#gotta keep all my character's backstories vague so that I don't have to think too hard hahah

[thenotsolittlelady]

Uhm heya, I have a few more oc questions :>

For Xah'jo 38. What memory do they revisit most often? For Mannah 20. If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so? And for Yeria 7. What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

Yay, more questions!! Thank you!! <3 Xah'jo 38. What memory do they revisit most often? Xah'jo doesn't think about his past very much. He doesn't believe there's a point in doing so and he would rather focus on the present and the future. However if he does revisit any memories, it's the ones from his time with his mentor. He remembers the lessons she taught him, the wisdom she passed on and the advise she gave - and the day he betrayed her. It's his most painful memory and even though he mostly made peace with it now, he sometimes wonders how he could have done things differently. Mannah 20. If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so? Hm, that's a difficult one, I'm not sure actually. Let's ask her! Mannah? - Well, I don't think that's very easy to answer definitely. There's a fine line between romantic and platonic love I believe and it's down to each individual to define where that line is. Many people seem to believe that romantic love is the ultimate form of love or the ultimate goal and disregard the love that can exist between family members or friends and I find that... rather sad. I can't say I've felt romantic love before but I have met plenty of wonderful people who I love very dearly. So I suppose my answer is: it's up to you to figure out what romantic and platonic or familial love mean to you :)

Yeriya 7. What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling? Being still pretty young (at this point in the story) I think Yeriya doesn't experience a lot of nostalgia yet and if she does it's mostly triggered by things that remind her of her life in night elf society in Darnassus (I'm keeping it vague, cause I'm not very well informed, I'm sorry!). They don't make her feel good either, they're rather painful memories ever since the burning of Teldrassil and the events that followed. As time goes on however, they probably don't make her as sad anymore and as an adult she enjoys thinking about her early days with Xah'jo and the group: her first attempts to learn other languages (than Darnassian), the first outfit Xah'jo got her after he took her in, her first "toy" sword (and her subsequent lessons in the importance of dodging)... Those she remembers fondly :>

Thank you again for these questions!! <3 Super interesting and they really made me think and I hope I didn't make up too much nonsense

[chameleonspell]

HTDC commentary - 3: breathe

[Looking back at HTDC after nearly ten years: comments on lore, character notes, influences, art, whatever. May contain spoilers for later chapters.]

chapter text: 3: breathe

In this bit, I get explicit about some of the stuff implied by Ire's behaviour, last chapter. Which I have mixed feelings about now, because it reads very blunt and tell-not-show and whatever, but... oh, well. At other times I'm maybe not obvious enough with character's internal processes, and the reader should at least understand the terms Ire uses for his own issues. This is all stuff Ire is self-aware about and he's currently reflecting on it, so fine, let's set out Iriel's psychological stall.

only distantly registering the wet ground soaking through his pants.

Wait, no, let's talk about his pants, because alexgaretti dragged me about this later, and I deserve it - why did I convert everything else about the narration into my native British English spellings, but then keep saying "pants" instead of "trousers"? I DON'T KNOW, OKAY, IT JUST FELT WRONG. Pants are how leg-things are labelled in the Morrowind game! Common pants, extravagant pants, it's all pants! People wear pants, that's just how it is. I felt weird enough spelling "bonemould" with a U, leave me alone.

Imprisonment, he knew, was part of it. Of course it had affected him, he had been foolish to expect otherwise. Ridiculous to think he could simply pick up his life where he had left off.

There are obvious reasons why Bethesda games never do anything further with their habitual gambit of starting your character as a prisoner - the player should get to decide who their character is, and how they react! The game isn't going to force you to consider that a character who has been in jail for any length of time (especially delicate, cruelly-framed prisoner characters) may have been wildly traumatised by this experience, and may have difficulty adjusting to being suddenly given their freedom.

Fanfic is the trauma-processing place, though, so naturally we all love having carte blanche to let our characters be really messed up by it.

He offended someone by staring at them? Why? How many seconds were you allowed to look at someone? Wait, not looking at them could be rude too? How could anyone figure out this stuff? If they couldn’t even explain to him how to do it right, why tell him he was doing it wrong?

This chapter is where people started asking me if Iriel has autism. Which I still don't have a concrete answer for! Partly because I'm not sure a fictional character benefits from that kind of word-of-god authorial specificity, when you could just let readers decide, and relate to him however they want to. But also because if Ire's autistic, then probably I'm autistic, and it's not like I'm against the concept, but I really don't know! When I was writing HTDC, I labelled a lot of my behaviours as social anxiety, because they primarily manifested when I was under stress. It blew my mind slightly when someone said to me, "what if it's just that being under stress removes your ability to mask?". I'm still thinking about that one, to be honest, but I'll spare you my non-conclusions, here.

Then he hit adolescence, and it turned out that everything prior had just been the warm-up act for being a queer teenager completely unequipped to conceal this fact from his incomprehending parents and conservative town.

While I'm still vaguely irritated by this chapter, at least we didn't get all this backstory as actual written chapters, right? Gotta start in media res. Gotta skip to the bits that matter for this story. 

Also, we don't need to have the boring argument about whether it's more radical/regressive to write fantasy queer utopias, or to recreate systems of oppression in fantasy worlds, right? Of course people can do either, do both, do whatever suits their purpose and is interesting.

I've read some amazing fic* set in Summerset, where homosexuality was an accepted and valued part of society. That approach is totally valid! It just didn't fit what I wanted to do, here, so my headcanons are different.

Based on what I'd inferred about Altmer values (I don't know ESO, don't talk to me about ESO), homophobia as a default in that society does seem very plausible to me. Summerset is a culture where bloodlines (and so heterosexual procreative pairings) are obsessively cultivated. Your blood is who you are, it’s fixed and unalterable, and if you’re acting (or fucking) against the overall societal interest, there must be something wrong with you and your blood.

According to a first-era emissary to the Altmer isles: "Breeding outside the pure line is a terrible, unthinkable crime, and taken as prima facia evidence of the tainted blood of the individual in question- if they were, they wouldn't have the impulse to do it. Exile to the mainland is regarded as equivalent to a death sentence, since there is no purpose in living outside their ideal society."

Now, we have to take this with a heavy pinch of salt. He goes on to write: "They have no real names of their own, only combinations of numbers that, when spoken aloud, sound to human ears as such. They feel no real tenderness for one another and have no concept of compassion." So, as with any TES text: biased source. But I think it's reasonable to assume that the Altmer do care a lot about purity of bloodlines, since this theme reoccurs elsewhere.

* Exhibit A: In Pedo Impedimenta, which is hands-down the best Summerset fic around, and in terms of wildly imaginative headcanons, one of the best TES fics, full stop. It's... a lot. It's unfinished, but you should read it anyway.

