#but that wasn't just a concept I really liked it was so *perfectly* executed

[ferociouslycreativemystery]

The opening of episode 7 of Renegate Nell is genuinely the best thing I've seen in any series this year it's fucking ✨SPECTACUAR✨

[ccrisntok]

Your Masterminds, Whit Young, and Ace Markey! (mm! whace au)

(Spoilers lol)

what normal fellas ahahahahaha (I have poured my entire soul into these two there is nothing left of me)

A basic summary of their relationship:

Whit has spent like, over a year manipulating Ace into being complacent in his plans. In his own eyes, Ace is a sorta-stupid lacky, who he's constantly love-bombing to keep obedient. Although, he is a bit glad for the company... it was sorta empty when Ace was "dead" and they couldn't really talk. And maybe Ace almost dying from his fake execution was a bit disturbing. But he's sure its nothing! (He fell in love with him like a moron.)

Ace has fully fallen in love with Whit. He's not happy about it, but it happened. As a result, he's basically ruined any semblance of his own morality, just so he doesn't lose Whit, or the affection he knows is mostly performative. He's more than happy to kill his fuck-face classmates, after a... bit of prodding, and honestly, he'd do anything Whit asked at this point, even die. He'll still complain about it, though.

i tried to be as original as humanly possible, but I'm def giving credit to @talkativeanonymous, @acethehorseishere, and @a-blog-for-kat all for inspiring these two in one way or another (esp. a-blog-for-kat lol).

anyway there's the art, here's the promised lore. warning for like a million words. I'm serious. It's 1,400 words. you can stop here i don't blame you.

also sorry for the odd looking bullet points, didn't realize you couldn't have gaps lol!

This au operates on a probably un-canon assumption that I pulled out of my ass. That is that Mai Akasaki is both a student in the class of 27, and that she is the "time loop" student. She is usually a part of the killing game, but she isn't this time, for reasons I'll explain in a sec.

This specific loop, Mai is attempting to dissuade the (usual) mastermind from wanting to start a killing game in the first place. That mastermind is Whit Young.

She goes about this by trying to curb Whit's main reason for his descent into despair, his resounding loneliness, by giving him championship. Charles hasn't softened up to the others in any regard yet. But that wasn't the main reason, unbenouced to Mai.

In this loop, and this loop alone, Mai sets Whit and Ace up to be friends. She hopes they can help each other, since they usually end up more or less alone in their school life.

Surprisingly, it works. They get along decently well, although a codependency starts to develop on Ace's side.

Around this time, Whit takes up an internship at XF Future, which Mai doesn't realize. He innocently wants to explore other job options, "Matchmaking" not really being a stable career forever.

Obviously FX Future isn't a normal Tech Company. Whit starts to change, in a barely noticeable fashion, the longer he works there.

Ace notices Whit's contacts start looking a lot more vibrant after Whit takes a couple weeks off school for a "company trip." He thinks it's... sort of pretty.

(Whit's time at XF Future showed him a side of humanity he didn't realize existed. Insane levels of greed, using the concepts of "ultimates" to guide a stupid pubic where the Government wanted them, generally a dystopia. It feeds into his existing detachment from humanity, until he hits a breaking point, setting his sights on ending the "Ultimates" concept by killing the newest class in the public eye, including himself.)

(XF Future develops a new sort of technology, prosthetic "eyes" that basically turn you into a living remote control, able to connect to an entire building if its connected via a computer system. Security cameras, doors, fucking air conditioning- everything.

(Whit offers himself as the test dummy, and it goes perfectly.)

Anyway, Mai decides to talk to Ace, since she's starting to realize he's becoming a bit... softer after hanging out with Whit so much? And hopes like, for once, he'll actually accept help for his mountain of problems.

He doesn't take this conversation very well.

Mai, with knowledge from dozens of loops, accidentally brings up an extremely traumatic event, simply mentioning the name "Tyler" once.

In a blinding mix of rage and horror at Mai's knowledge of the event, that Ace has literally never even spoken about in this timeline, Ace shoves her away from him.

She falls backwards, and splits her head on a desk, killing her instantly.

Ace, in a horrified frenzy, calls Whit, literally his only friend.

Whit shows up. Ace expects him to freak the fuck out, call the cops, or something like that... But he doesn't.

Whit simply tells him they were going to hide the body together, not even remotely caring about Mai's death.

yeah that's a little fucking weird, and its terrifying, but going to jail is scarier sooo Ace goes along with it!

After this, Whit wraps Ace into uncharacteristically cruel pranks against some of their classmates and others at Hopes Peak, oftentimes resulting in physical injury.

He acts like these are completely normal and funny, while Ace is both freaked out by it, and sort of enjoys enacting pain on people he didn't like.

Along the way, Whit notices Ace starting to fall for him. Horrible news for Ace, since Whit plays into those emotions by becoming much more physically and emotionally affectionate. Which he doesn't enjoy, like, at all... not a bit...

Whit convinces Ace to assist him in greater and greater acts of violence until Whit just straight up kills someone (not a classmate, a stranger.)

Ace is of course tied into everything way too deep to stop now, and after all this... he doesn't really want to. So he stays as Whit's accomplice for months, up until Whit's weirdo behavior arrives at the idea of the killing game. He references the "First Killing Game", which Ace had never heard of.

The idea is a bit intense for Ace, but at that point, he didn't have anything beyond Whit. If it took this to stay with him... He'd do it. Even if in the end, they both were going to die.

So they get to work!

Ace had been taking engineering classes at Hope's Peak in hopes of getting out of jockeying, and he'd helped his family build sheds and shit since he was a kid, so he focused on the construction and executions.

Whit wired the building an all-encompassing computer system he could control, as well as stealing "Mono-TV" from XF Future, a robot he can fully control to be the "host" of the game.

He also steals the "mind wiping" technology from XF Future. It's weirdly easy to steal stuff from this company, hm? It's almost like they aren't protecting it...

Whit also uses another piece of experimental biological technology... on Ace.

A screen connected to his brain, a lottt less invasive than Whit's eye surgery. It doesn't impact Ace mentally, it just gives him the ability to produce visible projections for easy construction, communicate with Whit remotely, (and give Whit a way to always know what Ace's condition.)

The screen is unclipped when the game starts, but the brain implant is still connected to Whit, so he can detect Ace's condition.

After kidnapping the class of 27 and wiping their memories... It all starts. A killing game, streamed live to the entire nation.

Whit and Ace start off as a part of the class, interacting with the others like normal, a pretty decent show. Things go roughly as planned, putting everyone in the positions Whit wanted them. Untilll... chapter 2.

Ace gets his ass jumped, and almost dies prematurely. This is fine, Whit privately makes sure the wounds properly cleaned, but it does fill Whit with an... ominous feeling.

Ace still kills Arei, a part of the plan, and gets "executed", so he can more easily upkeep the executions and such behind the scenes.

After the screen playing the fake execution turns off, Whit checks to make sure Ace didn't get injured in his running around... but can't detect anything.

At all.

Ace's heart wasn't beating.

He actually, seriously, had a fucking heart attack.

(Ace's heart attack was for a combination of reasons. Firstly, his heart was actually in pretty bad condition as a result of his eating disorder, something Whit had figured was "over" by now. It wasn't!)

(Second, in that moment, the idea that maybe, just maybe, Whit could have been double-crossing him came to Ace. What if Whit loaded the guns? What if Ace's use was done, and Whit was finally getting rid of him? It was terrifying because he could die, and terrifying because... It'd make sense. It was all that ever happened to him.)

So he had a heart attackkk lameeeeee

This makes Whit tweak the fuck out, internally. (lol pretend his spooky ass sprite happens AFTER the execution, not before. shh its all made up its all pretend)

After Levi gets taken to the infirmary, Whit drops Charles off at his room as quickly as he can, then fucking BOLTS IT to a hidden passageway in his room to the like... Mastermind area, with the execution chamber.

Whit manages to resuscitate Ace in time, barely. And even after that, he's in pretty bad condition. But he's conscious and mobile.

Whit gets him as comfortable as he can, and after spending the night, he sort of... has to leave. He does some tweaks to Ace's brain screen thing, creating a functional heart monitor that Ace (and he) can watch.

As often as he can, Whit sneaks off to the Mastermind area at night to make sure Ace doesn't fucking die in his sleep. But Ace gets... decently better quickly, and returns to his duties overseeing the killing game.

Whit still visits almost every night to make sure Ace wakes up, which he can't really explain to himself. Ace was... supposed to be disposable anyway. Why would it matter if he died?

Anyway yeah the rest of the game happens. No clue there.

In the end, Whit and Ace come out as masterminds (happy pride).

I have a comic planned for how the end goes, soooo... that's it!

holy fuck! my fingers! hi the whole 2 people who made it down this far... uh... did you like my lore.....? do you want me dead now for having you read 1,400 words of two evil homsexuals...? 😅 love you thank you im sorry.

[yurislotusgarden]

ʚїɞ Not just a little crush ʚїɞ

ʚїɞ Port mafia!Dazai Osamu x Gn!Reader

ʚїɞ Keep in mind English is not my first language, so you may find mistakes!

ʚїɞ word count: 1k

ʚїɞ Tw’s: literally nothing, just pure fluff of him being down bad

ʚїɞ This is literally just 1k words of Pmzai being down bad, whipped, even lovesick, for his crush🤷‍♀️

How did he end up like this?

