#i feel like i left a few stuff out from this recap because i just forgot a lot of stuff

[ofmdrecaps]

12/11-12/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; David Jenkins; Rhys Darby; Taika Waititi; Samson Kayo; Zayre Ferrer; Damien Gerard; Dominic Burgess; Lindsey Cantrell; Articles; Fan Spotlight: OFMD Advent Calendar: Love Notes; Daily Darby/Today's Taika;

= David Jenkins =

Our dear Pirate Nana (amladydragonfly on bsky) had a bit of a spill at Galaxy Con Columbus, and it left her with some intense bruises! She posted updates on BsKY about them and Chaos Dad, David Jenkins sent her some love--and an invitation to join the crew! You really are badass and beautiful Nana! Just FYI, Nana also wanted me to tell you all that she is doing much better, and is ok after the whole incident-- but wouldn't have been if it weren't for all the kindness of this fandom! She says she's never felt so loved-- so thank you so much crew for taking care of her and spreading so much love and joy her way! You truly are the best crew ever!

Source: David Jenkins bsky = Rhys Darby =

Anyone gotten a chance to watch This Christmas yet? I got to this weekend and it really was adorable. I love Rhys' character, and not just because it's Rhys, because he's a goofy adorable dude. Interested in some fun behind the scenes with the characters? Here's a fun vid below!

Source: Youtube

In regards to more of Rhys' animated works -- "Curse" was nominated for an emmy! Check the article out here!

Source: Instagram

- Darby Daily Doodles -

Only a few more daily doodles for this year!

Source: Darby's Free Substack / 2

- Darby Family Kittens -

Caesar has been getting into some mischief at the Darby Household. Thank you Rosie for the continued cat content!

Source: Rosie's Instagram

= Taika Waititi =

Taika got to work with some fantastic folks at Disney to help make The Boy and The Octopus happen and a lot of folks are praising the ad!

Source: Paige Bonanno

Lots of cool BTS from The Boy and the Octopus as well!

Source: PRConcierge_ Instagram

= Samson Kayo =

Samson has been very busy with the F1 movie in Abu Dhabi (and chilling with a Simone Ashley)!

Source: Samson Kayo's Instagram Stories

= Zayre Ferrer =

One of our talented writers, Zayre Ferrer has been continuing their imaginary Spin Off Series on Bsky! There are so many I'd really love to see actually-- if you'd like to follow along with all their new stuff, check out their bsky!

15: Cuna de Lobos: A New Den

16: The Wire: The Re-Up

17: Cheers: Last Call

18: The Ricardo Radio Hour

Source: Zayre Ferrer's Bsky

= Damien Gerard =

Hey! Father Teach's Black Ops 6 was nominated for a bunch of BAFTA's and he's putting up some autograph signings on his site! Interested? Check it out here!

Source: Damien's. Bsky

And as always, Damien is keeping us all up to to date on his kitties.

Source: Damien's Bsky

= Dominic Burgess =

Dominic shared another picture of his character, Beef, on the new Star Wars: Skeleton Crew show!

Source: Dominic's BlueSky

= Lindsey Cantrell =

Lindsey has been getting all those Tiny Boat certificates signed!

Source: OFMD buys Boats Instagram

== Articles ==

Thank you again to @adoptourcrew for keeping us appraised of all the articles coming out! There sure is a lot this time of year-- it makes me feel like honking!

Source: AdoptOurCrew Bsky

== Fan Spotlight ==

= OFMD Advent Calendar =

The OFMD Advent Calendar has been going strong for many days now lots of new awesome works by many of our fandom folks being released each day! It's currently going on bsky here, and hosted and Door Artwork done by TillyChMo! (You don't need a bsky login!) The first day's fic is here by kentern.bsky.social! but if you'd like to follow them on bsky they'll have new ones every day (and there are currently 17 days up!)

The 2nd Door features @tresdem.bsky.social!

The 3rd Door features @ghostalservice.bsky.social fic PLUS @kninjaknitter.bsky.social podfic!

The 4th Door features @dracothelizard.bsky.social!

Source: OFMD Advent Calendar Bsky

== Love Notes ==

Hey there lovelies! I'm trying very hard to catch up right now, hopefully it'll happen over the next couple days as home and work slows down.

Today I'd like to send out a gentle reminder to take some time for yourself this week! This is the time of year when a lot of folks are busy taking care of others, getting things ready for family or friends, and honestly, a lot of times we forget to take care of ourselves. Take a break-- take a day off work that's just for you if you have the capacity. Buy yourself a little treat, or do something on the list of chores that YOU want to get done and not that other people need you to get done.

Some of you may have TOO MUCH time for yourself and want time with others-- so be sure to reach out if you do! People get busy during the holidays and they can forget to check on folks because their minds are occupied, but I can guarantee you they think about you often, and want you to be okay. Holidays can be such a mixed bag, and not one person will have the same experiences with them, so do what you need to do for YOU. I hope you have a restful week and nothing too crazy goes on. Rest up, drink some water, and know we <3 ya. Night crew!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Laura Jones (@laurajaneillustrations)

== Daily Darby / Today's Taika ==

It's been a bit since I've had room for these so more gifs tonight! tonight's theme is laugh scrunches. Thank you so much to these beautiful gif creators @gottagobackintime and @ourflagmeanssara!

[s1llydr3amscape]

Day 5 : Canon Divergence @vanweek2024

Finally talking abt one of my fnaf AU's !!! I try to keep it brief but I cannot simplify for the life off me so yeah have some yapping!! Lots of major stuff and in-between events are not in here but that's what asks are for :] This one is pretty long so buckle up cuz here we go!!!

This au is basically just me taking the fnaf characters and putting them in my oc world!! It started ever since the first FNAF game came out but this story plot started out with Glitchtrap and a few other characters working at an office and shenanigans ensue. When in reality it's a setup because they actually end up killing people and selling off their flesh and pretending that it's organic meat in the market (Like mlp cupcakes + rainbow factory because those were pivotal to my development)

Vanny and all the other workers in a way where technically revived by Glitchtrap as rabbits (Or was already rabbits) making them indebted to Glitchtrap. They can't leave, they have to obey him. Reasons for Glitchtrap needing and starting this business venture is because he needs blood to keep this body I mean his new body alive (Me explaining why they'd have stitching) Because originally Glitchtrap was an entity who took the body of a deceased yellow rabbit and fixed it up enough (like in fnaf sl but this time he just found a fresh corpse) It's rotting the body is failing at this rate, he's going to decay way too fast and he wants to live. (Turning into the black goop like in princess quest)

He paraded as this joyful figure but that's far from the truth obviously. Originally before fnaf sb the body he stole was the father of my own blonde rabbit oc who was dead set on stopping Glitchtrap to let his father's body lay to rest. Even though his father was cruel and left him and his brothers alone, that's the least he can do. He chose to free his body from being mangled worse than it already is because he's a good person I mean better than his father ever was. He doesn’t know if he’s doing it more for himself sometimes.

However, since fnaf sb came out and the movie. I feel like Vanny fits this role better. So yeah to recap Vanny's dad died and Glitchtrap stole his body and made it his own. Vanny knows this later on but she too died in the same vain. Hence, why she ends up having her soul indebted to Glitch as well being the first few workers under him.

At first, she thought she was in hell she's supposed to be dead but she's not and her dad is still here? And he's still the same as ever yet something's not right. He just seems to be acting strange yet it's all too familiar for her.

Vanny ended up posing as a security guard for this residential area. She was tasked to basically infiltrate and blend in so that Glitchtrap had a new source of produce you could say Yet, even after all this Vanny still ended up befriending the Glamrocks. They cared and comforted her even after she wouldn't tell them her sorrows. They were real friends in a way. 

