, he would fall in love way before he realizes he’s in love in the first place.

I’m a sucker for chemistry and all that jazz, but the biggest obstacle for a relationship with Siete would be himself, and chances are he’ll have to get over some of his issues first before anything would spark.

His endgame romance is currently tentatively planned but hey, if you’re up to some unrequited stuff I’m all ears!

Phew I wrote a lot. But if you have an idea what’s not under this list at all, feel free to throw suggestions my way! I’d love for a huge variety of plots and I hope this monolith of a text post could aid your way in thinking some ideas!! My dms are always open, winks at -

[hellzyeahwebwieldingreviews]

Untold Tales of Spider-Man 01: Side by Side with the Astonishing Ant-Man – by Will Murray

A.k.a. Untold Tales of Marvel Team-Up.

Scientist Henry Pym (who is also Ant-Man) is worried about the new mysterious character known as Spider-Man. He sends a message to his ants via his cybernetic helmet, asking them to report any Spider-Man appearances. This message is picked up by a shadowy figure (who should be a secret except that Steven Butler's illustration that precedes the story prominently features Egghead) and this figure hatches (no pun intended) a plan.

Two weeks later, a giant tarantula appears at the top of the Excelsior Building and spins a web from it across to the Goodman Building. A panhandler named Oleck witnesses this. I don't know what it is about these prose stories that inspire the writers to use proper names as an honorarium but Murray is big on it here. "Excelsior" is Stan Lee's longtime rallying cry, Martin Goodman was Marvel's publisher all through the 60s renaissance (and before). Jack Oleck was a prolific EC and DC writer from the 50s to the 70s. Anyway, the ants spy the tarantula and send a frantic message to Pym. He interprets the image of the giant spider as the ant's version of Spider-Man and ventures out to investigate. Spidey investigates too. The two heroes meet and Ant-Man, assuming Spidey is behind the tarantula, initiates a fight. (The misunderstanding that results in two heroes fighting is as annoying in prose as it is in the comics.) During this dust-up, Spidey gets socked with Pym's reducing gas and ends up as tiny as Ant-Man. As Spidey fights off an army of ants, Hank makes his way to the tarantula and discovers it is a robot and that Egghead (er... that is, a "hulking figure" with a familiar "bullet shape of the head") is inside. He tries to summon his ants and discovers that his ant frequency is jammed. So, he makes amends with Spidey and the two swap headgear. With Hank's cybernetic helmet, Spidey can now summon spiders, which he sends to sabotage the Tarantula. Realizing that Spidey and Ant-Man are allies, not enemies, Egghead (er... "the man calling himself the Tarantula") uses an ejection seat to make his escape.

In the aftermath, Ant-Man makes Spidey regular-sized again. He tells him their enemy is Egghead who had "cracked the secret of my ability to communicate with ants, and attempted to turn them against me. He failed because my ants are my allies, not my slaves." It seems Egghead has made the same mistake in his view of Spidey and Ant-Man. Ant-Man offers to make Spidey a helmet so that he can contact spiders. Spidey turns him down because "up close and personal, spiders creep me out." The two say their good-byes, sure that they will meet again.

This story isn’t necessarily the best one to kick the anthology off with.

 That has less to do with the story’s quality so much as it’s nature as well...a Marvel Team-Up story.

 Surely in an anthology titled ‘Untold Tales of SPIDER-MAN’ the opening story should be more typical for what Spidey stories are known for or at the very least you know...more focussed upon SPIDER-MAN????

 What’s funny is that in spite of making this fundamental misstep the story makes a point of providing the necessary exposition to enable newer readers to get the gist of who Spidey is, his origins and his motives. It comes off as redundant nowdays but remember back in 1997 Spider-Man wasn’t as well known as he is today.

 Anyway, the story itself isn’t badly written and succeeds at what it is trying to be. And that is a silver age inspired MTU story with Spider-Man and Ant-Man.

 On that front I have to concede it was structurally pretty perfect. MTU issues back in the 1970s-1980s chiefly existed for the three purposes.

a)       Tryout potential new writers

b)      Squeeze an extra comic’s worth of cash from the readership because Spidey auto sells anything

c)       Promote other characters through exposure to Marvel’s #1 star

To that end most MTU issues tended to give a lot of the spotlight over to the guest stars and the villains (who were typically connected to said guest star) with a cliché ‘super hero misunderstanding brawl’ often happening prior to the heroes uniting against a common foe.

In fact that was just about the standard structure for most guest appearances in the silver age whenever a guest character would show up for most of the issue.

For the most part, this story competently executes that structure as the villain is both from Ant-Man’s rogue’s gallery and the adventure definitely plays more on his home turf than in Spidey’s. However the story is thematically consistent in that regard and makes excellent use of Spidey and Ant-Man’s insect connection through the use of the antagonist, swapping costumes and giving each hero a taste of one another’s abilities (for good or ill).*

The two major drawbacks of this story, aside from simply being an MTU story in the first place (and therefore not a good Spider-Man story) lies in how much of a stickler you want to be.

The first is that the pseudo physics of Spider-Man being shrunk down boggle the mind. I get that if Ant-Man is shrunk down he retains his full size strength because of magic comic book science. And that works fine when he is fighting normal sized people.

But what has always been unclear to me is how that works when he is fighting insects or other animals. If he has the strength of a normal sized human but he’s the size of an ant and fighting an ant is the power gap the same as though he was normal size? Or can the ant hurt him because proportionally the dynamics have changed.

It becomes more insane when you consider Spider-Man’s powers are the proportional strength/speed/agility of a spider. The story claims Spider-Man retains his normal sized strength but his strength is literally dependant upon his body proportions. Wouldn’t he be as strong as a spider the size and shape of a shrunk Spidey?

Again, this is a stickler question because none of the science here made sense to begin with and Ant-Man and Spider-Man were two characters never designed to jive together.

The second drawback lies in the cliché super hero misunderstanding. As was common practice in the silver age, the guest character is typically the aggressor and douchebag and sure enough Ant-Man’s antagonism here feels a little forced and contrived. The story subtextually tries to justify this on Spider-Man’s costume making him just look scary and wild rumours flying around about him. The flipside to that criticism though is that this story is actively trying to evoke the Silver Age. So whilst it was a cliché in 1997 for super heroes to have brawls ensue from misunderstandings, it wasn’t in the era this story is harkening back to.

In fact the wacky science can be argued to be a throwback to that less realistic era as well. After all the comic book UToSM wasn’t written in a style contemporary to the mid-late 1990s.

But it also wasn’t as much of a throwback as this story was. This story doesn’t so much evoke silver age Marvel stories it kind of outright is one but with better dialogue.

Another little quibble is that I feel this story rather contradicts the comic book first meeting between Spidey and Hank Pym, when he was Giant Man and accompanied by the Wasp. There there were a lot less cordial than they leave off here, but again that was not uncommon in the silver age.

��Finally the vocal performance was not the best. The narrator frankly sounds too old, fitting only Egghead’s voice and not really anyone else’s. I know he is doing a teen Spidey here, but he wouldn’t really fit a mid-20s Spidey either.

 Over all I enjoyed this story, it was fun, it just isn’t the best opener.

 What will be interesting to see going forward is if the stories across the book move linearly across Spider-Man’s chronology. If so then that might explain this story’s placement.

  *Yes, I know spiders aren’t insects, they are arachnids. But this story doesn’t so while it is a faux pas, the execution of it’s misinformation is very good.