The youngest executive in Port Mafia’s history, The demon Prodigy, one of the most feared people in Yokohama if not the whole of Japan, Dazai Osamu has fallen in love.

He tried to tell himself that it wasn't that. That the nice feeling he got whenever he was around you was just because of him standing near, or spending time with a friend, a close one, but denial can go on only for so long.

The brunette at first thought that his crush, as Chuuya had called it when he had caught onto Dazai's more than normally weird behavior, was one-sided. After all, there was no way that someone like you could love him, that just wasn't a possibility in Dazai's mind, yet you decided to go against his calculations once again, you seemed to like doing that and causing him to freak out.

It wasn't too long before he realized that, just maybe, you did at least like him in a romantic way, some acts just couldn't be brushed off as a friend gesture.

One thing he just couldn't brush off, as well as it being the reason he realized his crush may not be one-sided, was him remembering one of the times you cooked him food, even though you were aware how picky he could get with that matter.

///////////////////////////

A figure with brown-haired locks could be seen walking on the deserted sidewalk. Moonlight shone on him as he arrived at his destination, your house.

You always greeted him so sweetly, especially when compared to all the people in his life. Welcomed him like he was a classmate, a friend, a normal person that you both knew he wasn’t. He wasn't treated like a superior, like someone who would kill if the smallest mistake was made around him, and Dazai knew that he liked it from the very start.

Dazai had thought before how would it be if you somehow were in the PM, but to his surprise, he realized he hated, even despised that idea. Something about the concept of someone like you, a person who in his eyes could be an angel for all he cares, being in a dark place full of violence and death like the Port Mafia, was just absolutely not right.

Dazai had arrived at your door, not having to wait long after knocking for the door to be opened by you.

“Dazai?”

You. Oh, the lovely little thing that you were in his eyes. Innocent compared to him, a civilian who somehow met and befriended a feared mafioso without the slightest care in the world.

He had no idea how he managed to get where he was, but he had no regrets.

“Yes, me! Now let me in, it's damn cold!”

///////////////////////////

You disliked crab.

In fact, you disliked most seafood, he was perfectly aware of it, and yet, you did this just for him. 

A crab that could as well look like it was made by a restaurant chef laid in front of him on the table. It looked well-seasoned, the crab’s shell was purely gotten rid of, and the smell wasn’t overwhelming like a lot of food tends to be like to him… you really thought it out carefully. 

“What is this?” It was kind of a stupid question, but he wanted to know your reasons.

“What do you mean? I thought you liked crab?”

“I do-”

“Then shush and eat, you stick.”

What did you just call him? Did he hear it right?

“...’Stick’?” You turned to look at him as he said that, stopping the cleanup you were doing just moments before.

“Yes, have you seen yourself? When was the last time that you ate a proper meal, dear?”

Oh. Goddammit. Don’t get him started on the pet names. He was aware that you used it on people you considered close to you, as long as they agreed, and he’s been lowkey embarrassed ever since you asked for his permission to use them on him, or more like embarrassed on how fast he agreed to that. Dazai didn’t know why he liked it so much, maybe it was because of how no one ever referred to him as such, maybe it was the way you sounded when you addressed him with them, or maybe it was entirely just the fault of your voice but he simply didn’t care anymore.

“I think we both know that you’d rather not know the answer.” His answer caused you to let out a soft sigh, but what he said was kind of true. In truth, he would answer that it was the last time he ate at your place, which on one side wasn’t that long ago, but otherwise, he barely eats anything. You and Chuuya were the only ones getting any kind of nutrition into his body, which he supposed he should be thankful for… not like he’s ever going to voice it out.

“Right. Now eat, I don't need you collapsing on my floor.”

“But I don't wanna!” If any of his subordinates saw him like this, whining because of food, they would be dead on the spot, but he's alone with you, and he’s been over being embarrassed about his behavior with you a long time ago.

You sighed, and he knew that you were about to use the biggest thing you have on the brunet against him, just to get him to eat… Not like that wasn't Dazai’s plan from the start, he's gotta get his fair share of you, doesn't he?

“You eat the most you can and you get cuddles.”

“With you playing with my hair?”

You smiled softly and said, “I'll even add head kisses to the mix.” knowing damn well that it’s gonna win him over.

You knew what you were doing, you had to, and he didn't mind as long as you kept your side of the deal. He's gonna finish that damn plate if it means affection from his favorite person will be solely on him for as long as he wants it.

Hearts, comments, and reblogs are greatly appreciated

[thenamesblurrito]

so. Transformers ONE was a good movie

i HIGHLY recommend going in blind, i do think it's incredibly effective with as few spoilers as possible beforehand! seeing it on the big screen is really really nice too, i encourage you to watch it in theaters without reading up on it first if you can!

long full-spoiler review and dissection of elements below (i reached the text block limit a couple times oops):

general stuff:

gorgeous. just genuinely visually gorgeous. so many details, colors, textures, everything was so beautiful. the stylization itself may not be my favorite but it was executed so well that i ended up loving it. their optics! their colors! their movement! the way the visuals serve the lore and the story is extremely well done too, i felt like everything i was seeing was deliberate, relevant, and a treat for the audience instead of just "ooo visual noise look at how powerful our cgi rendering is" (which is how i felt about the "live action" Lion King prequel(????) ad they showed before). all the little cameos and repaints and everything in the background? mwah. GORGEOUS MUSIC TOO AAAA THE WAY THAT TFP'S MOTIF IS IN THERE AAAA

the visual effects and action, the way they USED their roboticness/transformation sequences/vehicle modes in fighting and moving and emoting, it was VERY GOOD. Orion grabs a Death Tracker and RIPS THEM INTO PIECES BY TRANSFORMING AROUND THEM AND FORCING THEIR FRAME TO SHATTER. insanity

this is ABSOLUTELY the origin story movie the fandom has wanted. even if it wasn't your preferred origin story, this movie SHONE with love and respect for the franchise and drew on so many influences to craft a powerful version of the beginning we all wanted to see

in some ways i wish we had more, i think it would've been extremely effective to see things expanded upon, especially D-16's emotional descent and maybe some more Quints. actually looking at the content and pacing of the movie though, and the audience it's aimed at, i don't think there's anything they should've cut in favor of other stuff. i understand why it wasn't dwelt on more, but hooooo i would've liked to see Dee breaking apart a little more thru the middle of the film. apparently the novelization has more scenes of this and i would love to read it

i had so much fun watching this movie. it was a rollercoaster. it was a TREAT. i was sitting there enjoying every second both times i saw it because it was a good film that rewarded me greatly for being a Transformers fan, giving me so many easter eggs and injokes, while also being perfectly understandable and fun for a complete newbie. excellently balanced appeal to old and new fans alike

there was no wink to the audience about how stupid and childish a movie about robots is, there was no lampshading of how silly sci fi is, there was no betrayal of the emotional tone of the film. so many stories now kneecap themselves by mocking their very concept, and the audience watching them, in a very cinema sins-style irony poisoned way. this movie never does that. its humor is fitting, its drama is real, its emotion is all SINCERE and i love how i was never mocked by any part of the movie for engaging with it sincerely

this movie loved being a Transformers movie

anyways. specific stuff:

love how Wheeljack managed to explode everything despite not even being a scientist. he's just THAT good

THE INJOKES AND REFERENCES. "you don't have the touch OR the power." calling them Gobots. the corny More Than Meets The Eye bits. "don't be a glitch" is a headcanon swear i've been using for years now and they canonized it!! "High Guard, eject". "paging doctor Ratchet." the new take on "all are one". the really interesting way that the term Transformers is an actual significant in-universe name, and how Orion and Dee ARE NOT Transformers at first!

the sheer number of cameos is ASTOUNDING. what an excellent mix of masc/fem designs too, they really made it normal on this Cybertron which i appreciate! apparently Blurr exists here, his name was on the leaderboard!!!!!! good job Chromia i am so proud of you for winning. and the shots of the bots getting cogs at the end was aaAAA!!! <<33 my HEART! Jazz's little smile looking at his new doorwings!!

I GOT ALL MY SILLY OLD DEMIGOD FAVES I GOT THE THIRTEEN EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM AAAAAA ALPHA TRION MY GRANDPA god i'm so sorry you're dead but i can't believe you showed up on the big screen <<333 you and your rockin rhino unicorn lion alt mode. and your superpowers. god you're so cool. "old timer" NUH UH HE'S STILL BETTER THAN YOU!!!!! using Zeta for the thirteenth was an interesting choice! i did think he was Overlord for a hot second. it's the lips. Solus wasn't fridged by virtue of everyone else died too yippee!! ALSO MEGATRONUS THE COOLEST ONE WOOOO HES NOT JUST A FIERY EVIL GUY!!!!

the way Dee himself was, in a way, the Fallen of this continuity.... 😭

the way Sentinel was handcrafting his downfall with each touch of the blowtorch. carving the sigil of the Decepticons into the one who will kill him. dooming Cybertron in a moment of petty mockery. AND HE DOESN'T EVEN DRAW IT WELL IT'S LIKE A MESSY CRAYON DRAWING CMON

planetformer Primus in a blockbuster movie? CANONICAL EXPLICITLY STATED PLANETARY ROBO MPREG BIRTH IN THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES???? THEY USE THE WORD BIRTH. BORN. we are never escaping the reproductive insanity in this franchise

Shockwave you whiny tantrum throwing wuss. let Elita beat him up more. it's good for him. also love how that could be construed as a ref to her G1 resistance force

CASUAL MIND READER SOUNDWAVE???????