He had a plan: the Crystal Tower. Get there, he told himself, and everything will be all right. And then he did… and it wasn’t.

The fic I linked above, In Pedo Impedimenta, is set in the 4th era, and has a scene in which an Imperial tries to make a politely regretful remark about the tragic destruction of the Crystal Tower during the Oblivion Crisis. He is blindsided by how even the slightest mention sucks the air out of the room, sending half the Altmer into tearful, traumatised paroxysms of shock, while others barely restrain themselves from murdering him. The level of social faux pas is off the charts, basically. Altmer grief for the Tower is fathomless, because the Crystal Tower represented the Altmer people, was their heart, soul, ancestral memory, you name it. A symbol of Altmeri perfection.

Iriel revered the Tower from childhood, grew up struggling to prove himself worthy. Getting accepted there was a validation of his entire being, evidence that whatever anyone else thought, he was capable of touching, representing and embodying that perfection. Getting expelled, therefore, was equally personal.

Intellectually, Iriel knows there were petty, down-to-earth reasons for his expulsion, but that sort of symbolism is hard to shake.

Speaking of symbolism, according to ESO, the Crystal Tower looks like this. Yes, I know. I hate it, I had not seen this when I wrote about it, and I honestly refuse to accept it. I wanted it to be a symbol of Iriel's pure desire for knowledge and intellectual advancement, but SOME PEOPLE want to make everything he does into a sex joke. I hate it, and I don't care that it's got a nice safe flared base.

Invisibility potions require diamonds - too expensive to make a habit of. Ire began to practice invisibility cantrips obsessively. [...] Gradually, he discovered that more subtle and specialised effects were possible with illusion, allowing him to adjust his “dosage” according to the situation.

Illusion magic! Already, it's being framed as a sort of drug, with dosages and expensive dependency. Iriel makes this framing himself, and later mutters sarcastically about his addictive personality. But what is he trying to medicate away? Short answer: himself. Physically or mentally can vary. I told people from the start: the title of the fic was never metaphorical.

Depending on the alchemical properties of the bog, corpses could either remain perfectly preserved indefinitely, or decompose to skeletons in mere hours. He suspected that he was not the former.

Iriel has a terrible phobia of skeletons and bones, though I don't think I knew that yet, when I wrote this line. But this is the crux of it: bones are what's left, when everything else has been taken away, all the soft, pretty, fleshy nonsense that buffers our inmost selves from the outside world. Bones have nowhere to hide. And, to Iriel at least, they are fucking horrid.

But Iriel, we could say, what's the alternative? That corpses don't decompose? That dead people stay the same forever, and never really leave? Isn't that differently horrid? I got really obsessed with this theme, later, something Morrowind's burial customs makes easy.

Sinilakki drew Iriel being all translucent in the swamp.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said Iriel had a psychological stall. Stalls don't move, and the entire point of a character-driven narrative is to move a character, right? How are we moving them? On rails, like a train? Self-driven, or carried passenger? That has to change, too, right?

Around half-way through writing HTDC, I made a notes document, trying to clarify to myself what kind of story I was trying to tell. I did it by defining the sort of story I wasn't trying to tell, and I'm just gonna copy-paste it all here, stream-of-consciousness non-capitalisation and all:

not a coming of age story

ire knows who he is (that's kinda the problem), he's an adult now, whatever the fuck that means.

it's about what happens next, how he can fit this adult self of his into the world (can he? does he want to? what kind of world? there are many.) what does it mean to be normal, does he want that? why/why not?

if he fits in, what will that cost him? if he walks away from everything, what will that cost him? what does he value most? could he still change? should he? what would that cost? are these cost estimates of his accurate?? how is even mental accounting???

how mutable is his identity, his self-image, the image he projects? which one is real, are any of them real? is he a trick of the light, reflecting false images with nothing behind it at all? smoke and mirrors.

not a coming out story

ire's out to his family (he's never had much choice about it) and he's past all that terrified self-realisation, first love/lust bit, past the initial horror of it. the worst already happened, in terms of his family and his old life, it's dead and gone, and he survived. and he's bored now. bored and bitter. because it ought to get easier, and it doesn't. "it gets better" got him through his teens. but he's still waiting, and nothing fucking changes, or rather, it got worse. where is his community? is that a thing? and while plenty of this is beyond his control, part of it is internal. Ire maintains, on a logical, rational, principled level, that there's nothing wrong with his sexuality, and that what happened wasn't his fault, that he was badly treated, that he deserves the same right to love and be happy as anyone. HOWEVER. it's not as simple as that. he's been deeply psychologically damaged by homophobia, it has claws in his self esteem that he can't seem to shift. he worries he can't maintain a healthy relationship because of it. worries he can't have a healthy relationship with himself.

not a romance

it's not about iriel falling in love with someone truly, madly, deeply, permanently happy ever after. it's certainly not about a relationship fixing his problems, if anything it gives him more.

it is about relationships, in particular his changing relationship with julan, and the ways it makes him examine himself and how he interacts, and what he wants from another person. What he did wrong in the past, and what he needs to stop blaming himself for. And what his partners need from him, and how he can learn to meet those needs, should he choose to do so. about that negotiation. about failing at it, about screwing things up really badly, on both sides, and where that ends up. about trying to fix things. about what you can/should forgive, what you can't, and what forgiveness means. about recognising when to hold on to someone and when to let go.

what is preventing iriel from building healthy relationships? from feeling, expressing and receiving love? how does this change? what kinds of relationships/people are good for him?

not a tragedy

ire's been through enough shit, and doesn't really believe happiness is likely. this is not about proving him right. it's not about giving him a happy ending on a plate either, his is not a journey of one step, and this story is limited in scope. but it's about managing loss & moving forward.

ok so what is it?

it is about survival and growth. how ire is paralysed by his trauma, and resists change, and the ways he struggles to get past this. to take control of himself & be more than a product of his past & his conditions. to make choices, not be swept along/reacting. to find ways of being in the world and engaging with it.

its about ire's coping mechanisms. what they are, why he has them, how they help him, how some of them damage or restrict him. whether he needs them, or can replace them, reconfigure them, drop them entirely. the things you do to survive are not the things you do to get free. how can ire move from survival to getting free?

it's about surviving, and then about surviving/outgrowing the person you had to become in order to survive.