P.S. I should note that this wasn’t the first time Spider-Man had gone on an adventure wherein he had been shrunk down. A story told across the Spidey annuals in 1990 saw Spidey go miniature and team up with Ant-Man (albeit Scott Lang not Hank Pym). I confess to have no recollection of it to compare to, though my gut feeling is that this story probably contradicts it. If nothing else because that story predates this one the fact that Spider-Man would never have mentioned having gone tiny before in the annuals would be something of a plot hole. Of course how much we should hold these stories to continuity is highly debatable, but the intent is cleary to slip into (then) established canon.

P.P.S. The story ends laughing at the idea of Spider-Man talking to spiders. If only the author had known what Paul Jenkins would do in 2004...

[bluboothalassophile]

Dude I be lost of what to read first in your Hopes For a Bastard Universe. To me it’s like trying to figure out what comic to read first in DC Comics. Anyway is there a particular order or do I just read whatever order I please?

Hello,

The Hopes for a Bastard Universe is expanding and growing. And as it grows I’ll attempt to keep an updated post for where everything is taking place and when. Here’s the chronological order of events for all the stories (This Does NOT List The One Shots And Spoilers On Tumblr!), here’s the list:

Rooftop Dances Trilogy - Jive (WIP): The boy is the key to the city as the Cat and Bat find themselves hopelessly entangled in a childhood enemy. Racing the clock to save a particular baby bird.

Main Characters: Bruce W. (25), Selina K. (25), Dick G. (10), Clark K. (22)

Pairings: Bruce/Talia (past), Bruce/Selina

Arrow Family - Oceans Away (WIP): Oliver came home and found himself on a mission to save his city and the little guy. He did not expect coming home to be the hard part of this. Or that his city would be facing a threat larger than he could handle alone.

Main Characters: Oliver Q (27), Felicity S. (26), J. Diggle, Roy Harper (17)

Pairings: Oliver Q./Felicity S.

Rooftop Dance Trilogy - Quickstep (TBA): The shadows were restless as a blast from Bruce’s past walked into town. Talia al Ghul has returned, and the threats that follow have targeted a particular Cat.

Main Characters: Bruce W. (31), Selina K. (31), Jason T. (11), Talia al Ghul

Pairings: Bruce W./Selina K., Bruce W./Talia al Ghul

Rooftop Dance Trilogy - Waltz (TBA) - The Cat runs from a crossed client and finds herself tripping over a new bird. Mystery drags her down as a bird drags her back to the Bat, and a murderer closes in on her new bird.

Main Character: Bruce W. (35), Selina K. (35), Timothy D. (11), Dick G. (20), Barbara G (22)

Pairings: Bruce W./Selina K., Dick G./Barbara G.

Rewrite the Stars - Make a Wish on a Shooting Star (WIP): Dick remembered when she crashed here, and how she had stood tall and regal in all her fiery glory. And he remembered thinking that she was everything he did not wish for. However, she was everything he needed to be whole again after all the loss.

Main Characters: Dick G. (21), Koriand’r, Barbara G. (23), Raven (15-16), Timothy D. (12), Wally W. (22), Roy H. (24), Garth (21)

Pairings: Dick G./Barbara G., Dick G./Koriand’r, Wally W./Jinx

Hopes for a Bastard Series - Give Me Back My Mind! (COMPLETE): There’s a reason people don’t go into Raven’s room, aside from it being her space. Red X was unaware of this when he was contracted to acquire a few magical items. Now Raven’s after him.

Main Characters: Raven (19), Jason T. (20), Damian W. (9-10), Dick G. (24), Tim D. (15), Bruce W. (40)

Pairings: Dick G./Koriand’r, Bruce W./Selina K.

Flash Family - Run of Your Life (WIP): It’s the first weekend she’s had off without Barry hovering over her, or her family watching her like a hawk. Now it’s just her, her cravings for Big Belly Burger, and her fourteen year old grandson; how awkward could that be? Apparently very awkward. Is that Amunet?

Main Characters: Iris W. (30), Bart A. (14), Barry A. (30), Wally W. (25)

Pairings: Barry A./Iris W.

Hopes for a Bastard Series - Rock Meet Bottom (COMPLETE): So he’s, maybe, kind of, slightly in over his head… But How the hell was he supposed to know they were sending Deadshot after him!? Also, why are all these Bats coming to his defense in his war? And what the hell was that?

Main Characters: Raven (19), Jason T. (21), Damian W. (10), Dick G. (24), Bruce W. (40), Jon K. (9-10)

Pairings: Bruce W./Selina K.

Flash Family - Chemistry (WIP): It’s the Winter Formal, he’s just taking a friend because he feels that Bart’s in need of feeling normal. It wasn’t like it was a date or anything, nothing could come of this.

Main Characters: Bart A. (14), Jaime R. (15)

Pairings: Bart A./Jaime R.

Hopes for a Bastard Series - Holiday Express Shipping (COMPLETE):There is but one sentiment which sums up the hell he’s found himself trapped in: It’s the Holidays, We’re All Miserable. He’s still trying to figure out how to escape, the Bats are doing the family thing, the Amazons are here, and so is the Queen of Hell, and, is that Roy Harper pulling up with a rusted out POS? What The Fuck Is Going On?

Main Characters: Raven (19), Jason T. (21), Bruce W. (40), Selina K. (40), Dick G. (24), Timothy D. (15), Damian W. (10), Roy Harper (26), Cass C. (20), Stephanie B. (16), Terry M. (1), Helena W. (0.1), Lian H. (0.3)

Pairings: Bruce W./Selina K., Dick G./Koriand’r

Arrow/Flash Family - Parent Trap (WIP): This is bad, so bad! Oh she’s so grounded! But she’s in more trouble if she’s never born. Troubles with time travel and parents who don’t like each other!

Main Characters: Wally W. (26), Artemis C. (23), Irey W. (7), Oliver Q. (37), Barry A. (31), Iris W. (31)

Pairings: Wally W./Artemis C., Oliver Q./Felicity S., Barry A./Iris W.

Hopes for a Bastard Series - I’ve Got the Umbrella (WIP): He knew it! There was NO way that this should have been this easy. And HOLY SHIT! That’s his head! That’s an axe! Time to call the little bird! They are in over their heads! There’s an Amazon, a clone, and is that… nope, uh-uh, no. Just no. He quits!

Main Characters: Raven (20), Jason T. (22), Roy H. (27), Artemis of Bana-Mighdall, Bizarro

Pairings: Bruce W./Selina K.

Batlings Universe/Hopes for a Bastard Series - Welcome to the Chaos (WIP): Interdimensional collisions of the multiverse happened when Ingram Alfred Wayne’s powers ignite, dragging him and his father into another dimension and tearing that dimension’s seal. The demons are now coming, and of course it’s the week before the Biggest Wedding Of The Century!

Main Batling Characters: Damian Wayne (29), Raven (30), Casimir Wayne (4), Raynor Wayne (2), Fawke Wayne (2), Ingram Wayne (0.8)

Batling Pairings: Damian W./Raven

Main Hopes for a Bastard Characters: Raven (20), Jason T. (22), Damian W. (11), Terry M. (2), Lian H. (1), Helena W. (1), Mar’i G. (1)

Rewrite the Stars/Hopes for a Bastard Series - Written in the Stars (TBA): It’s The Wedding Of The Century! Richard J. Grayson will finally be exchanging vows with the love of his life, Koriand’r of Tamaran and nothing is going to stop them! Except maybe the Prince of Tamaran?