Elita was perfect, no notes. i would not like her if i met her but i respect her so much. she really is better in every way and down to business. Best First indeed

so much cool implications and fascinating timeline confusion. 50 cycles since the Primes were slaughtered? the way Sentinel leveraged their reputation to make himself beloved, casting himself as their peer? the way he didn't choose to villainize them, the way he apparently openly admitted to the loss of the Matrix and how it impacted the planet? when did cog theft start, and how old is Orion since in the novelization it states his entire generation is cogless? who remembers the og Primes? who is in the know about it all?? hoooghhghhh fascinating.

the implication that the High Guard worked with the og Primes?? the possibility STARSCREAM was a loyal guard for Cybertron's DEMIGODS????

okay i was not expecting a backstory for STARSCREAM'S VOICE in this movie but holy. god. the shippers will be going insane over this one. hoogh holy fit. what is wrong with you. the utter contradiction of being both an instigator and a coward when he gets in over his head and immediately backpedals

also obviously this is the I Love Divorce movie and megop shippers will be having a field day but i DEEPLY appreciate just how solid a friendship Dee and Orion have and how badly they fall apart, even thru a strictly platonic lens. i also appreciate how there was no forced comphet attraction/romance!! i was dreading the possibility of it, i mean Oplita was RIGHT THERE but they didn't force it at all thank youuuuuu. i would rather have this dynamic with its zero intended romance than awkward, OOC attraction shoehorned in to detract from the plot

Bee was actually good! like yeah he's def the kid appeal character and i prefer it when he's in a younger gen and not OP's peer, but he was wayyyyy less annoying than i was expecting! i think he fit the movie and did his job in it well, and i absolutely laughed at him multiple times. "i get to work for the GOVERNMENT! :DDDD" bee. please. the fact that he's been going insane and desperate after isolation for so long really helps make his character work instead of being just irritating

Airachnid you are so cool. you are TOO COOL. PLEASE TONE DOWN YOUR COOLNESS. i adore how she is not good at facial expressions thank you evil autism moments. love how her signature move is stabbystabbystabbystabbystabbystabby

Sentinel. god. Sentinel. SENTINEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i need to draw him getting ripped in half. it's like they distilled the worst parts of every single iteration and combined them into a SuperBad version. horrifically realistic kind of guy. i love to hate him. real Metro Man from Megamind energy. and megachurch pastor energy. the IRONY that Orion and Dee were probably actually helping him, that he was probably being genuine in the medbay when he said he loved what they did by racing, that he may have been honest when he said he was gonna have them fixed up in his own facilities and had them tour the mines! because them racing increased energon production by 150% and Sentinel needed that!!! he needed that for the Quintessons!!! i think he was being genuine when he first met Dee and Orion and then Darkwing ruined everything!!!

Darkwing is the curly straw of this continuity

the Quintessons were hoooooooooooooooo. whoooooooooogh. hoohhhhhhhhhhhh. the biomechanical. the shapes. the textures. eugh. icky. creepy. excellent. the way their ships looked like the Nemesis. the way they're STILL a looming threat. i wanted to see more of them but i get why the movie wasn't about them. i hope we see more in the future

the way Orion is the kind of guy who, in an attempt to be selfless, keeps making selfish or thoughtless decisions was SO INTERESTING. it set up the dynamic of his and Dee's friendship very well, with Orion always wanting the best for his buddy but ultimately overwriting or ignoring what Dee says!! the way Dee clings to the social contract of protocol for safety because that's all he knows and his ANGER when it's broken, even when it's Orion breaking it, because that's not SAFE it's an UNKNOWN it has CONSEQUENCES WHEN YOU DEVIATE. and then it's revealed that the social norms have been a lie the whole time and Sentinel has "broken protocol" more than ever and Dee has no safety left because it was always broken. Orion wanted to be more, he could feel there was more. Dee just wanted security

Dee spent so much of the movie complaining and arguing and it was very funny and good characterization but it was also a hint at how much bitterness was under there the whole time. so much of his complaints were threats of violence. he always had Orion's back and then when he learns the truth he abruptly. stops. do you notice he doesn't really have Orion's back after this? he's no longer by his side? he's there, but he's not... there. he was the first to shoot an enemy and took joy in it. all of his emotions were so justified and then what he does with them is what makes it a tragedy. he didn't have to do this. augh

i really, really like the fact that they managed to pull off the ending without it fully turning into a "boohoo if we do anything violent we're as bad as the bad guys waaaa". the specific phrasing of "rebuilding cannot start with an execution" went HARD. and it's demonstrated in their actions too like, Dee was out for REVENGE and it was PERSONAL, Orion was fighting for JUSTICE and it was UNIVERSAL. Sentinel was beaten, everyone knew the truth. it was over. but Dee in his (very justified!) anger and broken trust was too overcome to back down. they were given the power to change their worlds, but Dee was thinking only of his world. Orion was thinking of everyone

ironic that as soon as Orion starts thinking of other people and considering what they need instead of forging ahead, Dee decides to center his own feelings and actions to the point of murder. even after Sentinel was dead, he just kept shooting, he did NOT AT ALL care that some of those shots were clearly hurting innocent civilians/going wide and shooting out into the city/damaging actual important infrastructure and not just Sentinel statues. i believe it's Bee who said "he's gonna kill everyone" and he proves it by attacking Elita and saying "I won't stop until every last one of his followers is dead". THE FACT THAT HE FELL SO FAR AS TO SEE ELITA, HIS PEER AND FELLOW FREEDOM FIGHTER WHO WAS THERE WORKING AGAINST SENTINEL WITH HIM FROM THE START OF THIS QUEST, AS ONE OF SENTINEL'S FOLLOWERS.... by the end of it, Dee really was nothing but blind anger

and the way kneeling was a common thread!!!!! aaaaaaa. Sentinel betrayed the world by kneeling to the enemy. Dee won respect by refusing to kneel. Orion gained followers by willingly kneeling to his peers. hooghh

Orion jumping and stumbling and falling this whole movie because he just THROWS himself into things because he BELIEVES in things, he's the one to take leaps of faith, to take that step out into the unknown! and Dee refusing to save him as one final nail in the coffin, so clearly feeling like Orion jumping in front of the blast was yet ANOTHER way Orion is forcing his hand, corralling him into doing something he thinks is best but did not consult him on, finally FINALLY saying NO and leaning in to the tragedy!! and in the exact same way Sentinel handcrafted his enemy in Dee, Dee has now handcrafted his enemy in Orion!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and now that Orion took that last leap of faith and fell, now is when he RISES. ONE SHALL FALL AND ONE SHALL RISE. god. it reminds me of Spiderverse, the way they use falling and rising

the way the tragedy is worse for how well everyone was working together.... for one shining moment, the miners and the High Guard, the rescue mission, it was going so well. they were doing it. they were winning. it didn't have to turn to slaughter. if there was to be an execution it should've been by trial, by the voice of the people, not Dee deciding for Cybertron as Sentinel decided what truth was. augh.

in an abruptly different note, the way they have characters move and fly is so cool. i love the jetpacks. i love how flight is not "flyer" exclusive. it's fascinating and i think really fitting for the general city of Iacon itself. all those towers going up and down

THE TRAINS!! THE MOVING ROADS!! HOW COOL IS THAT!! LOOK AT THAT WORLDBUILDING IM OBSESSED WITH THIS CYBERTRON HOOGH. this movie was VERY good at building a rich, functional world of detail and making it very alien in a way i want to chew on forever. the moving mountains and greebled energon mines. the living planet. the deer!!! ooghghh. PRIMUS LOOKS LIKE A STAR

i do like this Primus actually, yeah it was a deus ex machina but that's the POINT. Optimus himself is an act of god and his presence heralds miracles. Dee couldn't bring justice to Cybertron because justice is restoration. justice is healing what was hurt and doing right by the wronged. yes that often means consequences upon the perpetrator but that's NOT what Dee was doing, he wasn't even THINKING of anyone else!! would killing Sentinel get ppl out of the mines? would it restore their cogs? would it bring equality to a clearly oppressive society? like he LIVED this (cogless bots with limited options, the talk of tiers as if they are social castes you can be demoted from, lower city levels where ppl can be banished, etc) but it was Orion who ultimately addressed this. i'm sorry if it feels like insult to injury to rub his Primacy in your face, Megatron, but stealing a cog just like Sentinel and declaring the age of Primes over, when it was the age of Primes ending that made you cogless and oppressed in the first place, is only an extension of your trauma, anger, and violence, and is not solving the problem!