All aboard, guarfuckers! We've got 197 miles of bad road!

next: 4: falling previous: 2: labels

[sorryimananti-romantic]

hi! i just wanted to come on here to firstly ask a question, then praise your work!

first, my question is what’s your writing process? whenever i try to write, i always end up getting distracted because i worry so much about how i start the story. should i begin with a line of dialogue? should i start with a rhetorical question/vague backstory that leads into a character’s current situation? should i just start with action straight off the bat? i literally never know. there are some days where i get the inspiration to write all day, but i never end writing anything because i get stuck on the intro or research.

i even have a document with the first few paragraphs of multiple works that i like just to see how these wonderful pieces start. one document of mine is like one page long and it’s only filled with possible intros. LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE!! and they’re all so different from each other! yours always lead into the story so well and they’re never the same, so i applaud you!

anyways, onto your well deserved praise! you are literally the only writer on this site that i genuinely look forward to. when you released guerilla, i literally squealed and i don’t do that. maybe a giggle here and there, but never a squeal. not only do you write long stories (which i personally prefer. 20k - 50k words? AND it’s good writing?? you deserve a kiss on the head from God himself!), but quality writing, good punctuation, no overused dialogue tags, badass reader characters, and always a happy ending. you’re truly a godsend! especially because of your happy endings (and badass reader character— emphasis on badass). there’s this one seonghwa piece that’s like over 50k words, but it doesn’t have a happy ending so i haven’t read it. for me, fiction should end with the reader being happy so if i won’t be happy at the end, i don’t want to read it. but that never happens with you. i’m sure i’ve read all your pieces at least once and i can positively say that i’m always smiling like an idiot after i finish.

overall, you’re a writer that i learn from and you’re writing is absolutely awesome. keep up the good work and make sure to take care of yourself! i may not know you personally, but that doesn’t mean i can’t think you deserve all the good things in the world for creating a universe that readers can get immersed in and forget about reality for some time. all for free at that too. you deserve the world and more. so does everyone else reading this though! can’t wait for your next release! you’re awesome!!

omygod. this has to be the best message i have ever received and i'm smiling so hard. i read this like three times before i came up with a few words to respond (if you know me, you also know i struggle with this ahaha 😭)

first of all, thank you so much for the praise, i can't tell you how much this means to me and this came at the right time- perhaps, you're godsend for me! (struggling with this one fic and i refuse to write anything else until i finish this one bc it's collected dust for far too long now). you squealed when you saw guerrilla? 😭 you prefer long stories? 😭 and you like happy endings? 😭😭 that's me yes ahaha

thank you so much, glad to have another person here who likes the length of my fics (bc of you all i have been physically unable to keep my oneshots short). i'm glad my writing style appeals to you! i know my english isn't perfect but thank you for appreciating it! one thing i refuse to write is a basic reader character (not that we don't like a basic reader character once in a while-- i just always gotta add a little sth 😭) (might write a basic reader soon tho ahaha) as for the happy endings, i do have a few tragedies planned for the year but you're absolutely right-- we love our happy endings. if i have to make sth tragic, it will be ending on a bittersweet, it-had-to-be-this-way note and i hope i can write it well and i hope you read that whenever i post it too! i'd love to hear what you think of it (it's far in the future but one day i will)

to answer your question, my writing process for a long time was literally just sit and write whatever's coming to me. most of my fics have been spontaneous like that-- sudden impulse, unplanned everything, just a general idea of the roles of the main characters and a basic idea of the plot-- not even the ending. i don't like to plan the ending, actually. i like to simply plan how it begins, what the key points are, and the ending comes naturally from there.

one thing i've started doing recently is just write my thoughts in a paragraph or bulletpoints (bc i have the memory of a goldfish) but it helps if you want to prefer planning and then writing. the most important advice i can give to anyone here is to not be afraid to write. literally write whatever you want, and do not be afraid to edit. or even rewrite. cannot stress this enough. i'll give an example:

with guerrilla, i had the trope: serial killer/doctor/biker yunho and crime fiction writer reader. no background of the characters. no ending in mind. simply that they were housemates, there will be dark humour involved and yunho will gradually warm up to the reader. that was literally all i had! when i opened the doc to write, i thought about how i would want it to start-- i think with intros, you gotta write sth that gives the readers a basic idea of where they are, why they are there, who they are, etc. and then you can continue the story, so you gotta shape the intro to attract their attention with a general idea, right? now i just went with the flow, wrote whatever i wanted to, and whenever i would add some detail, i would go back and edit it in- either in the form of dialogue or some foreshadowing (we love foreshadowing). when i thought of their tragic past? went back again to edit that in. so basically just a series of writing, editing what's written, cutting what looks unnecessary now, and voila.

so how should you start your story? depends on the story. sometimes, it needs to start with action when it's an action heavy plot, right? we would like to find ourselves in a middle of a fight or sth like that to set the tone immediately. so whatever the theme of your story is, you gotta set the tone in the first part! also, don't be afraid to start from wherever you want- you can always add parts later! like my series take me home-- i literally started from the middle and when i came up with a plot twist that supported what i wrote, i went back and wrote the first half LOL and then i planned the ending from there. i think readers also prefer if you don't add unnecessary details/scenes in the beginning, yeah? fillers are for inside the story, not in the beginning or the ending.

also, don't be afraid to experiment! write what you're the most comfortable writing, don't be too hung up on research and facts-- you can literally make anything up because it's fiction. it's your world and your rules. i literally make up whole new universes to save myself from the hassle of real-life technicalities (you may have noticed how i never use real places or setting lmao). if you have an idea that you really want to write, start with there, and simply, write. let the words flow, let it go wherever your mind takes you. you'll find your hands typing by themselves! you can worry about if it's good or not later, just write! (you won't believe me but as i'm finishing writing a fic, i begin to kind of hate it. no amount of reassurances convince me that it's good enough bc i am the writer. i still post and when i receive feedback, that's when i realise it might be good! and when some time has passed and i reread it, i'm sometimes amazed- i wrote that? how will i top that? and the cycle continues 😔✌️)

also, thank you for that sweet little msg at the end 🥹 literally sending my best to you. you deserve all the good things too! i'm glad you're able to get yourself lost in the universe i create for my fics, that means i'm doing a good job 🥹 thank you again! <33 i hope you won't be afraid to write and simply wing it LOL that's how i do it and you know what?

the most unplanned and spontaneous fics have been the most loved here.

