#frog show insanity shenanigans

[darcysd20]

saying this here not to continue clogging the rbs of an almost 3 year old post but i do love the idea that andrias had the possession happen in front of olivia and yunan was to punish them for their betrayal... so like not only would she blame herself for it she might also feel like it wouldnt have happened if not for her (and sure it wouldve happened either way but being forced to watch makes it feel so much worse)

and additionally its not really as canon compliant but in laaauc at least she WAS supposed to be put under for the possession but andrias doesnt let them so that they can be punished by being forced to watch marcy tortured as a result of their actions and that REALLY drives in the guilt bc . if it wasnt for them it wouldve been painless. they only wanted to save her but they made things worse for her.

however in canon my idea for why she wasnt put under for it (or even even planned to. i cant really say she was kept awake for it to punish olivia and yunan when the chair is clearly designed to restrain someone whos awake for this extremely painful thing) is bc like. they need her mind conscious to really get in there idk. they cant just knock her out bc its all about her mind. but at the same time they still need to stop her from being able to resist. and torture works pretty well for that!!!!!!!

marcangst is eternal

Yeah I agree that it probably would’ve happened anyway but there’s no reason that Olivia would know that for certain so it leads to so much blame on her end. I hadn’t really considered Andrias being the one to force this but I definitely can see that due to how vindictive he is about betrayal (especially with what happened to Marcy at the end of tc, I’m imagining it’s more of a gaping wound now more than ever). The laaauc au angle is super ouchies wough…

To be honest I had just assumed the chair was like that to limit her convulsing due to the electrical current? I guess? Not that a torture chair is gonna do a great job of protecting her from hurting herself further by flinging herself to the floor or something but at least she’s kept in one spot? Also probably would’ve been safer to keep her restrained while the data was being transferred, which I’m imagining is what the actual intent was.

But yeah what you said makes sense because she’s having her will broken by torture she physically and mentally can’t handle, ergo she’s less likely to resist in the future. Though now that I think about it, even if The Core hadn’t tampered with her memories I’m not sure she would’ve remembered what happened to her regardless given the nature of it. For better or for worse…

Very interesting thoughts regardless though!

[waterlilyvioletfog]

10 CDramas I Enjoyed Enough To Recommend!

1. Nirvana in Fire (2015) — 5/5 ⭐️ 54 Episodes. This is genuinely as good as its reputation. It is a political palace drama and it is insanely compelling. My mom agrees that this is good. You can watch it on YouTube, but I recommend watching on Viki (which you can sign up with for free) bc cdramas on YT can have weird issues with audio + I’m pretty sure the versions available on YT are heavily edited to cut out Zhang Zhehan.

2. The Untamed (2019) — 4/5 ⭐️ 50 Episodes 🏳️‍🌈 Owns me. Censored BL low-xianxia setting. None of my family believe me about how good it is because they keep seeing out of context episodes and scenes. The Untamed is something you have to just sit through. It is a boiling frog situation. Beats out #3 despite being of lower quality (look. Those special effects…) because this is my best friend my silly rabbit my blorbo my love. My stinky cheese, even. Netflix, YouTube, and Viki.

3. A Journey to Love (2023) — 4.5/5 ⭐️ 40 Episodes. A mixture of court drama, wuxia adventure, and romance. So so so many dramas WANT to be this show, to balance court politics and wuxia shenanigans and epic romance but, frankly, only AJTL manages to perfectly balance all of its genres, plots, and characters. I cried watching the end. I watched this on YouTube, but it’s also on iQIYI.

4. Love Between Fairy And Devil (2022) — 4/5 ⭐️ 36 Episodes. Xianxia romance. Despite outward appearances of trite banality and overdone tropes, this show is gorgeous, insanely compelling, and will sit with you. My mom calls this “the fairy show :D”. Suffers in pacing towards the end, but sticks the landing. Netflix, Viki, iQIYI.

5. Word of Honor (2021) — 4/5 ⭐️ 36 Episodes 🏳️‍🌈 Wuxia adventure censored BL. Lead actor Zhang Zhehan is… a bit of a touchy subject, but I still consider this one of the best cdramas I’ve watched and I do still recommend it. Like LBFAD, pacing suffers in last quarter, but sticks the landing. Netflix, YouTube, Viki.

6. Lost You Forever S1 (2023) — 4/5 ⭐️ 39 Episodes. Xianxia reverse harem romance. Now that description may not sound compelling. But. Idk how to tell you this but I’m insane about this drama. Is it ~good~? I honestly can’t say. I’m insane about it. S2 is probably gonna be a flop and kill my love for it but for now? We’re riding high, baby!! YouTube, Viki, probably iQIYI.

7. The Rise of Phoenixes (2018) — 4/5 ⭐️ 70 Episodes. Court drama/romance. Actually you know what I DON’T recommend this. But like I DO need people to watch it so I have people to talk to about it with 🥺 Watching this is an exercise in masochism. It is gorgeous. It is insanely compelling. Watch like. The first 50 episodes because pretty much the rest of it is just [muffled screams]. Apparently it’s coming soon to Viki which is good bc it’s not on Netflix anymore 🙃

8. Couple of Mirrors (2021) — 3.5/5 ⭐️ 12 Episodes 🏳️‍🌈 1930s Shanghai censored GL romance. Hardly the highest quality, but it’s really fun, and you know what. Does a thing have to be good, historically coherent, and have two full seasons? Is it not enough for a show to be about lesbians??? Who are wanted for murders they may or may not have committed??? YouTube and Viki.

9. New Life Begins (2022) — 3.5/5 ⭐️ 40 Episodes. Fluffy court romance. Is this actually good idek I haven’t re-watched at all. What it is is a solid, serviceable, fluffy little het court romance with Feminism 101 undergirding it all. I liked it perfectly fine. There are many kinds of women and they should all be happy and free to pursue their passions!! Women who are friends!! And you know what? So true, cute little cdrama. So true. YouTube, Viki, iQIYI.

10. The Starry Love (2023) — 3/5 ⭐️ 40 Episodes. Xianxia romance. For the most part, a lighthearted comedic romance drama. It’s cute. It’s fun. It is sometimes comically low-quality, but it’s mostly charming and I like the visuals in general. The main pairing, while fun, doesn’t interest me as much as the secondary pairing or the friendship/sisterhood aspects of it. YMMV with this one. Viki and YouTube.

Honorable mention— The Blood of Youth (2022) Probably better overall than at least a few of these entries, but I’m just still so sad abt my favorite character dying :( Could be gayer.

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

MAC. OH MY GOD. HEAD IN HANDS. HOLY SHIT. ashe is in college (normal college i think??) VYCNENT IS IN SUPERHERO COLLEGE!!!! wiwi fucking around in the woods..... dakota also in college i think??? idk that wasn't super clear 2 me but i think he's there IDK I WAS JUST SO EXCITED FOR ALL OF THEM TO BE LIKE. EXISTING IN THE SAME PLACE!!!! ashe oughhh ashe i missed u ashe <3 i like to think he still has the trickster's wings. thats canon 2 me idc. oh my godd they're doing like. relatively normal shit!!!!!! aaaa!!!! oh i need 2 write a fic about them in college. i got 2. i MUST. even just a oneshot idc i wanna do it!!!

THE IRL MARIOKART AGAIN!!!! LE FROG!!! WILLIAM'S FUNERAL!!!! THE SILLIES ARE BACK!!!!!!!! SHENANIGANS!!!! oh that was so good. that was SO GOOD!!!!! oh im going 2 cry. i didn't cry and then it got to dakota with his aunt and i teared up a lil and then it had william falling off the cliff and landin gin the dirt and just. holding the soil in his hands and feeling it and i actually cried a lil. man. also CANTRIP IS NOT IN THE SPIRIT WORLD!!! WHERE IS SHE!!! DOES THIS MEAN SHE'S ALIVE OR IS SHE A GHOST I DON'T KNOWWWW GOD I WANT 2 KNOW. I WANT 2!!!! and atlas being killed. an X being carved into him. XAVIER VILLAIN ARC????? 👀👀👀👀 PERHAPS??? god i hope so. i would love to see him as a villain. i rly like xavier actually and i think he deserves to go a little apeshit <3 SO EXCITED FOR WHATEVER THE FUCK IS GONNA HAPPEN WITH MAL!!! GUY WAS ALREADY FUCKED UP AND NOW HE'S EVEN MORE UNHINGED!!!!! i like mal a lot. he fucking sucks. terrible horrible awful little man. i love him so much he's such a cool fucking character i want to throw him out a window <3 idiot shit bastard man!!!!!! and william asking vyncent if he would come to ghim funeral. bro was like THIS CLOSE 2 asking him out. i am telling u. and btw william's fucking "vyncent did you realize anything while i was gone?" right ebfore vyncent just passes tf out in ep39 was so fucking. yeah. that's ghostknife!!!!!!! it always almost happens and then it fucking doesn't!!! i love that for them i hope they're ten times as gay and awkward in s3 <3