a cog stolen from him at birth! and then he steals it from Sentinel in symbolic revenge, stolen again, but even that wasn't Sentinel's, it was stolen too! the way he discards the cog from Onyx, willingly gifted to him, to continue the trend of desecrating the dead! man. MAN. the name he took, the cog he took, the symbol he took, all from his hero, the one he looked up to, the coolest Prime, and THEN DECLARED THE AGE OF PRIMES OVER

the gilded pompous showmanship of it all was so gross, the way Sentinel's face was everywhere, the way he had instant access to everyone in Iacon via announcements that took over the media. but this was clearly derived from the previous Primes!! we see their statues, we see their stately tower, and unless Sentinel had all that built in "mourning" (which is totally plausible imho) he was really just setting himself up as an inheritor of that hyperwealthy standard! we don't know anything about the rule of the og Primes beyond that they're favorably remembered and loved (possibly because of propaganda but i think it was also genuine) and that they may have been losing the Quint war (considering that info was from jerkwad supreme i find it suspect) but just by comparison to Sentinel i think they HAD to be better rulers. there weren't cogless bots forced to mine for 20 shifts in a row back then!!! Sentinel is stealing their aesthetic as if that gets him the same power and acclaim. he's trying to steal their legitimacy. he paints himself across the face of Iacon to hide the fact the planet itself went into a coma because of him. he has ALWAYS been rejected. i call him a megachurch pastor but really symbolically i could say he's a fallen angel, and his visual design really fits too

i'm coming back to the deus ex machina thing bc i know it may be considered weak in a plot construction sense but i want to engage with it as literal. like, there is a literal in-universe god in the machine. they know it. they worship it, at least a little bit. i would consider this story to be analogous to Prince of Egypt, in that the deific is a real and tangible character with impact on the plot, and not a meta excuse to save the day. Orion made his choice, and as a result Primus made HIS choice. it's not necessarily a happy ending but if even Megatron acknowledges that GOD mandated this guy to be a Prime and the planet itself responds by COMING BACK TO LIFE.... i keep thinking of it like a cityspeaker, how they're the ones who commune with Titans to know their needs and tell them what needs to be done. is a Prime just the cityspeaker of Cybertron, able to help it remain healthy and functional?

the divine right to rule is REAL on Cybertron. you can like it or not but you have to contend with that when discussing fair leadership, political accountability, and representation of the masses re: Cybertronian government and Primacy

god i'm still so obsessed with the Thirteen i need to see them better i need to look at them. i love them. insane. i really need to invest in a chewtoy

also i know it may be a throwaway line but i'm very curious why Primus had to transform and sacrifice himself to save the universe. Unicron, maybe???

also how did Alpha Trion narrate the archival stuff telling the fake story of how the Primes died and the Matrix was lost. did Sentinel get a deepfake of his voice?? is that part of how he made the transition to power?? AUGH THE DISRESPECT KEEPS COMPOUNDING

Alpha Trion. my blorbo. my old man. holding you so tight. like an ancient rescue dog. im gonna groom you and give you treats and buy the biggest plushest dog bed from costco for you

anyways

good movie, guys

[adobe-outdesign]

May i humbly request a Kougra review if it hasnt been done already?

(This is the last Neopet review request in the inbox right now! Send 'em if you got 'em.)

The Kougra is one of the those Neopets that's just a pretty straightforward interpretation of a real animal—in this case, a tiger. While the concept little by-the-numbers because of this, the design itself is able to add some unique elements. For example, the anatomy is kept fairly stocky and the stripes are kept to a minimum instead of evenly covering the entire body, which keeps it from looking overly busy. There are also some lighter markings around the muzzle, eyes, ears, and paws, and the ears in particular are huge and have a distinct notched look that gives them some much needed flavor. Overall, they're pretty visually striking.

Color-wise, the base colours use one primary color and a light cream for accents, which compliments the main color without overpowering it. The stripes are dark blue, which keeps the contrast high but adds some degree of color, and the yellow eyes match the cream accents.

Kougras remained mostly untouched through customization; the design's the same, the art quality is the same, and the pose is similar to what's used in their circle art. It is a shame to loose the old happy pose though, which wasn't anything complex but added a fun bit of movement with it being in mid-step.

Favorite Colours:

Grey: I already touched on this one in my grey review so I won't repeat myself too much, but the UC/styled grey Kougra is just adorable with its droopy ears and slouched expression. While the colors are mostly grey, the contrast is dulled slightly to emphasize the grey-ness and there's a few red accents in areas like the eyes. The converted version, while blander in terms of pose, does at least work as a good base colour; though I do wonder why the changed the color of the nose and muzzle.

Tyrannian: The Kougra, being a large cat, adapts really well to the prehistoric look. It gains sabre-tooth cat canines, of course, but it also changes its patterning to have slightly bolder and more ragged stripes, which is emphasized by things like the eye markings also being jagged. Some giant fangs and a few black markings on the ears complete the high-contrast look.

Candy: Obviously the Neopet with prominent stripes had to be a swirled lollipop, but the execution is really good. The texture on this thing is amazing and perfectly captures the look of hard candy, while the colorful stripes are super fun and work really well with the white base. Somewhat usually, it keeps the indication of the cream markings but doesn't actually change the color at any point.

BONUS: The Maraquan Kougra is one of those Maraquan pets that just adapts the pet to sea life instead of basing it off of a real-life animal. Things like giving it a tail instead of hind legs are standard, but the fins and the additional striping on them add some nice touches to the design, as does the addition of claws. Both versions are good; the UC/styled has more personality, though if I'm being honest I never quite got why it looks confused.

[scarlet--wiccan]

Oh God I was really hoping the backstory that was leaked for Billy was fake... just heard about the new episode and it turns out it wasn't. why would they choose this over adoption or reincarnation-

It's bad! I really feel like the M C U goes out of its way to interpret these characters in bad faith and come up with the worst possible versions of their stories. I've said this before, but everything about Wanda's origins and the nature of her power seems designed to make her an objectively worse person who is more directly responsible for causing harm than her comics counterpart, but is also weirdly set on punishing her for existing and having trauma. She's simultaneously more doomed by the narrative, and infinitely less deserving of redemption.

With Billy, they took a situation that, while complex and, at times, difficult to parse, is ultimately miraculous and joyful, and they made it just.... incredibly grim. There is no real distinction between Billy Maximoff and Billy Kaplan in the comics-- they're the same person, given a second chance at life and the great fortune to reconnect with his original family, in a way that doesn't invalidate or erase the second. And, again, I want to emphasize that when YA and CC were written, Wanda had Jewish heritage, so I don't think there needs to be any awkwardness in the transfer between the Maximoff and Kaplan families, and the text never does anything to imply that Billy's cultural upbringing is any less valid, or any less central to his character after his origins are revealed.

Here, they created a false dichotomy between the two characters, killed one them off, and made the other into a body-snatcher. That is so much darker, and so much more tragic for the Kaplans-- and it creates uncomfortable questions about their relationship, and Billy's identity, that I don't think can ever be neatly resolved. I will say that, thus far, I don't think the show explicitly disavows "William's" heritage, or writes off Billy's relationship with the Kaplans, the way some people are reporting. He doesn't actually remember his life before the switch, so it's not a total takeover, and at points, the episode seems to imply that he's somehow both, and neither-- a new gestalt.

But I don't trust these writers to execute that concept with integrity, or even consistency. In WV and MoM, Wanda's motives, sense of self, and relationship to her powers repeatedly change at the drop of a dime, and we're seeing the same thing, here, with the abrupt change that takes place when Billy reveals his identity. The shift in personality, escalation of power, and the vague implication that he's been masterminding this whole excursion makes no sense with the established timeline-- this is all happening within 24 hours of him even learning that Wanda had kids, let alone that he might be one of them, not to mention hearing about both Agatha the Witches Road for the first time. And up until that point, he really was just an earnest kid. The heel-turn feels silly and juvenile, and the needle drop at the end of episode #5 underscores that a little too perfectly-- his "bad guy" act is just as ill-fitting and unsubstantiated as the Eilish's edgy, wannabe-thug aesthetics.

Obviously, the most important issue here is not the quality of writing, but where this character falls into the spectrum of whitewashing and erasure. The fact that Locke is not Jewish but, before the switch, is playing a Jewish character-- and, specifically trespassing on prayer and religious ceremonies-- is a problem. I've seen a lot of different opinions expressed by a lot of different people within the community about who can or can't play Jewish characters, but I think we can all agree that this is worth criticizing, especially given the larger context of repeated erasure and historical distortion against Jewish and Roma people in this franchise.

But I also want to emphasize that, because of what was done to Wanda, and the franchise's insistence on conducting blatant anti-Romani racism, there was never going to be a truly authentic or acceptable version of this character. Now matter how they cast the role, a significant part of his background had already been erased, and he was already saddled with significant racist baggage. I am very, very tired of white people and Young Avengers fans overlooking that fact.

[finalgirlminamurray]

by the way...finished bones and all (the book) recently

i think it was interesting but ultimately i do have to admit i think the movie did a better job of executing the concept. maybe i'd feel differently if i read the book first but i think it's an actually successful example of a film adaptation taking the broad strokes of the source material to build more of its own story. the basic plot remains the same but there are some significant differences in tone and what they choose to emphasize as well as some more minor details that add up to a very different experience

the author said she wrote this book shortly after going vegan and in the author's notes/acknowledgements at the end that a lot of people were surprised that she'd written a book about cannibals - then clarifying "well, ghouls, really, but cannibals is more recognizable a term" (something like that). thought this was interesting because the word "ghoul" never comes up in the book to describe what are usually just called "eaters". anyway i don't know why people were surprised that a vegetarian/vegan was writing about cannibalism because that seems to be a common thing among people who write about that.

the book wasn't shelved as ya in my library system but i heard it described as a young adult novel before reading it and i think in many ways it does really feel like one. granted i haven't read any young adult books since i was a young adult (i.e., a teenager) myself so i don't know that much about what the ya publishing landscape is really like but i wonder why libraries would be reluctant to classify this as such. is it because of the explicit horror elements? i think it's perfectly appropriate for teens and it feels like it's written from the mindset of one, in a good way

anyway, major differences between book and film are:

in the book maren is raised by her mother before being abandoned by her and going to search for her father; in the film it's the reverse. i think there's some significance here in how being an eater is tied to gender - it's not a gender-specific thing in either version but i feel like in the book most of the eaters maren meets are male. there's only one woman she remembers meeting once who she thinks might have been like her. she also notes that other girls really don't seem to like her and most of the people drawn towards her throughout her childhood were boys.