They're nice. In a way.

It felt nice to have friends after moving from area to area to avoid suspicion and ended up making friends. Yet Glitchtrap took this as a sign that she did this for him. Everything she did for herself is for him after all right. Lowering their suspicion on her by being friendly and outgoing, she’s thinking ahead for him. What a good daughter. Making them easier targets if someone were to ever happen to one of these lovely residents. They wouldn't question Vanny now would they! She's just their friendly neighborhood bunny

Her first target was Glamrock Bonnie. It was swift and quick but he put up a fight. Managing to damage one of Vanny’s eyes. The others don't know what happened as the camera feed was seemingly coincidentally cut. Vanny almost didn't make it out and had to leave the body there dead, managing to hide the evidence that she even laid a hand on him. Making it seem like he had fallen down the stairs after a robber tried to mug him. During his funeral, Vanny couldn't even be bothered to look down as he was getting buried. She stood there staring.

She did this.

She was being used as a trojan horse by Glitchtrap to get his supply. She still befriended the others. She shared moments of joy and laughter with them and yet she couldn't help but stare as he was lowered. Glamrock Freddy came to her and cried. This bustling hunk of sunshine weeped at her mercy. She tried comforting him but it left her bittersweet knowing she did this to someone who was nice to her. You’d think she’d be numb at this point but she’s not. 

She never was.

She ended up trying to push them away as the months began to pass. No longer making rounds when she knew they were at home. Deliberately avoiding going to social events and basically just trying to get this job done with. Even when she was doing her rounds and caught sight of the others she answered them rudely or just told them that she was too busy for dilly-dallying.

Roxy tried offering to give her a ride on her bike when she did her rounds but Vanny declined. Chica tried inviting her for lunch but Vanny declined. Freddy tried inviting her over for karaoke but Vanny. Even Monty tried inviting her over to play golf but Vanny declined. 

She's trying to make them hate her. She can't let her dad take them away from her too. She can't. Never again. So she's trying desperately to get them off of his scope so that they wouldn't end up as one of her victims packaged for eating. 

As long as they hate her as long as they don't want anything to do with her they'd be safe. They have to. They don’t need her.

It ended up working for a bit. But Glitchtrap is never satisfied. He never is. Suddenly neighbor after neighbor ended up mysteriously disappearing from this apartment complex. It was more common to see people move in than out and it was happening rapidly.

The residents have asked their landlord for higher security or that they'd move out as even families started going missing. Yet nothing changed. Not a peep gets out here. 

Until one day, Vanny was tasked to kill Freddy. A test by Glitchtrap and she couldn't do it. She tried begging for it to be someone else, anyone but her friend but he didn't like that his worker was testing his patience and took over.

There in the dead of night Vanny broke into Freddy's home. It was a sloppy job. Yet she strutted along. Holding onto the knife with such vigor. Just when she opened the door to his bedroom and tried to take the plunge. She slashed at a child's cheek.

What?

And in that brief moment Vanny regained control and had to face her bearings getting a migraine by the possession by Glitchtrap. She didn't know what was happening until it was too late and the kid fled outside. 

Great.

Basically fnaf sb happened but Freddy was at the pharmacy buying meds leaving Gregory (rabbit) home alone for a few minutes. Vanny, being puppeteered at the time by Glitchtrap, broke in intent on killing Freddy but ended up getting Gregory. Vanny and Glitchtrap didn't and doesn't know Gregory was there or who he was. This was because when Vanny tried to cut off the glamrocks Freddy ended up adopting this kid he found. Hence, why neither party seemed to know about the other because it was quite literally very recent. 

But yeah gist off the AU for now!!! Some parts are being rewritten and whatnot with the ruin DLC and book stuff but yeah!!! Short intro of the AU!!!

Headcanons / Lore :

-Vanny was blonde but ever since her resurrection her furs been turning white unknown if it's because she's technically undead or from stress (I like to think like from blonde bunny with green eyes into those white rabbits with red eyes)

-The workers are some canon fnaf characters and ocs

-Glitchtrap can't mind control Vanny all the time cuz he has other workers he needs to monitor and control, basically spanning a wide network. So he uses fear mongering tactics to get her to obey while he's away.

-Glitchtrap needs the flesh because his body is rotting and he needs pieces constantly to replace it. He only went after rabbits at first but due to his rapid decaying (turning into Burntrap as the story progresses) he went after anything that breathed and lived. I can’t decide if at the end of the story he should turn into Mimic where he’s just a walking skeleton or if he should just permanently die like in the Burntrap ending

-Vanny when she came back had many bald patches on her body after being stitched apart. She's trying to grow out her fur to hide what happened. Just to regain her sense of self. Yet things never change and so she ends up shaving it all off becoming bald like in security breach :[

-She knows that's not her dad but she's still scared of him even though he's much more different than how he was before. Maybe it's the unconditional love of a daughter for her father. Or she doesn’t know what a good parental figure is.

-Glitchtrap originally looked like the black goop version from princess quest, always ever changing, never the same as a being born of malice and hatred. He wanted to be a person like everyone else instead of a blob to be free of it all to start anew but he can't. Unless he acquired a body.

-His workers are only alive after he modified them, giving them life again by giving a part of himself inside off them kinda like a soul contract. Permanent scars literally. (How the enemies in Princess Quest look like rabbit people)

-Workers get sent around areas with dense populations and well acquires inventory from there. Glitchtrap gets money selling the flesh claiming it to be from regular animals. With the money he uses it to keep his body intact and alive. This is to explain how he turns into Burntrap becoming green and nasty.

-Each worker is associated with a smell. Vanny is onion. Glitchtrap is lemongrass. If you look at the sketch Scraptrap’s is garlic. If you’re asking why I did this it is because I just think it’s funny.

-There's more but I feel like I've talked enough!! Currently doing more writing to add ruin into this and trying to do a 2024 redesign for this AU!!! Including Vanny I need to make her more nasty and rotten <33333 

-Also be warned I love bittersweet endings if you fancy this AU

Her stitching and pupils keep switching sides because I couldn't decide 😭 Too embarrassed to show everyone elses design because the start off the story is goofy and the tonal whiplash is killing me. Scraptrap and Glitchtrap cameo tho!!. never realised how squished I made the heads.

I removed the blood due to the fact because being grabbed at the back off your head by an abusive family member still just as scary I should know

[lady-harrowhark]

If anyone remembers/still cares about my bizarro jaw bone spur debacle from this summer, I have an update for you! I'm fine now, this is all past tense, but probably don't read this if you don't want to hear about dental/bone stuff.

So to recap, earlier this summer I felt some irritation in my mouth and when I checked it out in the mirror, there was a tiny little off-white shard of something sticking out of my gums on the inside of my lower molars. I figured it was a little piece of food that poked me, but when I touched it, it 1) was hard and sharp, 2) would not move, and 3) hurt so bad that it about knocked the wind out of me. Even in the moment I knew this sounded dramatic and highly improbable, but I was immediately Very Sure that it was a little shard of bone.

By the next morning it was so swollen that I couldn't see if it was still there, and after four or five days I ended up calling around and found a dentist who could get me in to take a look because my usual dentist at the student health center didn't have any immediate openings. By that point I was taking Tylenol + ibuprofen around the clock as well as using Orajel numbing gel and icing it, but nothing was touching the pain. Also, the side of my face and down into my neck was starting to swell, and sleeping and eating was extremely difficult due to the pain.