GOD. that was so good. finales always fuck me up dude. im so fucking emotional. i feel like my entire being is vibrating like a lightning rod or some shit. ALSO u gotta send me more trivia abt the episodes!!! i think the last one u sent me was for episode 15 of s2. GOD PLS SEND ME GREYSCALE AND DEADWOOD TRIVIA!!!!!! I WANT IT!!!!! I WANT 2 KNOW WHAT THE HELL CHARLIE WAS THINKING DURING GREYSCALE. WHAT WERE UR THOUGHTS KING!!! TELL ME MR SLMCL!!!!!!!!

man. im gonna listen 2 bitb next but i feel like i gotta take a few days first yk??? i gotta let that shit sink in. i hope ur havin a good time reading worm <3 i wil start worm soon!! i just wanna get thru jrwi first bc if i try to get into more than one thing at a time that i know will inhabit my entire brain i feel like my brain is melting. too many blorbo thoughts i gotta stick to one thing first. anyway yeah that was. fucking wild <3 ty for getting me into jrwi i regret nothing

HIIIIIIIIIII WHISKEY. SORRY I LET THIS SIT IN MY INBOX FOR SO LONG I LOVE YOU.AUGH. PRIME DEFENDERS MY LOVE. every day i think about yakko showing up in cosplay . that made me so happy. ashe winters i love you so dearly. i have so many thoughts about post s2 ashe. if ashe isnt in s3 im going to fucking riot.

when i tell you that fucking part with the cliff made me UGLY CRY . like full on. "and you stay there" lives in my head forever.

EXTREMELY EXCITED ABOUT A POSSIBLE XAVIER VILLAIN ARC. LIKE. THATS GOTTA BE HIM RIGHT. THAT CANT NOT BE HIM. i wonder if allen is with him. fuck. AND WHERES CANTRIP. GOD. i miss her :( i think she deserves to go full vengeful spirit on williams ass and haunt him like a fucking poltergeist. god forbid women do anything.

dude finales fuck me up so bad too. god. 39 hurts me just a little bit more than 40 but 40 is still SOOOO insanely good to me. 40 was like the breath of fresh air we needed. i dont think 40 hit me as hard as a finale because i know we're getting a 3rd season so its not OVER yet. but something about it just made it feel so much more impactful than a regular season finale. god. i miss them so much.

IM SO GLAD YOU GOT INTO JRWI !!!!!!! ITS BEEN SO FUN SEEING YOU GUYS REACT TO EVERYTHING!!!!!! jrwi has been like. HUGE main hyperfix for me since like. last october. so im having sooooo much fun forever. hehehehe. me when my beloved mutuals and i are all into the same piece of media again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[squarebracket-trickster]

Make Me Write Tag Game

@forthesanityofstorytellers with this post, and @words-after-midnight with this one...

Well. Well. Well. Your timing is impeccable, both of you. I am taking a break from WIPVII until August 1st and I have three other WIPs I want to work on in the meantime. I guess I'm making a poll to decide which one to work on first!

Rules: Make a 24hr poll listing the titles of every WIP you want to work on. (It’s fine if you only have one, still make a poll for the vote count). Whichever WIP title gets the most votes, write 1 sentence for every vote received.

(if you are unsure if you are doing it right you can refer to this post I made about tag game guidelines in general. Of course, they are just guidelines. You can do your own thing if you want and no one can stop you.)

Ever so delicately tagging: @olivescales3, @tea-and-mercury, @avocado-frog, @avidink, @aziz-reads, @quintonli, and @marzipan-corner, and, you know what? This is a pretty cool idea. I'm gonna leave an open tag for anyone who wants to do it too.

Descriptions of each WIP are under the cut.

WIPXIV (WIP 14) is brand-spanking new. I thought up the idea while researching medieval clothing for WIPVII. I don't really have a plot yet but something... something... puesdo-sciencey time-travel shenanigans but the equipment is telescopes, mirrors, hand-cranked projectors etc. etc. and our main cast are a ragtag group from the 1450s who have to travel to various points in the past and future (including our present-day. sort of. there are dragons in this version of our world) to save it from a yet-to-be-determined impending doom. The most important part of this WIP (according to me) is that I make a point of showing how futuristic Elizabethan ruff-collars and how old-fashioned those 1100s style girdles would feel to these characters. I am tired of pseudo-medieval worlds that act like ruff-collars and butterfly veils and floor-length pigtail braids co-existed at the same time.

WIPXII (WIP 12) was a project I started for NaNo last year. I wrote 25k words and then realized I had no idea where I was going with it so I left it to simmer for a while. It is a magic school story, and it is undeniably a response to a favourite childhood author of mine who turned out to be a bigot. This is a project for me to steal the things I loved from the story I grew up with, but write something that I can actually enjoy without getting an icky feeling. My main character is a fat, Jewish, bisexual trans-girl named Shiri and the themes of this story are anti-capitalist and highly critical of the school system. The story is about the magical subcultures and student-run intellectual and activist clubs who are fighting against censorship, gatekeeping of magical knowledge, and the authoritarian government that has a terrible track record of human rights abuses.

WIPIV (WIP 4 or How to Take Over the World). One of my few WIPs with an official name, HtTOtW is the story of an invisibly disabled 20-something who is sick of being underestimated and feeling like she is immature, undisciplined, and a failure for not being as far along in post-secondary and her career-path as her peers. To shut up the voices in her head (and those of society) once and for all, she plans to do the most impressive thing she can think of: take over the world. I've put this project off for a while because it will require an insane amount of research and RIP my search history. The Canadian Secret Service is gonna have a file on me after this. But I do have some ideas for a character study and the mc is such a self-insert ohmygosh. This is my catharsis project.

[randoediot]

Talk about your ocs? Cool facts? Interesting facts? Robot material composition?

oh man... where to even begin... so far, i have in a total of 4, 2 of which haven't had any drawings in a little while made of them - Phroggy the frog: the froggiest of fat lasses, possesses a tongue that she has incredible control over, which can be mistaken for a tentacle with the way she moves it. a goddess of expansions and corpulence, with literally no size limit, which naturally, causes a hell of a lot of shenanigans Fun fact: once, at a reunion party, she had to shrink down to the size that her old acquaintances last saw her at and get herself a big, dark dress to go with, and she managed to meet up at the party the party was a massive bust for her, so she left early; the moment she got home, she instantly plumped up back to the size you usually see me depict, and said to the robutt:

"I'm gonna need to be fed, to the point where this dress is left in tatters, because that will be the only saving grace for tonight's ordeal." Another fun fact: before she left, she asked one of her more known acquaintances to meet up with her at a park, so that she can show herself off for a bit, which included her expansion abilities. She then proceeded to instantly put on like, 400 kg in an instant. The acquaintance got so shocked and flustered by this that they almost went insane trying to comprehend as to how she did that. Yet another fun fact: her favorite place to go doesn't exist on planet Earth, as it is a sort of hot waterfall that is placed at the edge of the universe. - Ediot the robutt: born out of a project for research of machine sentience, they were also the first one to, apparently, desire a bigger, softer body from the start. For which, the materials were provided by Dr. Shelley "Pebble" Shingleton, originally meant as a way stronger and more versatile, long lasting, and a hell of a lot more durable material than the strongest rubber and metal Fun fact: the whole project for machine sentience research all started from a prank that Shelley's research team pulled on their supervisor, which involved a mannequin made from the exact same material that the robutt is made out of, and inflated to the point of filling out the entirety of the supervisor's office. Another fun fact: the robutt's belly contains a glowing, viscous jelly that is an extremely potent fattening agent. It is reported to taste sweet, smooth and delicious, with lots describing it as more-ish as well Dr. Shelley "Pebble" Shingleton: an astronaut, a test pilot, materials' research and developer and deep space explorer, this Sand Hare is also known for their peculiarly strong bite, capable of chomping off tungsten with how you chew gum. An accomplished scientist and pioneer, they've also been one of the few members to participate in a machine sentience research project, giving consciousness to the beings of silicon, circuit and wire. Fun fact: despite being technically their creator, the bnnuy and the robutt are on very equal terms Another fun fact: one of their worst moments to ever happen, as described by them, was a deorbiting and fall of a 10,000 man space station back to Earth, with massive swaths of land, stretching all across the globe, being bombarded and impacted by the space debris. Yuna Higgins: a coastal engineer and researcher, whom is also, a balloon gal, capable of inflating on her own accord at any time, having helped with a couple coastal dam projects around her area Fun fact: she can dish it, but can't take it, meaning that she might even inflate to room size, if you get her flustered enough

[sashannarcy]

Sjjd sorry, not a joke I actually wanna know the premise and stuff

NOPE NOPE THAT'S OKAY that's why I wanted to check!!