[cerealmonster15]

MWAHAHAHAA UNO REVERSE CARD 1 & 8 YOULL NEVER CATCH ME ALIVE 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️

wh- hey- HEY COME BACK do NOT make me add a Draw Four Cards in the same color to your pile!!! COME BACK HERE AND TALK ABOUT CHARACTERS!!!!!

not yet tho. it's my turn 😌 going for twst for both of these ��

sorry. i talked a lot. this is why no one else sent me questions probably. bc i can and will do it again given the chance 🧡

1- the character everyone gets wrong

i. 🧍 ok so ive been more in my bubble lately so perhapeth my frothing at the mouth will be a bit more outdated idk. im scared of the main tags LOL but. ahem, i am torn between wanting to pick riddle, maybe cater, or ROOK. im a rook apologist til the day i die i s2g. however i am a heartslabyul stan first and a person second, as i have said many a time, so im going with CATER MY BELOVED CAYCAY ACTUALLY.

listen i admit here that i could also be Fully Wrong bc tbh cater's whole Deal is so vaguely hinted at and peppered in at the most spaced out moments and we know so very little about his Secret Sadness and more somber side, there's probably more that we still dont know that maybe [I HOPE] they will spring on us over time. however. HOWEVER. i do not think cater's sunshine upbeat persona is 100% "Fake". like i think there's more to it. yes sure he is implied to be putting on more of a peppy face for the sake of people around him and gets exhausted by it, but i dont think that means it's ALL A LIE and that the sad boy cater is the REAL cater. like i think it's all real, to an extent? something i really like about twst are how, at least to me, everyone seems to be pretty well rounded and multifaceted. there's not really a one note character. everyone's got their own personality and backstory and some we just have learned more about than others. but the way they react to certain situations and certain people and certain environments... just like in real life, it's going to change sometimes depending on the situation. so maybe he masks a bit and pushes out the negativity bc he's def the mediator type who tries to keep up morale, but i dont think that means he's never once experienced Real Joy in his life. i know the lab story with the madrake had those more morose sadlad mandrakes he desperately wanted to hide from lilia and vil [even tho they saw right through him] but the other ones he made still reflected him too! aspects of him, for better or for worse. i'm just saying i don't think it's gotta be all or nothing. there's def more to him under the surface, but i don't think that means everything he shows is all a complete lie forever either.

to follow up on that, i ALSO don't agree w/the depiction that his friendships mean nothing to him / are also all "fake". listen. i have reread cater's wish from the starsending event SEVERAL times. i know. IT HURTS where trey implies he thinks cater isn't being fully open and honest with him. I KNOW. and the bit in cater's halloween card story (i'm pretty sure it was cater's anyway) where he thinks to himself that lilia has no idea what kind of helplessness he's feeling bc lilia has his diasomnia long term friends and cater's had to move around so much so he's never had that, and it kinda seemed implied that his old friends dont really keep in touch til hes relevant on magicam for the stuff going on in school . i get it! HOWEVER. i think it's again a more complex situation. i think, personally, cater as he's said few times in canon - he likes to live in the moment and make memories! but i don't think those good memories are fake. i think you can enjoy people's company and love them a whole lot and still keep them at a bit of a distance. i think cater does mask some of his more serious feelings, as trey implied he suspected. i think cater probably does get tired of being the mediator. i think being the third in command at heartslabyul is exhausting and cater's a teen boy with a lot of complicated feelings, but i think he has fun with lilia and kalim in pop music club. i think he and trey are genuine friends - they roomed together for 2 years! i think he loves teasing his little freshmen buddies like a big brother lol. i'm about to go on about riddle and cater in the next question but fkljsdfjlkse.

yes cater holds back, but i dont think that means he's never expressed genuine feelings either!!!

8- common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

i am biting anyone that tries to imply cater and riddle arent friends or that trey prefers riddle over cater!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LISTEN listen listen. ok i get that it can be an interesting concept to explore of the potential tension between cater riddle and trey w/like childhood friends trey and riddle but then bestie 3rd years trey and cater but then riddle shows up and takes control- i get it! i dont necessarily think it's wrong to explore that potential area.

however. HOWEVER. we are talking about MY options and thoughts and feelings on beloved heartslabyul LOL. And I think cater and riddle ARE FRIENDS!!!!!!! i think all three of them!!!! are!!!!! FRIENDS!!!!!!!! THEY GET ALONG THEY LOVE EACH OTHER!!!! some people portray riddle as being annoyed with cater or whatever and like , on one hand riddle is annoyed at many things and caycay's kind of a goofball so like yeah to a degree that's true LOL but!!!! BUT!!!!! riddle trusts cater. riddle likes cater!!! if you've read the heartslabyul card stories as many times as i have fjlksjkejs you would KNOW that riddle trusts cater enough to have him and trey at his side constantly and gives them BOTH roles of leading the underclassmen for stuff like preparing for the unbirthday parties!! and when he's having his little meltdowns in book 1, trey and cater were the ones he had kind of on the front lines of ejecting ace or whatever klsjfv they are his trusted boys!!! AND in halloween 2 when cater was missing, riddle said usually he'd get on cater's case for talking too much (lol) but he, along with trey and ace, were 😔😔😔 making the saddest of faces as he said it felt weird to NOT hear cater making his jokes to lighten the mood, and trey ALSO commented on how cater's usually there to smooth things over. cater is a mediator and a morale booster and he is recognized as such!!

plus!!! riddle made a point in his dorm outfit story of helping cater study, as he does with all the heartslabyul boys that are struggling, but in a way cater could understand. he literally made a magicam and used it exclusively to help cater focus better and learn in a way that worked for him. like yea he loses his temper, bc hes Like That, but he ALSO cares. he also tries! he's got his flaws but he's still in spite of those flaws doing what he can to try and understand the people around him and especially his TRUSTED FRIENDS LIKE CATER!!!!

and trey loves cater too!!! they are friends!!! yes yes whatever i read the cater gym story where trey goes "u and me are tight but riddle and i are tighter as his housewarden lol" listen to me. LISTEN TO ME. grabbing u all by the shoulders and shaking you so much LISTENNNNNNNNNNNN. again i get it that it can be fun to explore that further of like "ough he chooses riddle over cater cater is all alone" and like im not the fun police people can do what they want. HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i do not think it was That Deep. like maybe it was, maybe a little bit. but i did not read that as "trey doesnt care about cater" or anything like that. i very much see trey and cater's bond as like easygoing well oiled machine but also with a lot of banter and teasing. trey has said on a home screen line (i wanna say it's his ceremony robes card) that he and cater's friendship just kinda naturally fell into place bc cater's really easy to get along with and trey feels like he can be himself around him [which yes coupled with the line he says in starsending about how he feels like maybe cater's got more personal wishes that maybe he doesnt feel like he can share with Trey Specifically is. painful. LOL] and actually!!! in both their ceremony robes stories they are together and trey is teasing cater i think lol. like in cater's they're doing the guessing game of which dorm each student would get sorted into. theyre playing a game!!! cater's being silly sometimes and treys kinda shaking his head at him for some of his comments, but theyre getting along and are comfortable and it's a lighthearted thing. then in trey's story, theyre panicking about how the roses arent painted how they should be, trey says caters gotta split card and go for it and is like "lol thanks for ur sacrifice ♥", caters like THATS EXHAUSTINGGGGGG and treys like "yea yea ill listen to you complain all you want later". and trey smiles to himself at caters magicam post right after! it's endearing. panic together, solutions together, complaining and teasing but ultimately they work well together! they are friends who get along! trey is kind of a goofy guy but it's not as apparent, but i think we see it a little more especially within heartslabyul and especially with cater. maybe thats part of what he means by feeling like he can be more relaxed and stuff around cay. god theres so much of cater and trey being absolute besties - even grim and lilia have separate lines commenting on how theyre like bffs. grim mentions it in the scalding sands event, something about how it's no surprise that cater invited trey to come on the trip. and lilia in book 5 straight up says [in the engtwst translation] "I'm surprised you didn't invite your partner, Trey." and then i mean yea cater immediately is like "wahhh i DID but hes busy helping riddle he rejected meeee we are rejected buddiessss" and later is like "wahhh riddle stole trey away~!!!" when theyre checking on everything lol. BUT i think a lot of that is like just caycay bein silly and trey not only had other obligations but also was likely not going to want to do a performance thing anyway [trey even says later like 'i told you im bad at song and dance lol'] fsjklejkf like i dont think it's that deep here, i think cay was just havin a goof complaining and wanting to hang with his buddies lol. but my point was lilia basically being like "hey man where is your other half that you are constantly with" BECAUSE THEY ARE FRIENDS!!!