The dentist I ended up seeing was very friendly and pleasant but ultimately pretty dismissive. Nothing showed up on an X-ray but he could see a spot of "hyper-irritation" where I'd had the little shard, and he said it was possible that a "bone spur" worked its way out through my gums. Usually that only happens after oral surgery or an injury, but I'd also had a dental cleaning a few weeks prior that was weirdly aggressive and left that part of my gums bleeding and sore for several days, so it was possible that was enough to dislodge something left over from when I had my wisdom teeth removed years and years ago. Or maybe it was just a little cut. He then told me to alternate the Tylenol and ibuprofen instead of taking them simultaneously and to call back in two weeks if it wasn't better or if it started getting hard to eat or sleep. I reiterated that it already was hard to eat and sleep, and asked if I was understanding him correctly that he wanted me to take LESS pain medication. He paused, and then said to call back in one week if it wasn't better.

So obviously I went out to my car and cried. I have a very skewed pain tolerance from a lifetime of chronic illness experiences and I'm a very smiley and friendly person in general, so I do acknowledge that I don't usually LOOK like I'm in pain, especially to someone who's only just met me. But for me, the fact that I even made an appointment for it is a giveaway that this is like, off the charts levels of pain. I called my dad since he's a doctor and he was able to prescribe some antibiotics for me just in case, and walked me through how to adjust the ibuprofen dose to be the equivalent of prescription strength. I'd decided that if it wasn't any better by the next day, I was going to urgent care. Thankfully it was a smidge better, and over the next maybe two or three weeks it mostly went away, although for while I could still feel sort of a divot on my gum where the bone spur had been.

ANYWAY yesterday I had my regular dentist's visit, the first time I'd been in since then. I told the hygienist about it, and she seemed kind of alarmed, especially because she could also still feel the little spot on my gum. The dentist ALSO seemed pretty shocked and could feel where it was as well.

So here's the update: I apparently have a little bit of extra bone built up around my back lower molars, which is unusual but not unheard of, and mine is very very mild in comparison to what you see when you Google "mandibular tori" - mine is really just that it's slightly rounded or mildly bowed right below my molars rather than going straight down to the bottom of my mouth as is typical, minor enough that no dentists have ever mentioned it to me. I never even realized that wasn't what everyone's were like until this spring when a massage therapist I saw for TMJ stuff mentioned that she noticed it. So in general that's not any sort of issue for me, EXCEPT that the dentist yesterday said that the gum tissue can be pretty thin where it has to stretch over the extra bone, which can also be kind of pointy or sharp.

Given that plus the fact that I hadn't had any sort of recent injury or surgery in the area like you would expect for a bone spur, she said it was more likely that I somehow scraped or cut the gum right down to the bone.

It wasn't a bone spur. That was my literal, actual jaw bone showing through my gums.

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Kinou Nani tabeta. aka My Heart is Full aka I suck at titles

Let me just say before anything else. This is not a recap or a review. This is me feeling the need to write down my feelings because they are pouring out of me. This is more a personal note than anything else so skip it if that's not your thing.

I always watch this show on saturday mornings, with my coffee and breakfast, because it gives me a boost for the weekend. And I wanted to postpone the final episode as much as possible but I just couldn't. I gave in.

Second FYI. This will probably be incoherent and a mess because that's how I feel. Also, this fucking menopause (surgical, don't give me too many extra years) is really making a mess of my emotional state this week, so I'm all over the place. Also I might've had some wine. Also this may be a bit long. I think that's it.

How I got here

So, I've loved cinema since I was like 7. (yeah I'm going really back in time) Because my mom like films, she dragged to the cinema even when I was way too young for whatever was on. [ Fun Side note- The first film that I saw in the cinema was Bram Stoker's Dracula, when I was like 6, and my mum got into an argument with the cinema employee because" I am her mother, and I'll decide what she can or can't watch"and so I did watch it.]

So I always loved watching films, talking about them and eventually went to uni to learn how to make them. During that time, I went through a phase (which happened to a couple other people in my school) where I kinda got emotionally detached from the stories. I could only see the camera angles, the lighting, the editing, etc.

When I was done with uni, and had decided that editing was my favourite thing I started doing a bit of work in editing, mostly online stuff and a couple of ads in London, and 3 years later I was done. Obviously there were life factors and health factors that contributed to this, but still I left it all behind.

Then, I quickly went back to being able to watch stories with all the emotions.

Let's skip forward to present day.

Kinou Nani Tabeta? feel in my lap by way of my very first BL. Seven Days. I watched those films and went through all the emotions and needed more. More of that serotonin please.

So I got in research mode and that's when I found this wonderful world of BL and eventually this show.

Now, a little bit more about me, just in case you aren't sick of me talking about myself. I'm not a jolly person. If you asked anyone that knows me irl, they would describe me as someone who always thinks the sky is falling. However, I also love a lot of things deeply, and when it comes to things that I can't find a word big enough for it I call it magic. So I'll use it here.

Kinou Nani Tabeta? is magic.

If this show was a meal then the absolutely right ingredients were found, they were put in the hands of the best cooks and everything was prepared with love and care. This show that I love, was put together by people who love it, and couldn't not make it. This is what I believe. It's my kind of faith.

I've seen so many shows, I've loved so many of them, a lot of them touched me deeply. But only a few touched me this way.

When there is love in something, real care and empathy in the making of something, you can feel it, I believe. And I feel it so much watching this show. I get emotional just writing this.

I wish I could thank every single person that made this show possible. And we could argue all day about the quality of a show, its actors, writers or directors. I could argue why my favourite show is better than your favourite show, and why your show is more important than my show, and why that show failed and another succeeded. I will not argue about the importance of this show and my faith is unshakable.

Maybe because I love food so much and in my life my love filled moments were always around food, I connected at first with Kenji, because his reactions to food resemble mine. But this season Shiro stole my heart and soul. His quiet but profound way of loving Kenji made cry more than any sad scene ever could. And onions and chicken thighs will forever have deeper meaning in my kitchen. These two characters are so well written and so well acted, the words are so layered and so meaningful, that it's a miracle to me that it exists and that I got to watch it.

I'm sure other people will write much better posts about this show, and will probably be better (at a hell of a lot more on point) at writing about all the amazing things that this show has done. But I'm an emotional wreck and I could only write from a personal place today.

I'll be rewatching this show in it's entirety soon, because the evolution of these characters, Shiro specially, was such a joy to witness.

If you read this far, thank you. 💜

[whittlorestrash]

waiwai do we have any hitch lore??- I need a recap on hitch’s lore so I can start thinking of the dynamics in shattered dream’s gang :3

AREGAHAHAHA yeaahh!!!! he does a have a small lore for now

basically, hitchprint is made out of ink's vials and error's strings. hitch which is an synonym of error and print which is related to drawing, printing, ink ect.

his extra abilities are controlling emotions, and he can even feel the other's one if he cares enough to "connect" with you - how does he do that?? he connects a string on both souls, yours and his and that's how he understands you— for example, if you're feeling sad but somehow can't cry, if he connects this string to you he'll feel the sadness but will also express it for you [that's when the term cry for you becomes real eheheee🗿] he can be very vulnerable, but you don't see him like that often, he's moody and neutral most of the time it's a mix of it ig, he's not too edgy but not so kind either BUT is very protective of his partners 👀 oooooo he doesn't show it though, and with shattered's influence, ig he's got some manners from him too lol

his other ability is to make artificial souls that he can control and pressure you with it, example if he makes a fear soul he will be able to paralyze you — and this in a certain distance, if you're further than the distance he's able to control you won't be touched by it BUT if he forces too much his eyes will glitch and will hurts asf, to ease the pain he will put his glasses on and cover his eyes with his hoodie + won't be able to use his magic for a few days. [that doesn't happen so much thankfully??]