Amphibia is about a group of three middle schoolers who literally get isekai'd to another dimension (Amphibia!) full of walking talking amphibians. the three of them are separated, so they all land in a different place and have to adjust to their circumstances. the story primarily follows Anne Boonchuy as the main protagonist, an initially self-centered scruffy kid with a half-baked idea of who she is and what she's actually worth. she ends up getting adopted by the Plantars, a frog family that lives in the most redneck, old-fashioned town imaginable, named Wartwood. the main plot is that Anne is trying to find her other two friends and get home - she has the Calamity Box, the thing that transported her and her friends to Amphibia in the first place, but it's not working. whoops! and that's the general premise.

however, I cannot stress to you enough how quickly the show dissolves into something much deeper once you get through season 1. the s1 finale is tragic and very jarring; it's a good introduction to the darker themes of the show. Amphibia is full of very fun filler that is always lighthearted and warm and stuffed with silly shenanigans - and then it'll clock you in the face with emotional angst that you will not see coming. the writing of the three humans in particular is something that has struck me to my core; I truly have never seen anything like it in any other show, which is why my life has practically been taken over by this goddamn storyline. I guarantee you that you will never in a million years be able to predict how this story ends if you haven't been spoiled already.

one last thing: Amphibia is insanely character-driven. nearly every character introduced to you in the show has a fleshed out arc that emphasizes growth and change above all else. Anne is a fantastic protagonist that basically flips all the typical protagonist ideals on their heads and then makes you love her even more for it. my point here is just that there is a very potent love for these characters that shines throughout the entire story, and I don't think Amphibia would be Amphibia without this clear adoration of its characters. please watch it. it is so fucking good.

[moon-ursidae]

TBOBF EPISODE 6 SPOILERS

i am very late on this bc i had it saved and ready in my docs but i never had the time to copy and paste it here

much like last time, these were my thoughts when watching episode 6 for the first time!! this is another long one folks so strap in!!!

-ayo mos pelgo??

-YUUUP

-COBB VANTH I MISSED YO SEXY ASS

-yea you flex those stripes

-THE CALLBACK WITH THE “i’m the one that tells folks what to do”

-quick reflexes are so hot like idk what it is

-he really said “respectfully if ya’ll come here agin you’re fucked”

-THE MARSHAL’S TALE IN THE BACKGROUND AHHHHHHH

-god the music is so fucking good goddamn

-ayo dune pt 2 looks great

-the intro music is sooo good

-DIN DJARIN YEAAAA

-these cockpit shots are so sexy they look phenomenal

-IS THAT R2

-R2222222222222 FUCK YEA

-listen i love the crest but this new ship looks SLICK as fuck

- omg din djarin saying skywalker????

-calling r2 friend????

-AHHHHHH

-i’ll never get over him saying grogu either

-omg these ant droids are kinda cute

-AHH THE JEDI SCHOOL

-the jedi school…

-din djarin has met his match when it comes to sass

-”is that a bench?” SIR PLEASEEEE

-i love him

-he’s so done rn he just wants to see his kid

-i love the juxtaposition whenever din is in a place that is seemingly tranquil

-here’s this dude armed to the fuckin teeth in this place that makes you feel the most serene you’ll ever feel in your life

-it’s so funny i love it

-i love these shots of the forest i feel like they’re supposed to be representative of the force in a way??

-OH MY GOD THERE HE IS

-DIN I FOUND UR KID

-OH MY FUCKING GOD CGI LUKE LOOKS FUCKING PHENOMENAL

-oh my god please i can’t do this snacks started playing when the frog showed up

-joe shirley and ludwig goransson i cannot do this

-grogu i’m sorry but even though luke doesn’t see you he knows the shenanigans ur up to

-OMG HE’S SO STRONG NOW

-THE CG IS FUCKING CRAZY HOLY SHIT

-i’m gonna start fucking crying oh my god

-i see you dave filoni with the dagobah parallel

-i’m assuming there will be many more through this episode

-god the music i want it tatted in my brain

-HIS LIL WADDLE

-omg is he gonna talk about yoda

-HE IS

-omg the way he’s lifting grogu so he can keep up imma cry

-CHANEL BOOTS SKYWALKER IS HERE TO SLAY

-are we gonna see grogu’s past????

-omgomgomgomgomg

-STOOOOPPPPPPP NO IM GONNA START SOBBING

-FUCK I NEED TO FINISH CLONE WARS

-goddamn you dave filoni pay for my fuckin therapy

-it’s also crazy how much he sounds like young Mark Hamill

-DIN NAPPING like the dad he is

-AHSOKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

-also hot reflexes

-”i’m a friend of the family” DAVE FILONI PLEASEEEEE

-her lil giggle with r2 was so cute

-i love rosario dawson

-she’s such a good ahsoka

-he’s like okay??? gimme my foundling

-he just wants to see that his kid is safe for his own eyes ahsoka LET HIM

-”my choice to go and see him” so goddamn stubborn, din djarin is

-OH MY FUCKING GOD SO MANY ICONS IN ONE FRAME WHAT THE FUCK

-what a time to be a star wars fan holy shit

-also i am once again asking that dave filoni pay for my therapy

-busteeedddddddd she called you out homie

-omg his lil gift

-i love that he keeps calling him a mandalorian foundling specifically instead of just a foundling

-i feel like they’re parents fighting for custody LMAO

-”i came all this way. he’s right there” PEDRO PLEASSE THE DELIVERY I CAN’T DO THIS RN

-ugh i can feel him fighting with himself about whether he should go to him or not

-”make sure he’s protected” HE CARES SO MUCH ABOUT HIS SAFETY BC HE’S NOT THERE TO MAKE SURE AHHHHHHHHHHH

-i know that he’s crying under that helmet

-the fucking score dude oh my god

-GROGU I KNOW I’M SAD UR DAD IS LEAVING TOO

-NOT THE HAND

-omg i was right about ESB refs

-omg the way he crawls out of the bag

-”that’s all you got?” LUKE HE’S TRYING HIS BEST

-”don’t try. do” girl i see you

-OMG THE DAGOBAH PARALLELS THIS EP I CAN’TTTT

- even the fuckin front flip bro goddamn

-the attention to detail on the cg face is insane like literally every frame

-this shot is so beautiful oh my god

-THE FORCE THEME NJAILBJILGBJLHFJFBGQHFL

-GROGU BE CAREFUL BRO

-GREEN SABER GREEN SABER GREEN SABER AHHHHHH

-OMG THE REMOTE FROM A NEW HOPE AND RISE OF SKYWALKER

-he passed the ball bc that’s what ahsoka and din taught him PLEASE

-AYO???? din is gonna beat your ass if he finds out y0u let his kid get zapped luke

-this is so cute oh my god and the score is helping sell it ndjlbjrklvbejnvblkebhjk

-ahsoka looks so proud

-HIS LIL SQUEAL MMMMMMMMM

-”The Mandalorian was here” what the fuck is happening i- star wars is so fuckin cool

-”sometimes i wonder if his heart is in it” omg grogu and din are both distracted bc they’ve been apart for so long

-WITH THE “so much like your father” RIGHT AFTER THAT DAVE FILONI LITERALLY PAY FOR MY FUCKIN THERAPY BRO

-his lil smile and the score from the mando s2 finale MMMMM

-like father like son takin naps

-i cannot wait for the ahsoka series oh my god i love her

-TATOOINE BABYYYYYY

-again these cockpit shots are hot

-omg are we gonna see boba??? In his own show?

-ayo?

-YEA WE ARE BABYYYYY

-AND FENNEC HEHEHEHEHEHE

-my bisexual panic is off the charts rn

-they’re all so hot and so sexy

-WAITWAITWAITWAITWAITWAIT

-is din giving out his name now??????

-everyone in that room now knows his name and they JUST met him?????

-WOAH THE NODDING LIKE IN ROTJ BVJDIVHEJOBPEHBJEWNO

-so hot so sexy

-KRAYT DRAGON SKULL YUHH

-omg i love that din and the jawas are homies now

-COBB AND DIN REUNION????

-who the fuck does this guy think he is

-”i heard you” so hot

-REUNION BABYYYYYYYYYYYYY

-everyone is so sad that he doesn’t have grogu anymore it’s so cute and sad at the same time

-omg is the skeleton in the cantina new?? Or am i blind

-freetown?? when did this become like fallout new vegas?

-they’re both so sassy and snarky i love it

-the guitar in the back is so lovely

-WHO IS THAT

-IS THAT WHO I THINK IT IS

-I KNOW THAT SILHOUETTE

-IS THAT CAD FUCKING BANE????????????

-IS THAT FUCKING CAD BANE??????????

- DNVJBFDVNJDBFBJK CXKNLBDFBKNDFJOBNDF BFDNKBFNDFBVNDFKLVBNEFKMVLBRENBVKLNVKFDLBVJNASKLVBRNVLBRNVJKRBVN

-OH MY FUCKING GOD ARE YOU KIDDING ME

-I LOVE STAR WARS

-DAVE MUTHAFUCKIN FILONI YOU SON OF A BITCH

-OH MY GOD

-HIS VOICE NDJKVLNJV;N

-the deputy needs to fuck off bro like read the damn room

-HIS EYES

-this is so fucking western i love this

-he’s tryna slander boba rn?