Main Characters: Dick G. (26), Koriand’r, Karras, Bruce W. (42), Selina K. (42), Jason T. (22), Timothy D. (17), Duke T. (16), Damian W. (12), Terry M. (2), Helena W. (1), Mar’i G. (1), Raven (20), Donna T., Wally W. (27), Garth (26), Karen D., Roy H. (28)

Pairings: Dick G./Koriand’r, Bruce W./Selina K., Wally W./Artemis C., Garth/Dolphin

If you’re just interested in Jason’s story I recommend starting at Give Me Back My Mind! It’s a solid starting point even as I clean up it’s errors and mistakes for this timeline.

And seriously, if there’s other Super Families people wish to know about in this universe just ask. If anyone has any questions then don’t hesitate to ask.

[hamstermastersamster]

Aww man, Voltron S7. General SPOILERY observations under the cut:

- 13 EPISODES AAAAAAAAAA - I binged them all in one stretch and I’m not even sorry.

- Oh, Dreamworks. You were so close. But it still counts as Bury Your Gays if you kinda split them up before you kill one of them :’( Disappointed.

- Once I caught wind of that Shiro revelation I was really looking forward to a good feelsy reunion once they reached earth and it was totally denied. We don’t even get to know more about this relationship, or what Adam was like as a person, or how he felt after Shiro took off for that last time and then was reported dead. These missing holes are always so frustratiiiiing grrrrrrr!

- Please for the love of god now hook Shiro up with some cute garrison officer or resistance fighter between seasons. Let him rest, let him love.

- I enjoyed seeing the brotherhood between Shiro and Keith develop in ep 1, but the other revelation about Shiro being chronically ill (I feel you, bro) was really odd. I’m all for characters with chronic illnesses that they just gotta Deal With but this disease has literally never been mentioned or its impact seen ever again. Not throughout the entire season, nor ever referenced by Shiro and Keith in seasons prior. Did the galra cloning process eradicate it? Is it just gone now? All the physical stuff he’s done right up until the final episode, he still seems at pretty peak condition to me!

Of course, maybe he’s just a Chronic Illness Icon and extremely good at pretending to be abled. God knows the poor dude has got enough else going on visibly (PTSD, amputated arm . . .), maybe he just told his invisible illness to piss off and deals with it without mentioning it ever (life goals right there).

Whatever, it’s weird. Chronic illnesses are called that for a reason - pls don’t drop ‘em in and then forget they exist.

- I think that intro threw me off ‘cause the season intro felt slow to me, without providing the meaningful post-S6 character moments I think we all wanted (or I wanted?). I wanted Shiro team hugs, to hear his feelings about Kuron beyond that, granted, hilarious one liner about his evil clone, to see if HE WAS OKAY MENTALLY but, as Romelle kindly points out, we all just move on again. There were 13 eps this season, there was room for this important shit!

- Okay, I laughed a lot at the obligatory comedy episode this season. Parody!Lotor made me piss myself and I never want to see blushing Haggar again.

- Zethrid/Ezor shippers, do your thing. I was glad to see Lotor’s generals get some much needed time for their characters to shine.

- Feels latched onto me from the lost in space ep and never really let me go from there. Until that point I was feeling like I could maybe watch this season in a few sittings. But team bonding is my jive, and . . .

- POST-APOCALYPSE EARTH IS ALSO MY SUPER JIVE OH SHIT. It’s like they knew what was in my heart. Everyone who knows me knows that I live for this crap and I never get tired or stop feeling emotions at the sight of our civilisation in ruins and brave desperate human factions trying to correct that :’D

- At first I thought the world’s reaction to Sam’s global broadcast was so simplistically naive. Like, based on today’s situation I’m pretty sure nations would immediately accuse each other of a) lying, b) developing superweapons to bolster their own power and take over the other nations, and c) start world war 3. But Veronica later says that WW3 has already happened on this Earth, and the garrison seems to be just one site for an international military organisation, so I’m gonna assume we’re at the point of worldwide peace, an enlightened human race and international alliance, and let it slide.

- Speaking of, SO MANY GREAT MINOR CHARACTERS WTF?! The cute MFE cadets! Veronica! Resistance fighters! And the usual effortless unspoken Voltron diversity in the garrison troops and the resistance fighters is so refreshing and fills my heart with joy. Women and PoC are just allowed to exist in the Voltron world without having to justify their presence or be a plot point or serve the white dudes of the series. They can be good, bad or nothing special in between and why isn’t this the basic standard of entertainment oh my god. It makes it doubly frustrating that they didn’t give Adam his due, gdi.

- I just really enjoyed watching Earth fall to the galra and the level of detail lavished on establishing that was, for once, just right. To the point that I didn’t even realise we’d gone a few eps without seeing a single Paladin. Sam Holt’s a good egg.

- The Hunk focus was welcome. The Hunk/Keith hug gave me life. Aw, Keith. You should do the emotional support thing more often. You’re getting better at it, honey.

- In general the Paladins w/family thing was super cute and cathartic after they’ve been away from home for so long.

- Like, I know there are a couple of ‘problems’ (arguably charming characteristics) of Voltron writing, that some people can’t stand. Like overengineered space problems for the protags to overcome (it took 2 Lions like, 30 seconds to take out one cannon in the end, WHY DICK ABOUT WITH THE REFLECTOR THINGIES AT ALL), or the deus ex machina (Coran you literally FORGOT you had an all-powerful crystal hanging from your damn neck and the base got exposed for NO REASON), or extremely delayed realisations of how a problem can be overcome while the audience is literally screaming at the screen (CALL YOUR DAMN LIONS IN THE CELLS GUYS DO IT DO IT NAO).

But I can’t lie - the way these scenes always get presented on screen in this series, with that incredible soundtrack making your heart race and the constant sense of urgency and danger, it really gets my blood going. I will defend its silly space antics until the day I die.

- I’m really glad Admiral Sanda got to redeem herself. She wasn’t a bad person, just had too much pride and bad solutions to an admittedly shitty problem. 

- Man I really hope not too many garrison peeps got crushed by moving sections when the Atlas transformed, lmao

- Damn, the Atlas mecha is THICC

- Voltron needs a serious upgrade. It can’t keep scraping through fights like this and needing loads of help, surely.

- I’m so incredibly glad they didn’t end on a cliffhanger. There were moments toward the end where I couldn’t remember how many eps I had left and I kept thinking they were gonna leave us in the lurch. Thanks, Dreamworks.

- All in all, not as great as S6, but as usual I had a good time and lots of feelings and I feel good about how it ended.

[responsibleformyweight-blog]

5/30/18 Update

Binged today and yesterday, talking to an honest-to-God nutritionist tomorrow. 

Its not like I don’t know what’s healthy and what’s not. What I need help with is figuring out how to quit going back to the mindset of ‘I don’t care what I’m putting in my body right now,’ b/c I super duper know I’m going to care later, that eating like shit is going to keep pushing me back farther away from my goals and leave me feeling awful both physically and mentally. 

What set me off yesterday was a really terrible therapy session. I hadn’t seen my therapist in maybe 7 months. I’d decided to stop going b/c it felt like I’d hit a wall and yes, it is expensive. I was in there chatting and from where I was, I thought I was just trying to give her enough information about what’s happened since I last saw here to give her a good picture of where I am now. But from her perspective, I was just talking at her and not seeing her as a person, that I wasn’t leaving room for her to ask questions or get a word in. I totally disagree with this b/c I clearly remember she did ask questions and I did stop and answer them, or if she had a response to interject I would stop and listen and respond.