and ofc, strings that he calls emotion strings, it randomly changes colors. other functions? idk yett

so, for his backstory

when hitch realized he was just an anomaly in every way possible he was really upset about it, he used to wander in the void since he had no idea how to leave, core!frisk was here when it happened, they searched for hitch for a while until finally founding him and brought him to the Omega timeline where he sort of got used to it.

he wasn't really comfortable there though, he felt it that it wasn't his place to be on, and he was really depressed at this period of time. so he didnt go out much, sometimes he would to take some fresh air, the reason he stayed was because of dream, he was the only person he truly spent time with and genuinely concidered him a friend.

until one day, he was woken up with a lot of noises, it was late at night, screaming could be heard and fighting could be seen, someone was attacking the area, it was shattered that was attacking the Omega timeline — hitch surprised by what he was seeing, ran toward the mess and asked what was happening, when he learned that it was dream he was dumbfounded and afraid for him.

despite that hitchprint somehow tried to defend the timeline, without laying a hand on him as he simply tried to get dream's attention, mostly because he didnt want others to hurt him. of course shattered caught him, somehow recognized hitchprint, then started to say how sad he was for him, that he understood, that he could fix his broken heart, his shattered dreams... if he joined him, of course core frisk and the people of Omega timeline tried to convince hitchprint but he ignored and left with shattered.. well he didn't have a choice at that moment as he had already teleported somewhere else.

hitch couldn't help but feel fear and excitment, was that really the same person?? he wondered why shattered didn't kill him or whatsoever but quickly learned that his power did intrested him and was the only reason he was spared, he felt heartbroken at the idea that it wasn't because of their friendship [or could it be?] but stopped thinking about it much with time, now as long as he was with him, he didn't care even though he was different.

THAT'S ABOUT IT I THINK I might add some stuff but for now it's just that haha hope it's enough, also you have to tell me yours too!! I need to draw themmmmm!!!! 😆😆

[stillgotme]

Been pretty quiet the past month and I don't know if there's really anyone that's still stuck around to see what I do next, but I'm still here! And the reason I haven't been posting as much is because I've been planning and I’m here to make some quick announcements for how 2024’s gonna go on this blog moving forward.

First things first....Karaoke Secrets is going on hiatus and this was what I was embarrassed to say because this story has barely taken off yet I’ve already had two big gaps in between posts and we still haven’t gotten anywhere. Oof. 

I admit, I kinda went overboard with adding a third story when I haven’t even finished the other two. Not to mention, because this one was more driven by fun and me needing a break from my usual stuff, I’ve faced the realization that this story isn’t as developed. It’s why I unfortunately hit a creative wall with it and along with the struggle of trying to do 3 stories at once, my inspo just isn’t with it at the moment. 

Don’t get me wrong, though, I still very much love this story! But I gotta really sit down and figure out an outline for it. I do prefer some sort of structure and I don’t have the full structure yet, so it’s best to put this thing to halt and see what I really want to do with it. Maybe one day when I’ve gotten the inspiration again and I’ve tightened some rough spots, then I can come back to it. For now, it’s on a break. And don’t worry, you will still see Risa and Akira every once in a while when I do some edits. I hope you understand.

BUT NOW THE GOOD NEWS:

AFTER FOUR LONG YEARS, REDEMPTION IS FINALLY MAKING A RETURN. Now, despite my lack of storytelling since the pandemic, I’m letting you all know that in the background I never actually stopped writing. I was still going over scenes for this story, writing dialogue, even going back to old scenes and writing in depth prose for them to get more in touch with my characters. 

This story is so dear to me and the inspiration has called me for the past few months. And thanks to the lovely people in the writing discord I’ve joined, that storytelling spark has finally come back. What held me back was the worry over Karaoke Secrets, but I needed to stop forcing myself to treat this like a job and follow my inspo. 

So we’re picking up where we left off. To new and old readers, I will do a summary post that tells you the story so far. I understand not everyone has the time to sit down and read and you are in no way obligated to do that so you’ll have the option to get a recap. That way we’re all on the same page by the time the story returns. And if you do wanna read from the beginning, be my guest!

Thank you to everyone that’s taken the time to read this and stick around. I understand I’ve been so messy with storytelling lately because of real life, but it really feels different now. I’m genuinely excited to get back to telling this story that’s been in my head since 2018 and hope you’ll join me in this crazy journey (again). And shoutout to the writing group for giving me the motivation. It may not have seemed like much, but your support has led me to fully get my storytelling back out there. 

I love you all 💖

[jjba-personals]

In Short (tl;dr): basically, yeah lmao So I guess a little history recap is in order: I didnt make this blog, I came in on the tail end of its active life around mid 2017 (Mod Akira), I made a few fun edits that got some attention here and there, but interest kinda fizzled out over time for reasons I'll explain in a sec. 2016 was a pretty big year, I'm sure you remember it. In addition to everything else, that was basically the year all the usual responsibilities in the adult world hit me all at once, and carried into the year following. If I remember right it was around late 2017 that the other mods all left for likely similar reasons, but I stuck around for another year. Even outside of personal stuff for the mods the following years were also about the time where gimmick blogs started to really wane in popularity. By 2018 there were still posts but then two major events happened that really killed it: -The Porn Ban of '18 sheared off a considerable amount of Tumblr's traffic with many rats users, including myself, running from one sinking ship and boarding the similarly ill-fated ship that was Twitter

and even if I'd stuck around

-Legislative crackdowns on human trafficking meant that Craigslist had to shut down their Personals section, and the gimmick twitter account we were largely relying upon to cherry pick interesting sections similarly ceased production

Even though I'd left Tumblr behind I never deleted my account, which was ultimately very convenient for when X burst out of Twitter's shambling husk like some parasitoid wasp prepupa. I came back a couple years ago and have just kept the keys to this blog in my back pocket. The sharp-eyed among you may have even seen the rare few times i reblogged something to here only to quickly delete it. So now here we are! In the present time, with all the hopes and anxieties that brings. Will you do anything with this blog moving forward?

Maybe. I'm open to suggestions. I dont really feel like handing it to someone else or deleting though. Maybe pivot to a different group of uniquely lonely hearts trying to find a connection. Do you still like JJBA? I'm not as big and enthusiastic a fan as I used to be but yeah, I still really love JoJo and I'm anxiously looking forward to finally FINALLY seeing part 7 in motion. I have little doubt that it'll look great, my fears lie mostly with Netflix after how they completely screwed over Part 6's distribution. My favorite part and they just threw it out into the air with little to no fanfare, shit sucks. Also it looks like Araki's age is finally starting to show, so hopefully he can finish Part 9 and live to see his magnum opus be completed. Why write all this crap? Because I love hearing myself talk Because even if nobody really gives a crap and the reasons for the lack of activity are fairly standard and predictable, transparency is just nice. As I get older I realize more and more that honesty really is the best policy, and theres a distinct lack of it in todays world. I'm nearly 27 now and I've contributed very little honesty to the world in that time, so an abandoned JJBA gimmick blog seems a good place as any to start.

[pinkmoondoll9shihtzu]

6 month solstice/full moon check-in livejournalstyle

So i've been advised to recap the past 6 months. Especially since this current Capricorn full moon is exacting at 1 degree Capricorn which happens to be the same degree as My Ascendant. (Pinkmoondoll number 1 :@!!!!!)

The Cancer full moon happened at around 5 degrees on december 26th 2023. That is my ex's birthday. On winter solstice 2023, exactly 6 months ago, i cut her out of my life. We were already broken up for a long time before that but i continued to let her stay in my life for a few reason, namely guilt & fear. Guilt because of the emotional turmoil she projected onto me & fear because, well, we are married and i didn't know what would happen to my immigration status if i cut her off. I still don't! This has not changed yet.