ok. ive. been typing for like an hour or so JKLjfldjsf I AM SO SORRY I LOVE TALKING ABOUT CHARACTERS SO MUCH I CANNOT BE BRIEF ABOUT THESE STUPID PIXEL BOYS!!! THEY MEAN EVERYTHING TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!! thank u for enabling me 😌

[VIOLENCE QUESTIONS] [if this essay wasnt enough LOL]

[voyageofthenautilus]

A Pearl Worth Ten Million

Mod Blue: It's taken me a while to blog about this chapter, but I do intend to blog about it, because this is an Important Chapter. Upon re-reading it, it may have become my third favorite chapter in the book (first is "The Coral Realm," second is... you'll see).

-“Rifles! What for? Don’t your mountaineers attack bears dagger in hand? And isn’t steel surer than lead? Here’s a sturdy blade. Slip it under your belt and let’s be off.”

Omg, I can just picture Aronnax's eyes going wide, and he starts to say something like "wait, are you sure about this?", but then the helmet goes over his head and everyone sets off and he's resigned to let go of his fears and follow them. I'd say "someone should draw this," but the more I say that, the more I think that someone should be me.

-I had no idea that crabs that eat coconuts were a thing, but I am very happy to now know that they ARE a thing.

-I wonder how that oyster feels about Nemo periodically coming by to open it up and check on his pearl. Also, how would Nemo determine when it's "done," so to speak? It would make a fine addition to his collection even at its current size. I feel like he's just showing off by this point.

-"...soon we reentered Our Element. I think I’ve now earned the right to dub it that." Yeah, yeah, Pierre, don't get a big head about it. (This is giving me some of the same vibes as the last line of the book, but I can't talk about that because SPOILERS...)

-Captain Nemo fighting the shark= YESSSSSS! Mentally I'm jumping up and down and squealing like a teenager whose crush has just asked them out. (And how lovingly Aronnax describes this incident, too... "I can see Captain Nemo’s bearing to this day..." He IS the teenager and Nemo is his crush.)

-Also, gotta hand it to Ned here for helping out- I hope he'll calm down now that he's finally managed to kill something.

-"How startled he must have felt, how frightened even, at seeing four huge, copper craniums leaning over him!" This is another image that MUST be drawn, as I can see it so clearly in my head.

-Aaaaaand there's the Important Moment from this chapter- Captain Nemo giving the diver his pearls. I wonder if he was prepared to run into someone and that's why he brought them along? Anyway, this shows that underneath it all... Nemo DOES still care about humanity, to an extent. He DOES have a heart and a conscience. (Back when I posted that earlier meta about Nemo, I was planning on writing an addendum discussing this moment, but I didn't want to mention it until the emails caught up to it, and now I don't remember what exactly I wanted to say. Anyway care to expound upon this moment and what it means for Nemo's character?)

-One final spoilery note (if you don't know Nemo's canonical backstory and want to be surprised, don't keep reading):

So, the last line of the chapter has a LOT of significance.

“That Indian, professor, lives in the land of the oppressed, and I am to this day, and will be until my last breath, a native of that same land!”

When I first read this line, having read The Mysterious Island which explains Nemo's backstory, I thought... did the translator intentionally implicitly reference Nemo's backstory with this line? Because anyone who's read that book can tell you that Nemo is, in fact, Indian. And as I recalled the story, Verne hadn't written Twenty Thousand Leagues with this backstory in mind. As I recalled it, Nemo had originally been written as Polish, but at the urging of his editor, he obscured all direct references to his background, and later wrote him as Indian in The Mysterious Island since a Polish character fighting against Russian oppression may have caused political controversy, apparently. This whole time I've been re-reading this book, I've been under the impression that Verne had not, at this point, determined Nemo's official background. But I was wrong- it looks like Nemo was only written as Polish in early drafts of the book, and despite keeping his background vague, he may have already settled on depicting Nemo as Indian by the time the book was published.

Now that I've read this chapter, I now see that Verne likely already had Nemo's Indian background in mind. This is how he wrote the line in French:

« Cet Indien, monsieur le professeur, c'est un habitant du pays des opprimés, et je suis encore, et, jusqu'à mon dernier souffle, je serai de ce pays-là ! »

And going off my VERY rudimentary French knowledge, it means something close to how Walter translated it:

"This Indian, professor, is an inhabitant of an oppressed country, and I am still, and, until my last breath, will be from that country!"

If anything, this almost makes it MORE explicit, with Nemo specifically saying he's from the same country. However... even though it appears Verne was dropping a huge hint with this line... This should not be taken as THE background reveal. That only occurs in The Mysterious Island. This line does not keep Aronnax from wondering about Nemo's background. It does not illuminate anything for him, except confirming that he has empathy for citizens of oppressed nations. There's no moment where he puts two and two together. Up until the end of the book, Nemo is still somewhat of a cipher, and while readers can probably figure it out, what's important is that Aronnax doesn't, and therefore it should not be assumed that he does.

[sodascribbles]

yet more honor among thieves rambling. im watching a playthrough lol

WHAT does bentley throw at dr. m is it a sleep dart why does it explode WHY DOES HE THROW IT

"Sly, no! Hold on, Sly-- hold on!"

an elusive picture of slys mom (just her silhouette tho next to connors) and a picture of who i can only assume is connor, mcsweeney, and dr m...........