 I will concede that by the point in the session that she told me she felt like she was just being talked at, I had gotten a bit bogged down in some details pertaining to the guy I’ve been hung up on/ know better than to bother with yet here I am. That I would concede was getting a little more obscure and possibly beside the point, but she didn’t say that. She said, and this really got me steamed, that she feels like this must be how I talk to other people and this is obviously a big problem in my relationships with other people. Um, no. No no no. It is so crazy that she is assuming from having only heard me talk to her one-on-one as a patient to a therapist that that is how I talk to everyone, just non-stop oversharing and again, from her perspective, steam rolling over everyone else. I ask other people how they’re doing, what they’ve been up to, I want to hear what they have to say. Also from an objective point of view, I very much understand that people love to talk about themselves and a great way to make friends is to act interested in the other person and just let them talk. I get that. How can she make this assumption though? I am here in the therapists office to specifically talk about myself and my issues and try to get some feedback about that. I am paying her so much money to get her feedback.

Unfortunately, I was so upset by this, the idea that maybe I was possibly being so unaware of being so incredibly rude but also knowing that she was wrong about this but knowing that if I disagreed it might come across as just being defensive, that I got all choked up and started stammering and really just couldn’t respond very well. It was eventually agreed that I would come back again next week, but I’m also dreading it to a degree. I might email her about all of this sometime before then. 

This isn’t my first therapist. What’s frustrating is trying to find one that you really jive with, going through the process of meeting with a total stranger, divulging all of these innermost turmoils and having to artificially create what is honestly a very one sided relationship. I understand that I don’t have to go back to this woman, I am reluctant to put energy into fixing this but I also don’t want to just call it quits. 

In summation, that was why I binged yesterday and today. I’d been looking into a nutritionist for a bit and was finally able to schedule an initial phone consultation for tomorrow. I am very tired and frustrated. There are so many things I want and I am willing to work for them but its tough to keep going when there’s just roadblock after roadblock in the way. 

[660feet]

For the question post: 1-92 please 👌🤗

1. I don’t know?

2. Nope nope!

3. If we’re talking lip virginity, yes.

4. Yes and no. S’complicated.

5. Like, like-like? I wish!!! We are so far apart!!!

6. I’m a little exhausted to be properly excited for anything right now.

7. Got that good dick. (Nah, I worked on my college essay, that’s all.)

8. I don’t really care one way or the other. I’ve been around plenty of drunk people to know that “wasted” varies wildly.

9. Confidence can be anything! It depends a lot on the person. When I see my friends are confident, it can be cute or cool as hell! Sometimes both! When my girlfriend is confident, it is hot. And intimidating. Point is, confidence varies!

10. Water!

11. Most of ‘em. Nearly all my best friends are women. Or, wait, no, this is sex not gender? So, are we talkin’ like best friends with a vagina? Cus I dunno, lots still? (I tend to bond easier with people who aren’t men because I’m not traditionally masculine, and I often find traditional masculinity very intimidating! So it’s hard for me to open up to men easily! I still trust very easily, but it’s much easier for me to trust women and nonbinary people than men.)

12. I own multiple, unfortunately. Not a fan, even if they do make me look thiccer than I already am.

13. Be in the spot. Don’t believe me? Just watch.

14. Who knows? Probably one of my friends.

15. I am not. I wish I could kiss the person I’m going out with! Fuck you, spacetime, for creating space.

16. Probably. Change happens every day!

17. Dunno. Probably Finn. But I kinda overshare constantly, soooooo…

18. Yesterday. Life’s hard sometimes! I’m not broken, though, or at least, if I am, I know I’ll get better. Just kinda going through a long rough patch with all this stress.

19. Hmmmmmm…lemme check my sex-tracker, where I log all of my numerous sexual encounters. Ah, still says .5 sexes, so I don’t think I have.

20. Please tell me this isn’t a prank. Or, wait, is this like an existential question? I guess I’m realizing that…like…things kinda suck? I have a hard time dealing with pessimism because I associate it with one of the lowest points of my life, and when I engage in pessimistic behaviors it’s really disheartening and I start to spiral. I’m almost an optimist by my very nature, but also, very much by choice! And it’s…kinda exhausting to be optimistic about everything and be nice and get my hopes up and honestly, the fact that I’ve started to realize that has kinda made me question my whole identity. Also slowly realizing I might be comfortable with they/them pronouns? Not to the point if I know if they’re for me or not, but, y’know, that’s a thing bumping around in my brain now.

21. Sure? Kinda. Yeah, you know what, fuck it, I am. I’m in a good mood.

22. Depends on the shark.

23. Yes!

24. I don’t know.

25. I…also don’t know. That’s genuinely really difficult for me to answer. I almost never know my actual reaction to something until after it’s happened, and my personal code of ethics kinda have this whole thing of like “forgive everyone unless they’ve hurt someone else (but still forgive them if they make up for it).” But the someone else…doesn’t include me. So. Eh. Don’t even know if that would hurt me. I guess I’m okay with whatever? Maybe? Not sure.

26. That it is.

27. I don’t know. I like my girlfriend and she makes me laugh! A lot! But I’m able to mesh with most people?

28. My girlfriend.

29. My. Girlfriend.

30. Y…well, n…fuck, that’s complicated. It’s a case-by-case thing.

31. Nah. Not a big hater of people. At most, I dislike.

32. I sure hope she does!!! I’ve made it very obvious, what with the “us dating” thing!

33. I drink soda.

34. John Mulaney.

35. Yes. I would avoid it if I could, but for the most part, I can’t.

36. Well, I know where she goes to school?

37. Not really, no. I have this one kinda “Nice Guy” friend who believes in “love at first conversation,” and I kinda get that, but also, love is…kinda gradual. I can absolutely understand falling for a person very quickly! I have before! But I also think you have to wait to verify those feelings and whether it’s full romantic attraction or just a passing “damn, you’re hot” thing. But that’s rooted in a deeply personal experience where I acted very promptly on “romantic” feelings, then kinda got abused for a long time over those feelings. It was infatuation turned into dependence, and every day, I worry that that might happen to someone else. I worried it happened to the person who abused me. Like…damn, this question hits a little close to home, maybe?

38. My dad.

39. A girl in theater. She’s my dancing partner for a scene. She feels super awkward about because she’s a freshman and I’m a senior, and A) I get it, believe me, awkward for me too, B) come on, if you wanna be a professional actor, step up your game and get in the moment, dude, and C) E X C U S E Y O U ? It’s way worse for me! I have to dance with a freshman.

40. Well, it started with us cuddling, then I kissed her neck, and it just sort of…escalated. I still don’t know how I feel about that.

41. I don’t remember.

42. Yes, both.

43. I’ve embarrassed myself in front of every crush I’ve ever had, just about. But current one? Oh god yeah! Every day! She flirts with me just a little and I die???

44. I don’t tan?

45. Again, don’t know. She liked kissing me. It was supposed to be a fun thing, but like…I regret it for some weird reason??? I guess I regret it because it didn’t mean anything. I’m stupid and I think…I think some part of me wants everything to mean something or be something grand and impactful. I don’t think I would because I have a policy about not having regrets and apologizing rather than trying to take something back.