-not in this house bro

-THEY GONNA DUEL???

-THIS REALLY IS A WESTERN

-if the deputy fucks this up i swear to god

-IS COBB OKAY????

-I NEED TO KNOW THIS RIGHT NOW

-also cade bane is so fucking cool oh my god

-i sense something bad is about to go down w these pykes in the cantina

-the makeup is so good

-fuck they left the camtono there

-UHHHHHHHHH

-WHERE IS MAX REBO????? IS HE SAFE? IS HE ALRIGHT?

-then fuckin cut to the jedi school PFFFFFFFFFFFF

-I KNEW IT WAS CHAINMAIL

-IT’S SO SMALLLLLLLLL

-a choice??? Luke what are you about to do?

-IS THAT YODA’S SABER????

-YUUUUUHHHHHHH

-is he gonna make him chose between the fuckin saber and the armor??

-yuuuup…

-hold up chanel boots skywalker you are ceo of attachments my guy what the hell is this

-HIS SAD LIL COO

-AND THE MUSIC

-D JVKLFBJKDLFBNKJLVBSANJBL;DBJDAK

-he’s gonna choose din i know it in my heart i feel it in my soul

GODDAMN THERE WAS SO MUCH TO LOOK AT AND ADMIRE IN THIS EPISODE HOLY SHIT BRO

again apologies for the super long post but these are so fun to do so i think i’m gonna continue to do these hehehehehe

[gwasgy]

Okay. So. Here’s an elaborate multiple days of brainstorming ideas as they come PracticalMagicnatural AU nonsense. Thank you.

- Bobby and Rufus would be the Aunts and they'd be bffs not siblings and would have Vibes but it would be... hm. This is not a Bufus story is what I'm saying.

- the Curse would be on the men and for the women they love of course (classic fridging :/)

- this works for Bobby, (Rufus,) John, and Sam. (Supernatural is bad)

- so this is where it's kind of. Hm. Bc Sally and Gillian are not one to one for either boy. Where Sally and Gillian BOTH have identities separating family and magic (family business), these ideas are inseparable for the brothers.

- alsooo dean and sam to BE dean and sam they would've had to be "raised" by john until they were at least near-grown, even if they had a home base at Bobby's house.

- John still kills himself with grief MAYBE but it's like /later/ and more through self destruction and revenge and alcoholism, leaving the boys to live their later teenage/early twenties in the Bufus household

- Azazel is the one killing all the Wives in this curse. And if they use The Resurrection Spell to bring them back, he is possessing them

- hmmmmmmmmm they need to still be hunters I think buuut what if. They also did witchcraft.

- Dean would cast the love summoning spell, making it so that he uses angel descriptors unwittingly or on purpose because he doesnt think angels are real and therefore cannot exist for him to fall in love with and kill (bc the curse)

- it would be fun and very cringe fail embarrassing for Dean if sometimes he thought about His Angel and accidentally occasionally prayed to Cas

- Anna could show up and be Dean's red herring

- Dean could be in an About to Die situation and think, as a joke or whatever, "fuck. I never even got to meet that hot angel chick that's in love with me," and Cas shows up (with wings bc hot), saves him, *handprints*, then leaves

- OR. There's a blinding light and screeching noise and Dean blacks out and wakes up with a handprint safe and sound

- Cas and The Guy From Practical Magic That's A Cop both bend the rules of their superiors for their person easily and pliantly. except for the initial pushback. Hm.

----

- it's weird bc in practical magic there's this whole vibe of I'm Done With Magic And You're Dragging Me Back Into This And Ruining My Life but sammy had gone away and rejected The Life THEN found the woman he loves and THEN tried to resurrect her mayyybeeeee wait wait wait it wouldn’t be Jess bc she isn’t evilll...

- DEAN would be the one with a bad boyfriend that they accidentally kill and have to resurrect... hmmmmm

- maybe it's like a Boy Best Friend of dean's like maybe he is on a hunt with Benny and he accidentally chops his damn head off and tries to resurrect him to cover it up

- and that fucks up something in the afterlife and Cas is sent to Fix The Problem of whatever the fuck happened to this guy's soul when they did this

----

- it's wonderful to think of the PTA mom shenanigans Dean and Sam could get into but I don't think that Dean would have any sort of kid in this besides maybe jack?

- I mean, it could be that Ben is still around and he was with Lisa but never Loved Her on principal, and left in time so the curse didn't fuck her up, but they're still friends and he will still pick Ben up from school sometimes

- I don't see how the phone tree could work into it but I don't think that it's necessary bc sam and dean and cas's version of this story does not and can not revolve around them being outsiders in their own community but overcoming it and accepting who you are and integrating into the community through girl power and witch magic

- BUT. the potential of sammy being possessed is yeah. It’s extremely. Yeah.

- They could have a nice bonding moment of I'm never gonna leave you you can do this like from Swan Song. Like Sally joining Gilly in the broom circle to help her while she’s being exorcised

- their brotherly bond is NOTHING like Sally and Gillian's, though. Like YES. they would no doubt help bury the body, but they aren't giggling about their love life under the covers together. They simply are not that type of girl

- also I guess there wouldn't be the tension of You're Ruining My Life That I've Constructed Just By Being Here between them.

- WELL.

- Dean WOULD say something shitty about cleaning up Sam's messes though. He is just that type of guy

----

- Dean can definitely be the one chopping and hacking at the rose bush and cas would DEFINITELY get distracted and heal him in the middle of his conversation with him

- Dean oh dean he and his close Boy Best Friends could totally fuck with the curse. Like-

- Dean: Oh my good friend Benny he’s the first person ive really allowed myself to get attatched to in a while but that’s fine! he can't die because i don't love or like him like that because he's a guy! Haha, I'm not gay! We are just guys being dudes just two bros hanging out :)

Benny: *dies anyway*

Dean: FUCK

- Sammy would totally make that new age witchy herbal shop that Sally had! that would be so fun. Also ft. periphery what the fuck is up with those people type locals

- maybe Rowena shows up still and Crowley is also there hmmmmm and Rowena teaches Sam magic stuff and it gets him to make the supernatural a part of his life again without having to do any hunting hmmmmmmm or it's just another tool in his arsenal and he just always deserves to have magic powers

- the supernatural ladies could work in the shop :) like Meg and Rowena and Ruby anndddd Alya :) Ava? The psychic hunger games MVP girl

- or all the kids work at that shop!! I miss those dang kids. Max, the twins, death lesbian, Jake, electric guy, and all them :)

- Rowena is like a witchy shop owner up in town that buys Sam's wares to sell in the city #CareerWoman #GirlBoss

- Jody and Donna can also hang out I guess. Since we're at Bobby's place

----

- Dean casts the love summoning spell after either Regular Heartbreak with Cassie, his first love, when he was 15 or whatever, OR after the behated Boy Best Friend death. Hmmmmmm

- it makes more sense for the story for dean to have someone die on him and apply to the curse. But I don't wanna kill Benny ):

- well I don't think he was ever In Love with Crowley or Benny like he was with Cassie (or even Lisa)

- when he was 15 or 14 and John was still around but had left him at the Bufus household he got hold of that love summoning spell and made sure it was impossible so he would never experience heartache again. He does so while crying teenagishly and 11 year old sam is like. Why the fuck are you summoning this weird monster girl to fall in love with you

- and Dean is like no no this kind of monster doesn't exist. Anyway they'd have glowing blue eyes and they're as big as a building and and they hear me whenever I call no matter far away

- Sam: that...... sounds like an angel, dean.

Dean, having already done the spell: WHAT. NO. NO IT'S NOT IT IS SO NOT LIKE AN ANGEL. ANGELS AREN'T REAL

- Cas in Heaven, a bunch of flower petals swirling around him: what the fuck is that. That's weird

- Cas like 13 years later when he sees a cajun zombie vampire demon: okay I'm already getting weird prayers from some guy down there I'm just gonna check that out

- by the time Cas gets down there they've killed it again and buried it and hmm

- It's weird because it's the opposite of Practical Magic here bc Cas is the one that needs to be believed about something supernatural BY dean

----

- what if they accidentally kill JOHN instead of a hot bf. Dean kills John bc John tries to kill Sam, and they panickedly try to resurrect him immediately

- yeah yeah yeah yeah and John, possessed by Azazel, gets killed again while still being possessed and is buried underground. There can still be a rose bush and frogs and whatnot

- I doon't know why Bobby and Rufus would just leave the brothers in their house if John was alive until then?