THE HATS TOO BIG FOR HIMMM

the cooky-steelin' plan (sobbing)

pls imagine something eloquent about the fact that we never see what connor really looks like in these "flashbacks"- presumably bc sly doesn't remember

slys leg pouch doesnt fully wrap around his leg ?? might just be the lighting tho.

i wonder abt their sources how DID they find out abt murray

i love that Octavio is the guy they call old. not bison. who is from the 1800s

im obsessed with just abt all the villain backstories

this playthrough doesnt have the hazard room and im deeply upset about it. as a matter of fact i might find one that DOES bc i love the banter wkfhhehd

...when DO you get to the hazard room? its before u start Opera isnt it ?? unclear

i will not find one w the hazard room unfortunately but i have switched to a 100% run out of curiosity

gotta be honest Italy is probably one of if not my favorite episode ever

DIMITRI HI BBG

you've got some FUZZY DICE to come round here

MAIN MAN MURRAY the way he says it is so good

AW WHAT THIS PLAYTHROUGH DOESNT DO ALL THE SILLY OPTIONS (i mean i understand why i just like the silly options)

i love that the captions capitalize Bro

fun fact if you take too long crawling around carmelita will just repeat the presentation bc she doesnt think they were paying attention lmao

i love the apes(?) insulting each other. "You look a lot better in the dark, Petro. Seriously, you are an ugly, ugly man."

why does dimitri have a cigarette in a jail cell

"keep your HANDS to YOURSELF leon."

in love with the way dimitri talks, as we all are.

whys he call murray a Plump Dog though that's uncalled for /j

"HELLO ASSORTED MEATHEADS! and lady C:"

she tells her men to grab him and Nobody Follows

theres a couple hitches that happen in between games that im incredibly curious about, e.i. murray becoming The Murray between 1 and 2 and inspector fox going from her little smile and "ill find you, cooper!" to "she grew up and stopped taking grief from guys like you" that happens between 2 and 3

"You can't keep running for the rest of your life!" WATCH ME

"Greetings, old-- iNSPECTOR FOX?!"

murray's spiritual outfit model is so fascinating to me

AUDGJAHDHS they make me feel emotions /pos

the venetian safehouse fascinates me the door opens straight to stairs and the actual safehouse part is on the top floor

"now as non-law operatives, we can take a more... head on approach. wE'RE GONNA BREAK IN--"

OH WAIT ITS THE HAZARD ROOM HELL YEAH <<33

in love w them they're the best duo ever /hj

"hey, don't feel bad! those wall hooks were... kinda tricky!" "it was ALL supposed to be tricky!"

the ceiling of the hazard room is.... fascinating

theres always a certain level of. oh jeez what's the word. playfulness? between early game sly and bentley. it always kinda sounds like they're both smiling and joking around w each other and it warms my heart

this will not be the first time i talk about it

once more with the caption choices. on-line is hyphenated

YOU GET: A PRIZE!

bentley just kills a man.mp4

"Alright, smooth talker, try robbing this guy." see the above about their banter and their dynamic

though to be fair sly and bentley usually have a vague kind of playful/bantery vibe. it's just incredibly palpable during Italy, probably because they're the only two characters in the spotlight and therefore they get to be explored more

ok hold on im gonna get food b4 i continue

one food break later...

okay im back

"You're not gonna say 'I'm a lover, not a fighter,' are you?" "Well, not now." "Thought so."

in love w bentley just sending a man to murder sly

how DID they get all these guards into the hazard room. where is the hazard room

WBYS THE GUARD JUST SCREAM

bentleys voice when he says "now give this guy the business" send post

AND HE GETS SO EXCITED WHEN HE TALKS ABOUT THE BOAT. and sly sounds just So amused with his "yeah?" hes so used to this bullshit

i hope you're ready for me to talk ceaselessly about sly and bentleys dynamic it's my favorite thing snfnebbfd

"Against sleeping guards, I'm like a Greek god! All fall before me!" hes so silly i love him

nerves of steel?? you have no nerves of steel you silly anxious goob

AND HE GETS SO EXCITED ABOUT THE PPP (pick pocket pole)

sly ALSO murders a man

bentleys wheelies heart emoji...

THE HUMBLE RECON PHOTO!!

"There you go, Bentley, some wonderful pinups for our refrigerator." "They're lovely. High art!" "Seriously?" "No."

i love that murray shows up on the menu before you get him back that's so funny to me

huh. do you need all the upgrades for 100%? ill find out

"The Don is headed toward your position." "Great! Want me to take him?" "No!"

sly vc DO YOU WANT ME TO KILL THAT GUY FOR YOU? /ref

gotta be honest bentley i think killing him would also put an end to this nonsense

"Never thought we'd be helping out the cops." "Reaally? You always seem eager to aid Inspector Fox."

bentley and murray calling out slys crush on carmelita is my favorite thing wjfhwbdbwd

octavio singin as he goes azKEKFHWHDB THE PERSON JUST GOT CAUGHT LMAO

"I got a SHADOW, huh???"

SLY you NEED TO BE QUIETER you aLERTED OCTAVIO TO YOUR PRESENCE

octavio just bodychecked a dude lmao

i love how angry bentley gets about the fish tank especially he gets SO MAD i love him

"I- I can't believe it! He flooded that aquarium with tar! All those poor, dead fish! As much as I hate to see what heinous crime this fiend will do next, you should probably keep on his tail. Someday, the people will know the truth due to your pictures!"

"all those poor, dead fish!" LMAO

ok I've been on a ferris wheel exactly one (1) time but im like 95% sure the cart would tilt w/ sly hanging onto it

octavios captions are SO slow akdbhwhdbd

AND BENTLEY GETS SO MAD ABOUT THE FERRIS WHEEL. and then proceeds to call rewiring it "the dark side of electrical engineering"

bwa BWA <- the sly 3 job complete noise

i really hated Into the Depths on my first playthrough but that was mostly bc i was still bad at the game i think. it's really not so bad

what is it with the stupid 3d goggles WHY do they exist weve never seen them before and we never see them (w the exclusion of cutscenes and maybe one or two mentions) again

okay ive never messed up the doors in my life but im very glad bentley doesnt make fun of you for it i think id cry

also he does his idle animations while talking which means that sometimes he sneezes mid sentence and its really funny. bentleys idle animations are so good in general tho

bentleys and the ones from the safehouses

OKAY SO I DIDNT KNOW THIS UNTIL EARLIER TODAY BUT OCTAVIO CALLS 3 GUYS (mario, raphael, and julius) TO COME SEE HIM AND SAYS "if any of you catch these boys make a run for it [cat noise) shoot 'em in the back"

BUT WHEN YOU SEE IN HIS OFFICE THERES ONLY 2 DUDES. IMPLYING ONE GOT SHOT IN THE BACK .