46. Yep!

47. My dad.

48. You bet your ass I do!

49. YOU BET YOUR ASS I DO!

50. Once.

51. Sometime in August, I think?

52. I fucking hate most musicals. And that’s not in a cutesy, snarky, “ew, musicals” way. Honest to god, I think I might have some kind of trauma because of my abuser. I was never a fan of most musicals, but Theater Kids (and we are talking the kids who scream and rave about musicals every day or make headcanons and sing their asses off, and that’s great for them, but it is exhausting for me) have ruined that experience for me. People kept trying to make me a fan of them and that made it worse. And then I was in one and that’s how I met my abuser, and it got so much worse after that. And yet here I am, still doing musicals. Being in them is exhausting. Talking about them is exhausting. I don’t mind seeing them, I guess. But some part of me just can’t jive with them. I love Little Shop of Horrors, but that’s just about the only one, really. And I feel really sad when I think about that because my best friend hates it and that’s really distressing for me. Like, it’s the one musical I can really vibe with, totally get into and down to. And they hate it. So, like, cheesy? I guess, since the only one I actually do like is campy as hell.

53. No, not really.

54. Yes!

55. Don’t know.

56. Astronaut (which I can’t be); firefighter; archaeologist; scientist; guitarist in a band; and writer. Which is what I am now. And want to do as a career.

57. Yep.

58. Every fucking day of my life. It’s the worst, because I can’t tell if the thing actually did happen or if that feeling is because all my dreams are some kind of weird, mundane prophecies about my very normal existence.

59. No.

60. Sometimes.

61. Sometimes.

62. Mostly pajamas or just my underwear. I used to sleep in whatever I had on because I was too lazy to get undressed. I used to sleep in jeans a lot.

63. Weird Al.

64. T…Target?

65. I don’t know? Adidas?

66. Neither???

67. Peanuts.

68. I don’t think I have one.

69. I’d like to, but I haven’t.

70. Hm. No clue! I’m not marrying anyone at the moment, so, I don’t know who my future spouse is or what they’d do!

71. No.

72. I wish.

73. Fuck, man, all the time. Finn mentioned linguistics in a presentation once and I actually cried because someone mentioned the thing I love. Hell, I tear up a little now thinking about it. It wasn’t even the focus of the presentation. I just cry all the time.

74. King Dork, Stargirl, or American Gods.

75. Don’t know cus I barely study.

76. Nah. Most scents don’t do anything for me.

77. Yeah.

78. I don’t know.

79. …I think it was the Weird Al one? I dunno. I can’t remember. But I may have only been to one concert in my life so far. Unless we’re counting all the times I’ve seen my friend’s band, but that’s less of a concert more of a “We’re a rad as hell band playing in this basement tonight!’

80. I don’t drink tea.

81. Neither.

82. My dad’s. Literally any of the kinds he makes are good.

83. I used to be able to. I was a really good swimmer. Now I get scared if I have to jump in water. There was one day I actually couldn’t and I froze up on the edge of the pool. And I can’t put my head under because I just kinda…like…forgot how to do the breath thing with swimming. My body’s a fucking mess.

84. Not really.

85. I’d like to think so.

86. Why not both?

87. A couple.

88. No.

89. I have not eaten either.

90. Who gives a shit?

91. Have one in every room!

92. I don’t…I dunno, man. I look at the future a lot, and I just kinda see “single (or at least unmarried) dad and his 50 adopted kids.”

I cannot believe whoever this is asked for all 92.

[stickypostllama]

So since the new It movie is getting pretty popular, I thought I’d make a list of some things from the book about the characters!

This is just so people who are interested and want to know more but who haven’t had a chance to read the book yet can find out more about what goes on in the book!

I’ve tried to keep it spoiler free, so there isn’t anything about the Losers as adults, and I haven’t actually had the chance to see the movie yet (hopefully I will in the next few days!) so some of this may also happen in the movie idk.

Also if there’s anything I’ve missed/got wrong feel free to add on or correct me!

(Sorry this got pretty long, there’s just so much!)

Bill:

Likes to ‘dress well’ (i.e. wearing ties) at school.

The tallest and strongest member of the club.

Has an aura of charisma that draws people in to him.

Spends a lot of time in Georgie’s room because even though it scares him to go in there as it’s exactly the same as it was when Georgie died, it’s where he remembers Georgie best.

His mom gave him a tongue twister (‘he thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghosts’) and he secretly believes that if he can learn to say it without stuttering his mom will love him again.

He also thinks that if he can kill whatever killed Georgie his parents will notice him and love him. (Honestly one of my favourite parts of the book is where he starts screaming at It about how ‘My parents took it out on me and that was wrong!’)

Constantly feels guilty about dragging his friends into his quest for revenge over Georgie’s death, even though they say many times they want to come with him.

Also feels guilty about sending Georgie out in the rain to die, even though he knows it wasn’t really his fault.

He always had a stutter but it gets a lot worse after Georgie dies, and disappears when he impersonates someone.

Is only just big enough to ride Silver.

Has a typewriter he likes to write short stories on, and his teachers love his stories.

Gets all A’s on his report card, and Georgie says it’s because he’s not so much good at telling but good at seeing/perceiving/understanding things.

Uses a bullseye slingshot to fight It.

Beverly:

Usually wears jeans or shorts or school skirts and blouses (Eddie finds it odd the one time she wears a dress), and sometimes an ankle bracelet.

Tall for her age.

Always has cuts and bruises from her dad.

Has the best aim of the group, so she’s usually the one holding the weapon when they go to fight It.

Often has cigarettes and matches.

Knows deep down that it was Ben who wrote her the poem.

Gets really mad when the others suggest she do the less dangerous jobs just because she’s a girl and insists that she’s a part of the club so she should do the same work as them.

Is good at baton twirling but knows she will never be a cheerleader in high school because that’s for the girls from rich families.

Lots of people look down on her because she lives in ‘one of the slummy apartments on Lower Main Street’.

One kid in the book that they’re sort of friends with for five minutes named Bradley implies that her mother is a whore, and Bev protests that she’s actually a waitress.

Makes breakfast for her father when her mother is out working.

Loves her father but hates him too, and hates how relieved she feels when he’s not around.

Slaps Richie to wake him up after the smoke hole ceremony because she thinks he’s dying.

Laughs at the most inappropriate times, even if it could get her killed.

Hides her huge crush on Bill as well as Ben hides his crush on her (but basically everyone in the Losers Club can see both).

Not very good at making friends; the Losers are the only real friends she’s ever had (although the same would probably go for most of the others).

Ben:

Always wears sweaters to hide his gut.

Great at building things and coming up to solutions with problems.

Often notices things that the others don’t but never makes them feel stupid when pointing them out or teaching them to do something.

Has loads of building blocks and model sets he plays with.

Spends a lot of time reading.

Kicks Henry Bowers in the balls when Henry tries to carve his name in Ben’s stomach.

It genuinely never occurs to him that he’s lonely until he befriends the other Losers, like ‘a blind child from birth doesn’t even know he’s blind until someone tells him’, because he’s never had the friends to know what he was missing out on before.

His single mom is young and works 40 hours a week to support them. She worries about him starving and her not being able to provide for him; her overfeeding him is like a security blanket for her.

Doesn’t remember his father much, but he left Ben some silver dollars, one of which the club melt down to use as ball bearings against the werewolf at Niebolt Street.