- Alright John's been missing for like 5 years and the boys have just been living there and assumed he's dead. Then he comes for Sammy bc Sam is Turning Evil or whatever and John's a huge loser about it

- so Bufus is like "you guys are acting insane and you aren't telling us what's wrong so we’re just going to leave and you're going to sort it out yourself." Like the aunts

- then, when cas shows up to track down the weird resurrected demon-possessed serial killer abomination Dean and Cas are EMBARRASSING like completely totally absolutely embarrassing cringe fail love where they can't talk normal with eachother and Cas keeps getting too close and staring but Dean forgets to tell him to back off or anything and he just stammers uselessly through thin dumb lies

- there aren't any children there to comically thwart Sam's plans to get rid of Castiel as he is investigating Dean and Sam but it could end similarly

- where Cas finds Sam making a small angel banishing symbol and is like "okay. You guys aren't to be trusted and you're doing something evil (and i don't understand what’s happening to me when i’m around Dean). I'm just straight up going to leave then" and boom he's gone

- the fight Sally and Gillian have right before Gillian gets possessed can play out pretty damn similarly with Sam and Dean, but it's a LOT different too

- like it's their DAD not some random serial killer bf. You can't choose your dingdang dad! So the part of "I cant keep cleaning up your messes" WHOSE MESSES who even says that to who whose mess could this even be

----

- Sam has a girlfriend that dies from the curse and it’s bc of being caught in the crossfire when Hunter Bullshit Happens. The Women of the Winchesters’ way. So he moves back specifically to get back into hunting and witchcraft to BREAK the curse hmmmmm.

- Much like Sally with Michael’s death. “I don't care what he comes back as. As long he comes back. Please do this for me. Please? Please? Please? Please?” :(

- I think Dean is an Of Course I’m Not Going To Fall In Love kinda character, like younger Sally before Michael. very pessimistic very self depreciating. He only confides his deepest darkest desires (to be loved simply and openly without fear of the Curse taking anyone. To be held and to take care of someone who will appreciate it) in his fakey fake pretend prayers to his imaginary angel (this turns out to be very cringe fail embarrassing when Cas shows up)

- Cas holds onto these prayers like Hallet (the cop from movie) does with Sally’s letter to Gillian, not knowing or understanding why he’s so fixated on them and why he can’t stop reading them/playing them back/listening in

- John… maybe he was pulling a Gordon and was killing all the psychic kids and was eventually going to have to kill Sam, and Cas was for some reason Put On The Case as an angel or was Allowed to Interfere or whatever bc it was fudging up God’s Plan

- and that’s how Cas justified being so fixated and taking notes on Dean’s prayers, like Hallet did with the letter. It was a good lead. It was about their father, and Sam seemed to be having psychic tendencies or whatever that could turn dangerous

----

- Okay okayokayokay so Sally and Gillian’s story is them escaping the ostracization they feel from the people in their physical regional community. The Owen’s family has always been outsiders, even before the curse came into being. They are persecuted for being witches (and sleeping around and being sexy).

- the sisters try to escape this either by just LEAVING: going to a place they can be themself without shame, or assimilating and abandoning a part of themself so that they can stay.

- the Winchester brothers are, I guess, ostracized by the hunting community because they are kept away from it and moved around a lot in the show. Okay okay okay okay okaywaitwaitwait

- Okay so the Winchesters feel alienated from both civilians and the hunting community, and they both eventually choose to do similar things to Sally and Gilly..! Sam LEAVES and assimilates, while Dean stays and just accepts his role his father gave him.

- Gilly and Sam LEAVE, while Dean and Sally STAY. Gillian and Dean embrace what makes them Different, while Sally and Sam reject it in favor of Being Normal

- The witchcraft/hunting thing especially doesn’t mesh well here though because Hunting is KILLING it’s literally murdering sentient beings. It’s war propaganda it’s desensitizing you to Even Though The Enemy Is Capable Of Good Individually They Are, As A Group, Evil And Should Be Slaughtered.

- Witchcraft in Practical Magic is just… a way of life that’s considered outside the accepted norms of society. It’s being openly queer, it’s being from a different country of origin, it’s being non-christian religious in a small town. Accepting witchcraft doesn’t have any moral good or badness, it’s just with or without the consequences of being “out” in your area. While accepting Hunting as a lifestyle is to accept putting yourself in bodily danger doing morally ambiguous/BAD things to protect people you can’t relate to or find a community in. Hmmmmmmmmmm

----

- Sam and Sally both have natural talents/instincts but don't want to use it in favor of being "normal"

-

[t100ficrecsblog]

an interview with blueparacosm (they/them)

what are you working on right now? right now i’m working on a multi-chapter merlin au (murphamy, duh). murphy as the sorcerer, bellamy as the prince, octavia as the half-sister sorceress, lexa as the painfully vague great dragon, you get the gist.

what’s something you’d like to write one day? i’d love to write a big canonverse adventure story with murphy and bellamy. i love the idea of a story of about 35k words of them traveling together, getting to know each other better, and having all the conversations they should be having in canon. hopping planets, anomaly shenanigans, cave spelunking, bardo breakout, whatever the hell etherea ends up being. mostly just because i want a snow kiss on nakara. i won’t lie to you. just something big and colorful and fun. the works. if i do end up writing it, it’ll be after the show is over and all these new weird settings have been? fleshed? i forget the phrase. surely it’s not ‘fleshed’… ed’s note: they mean ‘fleshed out’, probably.

what is the fanwork you’re most proud of? definitely “alone with you.” i’m used to writing kind of absurd and fast-paced stories and “alone with you” stands out to me as one of my more genuine fics that takes its time, and i was really surprised by how well that change of pace went over with people who read it. i really wrote that one for myself, it was almost a vent fic about depression and comfort and nature and solitude and other loser dork shit, and so to see that people resonated with its themes was so heartwarming and encouraging. i even had a few people tell me they were laying around, reading it outside, feeling comforted and calmed by the mossy rock of it all. so i suppose it’s my favorite because of the great response to it, and because it was so different from anything else i’ve written and was basically just me testing the waters to see if people would mind if i spent more time on imagery and character development and yet, apparently turned out actually readable. who would’ve thunk?

why did you first start writing fic? god, i must have been 14? so when s2 was airing, and i’d never read or written fanfic or even been part of a fandom, i just loved murphy so much that i had to talk about it with someone, so i joined twitter and inevitably found ao3. and i found i loved fics and i’ve always liked writing but didn’t know what to do with stories after i’d written them, so i thought i’d try my hand at writing and posting something. i think i got a pretty good response on my first few fics (orphaned since then because… good god) for a 14 year old with shitty grammar and a weird writing style and terrible dialogue but a lot of enthusiasm, and i thought it was so much fun to share my ideas and get nice feedback from others, so i kept going. :)

what frustrates you most about fic writing? i’ll be real with you dog: i never feel good enough. i swear i could write a fic with 1000 kudos and 1000 lovely comments and i would still think i could’ve and should’ve done better. it’s easy to forget we do this for fun and for free and that i could be a hell of a lot worse. at a certain point, i think my understanding of what makes a good story surpassed my actual writing ability, so now i’m scrambling to catch up and write something i’m proud of again. fingers crossed for that merlin au.

what are your top five songs right now? “those who can’t, cheat” by clarence clarity “georgia on my mind” by microwave “eggshell” by runnner “nice house” by joy wave “gay in the south”by susto

what are your inspirations (books, songs, other fic)? my inspirations are usually shows for structure and short stories for tone/style! my attention span is pathetic so i barely ever read books anymore which is … not promising for a wannabe writer and i should probably get that figured out if i want to continue improving but we’ll cross that bridge when i am prepared to admit i have arrived at it. but, mostly shows. i love watching tv and am constantly analyzing shows’ story structure and making notes of what i thought worked and what i didn’t like. getting a masterclass in suspense from black sails right now. all television is educational television if you try hard enough.

what attracts you to writing about Murphamy? what first attracted you?murphamy has such good bones. of course i’d want them to be canon, but their personalities mesh so well in the focused and organized and fun world of fics. there’s just something different about them in that they make every single AU their bitch. there’s nowhere they don’t shine and even if they weren’t already my only concern in the world, their adaptability makes them the perfect control variable for trying out a million different writing styles and lengths and genres. pirate au you got it. wizard au hell yeah. sports au let’s hear it for the boys. canon divergence release the beasts. fuck it i wrote them as witnesses to the crucifixion of jesus christ once and it wasn’t even that weird. they’re my favorite lab rats.

besides Murphamy, what’s your favorite ship on t100? i can honestly say i don’t care for anyone else. there are plenty of pairings i could boogie with and plenty of murphy ships that i joke about but none i’m actively rooting for or seeking out fan-made content about. murphamy or bust. i suppose i liked clexa, sea mechanic, and jonty well enough when they were in their prime but all good and gay things must apparently come to an end.

besides Murphy, who’s your favorite character on t100? oh sweet jasper… sweet jasper come home to me…

would you ever write a sheidheda/murphy fic? what about other rarepairs? i absolutely would. in fact i’ll do it right now. a story about those two going head to head would be a literal gold mine do you think this is a funny silly little game? it’s not. the tension between murphy and an ancient sexy demon is something that can actually be so personal but my mutuals are getting increasingly angrier with me for talking about it. not to say i’m stopping. as for other rare pairs i’ve been genuinely interested in ECHORI lately you know like an insane person. and i loved zev/murphy. it’s a cold, cruel world we live in. wouldn’t be opposed to one last gabriel/murphy hurrah before the show ended either. OH! OH! and someone should write some wells/murphy. not me because i’m writing sheidurphy.

what are some things you’d like to recommend? if anyone has a food lion near them, in the bakery they have these boxes of little sugar cookies and they’re only like four dollars but there’s like 25 cookies in there it’s unfathomable. 

also these baller writers on ao3: sapphictomaz, hopskipaway, oogaboogu, sadie18, and maunwocha! 

and for my finale i’m gonna plug my murphy playlist, and my murphamy playlist. because sharing is caring and music is good and i’m proud of them.

it was my absolute joy to interview blueparacosm! you can find them primarily on Twitter at slugcities. my favorite blueparacosm fics are: thirty-five paper frogs, an exploration of Murphy and Jasper’s friendship while they’re on the Ring together; the fantastic it’s good to be me, an absolutely poetic examination of prime!Murphy at the end of season 6; fish boy, the heart-wrenching mermaid!Murphy fic; and lastly, the old magic oddities show, a really weird fic that shows off the adaptability of these characters in a wholly new light. 