Pretty much everything else about me & my life has changed though. internally at least. Having her out of my life has allowed me so much freedom to get back to who i am & live with integrity. The only people left in my life now are ones who are respectful, kind, have their own shit going on, appreciate that i am my own person too, allow me to breathe, don't expect anything specific from me, don't toy with my mind & emotions. They are just glad to let me be who i am. No one tries to control me anymore. i feel so wonderful because no one can control me.

So the past 6 months has been a series of stages of getting back to Me. unraveling all the lies i was fed for years, healing from the pain of being manipulated, feeling that so much of my energy was wasted. Truly truly wasted. i'm not one of those people who can live without regrets lol. i wish i broke free so much sooner, the stress destroyed my health for years. But ultimately, this is how it went down, so i strive towards acceptance.

For the first few months of this year i was really on a huge substance abuse kick! im not gonna specify what, but iykyk. Like i really just could not bear the weight of what i was feeling. Every day i was finding out more and more info about lies i'd been told, stuff happening behind my back. All i could rly do was take pills & tunnel vision into ableton or drawing or whatever. it helped repress my emotions & i got a lot done during this time but it was unhealthy & the more it progressed i saw how unsustainable it was.

around spring equinox shit HIT THE FAN e_e So this would be the quarter year mark. Well it was march 15 when denji ate the ziploc bag and had to get emergency obstruction removal surgery. That immediately halted all projects i was working on. I was still taking a lot of pills to cope with the stress of that situation & at that point i needed them just to function at a base level. Then i think april 4th or 5th was when i found out Sammy died, which...i mean yeah i've spoken a lot on how horrific that was & still remains to be.

I mean , like, that shit, rearranged my whole brain, that shit reset me. this also marked the time period where like... my psychic senses really began evolving. idt it was necessarily linked to sammy's death, it just weirdly shifted around that time. i think the lunar eclipse in late march caused some type of quantum leap idk man idek. Then the solar eclipse in april sealed the deal. Ever since then the craziest stuff that i cant even rly talk about has been happening to me & i immediately felt compelled to like, quit all drugs and just fucking ascend lol.

Sooo first i started w pill numero uno, the really diabolical one, middle of april i just said fuck it, i am done. at this point i had abused it so hard it wasnt even doing shit for me anymore, even when i took tolerance breaks, it was genuinely pointless to continue. i did wonder how the fuck i was ever gonna function without it and i was scared. The final few weeks of april were just a total write off, didnt do shit, totally depressed & grieving & miserable but weirdly hopeful too. Like i knew i just had to suffer and get it over with.

pill 2 was actually pretty easy to cut back on because ive quit it a bunch of times before & know what to expect, and since i was already suffering so bad from pill 1 after about a week i thought yeah i might as well stop the other one too lol. there was no noticable increase in suffering from stopping it. So by the 2nd week of May it had been around 3 weeks of feeling like pure ass but i was starting to feel WAYYYY better and my normal goofy self again.

That is the worst thing about adhd meds for me lol they robbed me of my whimsy and goofiness T_T Like i was so serious all the time T_T it was even kinda affecting my relationship w slimbo. Like i couldnt be affectionate i was just a robot. All i cared about was working and i was so impatient. As i came off the meds i started to remember how nice it is to just be slow, be in the moment, enjoy simple things with my love, not constantly bound to this gnawing neurosis pushing me to squeeze maximum productivity out of every single second.

like i said , i'm 1 degree cap rising sooo this neurosis is something that exists firmly within my personality, for sure. i mean, if u cant tell, I Be Doing Things lol. And i get very competitive with myself. the dark side of me is that i want to be the best at everything. A big part of my adult life has been learning how to relax. learning how to have fun, learning how to be a little pointless. Without the meds this is a struggle for me so with the meds it was genuinely impossible not to be completely controlled by the rabid impulse to work.

So getting off the meds was a big exercise in confronting my fear of Not being the best. my fear of chilling, my fear of being still & unoccupied. But i did it! And i feel so much better. Like holy shit, i feel SO much better.

By the mid-May i was picking up steam in just being able to live again. a lot of the brainfog & physical heaviness lifted. I was still not very productive at art or music, but i was getting really good at not letting that bug me. spending a lot of time working in the garden, got back into yoga, reading, just doing leisurely stuff that felt expansive to my inner world rather than trying to externalize anything. psychic experiences continued to amplify. became interested in tarot again as i no longer felt i was living in fear of my higher self.

after getting off the pills i began feeling really fixated on the notion of quitting weed. Previously this had been genuinely unthinkable to me. Like, me and weed, we were One, every person i'd ever been as an adult had smoked weed, it was weirdly part of my identity, for 15 years i genuinely believed i could not exist without weed, like i would just lose my fucking mind if i stopped. i did not believe in myself.

But as the psychic experiences progressed i felt strongly that i want to go deeper. Previously i had been afraid to go deeper. In that regard i think i was truly afraid of my own potential. I wasn't ready for it, and that's actually fine. A lot of people aren't.. But as May was coming to a close i knew that i was ready, and actually, it was crucial of me to put an end to this. I was enjoying finally having some sense of peace & joy after how crummy it felt quitting the pills , i didn't really want to disturb that state of being, but i also was having that feeling again that i just need to "get it over with".

So when it struck June 1st i was like yeah fuck it. Let this mark a new beginning. as soon as i realize something is no longer in my best interest its almost impossible for me to keep going with it! like i can't live with myself. I guess that's where my fixation on being "the best" can serve me sometimes. if that makes sense.. Like i willllll always end up putting my foot down and saying NO :T

So yeah. it's recent enough that i don't really feel the need to detail how the first 2 weeks of june were sooooo sucky and emotional and generally dysfunctional. couldn't even read or draw or do any minor tasks i was sooo out of my mind. Not much needs to be said about it. i just had to simply allow time to pass. a lot of days spent in bed crying & dissolving.

right around the 2 week mark we went to missouri & this is when i started noticing myself feeling way way better. the whole time i didn;t even think about weed or my symptoms at all. i was so present in each moment and it was so easy to just feel....alive. also had some intense psychic experiences, one of which i haven;t even talked about on here, and i probably wont because its too sacred. The overarching theme between all the experiences i've been having since late march is that they feel too sacred to tell anyone. The high priestess emphasizes secrecy in some matters..

Which brings us to now, june 21, 21 days w/o weed, 3 weeks. I know that sounds like nothing but this has been 15 YEARS coming. that's half my lifespan so far. and now i just feel fine. i got thru the blues of quitting, all the repressed emotions, im sure they'll still pop up from time to time too. but ultimately i am just so fucking relieved to be free of that shit and like, functioning, able to sleep, not riddled with anxiety and self hatred like i was when i started as a grieving baby teenager.

i guess i wanted to write this to remind myself what a monumental shift i have made in my life in the first half of 2024, and how insanely far i've come in the grand scheme of my life, in a relatively short timespan. because i keep getting this feeling of self doubt where i'm like wait... it's almost july and i've barely completed any tasks, i still havent finished my music, wtf am i doing :( But i dont think i was supposed to finish it until i shed all these habits that were causing major roadblocks in my path!

shed my ex, shed pills, shed weed. shed grief! shed self doubt. emptied my vessel & it has allowed room for so much new life to come through. new forces being channeled. my mediumship abilities now are in focus and taking off at an accelerated rate. for the first time in my life i'm not in survival mode. i feel this is my reward for living through it all when i wanted nothing more than to give up for so many years. i prayed for death, every day, i really did. now i am dead! the old me died. and i carry her memory with honor, i carry on the parts of her that wished to remain and be loved, but she is effectively dead.