Provides the snacks for the rest of the club.

Wishes Bill good luck when he notices the romantic spark between him and Bev, but at the same time thinks Bill will never love her like he does.

Eddie:

Wears a Captain Midnight ring on his little finger.

Totally hero worships Bill, does things that he would usually be too scared to do because Bill does them or he wonders what Bill would do in that situation.

He and Ben both do this thing where they glance quickly at someone to gauge their emotions before looking away.

Thinks a placebo is the thing underneath cows that the milk comes out of.

Often hears his mother’s voice in his head telling him not to do things.

His mom makes him wear a jacket no matter how hot it is outside.

Laughs in Henry Bowers’ face when Henry breaks his arm and rubs grit in his mouth.

Essentially blackmails his mom into letting him see his friends.

Bill talks about how Eddie is good with mechanical stuff, as the two had worked on Silver together.

Also is said to have a compass in his head; even when the others are lost and there’s no possible way to know where they are, he still always somehow manages to navigate them to where they need to be or at least somewhere familiar.

Is ticklish.

Sometimes sits on the grass outside Niebolt Street Church, ‘pretending to read on the grass, actually jiving’ to the gospel music they sing.

Gets nervous when Ben calls him cool.

He mentions that he’s known Richie for four years and still doesn’t really understand him.

Has three fat single aunts in Haven, Bangor and Hampden. His mom takes him to visit them on the bus sometimes, and he hates it because they all pinch his cheek.

At one point Richie has ice cream and he licks it even though he’s terrified of getting germs (idk I just found that part funny).

When he was younger his mom yelled at him for putting his foot in an X-ray machine and afterwards he was always paranoid about getting cancer.

Derisive of Beverly and Richie’s smoking because that’s how you get cancer.

His mom makes loads of cutting remarks about his friends and he tries to hide that one of his friends is a girl and one is black because he knows what she would say.

The club sign his cast, like it’s a contract.

They all take turns using his aspirator before they go to fight It at Niebolt Street.

Kicks the absolute shit out of the Crawling Eye, saves everyone, and then freaks out because It tore his shirt and he doesn’t know how he’ll explain it to his mom.

Richie:

In the book his worst fears are the movie monsters he loves going to watch, in particular the teenage werewolf and the crawling eye.

Carries his transister radio down to the Barrens a lot, is the biggest fan of rock and roll of the 50s. (Ben breaks it accidentally before they go to fight It but we sadly never see Richie’s reaction to that.

His family are Catholic. He gives some pretty loose interpretations of the Bible throughout the book, sometimes quoting it, and he won’t eat meat on Fridays.

Understands Bill ‘perhaps better than anyone else would’ until Bill meets his wife years later.

Is friends with Beverly before the beginning, the two of them smoke and play with yoyos together, and he’s the one who brings her into the Club.

Also speaks to Ben a bit before when he’s still the new kid at school, and Ben mentions that he has the nickname of Bucky Beaver at school because of his big front teeth.

According to Eddie he always gets A’s and B’s for his schoolwork but then C’s and D’s for his behaviour and his dad is always mad and his mom cries so he tries to behave for a while but it never sticks.

Has dozens of Voices but pretty much all of them sound like him.

A lot of his voices are pretty offensive, and all of them are terrible.

Has seen It before the Niebolt Street encounter, but believes it’s a dream and has half-forgotten it. It appeared to him as a giant statue come to life.

Loves horror movies.

Brings sneezing powder to Niebolt Street to try and fight It, and it actually works (because he believes it will).

His mother sometimes wishes she’d had a daughter because she doesn’t understand Richie and she thinks she could have if he was ‘a pretty little girl’.

Once tried to smoke some random plant he found and got sick.

Carries his transister radio down to the Barrens for them a lot, is the biggest fan of rock and roll of the 50s. (Ben accidentally breaks it just before they go to fight It, but we never see Richie’s reaction to that.)

Stan:

Is so neat and has such a serious expression he looks like a tiny adult.

Is the one who comes up with the idea of the blood oath and cuts everyone’s hands.

In the year below the others, was kept back a grade because he was sick a lot as a kid.

Best friends with Richie, even though Richie teases him a lot about being Jewish.

He says he’s not really Orthodox Jewish; he barely knows what being a Jew is, other than that he occasionally goes to synagogue in Bangor.

Has multiple freak outs throughout the book where he wants to leave and the others (mainly Bill) calm him down and convince him to stay, and they all really respect him when he does keep coming back because they know how scary it is.

He feels like he doesn’t have anything to have faith in like the others do (because Bill ‘has Georgie’ but he has ‘nothing’) but Bill reminds him that he has his birds.

Carries his dad’s binoculars and bird book with him.

At a couple of different points scares It away by listing bird names, simply in believing that they’re real and It is not.

In the book his big fear is more of unnatural things; dead people walking for example, just things that can’t possibly be real, because it messes with his sense of order.

‘Stan didn’t have much of a sense of humour, and the bit he did have was sort of peculiar.’

Breaks a window playing frisbee with a plate and has to do chores for it.

Wins at Monopoly.

Sings like Paul Anka.

Mike:

Goes to Niebolt Street Church School and plays the trombone in the band there.

Learns about the dark history of Derry from an early age, his dad compiles the history of the town and teaches him a lot about the injustices that are committed there, both by Pennywise and the townspeople.

Actually likes that Derry has a lot of history.

Really close to his dad, always helps around the farm with him, and his dad pays him for fruit picking like he does any other workers.

Before the start of the book his dad takes him to the police department to show him the electric chair, and he’s scared the police chief won’t let him out again when he sits in it.

Mike’s family and Henry’s family have a long running feud, which started with Henry’s dad poisoning the Hanlon family’s chickens and painting swastikas by their bodies, and Mike’s dad pointing a gun at Henry’s dad’s head to warn him away from his family.

He is therefore Henry’s number one target

One time asks Richie what sex is. Richie just shakes his head.

Goes fishing sometimes, just to relax and take a break from farm life and chores.

In the book his fear is giant birds, because when he was a baby a bird attacked him in his pram and he has vague memories of it.

Doesn’t like swearing in front of girls (even Bev).

Henry:

His dad came back from World War 2 messed up in the head, and beat his mother until she left.

Henry both loves and is terrified of his dad.

He slowly starts to lose his sanity over the course of the story, and even his friends begin to fear him.

Kills Mike’s dog (RIP Mr Chips).

Wears a pink motorbike jacket with an eagle on the back.

Patrick:

A fully fledged sociopath verging on a psychopath.

Believes that he’s the only real person in the world.

Murders his baby brother because he’s scared he could be real too and he disrupts the family’s routine.

Kills flies and collects them to show people while silently smiling at them.

Finds a fridge in the dumps and begins using it to kill neighbourhood animals.

His creepy behaviour goes unnoticed at school because of Henry’s gang and other problem kids acting out.

When Henry starts letting him hang around with his gang is when everyone starts to realise Henry is really going crazy.

Is killed by leeches (or It in the form of leeches) jumping out at him from his murder fridge as Beverly is watching secretly.

Victor:

Probably the smartest one of Henry’s gang, as it goes along he realises Henry is going too far and starts trying to back out of things (but once he’s in he’s all in).

Dies in the tunnels.

Belch:

His real name was Reginald.

Hit the only two home runs at the Tracker Brothers lot in Derry history.

Dies in the tunnels (I think he and Victor are killed by Frankenstein’s monster but cba to go check now).