[homespork-review]

Homespork Act 3: Insane Mindscrew Haymakers (Part 1)

BRIGHT: Before Act 3 proper starts, we see a message from Nanna to John, written in the front of the Sassacre’s joke book from Dad’s safe. The message is somewhat bizarre. For one thing, according to Nanna, the book it’s written in will end its journey on the day she dies...and still carry on for a while. For another, it talks about game elements we’ve encountered already, and hints at more to come. Overall it’s a nice bit of detail, enough to whet the reader’s interest.

You are no doubt reading this as a handsome and strapping young man! Why, the mangrit needed to lift the book is itself a sign of your maturity, not even to speak of the wisdom needed to grasp the nuance of Sassacre's time-tested mischief. I am so proud of you, grandson! How I wish I could have delivered this heirloom to you in the flesh. But I am afraid it wasn't in the cards! For you see, John, like you, this book must yet take a journey! Its journey will end on the Final Day of my life, and even then will continue some. Though I suppose that will be up to your Father. Perhaps he will discuss it with you one day, when he and you are ready. But it is your journey I am writing about to wish you luck! There will come a day when you will be thrust into another world. And once you arrive, that is only the beginning! You will soon delve even deeper into a realm of Warring Royalty in a Timeless Expanse. A realm of Agents and Exiles and Consorts and Kernelsprites. Of toiling Underlings and slumbering Denizens. A realm where four will gather, the Heir of Breath and Seer of Light, the Knight of Time and Witch of Space, and together they will Ascend. John, if only you knew how important you were! I regret my passing came so early in your life. And yet I feel in my heart we have already met. But what I know for sure is that we will meet again! Until then, John, I do hope your Father keeps you well fed!

FAILURE ARTIST: As I said earlier, Hussie has artfully defaced books, including one antique one about an expedition around the world. Defaced books show up again in this comic.

CHEL: Particularly, it implies that Nanna also had knowledge of the game during her lifetime, somehow, and refers to the gathering of four heroes. This is our first introduction to the classpect system, which now rivals Hogwarts houses as a method of personality description in fandom at large. I think at the time I didn’t realise who it was referring to… Anyway.

Next, we officially meet GG, the fourth and final member of our gang, a “silly girl” with a cheery grin, sleeping in a greenhouse full of vegetables and spirograph-shaped flowers. Since she’s sleeping and can’t object, she’s referred to for a while as FARMSTINK BUTTLASS, but she’s way ahead of us; under her hand is a note admonishing the reader and declaring her actual name to be Jade Harley. I think she’s the cutest of the kids, myself - just seeing her first appearance makes me happy! All its weaknesses aside, Homestuck’s pretty great at creating painfully cute character designs and attaching a good range of personalities to them.

FAILURE ARTIST: Jade Harley was considered a “Mary Sue” when she was first introduced. I don’t know why. Yeah, she has a lot of eccentricities and unusual possessions but so do the other characters.

Farmstink is a reference to an old comic Hussie did about this dude obsessed with the stink of farms. Hussie’s early work is really weird.

CHEL: The reader attempts to wake Jade by dropping a pumpkin carved with an animal’s face on her head, but the pumpkin disappears; as we know, WV now has it. Fortunately for the pacing, Jade wakes up on her own. Look closely, and you’ll notice the symbol on her shirt changes each page; that turns out a bit later to be due to her hi-tech WARDROBIFIER. If I recall correctly, Hussie intended to settle on one chosen by reader vote, but ended up on a cycle of three different ones.

FAILURE ARTIST: Jade settles on three icons to appear on her shirt. However, eventually just one icon stays on her shirt. The WARDROBIFIER doesn’t get much use with her, though a later character has the same thing.

CHEL: Jade is also wearing COLORFUL REMINDERS on her fingers, and when the view pans out it’s revealed by the view from the window that her GARDEN ATRIUM��is on a high floor. She plays the flute badly for a while in a Flash game; apparently it’s not her preferred instrument. Also fortunately for the pacing, we think, she knows how to use her sylladex, and prefers to set its retrieval function in the form of a memory game because you seem to have a knack for always guessing right on the first try! On checking her reminders, she remembers to wish John happy birthday, gathers some fruit, and heads upstairs by means of a teleporter.

Jade’s bedroom proves to be full of various disturbing-looking plushies, albeit not nearly as disturbing as the Smuppets, hanging baskets and potted plants, a bass guitar, and G-rated furry artwork, including a piece obviously drawn by Dave. Franchises depicted in her toy and poster collections include GREEN SLIME GHOST (the apparent copyright-friendly source of John’s T-shirt and pogo ride), MANTHRO CHAPS (mustachioed human faces on plush animal bodies), and SQUIDDLES (adorable octopi with magnets in their bellies which stick together as Tangle Buddies!). Her favoured weapons are rifles, though she would never shoot an animal, and she has various gadgets on a worktable, including a thing that looks like a disconnected window not unlike those shown in Rose’s book, which she apparently hasn’t been able to get to work.

FAILURE ARTIST: Manthro Chaps is a reference to Hussie’s particularly disturbing set of comics where he plays around with anthropomorphization. Like having an anthro chicken man lay anthro eggs.

CHEL: The comic in question, Humanimals, can be found here; warnings for extreme body horror and general grossness.

FAILURE ARTIST: Jade is told by a forum prompter to Lose interest in fauna and never speak of it again. Jade refuses to in a beautiful little speech but she denies she’s a furry. Oh, if she only knew what was coming for her.

Jade looks out the window and we find out she lives somewhere next to a volcano.

CHEL: The very same one which appeared in the animation at the end of the last act, in fact.

Your grandfather is a WORLD RENOWNED EXPLORER-NATURALIST-TREASURE HUNTER-ARCHEOLOGIST-SCIENTIST-ADVENTURER-BIG GAME HUNTER-BILLIONAIRE EXTRAORDINAIRE. He has taught you everything you know.

Grandpa is heavily coded here and in his appearance a bit later as a Great White Hunter, an upper-class European guy who goes to faraway countries in order to shoot the animals there. Of course, non-white people can certainly do that, but white is what people will immediately picture upon seeing the trope. Also note we have another ridiculously wealthy family here. Since all four of the kids have now been introduced and we’ve had a lot of WSP points from their races and financial statuses already, here we get another HOW NOT TO point as well.

The Country Club Here every single character is white and middle-to-upper class. Unless your novel is taking place in rural Sweden, this will eventually give the reader the eerie feeling that some form of ethnic cleansing has taken place. HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 14 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 7

One could argue that some form of ethnic cleansing is taking place, since these are the kids who are surviving the apocalypse, though that’s not actually fair because there are plenty of other SBurb sessions all across the world which might also succeed.

Jade opens her GADGET CHEST and produces several more items pertaining to her interests, including her computer, which she keeps in a Squiddles lunchbox. Several fortune-telling items are included among them, but according to Jade they are not the source of her abilities. The Magic 8-Ball is apparently usually wrong, responding to being asked whether it’s John’s birthday today with NOT EXACTLY, and the Magic Cue Ball is supposedly always right but is impossible to read, making it completely useless.

FAILURE ARTIST: There’s another Problem Sleuth reference (or rather Problem Sooth) but what’s important is the Magic Cue Ball. Unlike her Magic 8-Ball, it has no window where one can read the prediction. If only Jade had a special vision. Perhaps an eightfold vision.

Jade goes to feed BEC. She has some sylladex trouble until she finally just takes a steak out of her fridge.

CHEL: Once again, the sylladex shenanigans waste several pages.

GET ON WITH IT!: 9

Bec’s identity is as yet unknown, but recall that Dave called him a “devilbeast” in an earlier conversation, and when he suggested shooting Bec Jade said she didn’t think she could if she tried. He also apparently eats nothing but steaks (lucky Grandpa’s a billionaire), so Jade is living on an island with apparently minimal supervision from her guardian and an allegedly dangerous carnivore running wild outside. Like Dave, at this point it seems to be very lucky she’s a cartoon character.