OH HE SAYS JULIUS MADE A RUN FOR IT. OKAY ("julius made a run for it, and eh... [unintelligible]") i cannot for the life of me figure out what else he says there oops. maybe ill go replay that mission later and find out for sure

i know that's not particularly groundbreaking all things considered but again i didnt know it until earlier today so

once more Bentley getting excited about murder

"Synchronize watches, and..." you fuckin nerd

"Just as long as you're enjoying yourself, that's the important thing." again w the affectionate sarcasm

sly and bentley are both very sarcastic usually as opposed to murray who's pretty heart on his sleeve straightforward kind of guy which is probably why this ep & the hazard room sticks out so much for the banter. again bc its JUST the two of them lol

"Sorry, Sly, I guess the dinosaur has teeth!"

i love knocking the pigeons into fire it's so much fun

you get to hear the same "Intruders!" line like 17 times

fuckin piano computer lookin ass

i wish bentley and murray (and the rest of the team, but bentley and murray especially) had a little bit more... idk. reasons to free roam? like with the options of them as playable characters you would assume there would be more things tailored to their unique skillsets but a lot of getting around the overworld is very sly-focused, which i guess i get, but it means theres really no reason to play as the others except for missions

DESPITE KNOWING THAT ITLL ONLY MAKE THINGS HARDER BENTLEY GOING OUT OF JIS WAY TO HELP SLY SAVE CARMELITA bawling

bentleys such a fucking dork have i said that already i think we need to call more attention to him being a fucking dork

fun fact if you repeatedly tap □/r1 your gun will heat up slower BUT your finger WILL hurt by the end of it

haha they're cooper brother colored (blue, green, & pink/red)

though tbf most trios are if you think about it. but shh cooper brothers

"I hope you realize that by saving Carmelita, we're only making our operation here more difficult." "Maybe so, but what's the fun in stealing if there's nobody trying to catch you? Besides, she's helped us out in the past." "That, and you've got a thing for her." "...and I've got a thing for her. Look, I'll stash this boat, it might be useful for later. You stay out of trouble."

again, bentley and murray calling him out on his crush is priceless and i wish they did it more w bentley and penelope WLFJJWJDHE

okay funny story it's a few weeks later things happened anyway. going back to watching honor among thieves lol

ill probably split this post up into a few posts just so this one isnt 18 million years long

[mittensmorgul]

OMG. California scenes. I'm a SoCal girl and I just realized that this... is true. I think of myself as guarded, but wow. I think I've actually sat down and opened up to a relative stranger over lunch and then coffee. But I don't do it to seem centered! Anyway, gotta go back and look over my unpublished fics and make sure that I don't accidentally put too much of myself into them...

hi there! I swear I’m gonna write a bit about your message, but for reference, for others reading this, I think I need to provide a bit of context first. :) This is regarding this post about writing exposition:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/190756281185/cthonical-gallifrey-feels-fanfic-authors

Disclaimer time! I reblogged it specifically for that highlighted bit at the top:

And my specific intent in reblogging this was every complaint I ever read about why Dean and Cas don’t just ~talk to each other~ and deal with their issues. Every single “but they could’ve dealt with this years ago and been together!” I will counter “No, they really couldn’t! Because that’s not the story they’ve ever been telling!” 

But, I’ve heard argued, if they really wanted to, they could change the story they’re telling. They could so easily make it obvious, explicit, textual between them. And of course they could! If they had zero authorial integrity, they could do whatever they wanted.

The way they have set up this story for the last decade and a half has established-- through the slow unfolding of more and more important facts, of gradually uncovering details, as above in purple, that become necessary for comprehension of the characters and their progression through this story-- that Dean’s relationship with Cas has been established in an ever tighter orbit around their mutual most deeply buried and tightly guarded secrets.

For reference, I’m not pulling this line of thinking out of nowhere. This is literally a rephrasing of something Davy Perez said in an interview when he first started with SPN back in s12. I never finished transcribing that podcast, but the relevant bit of the two hour conversation is included in this post:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160988290690/12-while-i-do-not-ask-this-to-be-negative-at

but the tl;dr of the handful of paragraphs of full context from that post:

Television is about a character that you become invested in, and that you fall in love with. That character grows in incremental ways. Not only do they grow in tiny little increments, and sometimes don’t even grow, they go backwards. You don’t close the loop. You keep the loop open, so that hopefully when you know that okay, this is our final season, this is our final run of episodes, that’s when you can find those landing points, and that’s when you can sort of say this is the end of this journey.

And Supernatural has been narratively riding around on that loop, on that spiral, for 15 years. And this is now the final season, and they’re gliding toward those landing points now. They’re homing in on those “painful truths the characters don’t want known,” those huge personal issues they’ve all been grinding down over the last 15 years and inching ever closer to unveiling. Because that’s how stories work when authors are writing to the narrative rather than writing instant gratification for a fickle audience. If one thing has been consistent over the years, it has been this progression of character. And Dabb era has chosen to lampshade all of this in text, through Chuck the Original Author.

And that is effectively the exact writing advice from this random post about how to write a believable and engaging story that has been all over my dash over the last few days. Like... the irony, right?

So now that I’ve explained my vagueing with this post, I’d be happy to address your actual question, from the rest of that page of writing advice. Thank you for bearing with me... :’D

I’d venture to say that the description of that sort of “identity info dump” that the article described as “California scenes,” where characters just spill their deepest secrets, isn’t always a negative thing. And it’s not a phenomenon exclusive to California, or borne of a need to prove someone’s authenticity, or angst cred, or whatever. Because it’s something we see happening on the internet, too.

And it’s absolutely something you can USE in your writing. I find it hilarious because it’s actually a major theme of my pinefest fic this year, which will be posting in April. Sorry I can’t point everyone to it yet, or really give too many spoilers... other than trying to explain this phenomenon.

Social media creates a weird sort of culture of identity. There was a post on tumblr years ago that explained it rather well. It said something to the effect of “in real life you meet people and slowly feel them out and reveal your deepest secrets only to a select few people after they already know your whole life story, but on the internet you’re just a screen name and an avatar and you might reveal your deepest secrets without any of the people who read them even knowing your NAME or what you look like or anything else about you.”

Because it’s not about complete open honesty, you know? It’s about understanding what carefully selected bits of information you present in a given circumstance. It’s social engineering.

Revealing your deepest desires or darkest secrets is an entirely different prospect when, say, sitting with a new acquaintance over a cup of coffee face to face or with a coworker in the break room than it is in an anonymous internet chat room. And it can be fascinating to understand what we’re willing to reveal about ourselves in these very different circumstances.

And once you sort through that sort of character analysis, you can write a truly believable and entirely in-character info dump like that without it feeling like an info dump. Because what the character chooses to reveal about themselves in a given situation can be as informative of the character and their relationship to the other characters as the details of what they say.