(there's also the fact that maren in the movie is mixed-race, and it's strongly implied her mother's family didn't approve of her marrying maren's father because he's black; as you might expect none of the characters' races are mentioned in the book and you can probably assume they're meant to be white. this definitely adds a whole lot more to the film's dynamics but it's mostly left to subtext. in the book maren keeps a scrapbook of various historical and literary incidents of cannibalism, and she and sully talk about polynesian people who eat their dead - none of this comes up in the film as far as i remember, though.)

in the book maren has been aware of her cannibalistic tendencies for most of her life and recalls several specific incidents throughout the book of her eating someone she got close to, after which her mom had to pack up and move again. in the film the first of these (her babysitter) is mentioned but if there were others she doesn't seem to remember them. (i'll probably have to watch the film again to refresh my own memory, but i'll take any excuse to.)

the way eaters feed is portrayed somewhat differently; the book seems to lean into the magical realist elements more and implies they can devour a whole person in a matter of minutes, leaving behind only what they can't digest. they also seem to go into a sort of fugue state where they aren't fully aware of what they're doing until it's over, and have a harder time controlling their urges. the film plays it a little more "realistically" and shows them eating like scavenger animals - this is one reason i liked the movie's portrayal of it better, i think. if you want the audience to think about the reality of consuming flesh you kind of have to show it in its full visceral glory

maren's relationship with lee is a little more ambiguous in the book; other characters assume they're dating, she wants to be his girlfriend, but he doesn't quite make it official until they near the end. the film fully makes it a romance between them and has this relationship be a core part of the story - they're also together for more of the plot in the movie, while in the book they separate and find each other again a few times.

maren is a lot less immediately distrustful of sully when she meets him in the book and is actually happy to see him whenever they meet up again. he still comes off as shady but not enough for her to be too creeped out; she's just glad to meet someone like her who seems to have some reasonable principles about how he feeds.

the big twist is that sully is maren's grandfather, being her own father's biological dad, who he never met after being abandoned as a young child. he tried and failed to kill and eat his son and sets his sights on maren instead. there's no familial connection stated in the film but since her mother there has the same backstory as her father in the book (found abandoned as a child and raised by adoptive parents) it's possible

towards the end, lee and maren hitch a ride with a college student who's moving back into her dorm; she offers to let them stay the night but won't let maren sleep in her room. lee ends up eating her and maren essentially takes over her identity so she can live and study at the school, which she enjoys until sully tracks her down. lee finds him attacking her in the dorm room and manages to kill him offscreen (most violence happens "offscreen" in the novel). then he and maren, finally feeling safe, have some drinks and finally sleep together, only for maren to wake up the next morning having eaten him. this is a very different ending than the film, in which lee asks maren to eat him after sustaining injuries in the struggle (and also they're working legitimately by the college), and highlights the book's emphasis on eaters' inability to control their hunger.

the book has more of a bleak ending, honestly, where it's implied that maren will forever be living this nomadic existence she wanted to avoid, unable to get close to anyone without killing them - but at the same time i think you could read it as more positive as she fully embraces what she is. still the nature of eaters in the book makes this a fundamentally different kind of story

the scene in the film where maren and lee meet two men who are both cannibals, but one of them is a born eater and the other just does it because he wants to - not in the book. the closest analogue is when maren goes to visit her father at the mental hospital (which goes mostly similarly to her visit with her mom in the movie, except he doesn't try to attack her at the end) and the nurse who's been taking care of her dad offers to let her have dinner and spend the night at his house. she gladly accepts, but later that night he starts talking about how alone he is and how fascinated he was by her father's nature as an eater, and asks her to do something for him - she doesn't let him finish and it's never revealed exactly what he was going to say but she's really freaked out and tries to leave immediately. he says before that "i don't even like women in that way" so i guess it wasn't something sexual? sources seem to think he wanted her to eat him. weird scene, but right after that she runs into sully again who reveals his true intentions and eats that guy, so we don't have time to dwell on it

speaking of which - the book both downplays maren's romance with lee and is a lot more heterosexual. in the film lee goes off with a male fairground worker and has sex with him before eating him, in the book that character is female (although he also doesn't seem to have done anything with her before eating her). at the same time, there's definitely something there about maren being a girl who other girls seem to inherently dislike for some reason and who has boys interested in her but always finds herself wanting something else from them...at the end she seems to be hitting it off with another guy but the very last lines imply that she's finally embraced her nature and is willingly eating him instead of fucking him. am i reaching for a queer interpretation? maybe! i'm just glad the movie made lee and maren bi (well, maybe it's more subtextual with her, but the first person we see her bite is a girl she's getting intimately close with)

in the film lee has a big confessional monologue about killing his own father; in the book he killed one of his mom's many boyfriends, and while his sister kayla didn't witness it, his girlfriend at the time did and ended up being sent to a mental hospital. this is maybe part of the reason for his and maren's argument before she goes to see her dad

other notes: the book takes place in 1997, the film takes place in 1988. in the movie maren is 18 when her dad leaves her, in the book she's only 16 when her mom leaves. (she's also a lot more resentful towards her mom for leaving her in the book, while in the film she doesn't seem to think about her dad much at all after he leaves; throughout the book she clings to an image of her dad as the perfect idealized parent she never got to have, which makes it especially hard for her when she finds out where he is.) lee's age is not stated in the film but in the book he's 19, which is interesting considering his seeming hesitance to enter into a relationship with maren. the film implies that sully killed kayla when they find what looks like her hair in his rope, but the book makes no mention of this.

overall: still love the movie, the book is something i'll have to sit with for a while i think. i would like to watch the movie again (which would be for a third time by now) with the added context i have of the book. i remain intrigued by the world it takes place in and i think it's a very beautiful movie. i think this was one of those cases where the author herself said the film was better than her book, and i don't always agree with those writers' own assessments, but in this case i'm glad she felt it conveyed the story well, even if some of the themes do feel significantly changed.

[darkpoisonouslove]

Wasn't Believix like an downgrade? Like what happened with the fairy dust?

I am not a huge fan of the fairy dust. It seems to be able to undo almost everything unless it's something that we don't want to be undone too quickly (like the spell of the four elements). There are no actual rules set to how it works and how much it can do. It feels like a cop out tbh.

I think Believix has a lot of potential but the execution was just so poor. It could have easily been an upgrade from Enchantix but the way they earn it and use it just didn't utilize everything that the concept had to offer.

First of all, having to make people believe in magic to earn it raises all kinds of question marks. It's just too convenient for the plot. I mean, how many planets are there in the Magic Dimension whose inhabitants don't believe in magic? That's a weird requirement for a transformation. Second of all, the way that they use their powers to basically brainwash people into believing in magic is also extremely questionable and actively contradicts and undermines the very premise of the Believix transformation.

It would have been a much better progression for the plot and characters if the way to earn Believix was to make the people believe in you, in your abilities and in your intentions. This could have some weird implications as well but three of the Winx girls are princesses and will be leaders of their planets one day. Having them prove themselves in such a way, even to people from another planet, would have perfectly set them up for their roles in the future. And Tecna, Musa and Flora have a lot to offer as Guardian Fairies as well. It would have been a way to let the Winx continue to grow and become more mature and responsible.

The designs certainly are a downgrade but I think they did it like that because they didn't want Roxy to look too different from the Winx, which was just... an outright mistake. Even if the plan was for her to be the seventh Winx, they should have highlighted that she's different. That way we'd be able to see how far the Winx have come. And if they wanted her to be able to match them in power somewhat by the end of the season, they could have simply explained that Earth fairies' magic works differently, especially now that it's basically been reinvented as the fairies came back from their imprisonment.

Again, lots of potential but really bad execution. Which is true for almost all of the later Winx seasons (and some parts of the first three seasons).

[neverlearnedtoread]

Spinning Silver

⭐⭐⭐⭐; the staryk king and mirnatius with the word 'wife' on the board: there's only one thing more horrible than a wife.... *rips off paper* MY wife

Oh?? 👌😉😏

women are fucking amazing and wonderful and terrifying and unequivocal badasses. especially to their husbands. it's about the fantasy of a marriage you have no control over being perfectly suited to you in ways you didn't even know it could

inhuman fae creatures that actually have a separate culture and set of rules they are governed by. they're much more powerful than humans, of course, but they are bound to their laws, and if you're smart you can work with that

fairytale-esque magic system that relies heavily on (1) trickery (2) Having Audacity and (3) the rule of threes 😉. we love a soft magic system that rewards big swings and BDE!

not one, but TWO separate arranged marriages engaged in HEATED pvp AKA two people bound in hostile matrimony trying to kill each other while having 'wait, are they hot? fuck!' moments

you can be cold and practical and still be a good person. you can be strong enough to protect yourself without sacrificing others. with a good enough grasp of contracts you can force a demon to leave your kingdom AND husband unharmed in a 2-for-1 deal

No.. ❌🤢🤮

multiple POVs with no names for chapter titles so you have to figure out who it is from context clues - if you're like me and love a little puzzle to go with your reading time, you'll really enjoy it (Novik does it VERY well) but if you get confused easily or don't wanna put in the brainpower its annoying and overly complicated

if you don't like enemies-to-lovers where they actually argue and are ideologically opposed, you're not gonna enjoy the romance subplots. this is not a 'forbidden-lovers' kinda enemies-to-lovers. this is firmly in the 'my husband misses me a lot - but his aim is getting better!' zone

really quick wrap up - it gets tied up a little too fast after the final confrontation with the Big Bad. i wouldve liked at least to have irina POV at the end because her side of things just. gets left hanging

Summary: Miryem is a daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, and though her father doesn't have the hardheartedness to be a good one, she'd rather be despised for what she's owed than starve. Her knack for the trade, coupled with her sharp tongue, draws the ire of her village, and even more alarmingly, the Staryk's attentions; faerie creatures who only covet gold, they take her offhanded boast that she can turn silver into gold quite literally, and show up at her door to hold her true to her careless words - which, honestly, kind of backfires on them when she rises to the challenge and upends their realm into complete disarray, so maybe there's a lesson there for the next group of nonhumans to learn: don't bet the house against a human girl whose Had Enough Of All This Bullshit. She might win.