Georgie:

His middle name was Elmer.

Had cartoon character posters all over his walls.

Loved taking photos and putting them in his scrapbook.

Totally adored Bill, Bill was his hero.

He originally sees Pennywise’s eyes as yellow, but when he looks again he sees them as blue- the same colour as Bill’s and his mom’s eyes.

Some other things about It and the town of Derry:

The Losers build a clubhouse down in the Barrens. (Well, Ben builds it, the others help and buy hinges, and Eddie and Bill go and find a big mahogany door to use).

It comes every 27 years, but it’s not necessarily strict on that so sometimes it’s a year or two out (although this also could be due to lost records or disappearances going unrecorded) and each cycle usually begins or ends (I can’t remember which) with a big event (i.e. the Kitchener Ironworks explosion).

Derry always has a higher murder/disappearance rate than is normal for a small town, but it skyrockets every 27 years.

Only the ‘oldtimers’ are really aware of the cycle, and very few of them are willing to talk about it.

Richie and Mike have a shared vision (in a smokehole ceremony) of It arriving on Earth millions of years ago, and understand that It has always been there and is the heart of the town Itself. Derry was literally built on It.

It’s implied that most of the adults in the town to some extent understand this, and many of the events that take place in the cycles come about as a result of people actively taking part in/ignoring the victims of the dark events in the town (i.e. the townsfolk murdering the Bradley Gang).

It can control/influence people in the town.

Other places in Derry where the Losers go besides the Barrens: The Aladdin (run by Foxy Foxworth) movie theatre; the lot behind the Tracker Brothers Truck Depot (to play baseball); Centre Street Drug Store (mostly Eddie, obviously); the Costello Avenue Market; Derry Public Library (Ben likes to stand in the glass corridor between the child and adult library and watch people outside hurrying in the cold); the abandoned trainyard (Eddie goes there and walks the tracks pretending to be a hobo); and Memorial Park (it has a birdbath where Stan goes to birdwatch, and it also has the Standpipe where Stan is exploring when he encounters the dead boys); there’s a bunch of other places that get mentioned loads of times in the book, but I think those are the most visited ones?

The Losers Club do have other friends outside the Club; Richie mentions a kid named Vincent Taliendo a bunch of times, and Bill brings a kid named Bradley from his speech therapy to hang out with them a couple of times, but all of the Losers understand that nobody else is really part of the club.

Following on from this, in the book it’s not so much a coincidence that these 7 kids become friends and discover the monster; it’s heavily implied that they were chosen, and that there has to be 7 of them.

Bill’s parents are named Zack and Sharon; Beverly’s are Alvin and Elfrida; Ben’s mom is Arlene; Eddie’s mom is Sonia; Richie’s are Maggie and Wentworth; I couldn’t find Stan’s and I’m not sure if they’re in the book or not but I’m sorry if they are; and Mike’s are Will and Jessica. Henry’s dad is Oscar or ‘Butch’ (also called ‘Crazy Butch Bowers’).

It’s most well-known name is Pennywise the Dancing Clown, but It also calls Itself Bob Gray or Robert Gray multiple times throughout the novel. (I think that was supposedly Pennywise’s ‘real’ name or something but I can’t really remember.)

Mike claims that It doesn’t so much feed on children and flesh as it does faith; only children are capable of fully believing in the monsters that It takes the form of, while adults dismiss them and refuse to believe.

[coldalbion]

Any advice for someone who's god has left them? (Due to said persons own stupidity and stubbornness)

First, I’m terribly sorry you feel you’ve been left. That’s a really shitty thing to have to feel, whether from a human or otherwise. Second, sometimes, what feels to us like leaving may sometimes be when we’re being given room to work through things on our own terms, rather than having them to refer to.I don’t know what your situation is, though it sounds like you’re blaming yourself. I could say definitively that it isn’t your fault, but that may be somewhat  disingenuous so, instead, let’s acknowledge the fact that gods aren’t like us, shall we? After all, if they were like us, what would the difference be? We might as well be gods, mightn’t we?

Sure, many stories and sacred texts tell tales of the gods acting in ways we recognize as humans, but that doesn’t change what they are. They’re still gods, are they not? Even if they might once have been human, as is the case in some traditions, now they’re not.

A god is a god, even if you’re not sure what a god is  It’s that difference, that sacredness which trips something in the human mind makes you go Bugger me, that’s a god, that is!

sacred (adj.) late 14c., past participle adjective from obsolete verb sacren "to make holy" (c. 1200), from Old French sacrer "consecrate, anoint, dedicate" (12c.) or directly from Latin sacrare "to make sacred, consecrate; hold sacred; immortalize; set apart, dedicate," from sacer (genitive sacri) "sacred, dedicated, holy, accursed," from Old Latin saceres, from PIE root *sak- "to sanctify." Buck groups it with Oscan sakrim, Umbrian sacra and calls it "a distinctive Italic group, without any clear outside connections." Related: Sacredness. 

See that the quote above includes accursed?  That which gods do is, to quote a certain German philosopher Beyond good and evil.  Sure, gods can do things which might offend common morality, but that doesn’t make it good or evil in an absolute sense. It just makes it a thing a god does. Hell, I’m an Odinsman and my god baldly introduces himself as Bolverk, which translates as: worker/doer of   harm, injury, ruin, evil, mischief, wickedness.

Does what it says on the tin, right? To human morality, killing nine thralls, tricking people, obtaining things by deception, are not OK. Yet here’s Odin, tipping his hat and giving us the proverbial wink.

Why this crash-course. this reminder of the ambiguous that comes with practical theology?Because each god has an individual character, because they are persons and not people. You believe your god has left you? I assume you mean that you can’t/haven’t felt their presence? Or maybe they’ve told you goodbye?I don’t know. I don’t know who you are, either. Shall I tell you what I do know? 

I know you’re not the first to behave stupidly. You’re not the first to behave stubbornly. You’re not the first person to have felt their god have left them. Even Christians have a name for it - The Dark Night of the Soul.Do you think that, in the course of an immortal being’s existence, you are the first one to fuck things up? Do you think a being who’s lasted generation after generation actually picked just you to walk away from, completely and utterly?Nah. They’ve done it before, right? They have to have, otherwise, frankly, you’re disturbingly special. Are you, the one who behaved stupidly, and stubbornly, that special? Are you something and someone so special that, in another age, they’d compose a poem, an epic tale - The Saga of Anon the Stubbornly Stupid?

Think about it, seriously.Because if you’re not that freakishly special, then you either belong to a select group of people from whom your god walked away, and you’re not as alone as you think. Or, the departure isn’t what you think it is.It’s the old chestnut - when things pass beyond our ability to experience them with our senses, do they still exist? Only idiots and philosophers would question whether a person or a building might pop out of existence when they pass beyond our senses, Now, as a philosopher, I’d refine the question:Does our felt sense or image of a thing cease to exist when that thing passes beyond our ability to sense them?

Obviously, the answer is yes, right? Except, sometimes the obvious is just a surface reading. Because much of we sense uses memory to fill in the gaps. When we are able to sense a thing, think of it as a live update to the memory, recorded for later recall.(And let’s not even get into the delay between things actually happening and us sensing them, because that’s a whole other story.)

Memory works on triggers - we recognize someone by their face, their posture, their speech, their clothes etc. But there are times when something changes that doesn’t jive with our memory. How many times have we had to say: I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there, or I didn’t recognize you with you new haircut/glasses - you look so different? 