for the first time in my life i am really proud of myself. i don't feel so competitive with myself anymore. i don't need to prove myself externally. i do not require any validation of my existence. i can sit with myself without feeling extreme self induced dread & despair. i feel worthy even though i am still (from the outside looking in) at the exact same place i was at 6 months ago.

i'm finally feeling ready to work a little harder again, but not because i'm desperate to gain anything from it. just because it's fun, and fundamentally, as stated above, that drive is a part of my personality, a part of me that i love & cherish. number 1 is the magician. the mage patchouli ~~~ the alchemist. create for the sake of creating.

if anyone read this far, thats wild xD but thats dope too.. I guess one thing i'd like for the future is just to inspire people that you can alchemize the tragedies of your life and all the suffering into something much greater than yourself. You can get through it and be happy with your meager little life one day, even if it takes 30 or 40 years, it's worth it to try & worth it to get here. You do not have to wallow in sadness and self doubt forever, even if u see no way out rn.

i'm happy just being me ^_^ i have so much fun when i'm in my mind. bladee voice ~~be in your mind, be in your mind, be in your mind~~. i love how simple everything feels right now. i love how people & entities can come to me because they trust me to receive their messages & understand them. My own projections do not get in the way anymore. I shed so much. I am free. Happy Strawberry Moon everyone.

SIncerely, PMD9

[moongothic]

Remember my first crochet sweater from forever ago? The one that turned out like shit?

Frogged it and now it's a knit 😎

So to recap; I tried making a crochet sweater based on a YouTube tutorial like years ago, and although while making it I could tell it didn't seem... right... I just kept on telling myself to "trust the process" and that "it'd turn out okay in the end"

It did not

The sweater ended up being so square-ish and massive I could've fit three of myself inside of, going well beyond "comfy oversized sweater" straight into "clown clothes" territory. It was bad. On top of that, although I tried to get the same yarn to do the top of the sweater in a pastel purple, I ended up leaning about this thing called "dye lots" the hard way, as the yarn I had needed to finish the sweater ended up being a completely different shade from what I had used for most of the sweater.

So yeah. The sweater turned out like shit, and I wore it maybe once before putting it into my closet and refusing to even look at it for like IDK two years.

Now I have some nicer yarn that I'd like to make something with, something preferably knit because I like knit fabric more than crochet, but I don't want to practise knitting clothes with that nicer yarn. And so I figured, if I frogged this crochet sweater I could then practise knitting sweaters, reuse the old yarn (=don't have to buy jack shit), and maybe remake this failed sweater into something I'll actually wear

And so the sweater was frogged, this being all the usable yarn from the project. Pastel purple dyelot on the left while the more pinkish yarn (the stuff I had originally used while trying to convince myself it wasn't pink)

You can see the difference in the hue better here

So yeah. Now admitedly after frogging the sweater I did lowkey think about just trying to re-crochet the sweater and did kinda start on that, but I very soon realized that I probably wouldn't have enough yarn to remake the sweater the way I wanted to, and just trying to crochet with it made me double down on how much I just I don't like crochet fabric as clothes. It's just so bulky, man

So I got to knitting instead. And because I'm deranged I chose to... mostly wing it. I did look at a few YouTube tutorials for top-down raglan sweaters to get an idea of what I was supposed to be doing, but in the end, I do kinda learn the best by just winging it. But what I did make a big note of while remaking the sweater was just trying it on as often as possible, just to make sure I didn't make it as oversized this time.

I did want to make this process relatively simple though and because I didn't want to risk losing out of yarn at an inconvenient point I chose to skip the stripes of the original sweater and just make it a simple two-color sweater. This also had the added benefit where I was able to use up all of the purple yarn on the yolk and just go as far as I could go with it before switching to black.

But yeah, the end result?

It's decent!

Like let's be real, my raglan increases are an absolute fucking mess and the shaping on the yolk is a little funny, AND I did make the collar too big (I was so worried my giant head wouldn't fit through so I made it way bigger than it needed to be, but honestly it's better that way than it being way too small. It looks a little silly but it's not the end of the world), and the sleeves ended up being like maybe 4-5 centimeters too long they could've been a smidge shorter.

But aside from that?

I'm honestly really happy with it

Because the fabric is super soft and nice, it's not too bulky, and most importantly, it fits me. It's not obscenely massive on me, it's just the right size.

And really, that's all I wanted. A sweater I'd actually USE, and yeah, I'm gonna wear the hell out of this next fall/winter when the weather gets cold again. It's not perfect, but it's more than good enough for me. And most importantly, I now feel infinitely more confident in maybe using that nicer yarn sometime soon to knit something

Now what the fuck am I gonna do with the leftover yarn 'cause boy howdy do I have a ton left

[sawthatmountainburn]

I haven't watched the barbie movie and don't really plan to, I just have a problem with some arguments people have been making in its defense, as they are weak arguments regardless of what piece of media they're defending. specifically it's the "this is just feminism 101 for kids, it doesn't have to be a whole manifesto!" type of dismissive arguments.

first of all, if a movie is marketed as feminist and the fanbase praises it for its feminism, people who go see it will have certain expectations based on their own idea of feminism, since feminism is an umbrella term for different ideologies whose common trait is that they want rights for women. who counts as a woman, what specific rights they should have and how we should get them are all points of contention, without even getting into intersecrionality just yet. (very broad generalization, also some leftist feminists disagree with the 'rights' framing) there's only so many grains of sslt you can take, before you decide this is just too far away from what it was presented as and clearly, many women feel this way about the movie.

second of all, regardless of how a piece of media is marketed, it is always fair game for critism, whether that be from a feminist perspective, an anti-racism perspective, a leftist perspective or whatever else you can come up with. to demand that people simply not bring up these critiques because it's ruining people's fun or it's not that serious (but still serious enough that you call people misogynists for criticizing it?) is blatantly reactionary. it's the same thing angry geek boys do when you point out their funny little sci-fi and fantasy shows have weirdly few POC in them. you can say a criticism is in bad faith or based on a misreading of the text (I've seen this about the gynecologist scene, for example), sure, but what I'm seeing more commonly is just a total dismissal of these critiques and perspectives, as if the movie simply isn't subject to it for whatever reason.

expounding upon this, the "feminism 101" part of the argument is similarly reactionary. to reiterate what i said in my last reblog about this, the way people talk about this movie gives me the impression that it's way more suited to the ~2012-2014 pre-gamergate era of tumblr feminism, when people said stuff like "eyeliner so sharp it could kill a man" and feminist criticism was treated as more of a checklist of good and bad tropes. we're almost a decade past that era, with many events that changed the political and pop cultural landscape in the meantime, so what was passable back then might not be such now. we've talked extensively about intersecrionality, issues of race have been brought up time and time again, especially in light of the BLM movement and anti-Asian racism in the COVID era, queer issues have also been gaining more and more traction, etc etc, I can't and won't recap the last decade of political development. my point is, if you're a feminist in 2023 (or any other type of left-leaning politically active individual, but the barbie discourse is about feminism, so that's what I'm talking about specifically) you cannot simply ignore these issues and say multiply marginalized women will have their time, but they need to wait for the privileged women to go first. actually, it was always unacceptable to demand marginalized women support more privileged women while getting nothing in return, but it's even more obvious and ignorant in the current era, after we've been trying to make people understand intersecrionality for years.

it's also insidious how the implication is that feminism needs to be dumbed down for kids (a dubious claim in the first place) and for some reason, that dumbing down involves flattening everything to being about the most privileged women possible. why shouldn't young privileged girls learn about the issues that face their less privileged peers face? why should girls of marginalized groups have to sit and listen about the issues facing their privileged peers, but never being given the tools to discuss their own issues? whom does this dynamic serve exactly and why is it not only acceptable to continue to exist, but it also important to so vehemently defend?