Concept: 💭💭💭 I don't know Rumpelstiltskin's story very well, and Ice Kingdom aesthetics aren't my favourite (you can blame it on my residual dislike of Frozen), but I DID read Uprooted before this. I wasn't as into the book blurb as I was with Uprooted, but I'm an experienced (and opinionated) enough reader to know when to trust my gut - if I find an author's writing style easy to read, and I enjoy how they handle their themes, I'm not afraid of diving into deep waters. If it's that bad, I can always DNF

Execution: 💥💥💥💥 As I've come to expect with Novik's writing, a wonderfully easy read; the storytelling voice flows smoothly and makes me want to keep on reading. No slogging through difficult to understand passages and too slow pacing for me! I instantly wanted to collect every POV character like puppies in a basket, no matter how brief their sections were. I will say the ending does forget what it wants to say and simply ends on a happy note, instead of a complete thought. It doesn't tie in the POV characters together strongly enough - I would've loved to see an epilogue scenes with the 3 main female characters supporting each other, or at least being three distinct Bad Bitches!

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤❤❤ Mostly because of Irina and Miryem (and Wanda)'s absolute BDE. They truly brought their stories to life and felt very dynamic, constantly driving the story forward through their actions, especially because their personalities and characteristics were so well-suited to the challenges they faced (Miryem rules-lawyering the Staryk, Irina taking to politics, Wanda keeping faith despite all the shit she's been through). Honorary shoutout to the complete hilarity of Mirnatius's POV (though ultimately it IS more indulgence than necessity, I respect Novik for it) - may he spend the rest of his life desperately drawing his wife in vain search of her bad angles!

Favourite Moment: the running gag of mirnatius losing his fucking mind trying to prove irina isn't hot. you know that post that's like 'find a blorbo to draw and your art skills will start improving so much faster'? irina is his blorbo. special mention of the scene he gets jealous realizing a random guard has a crush on his behated wife and immediately jumps to the conclusion that irina would want to fuck the guard for the sake of the kingdom. babygirl the hoops you are jumping........where is this gymnastics routine even going 😭 this man is not beating the meow meow allegations..

Favourite Character: It's really a tie between Miryem and Irina, who are both so similar yet different at the same time. Miryem's BDE was enjoyably explosive - she throws it in everyone's face, which is perfect to play off of the Staryk's otherworldly impassiveness. Irina's BDE was a lot more...steely. Quietly coming into her own as she realized how adept she was at politics, and how perfectly well-suited that made her to being tsarina - and when they finally met each other? it was so funny when were like 'hey...why dont we kill our husbands via pokemon battle??'

[just7frogsinapeoplesuit]

Finally reading the Locked Tomb series because for once it wasn't taken out of the library! Thoughts one book one (spoiler free):

- I loved that our point of view is a character who is completely clueless about everything that's happening. It felt like assembling a puzzle with most of the pieces missing. Very fun. I wish more authors did this. I can definitely see how other people could find it frustrating, though, especially considering that we're still mostly in the dark at the end of the book.

- The foreshadowing is done perfectly. We are never given too much information at once and rarely the whole picture, so even if you figure something out early on there's an extra layer to it during the Big Reveal that would only be noticeable on a re-read.

- Love the setting and the characters. They're unique and interesting and I'm excited to see where it goes from here. Science fantasy is a woefully underused genre.

- A lot of the characters' names are too long to be used in full all the time. I'm already bad with names, I cannot remember a large cast of people whose names are 4+ syllables, and it makes reading feel clunky when we have both "Protesilaus" and "Nonagesimus" multiple times on one page.

- The necromancer and cavalier of the 8th house are uncle and nephew, but the (younger-looking?) nephew is older by what seems to be a significant amount. I know this is completely possible, especially in a knights-and-lords society, but I feel like there should have been a sentence somewhere to acknowledge that their roles and ages don't match up as expected because it got confusing.

- The horror is really fun and creative, except for the blood writing and flickering lights in the scenes with the 4th teens which felt jarringly campy. Possibly that will be explained in a later book, or Muir was just having fun with tropes.

- Gideon's commentary sometimes breaks the immersion of the setting, which is otherwise done really well. For example, early in the book she describes her acne as "pizza face" when we know for a fact she's never encountered pizza and probably doesn't even know what dairy is. I don't think there's a way to justify her learning about whole types of food and a colorful assortment of swears and slang from magazines but not things like the concept of swimming and the existence of showers, which are clearly common in the places her magazines are from. The Autism in me wants to be bothered by this, but being funny is objectively the best reason to break the 4th wall a bit and she is very funny. Gideon is just the Locked Tomb Bugs Bunny.

- Re: immersion, my favorite detail is that Gideon's default unit of measurement is bodies. 10/10.

- My one real issue: the prose randomly switches between casual language Gideon would use and words that are about 3 levels more obscure than necessary. I could understand the obscure vocab if the word choice added something, but most of the time it doesn't and sometimes it's actually less applicable. I shouldn't have to look up words that fell out of the common lexicon over a century ago just to learn that what's being said is something like "this guy acts like a knight", and it doesn't make sense with Gideon as our POV. There is no way she's consistently thinking "deliquesce" instead of "melt away", especially not as part of a description that used "clusterfuck" two sentences earlier. Sometimes this shift happens midsentence and we get stuff like "a lahar of gunge"*. My spellchecker doesn't recognize either of those as words, because one is only used by volcano scientists and the other is so casual it's not in most dictionaries. Part of me is delighted by the choice to just chuck the whole English language into one book, but the inconsistent way it was executed made reading feel awkward and cumbersome at times, and having to somewhat frequently look up words that weren't actually adding anything got frustrating (I even looked up words I knew because sometimes the context made me think I had to be mistaking them for something else). I know it's not just me, because people regularly tell me I use words that are too obscure and I've had to learn to tone it down. I definitely wouldn't recommend this series to anyone with less than a solid "college level" vocabulary, and I think Muir's editor should've had a conversation along the lines of "most people are not immersed in worldbuilding research and/or in love with their thesaurus".

Overall, this was a fun read and I'm looking forward to the next two!

* Upon further reflection I think this one in particular is just a localization issue, since Muir is from New Zealand where lahars have historically been a threat and "gunge" is of UK origin. I'm guessing both words are much more commonplace in NZ than here in the US so if that's the case it's actually a fantastic bit of imagery I was too American to appreciate

EDIT: I just came across one of those "what's your English vocabulary size" tests and effortlessly got the highest possible score (which is apparently not at all common going by other people's results in the notes) so I feel further validated that the obscure vocab point is not me.

[kurisus]

Chapter 107-2 thoughts

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

OKAY WELL!

Literally earlier, before the chapter came out, I'd said I'm not believing Hiyori is dead. They'd have to show Yato naming her to get me to believe that. And then this chapter happened. Fuck me, I guess!

It seems like the general reaction to this is that it's sad but I'm not really sad I'm just angry. As it is, we have two options: (1) this is all a fakeout, one last time, or (2) this is actually the intent and the series will end with Hiyori being made Yato's shinki.

Neither is really ideal. A fakeout this late in the game seems pointless and would likely involve an asspull of some sort, but the alternative is something that absolutely spits on the themes of the manga thus far and effectively negates the arcs of both Hiyori and Yato.

So all in all, I really wish they hadn't gone this route in the first place, but I'll take the lesser of two evils at this point. This manga has always been about overcoming tragedy, your past does not define you, the near and far shores cannot survive without one another but too much interaction disrupts the balance, et goddamn cetera. Making Hiyori Yato's shinki makes this story a tragedy, teaches Yato the same lesson he's already learned (HOSPITAL ARC), and eliminates the only near shore major character in the entire series.

Now the question remains: can they still reverse this? Like I'll take anything at this point, but is it even possible within the story's logic? I want to say yes, and I've already seen a few rumors flying--this dimension is all an illusion, the koto no ha is destroyed so the bubble is too, the gods can reverse all the people that have died from the creatures, it could be possible for Hiyori to become a god, etc.... I'm clinging on to that first one personally, but at the same time, I feel a looming dread because...Yato saw Hiyori's memories. He saw memories he didn't personally witness, which kind of makes me think this is the real deal. But I also really don't fucking want it to be?