We rely on how things were rather than how they are now. The relationship you had with your god is over, done and dusted. Now, there, is only you and the kosmos, the All-That-Is. Mourn, grieve if you wish, there’s nowt wrong with that. Then dry your eyes, and take a look at the world.

You’ve probably been here before, and, back then, certain things happened which led to a relationship with your god. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, that things like that happen. That gods and spirits abound, and if you want them to be part of your world, you have to think and act in a way that isn’t exactly ordinary. You have to be observant (in all its senses) open to the rich and strange variety of the kosmos.

And you have to realize, deep within, that contact with gods leaves you different. You cannot be near them, or they you, without change:

Being a god is the quality of being able to be yourself to such an extent that your passions correspond with the forces of the universe, so that those who look upon you know this without hearing your name spoken. Some ancient poet said that the world is full of echoes and correspondences. Another wrote a long poem of an inferno, wherein each man suffered a torture which coincided in nature with those forces which had ruled his life.

Being a god is being able to recognize within one's self these things that are important, and then to strike the single note that brings them into alignment with everything else that exists. Then, beyond morals or logic or esthetics, one is wind or fire, the sea, the mountains, rain, the sun or the stars, the flight of an arrow, the end of a day, the clasp of love. One rules through one's ruling passions. 

Those who look upon gods then say, without even knowing their names, 'He is Fire. She is Dance. He is Destruction. She is Love.' So, to reply to your statement, they do not call themselves gods. Everyone else does, though, everyone who beholds them. - Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny

Even by their supposed absence, the god influences you. Drives you to ask a question of me, makes you ask for advice, because there is a gap, a space-between, a difference between what was and what is.

Now, I’m no oracle, no prophet. Just some bearded frothing madman on the internet. You might read this post, and disagree with everything I’m saying, every secret, subconscious implications that the hidden part of your consciousness picks up without you noticing. Not because I’m a crippled Gandalf, casting spells on those who read my words, but because that’s the way language works.

Because language works, for good or ill. It conceals and reveals, guides the mind - and if it’s worked well, perhaps the soul as well.So you ask my advice, seek my view. You ask of a man who’s had his own counselling session today, whose counsellor wondered at certain events and how to interpret them. You ask me what I see, what I sense, from your question; where it meets my experience and what it conjures up to type, to post here.And, if you’ve read this far, I’ll let you into a secret: I stepped aside long ago, and let the conjuring bring these words forth. This is coming from a place that is different to an ordinary consciousness. I’m no oracle, no prophet. Just a man with a mission of words, to answer every question I can. So, here’s the deal, laid out on the table, like blackjack. Just how much do want to remain as you are?How much are you willing to protect the idea you have of the you-that-was? How much do you want safety? Because, let me tell you, it’s gone, Even if you’ve noticed some changes, I wonder how long it’s going to take you to notice the ones you’ve not noticed, until now?

I wonder, how long until you remember that everything is connected? How the difference between a blessing and a curse is merely a point of view? How distance and space are always filled with something - whether that something be something else, or your very own self?

Agree with this, or disagree because I don’t know you or your situation, because I’m just firing words at a page, and because things became richer and stranger than you supposed, maybe?And also maybe, because it hurts, and you’re not sure what to do, or where to turn. Because what you thought you knew and trusted, is no longer so. Because I’m telling you what you already know - stimulating action and reaction. Each word, in each context, has meaning. Change the context, the meaning changes also. The cues, the triggers, connect to different memories, conjure different things.I wonder what conjures you? What calls-you-forth in spite of yourself?

Because we can talk about summoning gods and spirits ���til we’re blue in the face, but humans surely are not the exception. We too are spirits, wights amongst the vast thronging conclave of the Pandaemonic All.

One of Many, and so we might suppose that change is constant, and what we see as singular is in fact complex, multiple and interconnected.

Your situation is subject to multiple influences; your feelings, your reading of my words - how you interpret their flow, directed with a particular purpose by me - your background, your actions, inactions, and your relationship with your god.

As I’ve said, perceived absence exerts an influence, just like the spaces between and within the glyphs we call letters, which represent pieces of language, all put together with a particular aim.

An aim that loops and repeats, that comes again and again, like sea washing against stubborn stones, all roar and hiss and spray on the surface, all dark pulsing current below, infinite benthic patience. An ocean of time, composed of an obscene number of individual droplets, each moving into and out of each other.

Rocks erode, barriers dissolve.

Such are the actions of the gods.

As the Moon pulls the waters, so the salty tides ebb and flow and rise; water kisses skin as we swim, surrounded by the same. The lunar influence directs us, its gravity dictating, moving with the changes in temperature, Sun and Earth bringing conjoined influences to bear.Are we not mostly water? Is our blood not salty as the sea?And yet, do we not think ourselves free from such influences, with our lighted streets, our taps and faucets, our climate change and Prime Ministers and Presidents?

But still the gods cross into the sphere of our senses, interface with our bodies and minds, coil themselves in our blood, steal our breath and replace it with their own?Still, the sheer madness of their existence in the 21st century, passed from tongue to text to television, brought forth from books and bodies. From the voices on the wind, the mounds of earth, the whispering leaves, the roar of traffic, the light-laden threads of fibre-optics, the sewer-swelling. From the cracks and the edges, from ancient statues held in climate controlled prisons-cum-museums.(And lo, I do not recall typing prisons, but there it is. Statues of lion-headed goddesses, all properly open-mouthed. The falcon’s scream, all cold and seeking soaring thermals, full of cruel, sharp-taloned knowing.)       

You, who feel bereft? Who feel a hole within your heart? Take a breath, and hold it. Bear down upon that random passing divinity, all unspoken, all unknown. Feel it surge, the blood pound in your ears, and then, when you can no longer bear the weight, and then let go.

Take another.Then another.

Again and again; so you breathe. so you live. Influenced and influencer, deep behind the skin of your mind, down deep and deeper still, is that which you do not know. That which changes, alters itself on the unseen altars. Believe me or not, all this, going fore and back, is true. 

It is as true as your tongue, your teeth, your nails that grow and hair that pushes from skin and scalp.

By now, we’re lost, you and I, dear reader, in a labyrinth of words, as one without Ariadne. The unseen monster at the centre of the maze is a portal, a passage to divinity. It lives, it breathes, it shits, it drinks, it eats, it pisses.

It lives, just as you do. It has been at the centre of things since just after the Beginning, when Mother wove a cradle from the entrails of Father. Dwells in darkness, so it does, for all things have long since burnt out in competition with its starry shine.It led Magi to Bethlehem, burning in the hollowed heavens, bringing offerings to a King amongst them, things that the Anointed would use to rise as premier Magus above all.

And there, standing at the crossroads, we find the sacred heart of All, blood flung in all directions - hallowing the world entire.

Signs and wonders, anon, portals and portents, things that happen, are happening. Symbols rise and fall, are seen and unseen, coming together with us when we are in the right time, place, and state of mind to receive these Strangers, these visiting dignitaries and potentates from Behind-and-Within-and-Through. 

 It is not about you.  You have have been touched, changing even now as I write, You are becoming. When the change arranges for you to receive, then and only then does the unknown become known, the familiar become strange.You wanted advice, and this is it. Serve yourself, and realize that it was never was, what you think it was. And neither are you who you thought you were.Stop thinking, and allow yourself to become.Perhaps then, you might see things...

...Differently.