So, I guess the takeaway here is the reminder that you should still take all writing advice with a grain of salt, and remember that it’s not a blanket rule and all these “California scenes” should be excised in order for your story to be good, you know? If you know your characters well enough, they can be strategic moments of character insight, or even a complete misdirect. The key is to be aware you’re writing one, and then use it to illustrate a character’s weakness, or strength, or the dynamic of the relationship being exposed, rather than being a strict infodump of facts. Because infodumps are always boring if that’s actually the scene you’re writing and there isn’t a deeper layer of understanding going on or a deeper insight for the reader to gain.

Lol, this reminds me of another quote about writing that’s perfectly related:

“If the story you’re telling, is the story you’re telling, you’re in deep shit.” Robert McKee

If the only thing the reader takes from a scene is the words coming out of the characters’ mouths, you done screwed up... That’s why so many of these California scenes are just bad writing. They serve no other purpose than telling the reader a series of details about the characters’ backstories and fail to provide any deeper insight. The key to writing a GOOD scene is make it less a backstory catch-up bit of filler text, and more about what the characters aren’t revealing, or why they’re revealing any of this information in the first place. Because “to inform the reader of these facts” is never a good enough reason for a character to spill their guts like that.

[x-xkingofgamesx-x]

Watched 'Pokémon: I Choose You!' recently.

This movie was just too much in so many ways.

You are warned, spoilers ahead, but this movie is from 2017 so if you haven't watched it so far then you're probably not going to.

The animation was cute. Totally. It definitely has that going for it.

Essentially, this movie is the Greatest Hits of the Indigo League first season, but in hyper drive and sans Misty and Brock, inserting instead Verity and Sorrel as his companions, and a douchebag named Cross as his rival in the place of Gary Oak.

The movie isn't entirely rehashing the first season of Indigo though. There is a plot point focusing on Ash's sighting of Ho-Oh upon leaving Pallet Town and getting the living shit kicked out of him and his reluctant sparky companion by a swarm of Spearow.

In this version, Ho-Oh gifts Ash with a Rainbow Wing, which makes him the Chosen One, meant to be the Rainbow Warrior (Ash Ketchum and Ho-Oh say Gay Rights). He is supposed to, essentially, find the source of the rainbow which is where Ho-Oh lives, and he wants to fight the gay bird.

So, we have our plot, yes?

Oh no.

This is more of a loose and vague goal at the end of the tunnel rather than a driving force for the plot.

What we do get is:

A retelling of 'Charmander- The Stray Pokémon', in which Ash finds Charmander dying in the rain after being abandoned by his trainer for being too weak.(Cross was the douchebag owner that abandoned Charmander). Instead of being taken to a PokéCenter, they just hole up in a cave and Sorrel mixes a medicine for him.

In this scene we also delve into a bit of the history of the supporting characters that we know nothing about up until this movie. This includes one of the most traumatic backstories that I've heard in Pokemon. And you get to watch a Pokemon literally freeze to death it was super fucked up.

The appearance of not one but FOUR legendary Pokémon (Ho-Oh, as well as all three Legendary beast Pokémon, Raikou, Entei, and Suicune. {The legendary beasts don't... Do any of their legendary stuff. They mostly just show up to look impressive, and not a damn thing in the plot would change if they were not there.})

Ash getting STOMPED by Cross in a fight with his now evolved Charmeleon. Cross feeds him all this vitriol about the strength of a Pokémon being more important than the bond with said Pokémon. Ash has *a moment* and gets real problematic for a few minutes, saying that his Charmeleon is weak and that Pikachu would have won that fight. When Pikachu gets upset at Ash for this, he says that he wishes he had gotten a Squirtle or Bulbasaur instead of Pikachu and Charmeleon. (I actually gasped at that. It was so mean and so out of character for Ash Ketchum.)

Pikachu runs away and Ho-Oh's magic straight up does some Ghost of Christmas Past shit to Ash and he gets thrown into a world where Pokémon do not exist and he has to learn some life lessons and find renewed appreciation for his Pokémon before he is brought back to Pokémon World.

Retelling of 'Bye Bye Butterfree!' because gotta get in at least one of the episodes that makes kids cry, yeah?

Then ah, they end up finding the mountain where Ho-Oh lives and Ash has a fight with Cross there, who thinks that HE should be the one to fight Ho-Oh. In that fight we have another Evolution, enter Charizard. Anywho, Cross steals Ash's Rainbow Wing which goes all... Evil. And OH! turns out there has been a fucked up Pokémon named Marshadow living inside Ash's shadow the whole show, who was waiting for this moment and steals the corrupted wing and turns all the Pokémon into sleeper agents.

At this point Ash is fighting all of these Pokemon and they are losing this fight pretty splendidly. So, he asks Pikachu to get into the Pokéball to keep him safe. But Pikachu hates pokeballs refuses, as one can expect. What happened at this point weirded me out a little bit if we're being perfectly honest. So Ash asks Pikachu why he won't get into the Pokéball and Pikachu responds to him. In human words. Which really freaks me out.

But Pikachu says, 'Because I always want to be with you,' which is sweet and tender and very heartwarming.

So then at this point Ash forces his little tiny electric rat into the Pokéball to keep him safe and precedes to get hit by six Hyper Beams directly in the back.

This, as you can probably guess, made Ash disintegrate entirely.

Like dead. Super super dead.

But, in true Pokemon fashion, pulling from the end scene of Pokemon: The First Movie- Mewtwo Strikes Back-- of course he doesn't stay dead very long. We end up seeing Ash in the afterlife. He hears Pikachu crying for him and ends up following his voice back into the world of the living and Pikachu's love ends up creating a new body for this kid.

Then at this point Cross learns his lesson, Ash has learned some valuable life lessons, and they are able to get the Rainbow Wing back from Marshadow. This, of course, brings in Ho-Oh who decides to oblige Ash with a Pokémon battle.

Now, this is the moment that we've all waited for right? The entire movie has been about getting this Pokémon battle with Ho-Oh. This should be a really epic battle scene that would be a really great way to end this movie right?

That is where you would be wrong, however. We get to see the first two or three moves in this battle and then it cuts out and the next scene is Ash walking a fucked up Pikachu into the Pokemon Center, and they insinuate that this was a really amazing battle but they did not actually draw out the battle for us to watch.

I know this may sound like quite a bit of plot to go into a movie.

It's a good chunk of the information from the first season of the Indigo League.

And I do want to remind you that there are 82 episodes in the first season of the Indigo League for Pokémon.

They shoved all of this nonsense into a single hour and a half of content.

By the end of this movie I was just baffled and confused and did not know how to feel about it.

Anyway there's all my thoughts about this movie and none of it really matters. Just like this movie.