"Ina wasn't your first fic for the fandom literally this exact concept" YES because what makes a good AU wouldn't always be good in canon, right? This was something I wanted to explore in the concept of fanfiction, because it's a different medium to play with different ideas. At the end of it, I kind of went, "phew, that sure would be bad, wouldn't it!" and went on with my life.

I dunno man. I'm just angry and sad and disappointed, and it's annoying to me as well to look back at all the other things they've resolved perfectly. I think of how flawlessly executed Yukine's arc was, and want to cry. Why can't Hiyori get this same luxury? Fakeout or not, her arc should've been her parting ways, preferably on her own terms, because that's what the story's been leading up to. Yes, her grandma told her to be with the one she loves, but I assumed that was just in the moment, and wasn't actually foreshadowing her death.

THE FUCKING. HOSPITAL ARC. SHE IS SIXTEEN YEARS OLD SHE CAN'T DIE YET. NOT UNTIL SHE'S AN OLD LADY!!!! YATO SAID SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT DID HE LEARN FROM THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NEVER LOVE ANYTHING I FUCKING GUESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At this point I'm going to deny it either until Adachitoka says sike or the manga ends. But needless to say, my reread's been postponed. I've been putting it off because of being busy irl, but if I reread now I'll just be bitching the whole time, and I don't want to do that to myself, and I don't think you guys want to read that either.

If it ends this way, I'll be bruised and bitter for years. If Adachitoka says sike, and Father dies believing Hiyori is dead (cause what was up with him losing his eyes), I'll at least cherish this one small mercy, but man, this is a sore blow. I'm sorry that normally my thoughts are excited and this one's just angry, but I can't put a positive spin on this yet.

Feel free to send me your theories or copium. I'll devour them all until I get made a clown of once more.

[littlegoblininyourshoe]

My opinion on SOME Noah ships :) (Please request some you want me to rate. In the ask box on my account.)

SPOILERS FOR TOTAL DRAMA PRESENTS THE RIDONCULOUS RACE!!!

Mickey x Noah

Yes, this exists. In concept, it's really cute. In execution, it's not good. I think this would be a cute ship... if Mickey wasn't 16 years old and Noah wasn't an adult. Maybe a one-sided crush on Mickey's end? With Noah saving him and giving him the ring in the "Hawaiian Honeyruin" episode, but, the crush soon falls apart when he finds out Noah is an adult. Anyways, the concept is cute. I just don't like shipping adults and children together, personally.

2/10 (2 points for idea.)

Noah x Emma

YIPPPEEE! Oh, they are so adorable together. Yes, I didn't really like how cringe Noah was before they got together or the broken plot point. But I get it, man's was in love, and they are SO cute together. They are perfect for one another, and I am also a sucker for canon ships aswell. Not much to say about this, just look at them :)).

9/10 (Removed a point for the cringe parts.)

Lindsay x Noah

AAAAAWWWW! They seem so cute together, I am a Lyler shipper (Lindsay x Tyler), but I am also a Lindsay x Noah shipper (dunno the ship name)! I just think they would be adorable together. Smart guy who doesn't care about fashion at all x dumb girl who is all about fashion. They are just perfect. It's so silly, and I feel like they would be friends outside of the show because even though Noah thinks Lindsay is a complete moron that sometimes frustrates him, he also finds it endearing in a way. Also, they are both my most favorite characters, so yeah.

8/10 (Just because I do like Lyler even more.)

Noah x Owen

If you look at my posts, you can tell my opinion on this ship... I ABSOLUTELY HATE IT- (/j)

In all seriousness, yeah, I adore this ship. I love best friend ships (aka, Friends to Lovers), and they are just silly together. They are so different that it's a very pleasant surprise that they became friends. Noah does have a tendency to be a bit mean to Owen (especially in Ridonculous Race, when he barely helps at all during the broken ark. I hate that ark so much, man.) But they are still quite cute together.

9/10 (Removed one for Noah being mean.)

Cody x Noah

I don't personally ship it, but there's nothing wrong if you do. It's perfectly harmless and apparently was supposed to be canon before it was changed. I see the two as friends, though. Not much to say, pretty harmless ship.

6/10

Noah x Alejandro

I, again, don't personally ship this, I am more of a fan of Alejandro x Heather, and I like them better as enemies or even rival friends. Nothing is particularly wrong with this ship, and I understand why you would ship it, but I dont.

7/10 (Added a point because "Alejandro" by Lady Gaga started playing when writing my opinion.)

[tamelee]

random question but if you were to change ONE thing about the naruto universe (naruto, naruto shippuden, baruto), what would it be? i love reading your opinions. they're so well-put but feel free to ignore if you don't want to answer or if you've answered something similar before :)

Oh, thank you! *-* And I have before maybe? But my answer might’ve changed by now!

I’m such an idiot though, I read over the ‘Universe’ part and wrote a whole answer about what I would’ve changed about the story itself :’)!! I changed it~

Do you mean the Setting? Politics? The System? Powers? It’s hard to say what I would change because any necessary changes had to be discovered by the characters themselves. For most questions we already have answers. (Though not all are executed.) The Setting was a platform for problems and the characters caused a plot to happen which purpose was to find answers, right? On towards the great aha-moments~

To me anything ‘boruto’ isn’t included in the Narutoverse though, because it really has nothing to do with ‘Naruto’ and it’s an entirely different world where a lot of things contradicts what we knew about it and the issues about the world are forgotten and blamed on aliens because that’s easier I guess and we can keep pretending to all be happy besties because Sasuke was right and we have a common enemy 🙄

But introducing that concept in Part 2 with Kaguya and her sons is definitely something I would change. Everyone can start reading/watching 'Naruto' and understand that using Jutsu through energy from within the body is more than enough. A little exposition here and there to see how that works with the body or whenever anything new came up, was all that is needed. But even then, it wasn’t really necessary to understand the physics of it all and I bet rarely anyone really remembered the first time as I rarely see 'stamina' mentioned. Literally no one. No one ever. Not a single soul needed an explanation about some magical fruit hanging from the 'god tree' that one alien lady one day decided to eat. (I'm getting scared for Sasuke now ngl.)

It’s like watching horror movies. The ‘horror’ literally gets destroyed when they show what the mysterious and invisible antagonistic demon/ghost/killer ACTUALLY is. Give it an appearance or over-explain and you ruin all the fun. Have you seen Paranormal? That's why the first one worked despite the low rating and why the ones where they gave the ghosts a shape/body didn't. And this sorta happened with ‘Naruto’ as well. We didn't need it, nor Kaguya's sob-backstory, or the excruciatingly drawn-out Shinobi war because of it. I guess one thing that really has always annoyed me about it as well is that it made people believe that Naruto and Sasuke’s bond solely relied on fate/destiny even if that wasn't said specifically. That their feelings all of a sudden were presupposed and had nothing to do with.... the entirety of their journeys like wth! The whole point for them was to find their individuality only to say in the end that SIKE the only reason they even interacted was because they had ancient chakra clinging to them. As if all they have done didn’t matter because it wasn’t even them, it was influenced by Hagoromo's alien children. Come on now. 

So, I would remove the entire explanation about the origin of Chakra. It is perfectly fine to create a world where that just is. We don’t need to know why and neither do the characters. Shinobi are all born in a world where that is normal and no one cares about finding it out either because it doesn't even matter, IT WASN'T THE ISSUE. I would keep the real issues in the world and have them fix, acknowledge and face them all because it is the world that they’ve always known and to their knowledge always has been. Rabbit aliens be damned. 

[aotopmha]

The final bits of the lvl 88 MSQ I have thoughts on are the dungeon and the trial.

Ktisis Hyperboreia was a little less impactful for me compared to all of the other dungeons in Endwalker.

Zot had the really cool interior design and final boss, Babil had the really cool train set piece that lead into the tower and Anima, which narratively led perfectly into what came next, Vanaspati had the scale, tension and awesome monster designs.

Eventhough Ktisis gave you the chance to run a dungeon with the ancients and explore an ancient facility, only the final leg of the dungeon had a setting and a boss I found to be pretty cool: while the rest wasn't bad, it also wasn't as cool and interesting as some other encounters before it.

It was a cool idea that really deserved more interesting execution in my eyes.

So how does The Atiascope compare to them all?

Well, The Atiascope is equally a feast on the eyes as well as lore brain.

I think it is probably the best-looking dungeon of the game so far and I can't wait to see it with the graphical update.

We actually see what the Aetherial Sea approximately looks like, and the echoes of the souls of our friends accompany us on our way to Hydaelyn.

I think how souls work here also explains the apoearances of Haurchefant and Y'sayle when Estinien is freed from Niddhog's eyes. It's trace of their (memory) aether still not having moved on to the sea proper.

Sometimes the big lore dungeons can be less interesting mechanically than narratively (I love Amaurot, but feel like the cool monster designs deserved more interesting mechanics), but I think I enjoyed all of the bosses in the Atiascope because they gave new twists to old foes.

Livia, Rhitahtyn and Amon all had really neat twists to their fighting style and attacks.

I like the positioning with Livia.

I like opening up the safe spot for the walls Rhitahtyn creates. Shields as weapons is always such a neat concept to me.

And Shiva creating the ice block for Amon's attack is one of coolest story-gameplay integration moments in the game for me.

What a fantastic idea.

Between the bosses, the souls we see are:

- Papalymo, with Ilberd as a strong mob to take down.

- Haurchefant, who gives us a buff.

- Minfilia, who we see creating the way forward at some point.

- And of course, as mentioned Shiva/Y'sayle, who creates the ice block to protect you from Amon's attack.