FAILURE ARTIST: Using a special oven she irradiates the steak. Umm, I think Bec can take that but I worry about Jade.

Jade finds and plays her elaborate bass and she’s much better at it than with the flute. During the flash, the camera pulls out and we find out where she lives: in a tower on a small volcanic island with a frog temple in the lagoon. An airplane goes by and drops a package.

Jade uses her super high-tech “lunchtop” to have a conversation with John. Nothing special about that but we see on her chumroll a bunch of unfamiliar handles. Hmm.

CHEL: The unfamiliar handles are listed in the “Trollslum”, which one presumes is a blocklist. I think you have to see just how hi-tech the lunchtop is:

"Jade: Get down to business." (Watch on YouTube)

Hussie’s really coming into his own with the animations by now.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave has sent her some messages begging her to wake up and unfortunately one line has the f-slur in it.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 7

In the end, he decides she’ll probably forget what he says.

CHEL: Begging her to wake up” doesn’t exactly cover it.

TG: youre asleep again arent you TG: or do you even know if you are TG: i still dont know how that works TG: its like nothing means anything

Apparently Jade sometimes talks to him while she’s sleeping.

FAILURE ARTIST: There’s a little flash where you can listen to some of Dave’s tunes. When you’re done with that, you can join her in looking at mspadventures.com. A crude John wearing a wizard hat is sitting on his lawn with the caption

It begins to dawn on you that everything you just did may have been a colossal waste of time.

What the hell is going on here? Is Jade reading what John is doing right now?

CHEL: I think it’s just a fourth wall joke, but it’s certainly accurate, considering our GET ON WITH IT count.

FAILURE ARTIST: Next, we get this flash called Midnight Crew: Act 1031. If you are watching it in 2019, the song playing is Dead Shuffle by Mark Hadley. However, the song was originally Nightlife by Bill Bolin. Unfortunately, Bolin had a dispute with Hussie over Hussie using music that Bolin considered WIP. Bolin blew up and called Hussie “unprofessional” and in a very professional move posted a photo of himself giving the double deuce. It’s a shame this happened since Nightlife is a jauntier and more appropriate tune.

CHEL: The Midnight Crew, to be specific, are gangsters with card-themed names who bear a striking resemblance to WV, living in a mysterious purple city full of towers, pitted against the Felt, another gang of odd-looking green fellows who wear bowler hats with numbers on them, in the colour schemes of a set of pool balls.

Hussie did make reference in the previous page to a “weird tangential intermission [which] clearly advanced the plot in no way whatsoever”, implying that it actually is relevant, and the purple city and its shiny black beady-eyed inhabitants look very familiar, but since as far as we know at this point the Midnight Crew is just a comic-within-a-comic, you know which counts get added to.

GET ON WITH IT!: 10 WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 2

Just for the record, the leader of the gang is named Spades Slick, and yes, we’re aware that “spade” is a slur against black people, which makes it slightly unfortunate to be applied as a name to a black-shelled alien creature. However, we’re not counting that as PROBLEMATYKKS because Hussie and the Crew’s original writer certainly did not intend that. It’s not that commonly used a term from what I’ve seen, the playing cards would be the more likely immediate association, and with the other characters being Clubs Deuce, Hearts Boxcars, and Diamonds Droog, it’s just an unfortunate coincidence. If he was a black human, then I’d object more strenuously.

FAILURE ARTIST: Jade talks with Dave (I think the conversation is a repeat?)

CHEL: Yep.

GET ON WITH IT!: 11

FAILURE ARTIST: Finally, we get the flash we’ve been waiting for: Dave strifes with his mysterious guardian. Or rather, he strifes with Lil Cal while Bro is a speed blur.

BRIGHT: Unlike the other strifes up to this point, the reader can’t do anything other than watch, because Bro slices the command box in half right at the start.

TIER: In the world of Homestuck, the parental units are overall just really weird! Like dad Egbert severe overabundance of cakes and mom Lalonde's drunken dysfunction. It's overall all hilarious, fitting with the tone and humor of the story well!

But then we have our lovely outlier. The one, the hated, The. Bro “a huge bastard honestly” Strider! A.K.A basically the one guardian whose questionable parenting gets the Real Consequences treatment later on in this tale. Peculiar that.

CHEL: Now, under most circumstances, an adult man beating the hell out of a barely-teenage kid, on the precarious rooftop of a high-rise building no less, would be horrifying. However, Bro chooses to hit Dave with his puppet, which… is frankly hard to take seriously. Obviously it would still hurt if a real person did that, but it looks so stupid that the immediate assumption is that it’s a joke.

BRIGHT: Particularly when earlier strife moves like Rose’s ‘Empty Suicide Threat’ were intended to be humorous. This is about on the same level as that, in terms of severity!

TIER: Being smacked around by the flopping noodle limbs of a freaky puppet is honestly hard to take seriously. Hell, this entire sequence is chock full of outlandish “Rule of Cool” bullshit and I am Peeved that I was apparently supposed to look at this sequence of ridiculous events and go “OBVIOUSLY THIS IS FUCKED UP AND ABUSIVE”.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 7

CHEL: I could kinda see that with hindsight from the rest of the comic, but definitely not “OBVIOUSLY THIS IS A LOT MORE FUCKED UP AND ABUSIVE THAN THE OTHER AWFUL FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES”, which is what was apparently intended. And we also get another HOW NOT TO point, which we’ll give now even though the official “reveal” comes much later.

A Novel Called It - wherein an abusive parent exists Bad parents are everywhere in unpublished fiction. Whole cities of abusive fathers and sneering mothers live in the pages of books that can’t be sold. While occasionally, and notably in the horror genre, this sort of material can be made good (Carrie, V. C. Andrews), most cruel parents in fiction are just as much fun as they are in real life. HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 14

That damn puppet gets creepier every time, admittedly, more so now that Bro is moving so fast that the thing appears to be dancing on Dave’s head under its own power. Dave’s expressions look more annoyed than afraid or hurt, however, in my opinion.

FAILURE ARTIST: Anyway, we go back to Jade. Rose is pestering her.

TT: I require a font of frighteningly accurate yet infuriatingly nonspecific information. TT: Do you know where I can find a wellspring of this sort?

Very business-like, isn’t it? Rose and Jade’s relationship is a big missed opportunity in this comic. They’re more like friends-of-friends than friends.

CHEL: I don’t know, that sounds to me like how Rose talks to the boys too; facetiously formal. Still, they don’t converse nearly as much as the boys do with each other or them. Male writers in particular tend to do this, and it’s not entirely their faults. People are socialised to think women talk a lot more than they do, so he probably didn’t notice.

TIER: A real shame honestly, we were fucking robbed of some peak interactions between a sunshine flower child and a “dark and brooding” baby goth. Fucking. Robbed.

FAILURE ARTIST: We find out that Jade was the one who had the idea of playing Sburb. She had told Rose that the game would answer some of Rose’s unnamed questions. Rose wants more information on this Big Day. Jade says the game will not be what Rose thinks it is and will answer questions Rose hasn’t thought of yet. On that mysterious note, Jade says goodbye.

CHEL: We check in briefly with Rose in the present, confirming that she’s found the secret passage and is escaping the fire, bringing the corpse of her cat along with her, then to John, who is doing much worse. The ogres (the giant tusked imps) have cornered him, and while he flails frantically about with his Pogo Hammer it doesn’t do much good. They beat the snot out of him with the old Sassacre book and the tire swing, then send him flying into the abyss; fortunately, Nannasprite is able to catch him on his bed and provide healing, allowing him to flail uselessly at the ogres again and get beaten up again, ad infinitum.

Back in the desert, a giant worm-like creature emerges from PM’s bunker and chows down on the cart full of mailboxes. PM is displeased, and puts a hand on the hilt of an ornate black sword.

Cut back to the FAQ, which John has found time to edit with information about the punch card system. He doesn’t know if anyone is left alive to play the game, but Rose asked him to add to it, so he will. He’s figured out with his 133t h4x0r 5k1llz that the captcha code on the back of the cards is converted into a binary-based pattern on the cards, 0 being blank and 1 being a punched hole. Overlapping the cards functions like a bitwise AND operation, causing both to be enacted. The 48-hole card system allows for 300 trillion combinations, but John lampshades the fact that this couldn’t possibly cover every conceivable captchable item, and that various combinations of overlapping cards would just produce the same combination. This is just adding to my conviction that the system ought to be reworked; the totems alone would probably allow for a much wider range, if one gets down to the atomic level of their shape. Then again, those would be a lot harder to merge… Still, I’m sure there’s some way to work it.

BRIGHT: This section was kind of surprising to me because up to this point we haven’t had much if any description of John being into coding, so the section came out of left field somewhat. Not bad, necessarily, just jarring.

CHEL: Actually, he did mention in his intro that he likes to program, albeit not very well, he had some coding books on his shelves, and the icons on his computer are named in a way which implies they’re some of his attempts at coding. However, this interest never really comes up again later that I remember.