I'm not trying to tell people not to like the barbie movie, that's really not what I care about. I'm saying the types of arguments being made reveal a failure of intersectionality and a dismissal of multiply marginalized women's issues, coupled with a self-centeredness which should be unacceptable to any serious feminist. stop making excuses for a hollywood blockbuster funded by a multi-billion(!!) dollar toy company and start giving a shit about the women in need right in front of you!

[lovecatsys]

Hellverine #1: Thoughts

God idk where to start. The first issue was a lot.... a lot of emotions going on.

Okay I guess the best part to start with is my criticism?

It feels like Percy knows what he's doing in regards to Akihiro's characterization and the direction he wants to take him in- which is good, but he lacks... subtlety.

(more under the cut)

Okay this got long lol so I'm splitting it into separate parts.

Part 1: Narration

There's a lot of narration boxes which I don't usually mind, love when my man gets a voice in his own story, but everything he communicates there is like... very obvious. He's telling the readers everything upfront, which I have complicated feelings on.

My criticism as an emerging writer comes from something I have personally struggled with and I know many amateur writers struggle with as well, the "show, don't tell" issue. Percy is telling us pretty much everything up front, in very plain words. It feels very amateur because of that, all of the things that he is telling us about Akihiro's feelings and what he's going through right now could be easily communicating by showing the readers these things, instead of having Akihiro plainly communicate them.

In Akihiro's first solo book, the original Dark Wolverine, Marjorie Liu and Daniel Way do a fantastic job of giving Akihiro an interesting voice in his narration that describes his current situation- but not necessarily all of his emotions about it, and what it means for him as a character. That is left to subtle cues for the audience to get the message.

In Hellverine #1, Akihiro gives us a recap of his current situation, tells us that he left behind both Logan and Project Hellfire, and then immediately tells us why he did those things afterwards and the questions he is trying to answer about himself.

It's interesting! These are great things to communicate about Akihiro as a character and his current dilemma, they feed into his angst which of course I'm a huge fan of. The problem is that these things don't have to be communicated so clearly in just the first few pages, Percy has a whole first issue to set up Akihiro's current problem and get us interested, but he tells us everything extremely literally in just the first few pages. That's not to say that the action in the rest of the issue doesn't add stuff, it does, but instead of giving the reader the opportunity to see for themself what Akihiro might be feeling at this point in his life, he just has Akihiro tell them exactly what he's feeling. It takes the fun and the interest out of it imo, and makes it feel dry.

In Dark Wolverine #75, just this one page has Akihiro briefly summarize his situation in his own words, but he keeps it subtle.

He doesn't mention his Father by name, but he brings him into the conversation when he talks about the "mask," you as the reader can interpret from this that he is talking about the Wolverine mask, the one that his father wears that he is currently wearing on Osborn's Dark Avengers. You can also tell from the punctuation that he does not feel particularly happy about this, he hesitates, you feel as the reader that he doesn't exactly want to mention the words "Wolverine" or "Logan."

When he tells us that he is hiding in plain sight, but that "they don't know what [he is]." It gets you thinking, does he enjoy hiding in plain sight, that he can be "on top" as he says, without having to deal with the public knowing what kind of person he is? Is that why he's willing to wear the mask of Wolverine? Perhaps he's reluctant, but still enjoying this one particular aspect of being Wolverine for the American government.

The narration here tells us some things, but leaves the rest of it up for us to interpret. It feels more rich that way, it gets you thinking about who exactly Akihiro is as a character, lets you come to the conclusions of who he is without telling you straight up. It has depth.

Going off of that though, there are weirdly some positives to this? at least from my point of view.

Part 2: Marvel fans (and writers) are stupid.

I'm not entirely sure if this is the problem and I sometimes hope to god it isn't, but unfortunately sometimes it feels like certain people read comics (or anything, in general) and aren't very good at picking up the subtle messaging. Especially when I look at writers like Leah Williams, who maybe didn't read all of Akihiro's stories before she wrote X-Factor, but whatever she did read I don't believe she picked up on any depth in Akihiro's characterization.

For one thing, Akihiro does have a lot of fans right now and I think many of them probably came from the sniktfam fandom, which has been really fanonized in the past few years. So much of the depth of Akihiro and Laura's relationships with Logan have been shaved away in favor of making them closer to their father, having more positive relationships with him. This is of course infuriating when their past relationships with him before he died in the mid 2010s were really... not positive and sometimes even horrific. Of course, there's nothing wrong with developing their relationships with him to be more positive, but the problem is that they aren't doing that. There hasn't been any dedication to Logan righting the wrongs he did to his children, they're all just kind of shoved together in the same books and pretending like things are okay.

Lately Percy has been writing Akihiro with this kind of "Logan and I have done terrible shit to each other but we need each other right now," of course that was before Sabretooth. I think I get it cause once things are written into canon you can't really pretend they don't exist, so it's a way to acknowledge their past while keeping things in line with what's happened recently. He's developing Akihiro away from that now which is great!

Which kind of brings me to my point here, I think that saying everything clearly makes things a lot more obvious for readers who don't typically have the reading comprehension skills to figure out the deeper meaning here.

I do have to acknowledge though that I could be wrong on this point, as many of the fans and writers who mischaracterize him may just not... have read anything where he's a more complex character, where he isn't just a side character in Logan or Laura's stories.

Still, I do have somewhat positive feelings about Percy's writing here? Even if it's not the most enjoyable to read and doesn't make me. feel super compelled, for one thing it shows me that Percy does understand Akihiro better than I thought. His voice isn't very accurate, but he gets Akihiro's emotional struggles, and he has a clear setup for a direction he wants to take him in. That has definitely made me feel a lot more positive about this book.

Part 3: Summary

Overall I think it was pretty good, I'm definitely interested at least which is what a first issue should always do: pull the reader in. I like that it kind of brings back his moral ambiguity, that other people don't trust him very much, but he's not a full villain and still a sympathetic character. I also love that he's going away from Logan, that he's doing his own thing, and that things from his past are being brought up. Like, when was the last time we got a flashback to his childhood?? A mention of his trauma from being bullied and his neglectful adoptive mother??

It gives me hope, I hope right now that we also get some more looks at his childhood with Romulus, which may be difficult to show because a) it's really. horrific and b) there isn't really much material to go from, whereas there's a full timeline of his childhood in Japan backn in Wolverine: Origins.

Hell, I'd love even a mention of Romulus leaving him in the snow to freeze or training him and making him kill people as a small child. Those are the only things I can really think of besides maybe some moments where Romulus tells him stuff.

I'd also love some elaboration on his relationships with Agent Kim or with Somnus, I like to interpret that he had run away from Romulus as a young adult in Canada and his encounter with Carl scared him due to the intimacy and the violation which sent him running back. But I'll take any crumbs at this point.

[cringecompanionapologist]

Cradle of the Snake Part 2: Adventures of the Mara!Doctor

So, I took a fuckton of screenshots for this and I had to cut it to just fifteen, most of them being Turlough and the Mara!Doctor. Time to overanalyze some dialogue!

When last we left our heroes, the Doctor was fully taken over by the Mara and is now trying to spread its influence to some of the locals. The script directions try to explain what the Mara is actually doing when it possesses someone:

So, Mara!Doctor is supposed to be the dark side of the Doctor? Mara!Doctor is mostly just Obviously Evil in general, so I don't really know what this means here. Hopefully, we'll find out as we go.

Mara!Doctor tries to turn Tegan against Nyssa. This has no strategic benefit for it. The Mara is Chaotic Evil and just wants to cause more problems.