The cutscene after the dungeon gives us closure on Amon, which I already went into in another post here, but it also gives closure on Asahi.

I love how the hatred between Asahi and Alphinaud is mutual.

"Likewise I hope we do not meet again."

In the cutscene before the trial, Hydaelyn sums up the character arcs and struggles everyone has gone through and also restates that she ultimately sundered reality for humanity to have a chance against Meteion, for which they need the ability to manipulate Dynamis.

And most crucially she restates that what she did caused much suffering; it was simply her solution to the problem of humanity's survival, not the morally optimal option out of any of the solutions the ancients could find. And I think that's my favourite part of her story.

She implemented the best solution she could think of that would preserve humanity's future, and it was still imperfect and caused much pain.

And then we get to the trial itself.

Which was a little bit of a let down in my eyes because Zodiark was so good.

It's, again, great on the lore level because we see all of these iconic elements associated with her character used in the fight.

We see her as an all-rounder fighter, then must defeat the crystals styled after the ones we initially get from her and finally, we see her create mini Floods of Light.

However, I don't find it particularly unique mechanically.

I still like it, I just don't find it mindblowing.

What I like about her farewell afterwards (this also applies to the cutscene before the fight), is that we get to address her as Venat because I think the real intention with her characterisation in Endwalker was to humanise her.

Not necessarily to make her good or bad morally, but to give her beliefs she acts upon with conviction.

I see the intention behind her character as that of an incredibly strong, but still imperfect woman put into a difficult situation, who fought for the future of humanity with all of her might.

And I think she deserves to be sent off as that "human" woman, not the "goddess" she became.

And finally, here is where I mention the details that the Labyrinthos/Atiascope section uses to bring the story full circle: the Dalamud shards, which were a symbol of the Seventh Umbral Calamity are now used to save humanity along with the Mothercrystal, which has been a stand-in/symbol for Hydaelyn for so long, is used as a fuel to travel to Meteion.

Once again, I think it's all just really well done.

And with the next quest I'm at being the first lvl 89 quest, I'm officially in the final stretch of 6.0.

I was planning to get to it today, but I think I also have other plans today and the next few days, so I'll see how it works out time-wise.

Aiming for it in the upcoming days/week for sure, though.

[adobe-outdesign]

have you done a Grarrl review yet?

The Grarrl is a t-rex, and...well, that's pretty much it. It has all of the standard t-rex features: sharp teeth, reptilian eyes, and small arms. They're fine, but it doesn't feel like there's a whole lot with the base color that really makes them stand out outside of just having a lot of teeth compared to other Neopets (Poogle and Jetsam not withstanding).

I feel like part of the issue is that the Grarrl's body is completely solid in color by default, with no patterns or markings to break it up. Given their prehistoric status, I feel like stripes or speckles would've made sense; just something to break up the body and give them a tad more flavor. As is, all we have are the teeth and the green eyes with red pupils (which tend to be consistent across most, but not all, colors).

Beyond that, the base colors are alright, though for some reason the blue barely has any shading and the yellow is this off-putting dirty "mustard" color.

While the Grarrl's design has always been plain, I do think customization did them extremely dirty. Instead of being allowed to keep a more vicious expression, the Grarrl was instead saddled with an awkward smile that makes them look like they're posing for school picture day. In contrast, the old Grarrl's art gives them a big open mouth and allows them an angrier expression, which both looks much more natural and gives them a lot more personality.

Favorite Colors:

Maraquan: One of the only Grarrl pets that wasn't saddled with an awkward smile post-conversion, the Maraquan Grarrl is one of the best-looking Grarrls out there. Making a t-rex into a shark for the aquatic color works perfectly as a concept, and the execution's really nice; adding a very neat-looking ridged back fin and horizontal tail that sharks don't usually have, and fixing the plainness of the default Grarrl design by adding in a mottled white underbelly with small teal accents.

Neither version is terrible, though the UC/styled design is the better one—the fins aren't being forced into a fist, the colors aren't as over-saturated, and the tail fin shape looks a lot better (it's supposed to have a hook-like shape, not have a random spike coming off of it).

Halloween: Not only is a vampire a good choice for something with sharp teeth, but I really like the colors here; a very light minty body is contrasted with black and red accents, which makes it look both pale but also provides nice contrast without being too monotone. The cape also adds just the right amount of detail without being overly busy or detailed. The expression and mouth on the converted version, while still not as good as the old art, does look a bit more endearing and less awkward than usual, and I really wish they had used that mouth shape for the default Grarrl.

As of writing, there's only a "spooky" style instead of an actual nostaligic style that matches the old art, but reguardless it does look very nice. I like the pose and expression a lot, it brings back the black clasp (which was made blue for some reason during conversion), and I like the addition of the claws on the feet. Only complaint is that I wish they had given it darker eye bags, which were present both on the original art and the converted art.

Faerie: The faerie Grarrl having feathers is interesting, because feathered wings are usually restricted to avian Neopets; but then again dinosaurs are birds, so this is actually pretty clever. The orange, pink, and yellow palette looks nice, and I really like the speckled markings here and the addition of horns and dragon-like whiskers.

Unsurprisingly the UC/styled art is better, though I will say the converted has slightly better wings; I can't quite figure out the perspective on the original art. That said, the original art's head shade and expression look 10x better so you know, pick your poison.

[maschotch]

I was rewatching season 5 and I'm sorry but I find the episode immediately after hotch gets his shit wrecked by foyet so funny bc they're all treating him like he's this unhinged psycho like abdjfjds yeah I GET that that's what he was supposed to be like but the way they executed it, he really wasn't that out of order. It's just funny to me when he did like literally anything the other character on screen would look at him like 😧😦🫢

i actually find this soooo interesting for so many reasons.

foyet is the first "big bad" we really get for criminal minds. i've said a lot about whether this was a good directional shift for the show, but it was an interesting move to target the team leader first. hotch has, for the most part, gone largely unrecognized by the drama of the show so far. sure he's had his divorce blah blah, but he doesn't talk about it much. if he doesn't talk about it, the team's curiosity will fade sooner rather than later. that seems to be his strategy whenever something is going on with him. and it tends to work.

but now it's different. this was a serious event that happened. they can't help but recognize the severity of what just happened, and there's a palpable difference in the team dynamic because of it. so when everyone has their eyes on hotch, scrutinizing his every move, i don't think it's necessarily because he's acting different (even tho he is--even if his general risk assessment is the same, he's still initially snappier towards friends and strangers than they're used to seeing from him), but because they're aware of his presence in a way that they're not accustomed: he's vulnerable. he's not the unbreakable monolith of stability the team has believed him to be this whole time. i think a big reason why it hit the team so hard isn't just because of what happened, but the way their relationships have all developed up until now.

morgan and garcia are very clearly the most concerned out of everyone. beyond their closeness, i think that has a lot to do with both of them losing a parent/parents at a young age. seeing their leader--who they have so much respect and love for--severely wounded fucks them up!! hotch more or less holds a father figure role in both of their lives, and it's not something that appeared out of nowhere (and here i'll add reid since he doesn't have the trauma of a parent's death, but he does see hotch as a parental figure). it's the result of years and years of building trust, both in character and as a symbol of strength and security (which is now relevant to jj, whose whole character development is about trying to emulate that mythical strength). their faith is shaken in him--not because of his own actions, but because of their own idealized concept of him that was challenged by hotch's very very human fallibility. even emily, who doesn't rely on him emotionally the way the rest of the team does, is disturbed, but only because she sees him as a protector of the team--as a protector of the new chance of life she has with them. now that that's threatened, she needs to see his safety through with her own eyes (which is why she's the first to notice him missing, and the one who needs to drive him to and from work after this). he's the rock of the team, and no one expects the rock to crack.

i hate when rossi ends up the voice of reason, but in this case it really makes sense. he doesn't have any aggrandized notions of who hotch is: he watched hotch grow within the bau. rossi knows how to push hotch, when to push hotch, because he knows hotch won't break easy. even when hotch hates himself, like the original omnivore episode, rossi doesn't hesitate to shove a gun in hotch's hand and tell him to kill himself because he knows hotch would never. rossi's perfectly aware of the weaknesses hotch refuses to let the rest of the team see. when rossi tries to assuage derek's worries, it's not because he doesn't care, but because he knows not to stifle him. he knows hotch will get through this, he just needs time. i think everyone's reaction to hotch's return is perfectly emblematic of their relationship to him: morgan questions his authority suddenly because the inherent trust is lost. emily is above all worried about his safety because she knows that jeopardizes the team. reid is worried but he doesn't interfere because, as far as he's concerned, hotch can handle it. garcia is worried but doesn't interfere because she doesn't know how to help. jj's concern is more akin to pity because the bastion of strength she's respected for so long ended up being just as human as the rest of them. rossi's concern for hotch is on the back burner because he sees that the team is fracturing around the edges

i love 5x02 because we spend surprisingly little time on hotch dealing with his emotions; instead, we focus on the team dealing with hotch's vulnerability. they're fully aware of him for the first time, and they overreact to everything they would normally accept at face value. they rarely question his judgment before this because they trust him implicitly. he's proven himself, and it's heartbreaking that--through no fault of his own--he has to build that trust back. rossi says to derek "we have to show we have his back." derek interprets that as watching his back, to double check every decision and making sure he's alright based on those decisions. even jj knows that, given the heat he's getting from his superiors, that's the last thing hotch needs.