Meanwhile, the secret passage Rose followed led to her mother’s laboratory, which bears the logo “SN” with a stylised atom and a spirograph pattern in the loops of the S. It seems Mom Lalonde knows more than she’s letting on about the game. Inside the laboratory is an enormous HUBGRID of devices into which the laptop can be plugged.

FAILURE ARTIST: Rose uses that ol’ r-slur when she says she won’t go on the pad so that’s another point.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 8

CHEL: Jade uses the TRANSPORTALIZER to travel most of the way down to the ground floor, but not all the way down because the one on that floor is blocked. As she walks down the last couple of flights of stairs, we see Grandpa’s own collections of stuff; taxidermised animal heads, suits of armour, mummified corpses (made by pasting in photographs to the cartoon background, it’s creepy as hell), and his BLUE BEAUTIES, or the DAUGHTERS OF ECLECTICA; sun-bleached portrait photographs of beautiful women. On the final floor, we are confronted with the thing blocking the final portal; a gigantic preserved monster with a white head and green serpentine body. It took me till just now to figure it out but I think the white part is supposed to be a human torso on the snake tail; at first it just looked like a snake wearing a stocking mask. That’s what happens when the humans don’t have arms.

Jade thought she had logged off from Pesterchum, but suddenly it pings again, and here we are introduced to an entirely new section of the cast. We’re probably not spoiling anything by not being mysterious about them at this point in the fandom’s history, but just in case, we’ll stick to doing the reveals when the comic does. The person talking to Jade is one of the names from her TROLLSLUM, under the handle carcinoGeneticist; they gloat about being “BETTER AND SMARTER THAN YOU, FOREVER” when asked how they’re still contacting Jade after being blocked, and mock her about today being “FINALLY THE DAY YOU FUCK EVERYTHING UP”. Angry, Jade blocks them again.

FAILURE ARTIST: I had forgotten that “they” appeared so early.

CHEL: Well, “appear” is stretching it; the TROLLSLUM only make contact through Pesterchum for a while yet. And when they show up, we’ll have both plenty of skilfully-written points to pick out and plenty of counts to apply.

[tisfan]

WinterIron 2 - Mistletoe

For @ajanamyth

co-written by @27dragons

Read or subscribe at A03 - we might have gotten a little carried away here, so this fic is five parts, and we’ll be posting throughout the day, one chapter at a time. contains magically induced non-con (kissing only), animal transformations, some smut at the end, holiday shenanigans, and Tony has a tail.

Part One

Tony was remarkably good at faking being asleep for someone who did not, actually, sleep particularly well.

It had, in the past, led to him overhearing some very interesting conversations.

Which seemed to be the case, once again.

“You swear it will work,” came the musical tones of Amora, the Enchantress. That was not someone he expected in his bedroom, especially since he didn’t remember inviting her there. Her magic had often ensnared or enchanted members of his team, but it never lasted more than a day, and didn’t seem to muddle with memories, so if Tony didn’t remember her being around, chances were, she’d just shown up. Which made it even more curious that she’d be in his bedroom. Also, freaky.

“Of course it will work,” someone said, and that was even weirder, because -- despite his voice sounding high-pitched and childish when recorded -- Tony had heard himself often enough that he recognized his own voice. “Those who initiate a kiss under the mistletoe will be enchanted with the object of their embrace during the Yule period. I will ensnare all the Avengers, and keep them from interfering with our plans; they will not dare to refuse me, so in love will they all be. Your power, combined with mine, will assure it.”

Tony’s eyes flew open in shock and he saw himself, speaking with the Enchantress.

What the utter hell!?

Well, that’s what he meant to say, but what came out was an ungodly yowl, like someone had stepped on a bagpipe.

“Oh, look, he’s awake,” Enchantress cooed. She took a few steps toward Tony, who was busily freaking out, and… picked him up and cuddled him to her bosom.

What? What, what, and some more what?

“Careful, my dear,” the Tony who was not Tony said. “Kitty’s got claws.”

And so, apparently, Tony (the real one, not the other one, which Tony was rapidly understanding was probably Loki) did. He unsheathed them and took a swipe at the blonde goddess, maring her perfect skin. He also got in a few good digs at her belly and bit her on the chin before she flung him across the room. He twisted instinctively, rebounded off the floor and wrapped all of his pointy bits around her calf.

“We don’t have time for this, Amora,” the Tony who wasn’t Tony said. He reached down and grabbed Tony-kitty by the scruff and lifted. That was… weird. And unfair. All his weight dangled helplessly, which was really uncomfortable. Tony was growling and hissing. He couldn’t help that, and even if he could have, he’d have probably been doing it anyway. “You don’t want to interfere in this, Stark. Allow the evening to pass, and no one has to be hurt. But if you dare try to thwart me again… Amora, show him.”

The Enchantress, who was magically healing her wounds and scowling, held out what looked like a plain, wooden arrow. “Mistletoe,” she said. “With this arrow, Loki tricked the blind god Hafur into murdering Buldur, the eldest of Odin’s sons. Buldur remains in Hel to this day. The arrow cannot miss its target. If you try to stop us, we will set it loose, and it will strike the heart of your beloved, who will suffer as no human has ever suffered. For all eternity, as there exist no true heroes to bargain with Hela and return a soul.”

His beloved? Tony couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on a date, much less been in a committed relationship. Which did not mean that the arrow and its magic wouldn’t find a target. Asgardian magic was... tricky. Much like those who cast it. And there was one obvious choice, wasn’t there? Tony’s crush on Bucky had long since passed the “amusing” and “simply lustful” stages and turned into something painfully poignant. Not that Tony’d ever breathed a word of it to anyone, not even Pepper or Rhodey. Which would likewise not keep the magic from working, damn it all. Tony hated magic.

There was also the possibility that they were bluffing, but though Loki would rather lie than save his own life with the truth, it seemed, Amora wasn’t one for a bluff. And she knew enough magic to make it hard for Loki to fool her on this. Which meant that whatever that arrow was, it wasn’t a normal piece of wood. They had him scruffed. Literally as well as figuratively. He growled again and hissed, and then grumbled out a chirrut of acquiescence. He had a week to figure out how to get around them. He had to make it count.

Amora propped one perfect leg up on his dressing bench and dabbed at the cuts there, each poke of her fingertip swirling green magic around that left nothing behind except the blots of blood. That was handy, Tony had to admit, but he wasn’t sure it was worth the cost; every magician he knew was either insane, a psycho, or both. “We should just kill him,” Amora sniffed. “He’s going to be trouble, even in this form. Or a frog? Frogs are harmless. And squishy. And they make a very satisfying splat when they hit the wall.”

Loki raised an eyebrow at her. “We can’t kill him, Enchilada,” he said, loftily. “Not if you want me to maintain this mask for any length of time. And let’s not with the frogs. Frogs are overdone. The cat will be locked up in the room. Let it be occupied with where the next can of wet food is coming from, and what of its own belongings it can use as a litter pan.”

“I hate you,” Amora said.

“I know. It adds spice to our game.”

Good, good. It was always a bonus when the bad guys hated each other. And if they thought they were locking him in here for long, they weren’t nearly as smart as they thought they were. Tony had built this place, much of it literally. He knew every nook, cranny, vent, and ductwork access hatch. The lack of hands would be a problem, but his intellect seemed to be intact (how did that even work; a cat’s brain was like an eighth the size of a human’s) so he was confident he’d figure something out. He hung, inert, in Loki’s grasp, willing the Asgardians to forget about him.

Loki sniffed and tossed Tony onto his bed -- the landing on his feet thing was pretty awesome, Tony had to admit that -- and shook a finger at him. “Don’t even think about trying to pounce again, Tiny Spark. You won’t starve in a week, but if I don’t come in to feed you, you’ll be very uncomfortable. There’s water in your facilities.” He pointed, in case Tony didn’t get the point; did Loki honestly expect him to drink out of the toilet?

“Come along,” Amora said. She shifted and changed; still a blonde, still green-eyed, but less… luminous. Like the sort of cover model Tony would have taken to a Christmas party a few years ago. She clung to Loki’s arm, eyes wide with admiration. Gotta hand it to her, bitch knew how to fake adoration.

Tony waited until they’d closed the door and he’d heard the lock engage, then jumped down off the bed. Step one: figure out how to get out of here.

There was a vent near the floor in the bedroom, but it was screwed into place. There were a couple in the bathroom, but they were in the ceiling. Oh! The cleaning ‘bot access hatch was in the closet, and it had a fairly simple manual override for the door, to allow for repairs and maintenance. Tony padded his way into the closet and found the hatch. It took a couple of tries to punch in the override code with his paws, but eventually the door slid open and stayed that way. Before a maintenance ‘bot could come to investigate, Tony slipped into the tunnel.

Maybe Thor could be warned before Loki and Amara got there; they’d have to put in an appearance at the party, and if Tony’s luck hadn’t entirely run out, Thor might still be in his quarters. Tony summoned a mental map of the building, and took off through the tunnels at a run.