Mara!Doctor shoos Tegan away and then uses the Mark of the Snake to traumatize the cab driver. But, the cab driver's not important, so he doesn't get possessed.

The Mara specifically wants this entertainer/mad scientist named Rick to join him, but he has to get through the boy working for him, Baala. It doesn't work because Baala is special, as we'll learn later.

The Mara looks for some Darkest Dreams to close in on, but he's got nothing and has to take a break from recruiting the locals.

Meanwhile, Dadda, a sort of snakecharmer priest, uses his evil-detecting snake on the Doctor's companions to clarify that none of them are under the Mara's influence at this moment in time. Something was up with Tegan, but it's gone now, Nyssa is fine, and Turlough apparently gave Dadda some bad vibes but the snake is cool with him.

Turlough is sent to look for the Doctor, giving me something better to do than just recap the plot with a few screenshots thrown in. There's no particular reason Turlough had to be the one that left. It could've just as easily have been Tegan or Nyssa who left to search for the Doctor, so the Mara would've had to have been ready for any of them. Mara!Doctor was watching the whole snake thing at a safe distance, since the snake would sense evil on him.

I must once again emphasize that Mara!Doctor is Obviously Evil. There is something obviously wrong here. His voice and speech patterns are different. There's something really obviously "off" about him, that none of his companions seem able to immediately identify. Tegan thought he was acting weird earlier, but in a "in a bit of a bad mood" sense that was easy to dismiss. Turlough doesn't even notice that.

This leads into the reoccurring theme of temptation with the Mara. Mara!Doctor suggests that Turlough forget about Nyssa and Tegan and go have some fun at the fair instead. It's a very "Sunday School PSA" sort of temptation. "Ditch your responsibilities and go have fun instead".

The Mara!Doctor, while still being Obviously Evil and Not the Doctor, actually does manipulate Turlough here by singling him out. The Doctor's being secretive and Only Turlough Knows, because he can keep a secret, right? Turlough's not usually the trusted confidant, so this is a positive change. The Doctor trusts him. After all the Black Guardian stuff, Turlough wants to be trusted.

So, Turlough is worn down by this special attention he's getting. The Doctor wants him to be involved in Secret Business that the girls aren't in on and now they're going to spend some quality time together at the fair.

So, we're off to the fair! The Doctor wins a carnival game, but he still believes the game was rigged against him and gets upset, even though he won.

As for the Doctor's Dark Side, this feels like a petty version of the Doctor's sense of justice. This is unfair so it has to be stopped. He also brags about how clever he is. Five's one of the less arrogant Doctors, but the Doctor commenting on his own intelligence isn't exactly uncommon.

I would love to know what kind of Giant Cuddly alien animal that toy is. For some reason my own mental image of it is off an octopus. It can cuddle you back, I guess. I'm weird.

Mara!Doctor casually hands the prize off to Turlough, who doesn't act like he's carrying a giant stuffed animal throughout the rest of the story, so he most likely abandoned it somewhere. I would be mad about the stuffed animal neglect, but there's too much going on here to stop for that. I hope someone gave it a home.

Mara!Doctor looks for more problems to cause and Turlough tries to keep up. He goes on a bit of an evil rant.

Turlough's response to just being asked what he wants is interesting. "I thought this was our night on the town". Mara!Doctor asking Turlough what he wants isn't a contradiction of it being their night on the town. It could even be interpreted as "What do you want to do next?" or "Want me to buy you something?". From Mara!Doctor's tone, he clearly means it in a more "tell me all your hopes and dreams" sense, but it's still an odd response. What Turlough wants and this being their night out are correlated.

This night out, this quality time with the Doctor, was what Turlough wanted. Now he has it, but it's all wrong, because it's not really the Doctor he's out with.

Turlough falls back on having learned to accept things. And the words in context with his last line feel like "It turns out that what I want is impossible, but I'm settling for what you'll give me."

The Doctor, as himself, taught Turlough to be thankful for what he has, but this whole experience being such a let down means that the Mara!Doctor has also taught him that he's never going to get what he wants, the Doctor's trust and undivided attention, and he just accept that. At least the Doctor is part of his life.

Mara!Doctor is still in Evil Rant Mode, but the script directions here are kind of funny:

Turlough is embarrassed. You'd think he'd be scared by how obviously wrong this is, or concerned because there's something wrong with the Doctor, but he's embarrassed. The Doctor's antics are ruining their date and attracting attention from strangers.

By this point, Tegan and Nyssa, with Dadda's help, have figured out that the Doctor is possessed and Turlough's alone with him. It's quickly assumed that Turlough's been possessed too, which isn't surprising. It's not even an unfair assumption. The Mara has been going around possessing everyone with a name. Why wouldn't it possess Turlough, especially if it's already possessed the Doctor, someone Turlough would be easily persuaded by and comfortable getting close to.

The Mara hasn't possessed Turlough yet because it would actually break a pattern. The attempt to possess Nyssa through Tegan was when they were alone in their bedroom. Kerrem was possessed while alone with the Doctor in his office. The Mara doesn't seem to strike in public places. Kerrem screamed when he was possessed, so it would obviously attract attention. The entire time Mara!Doctor's been with Turlough, they've been at a crowded fairground. The Mara is waiting until they're alone...

This happens at the abandoned studio where the Mara hopes to continue its plan for world domination, just bringing Turlough along for the ride. By this point, Turlough has either realized that something's very wrong or is just done with all this bullshit and wants out.

But, in the abandoned studio, they're alone now. So the Mara can actually try to possess Turlough, which would definitely prevent him from leaving.

Turlough saw the Mark of the Snake on Tegan's arm and should know that it's associated with the Mara, but he probably never expected to see the Doctor be possessed. He's the Big Good of the universe in Turlough's mind. He protected him for the Black Guardian, basically the Devil. The Mara couldn't possibly be more powerful than that!

Turlough's "I don't know" is similar to his "well" before deciding to go to the fair. He's actually being convinced, more by the Hypnotic Evil Power of the Mara than by anything that's being said. But, it's also the Doctor offering Wealth and Power here...

But, they get interrupted and the Mara!Doctor pulls Turlough into a nearby warehouse.

Turlough is sort of tempted by the Mara's offer, even after everything else that's happened. We're also back to the double entendre with Nyssa and Tegan in part 1. They're alone together, one of them removes some of their clothing and offers the other basically whatever they want. It stood out with Nyssa and Tegan because it happened in a bedroom. It stands out here because Mara!Doctor took Turlough on a date first. So, if this was a sexual offering, Turlough would totally be up for it, but Mara!Doctor is being too rough with him. Not being a gentleman, just leading him to an abandoned building and grabbing him like that! In his "darkest dreams" it was way more romantic. Worst. Date. Ever.

Okay, I've had my fun.

Anyway, Mara!Doctor locks Turlough in a stall. He has to meet with Rick now, so he doesn't have time to possess Turlough. He can't bring non-possessed Turlough along to the meeting, because he might hinder his plans in some way. But, he can't risk Turlough escaping and tattling to Nyssa and Tegan either. So, he has to lock him up somewhere.

The Mara!Doctor hurt Turlough. Turlough thought the Doctor would never hurt him. He trusted him. This is when he starts to get really scared.

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Pokémon Reborn Screenshot Let's Play: Chapter 40

Well, I can say I’ve more or less adjusted to my new schedule- doesn’t mean I don’t get a little tired after coming home, though. Despite that, the reason for this chapter’s specific delay actually had nothing to do with job stuff! 

See, the new 19.5.5 update for Reborn came out, so I of course updated my game for it. But…well, I seemed to have forgotten how updating fangames works, I did it wrong and my game wouldn’t open, and it took a helpful reminder from someone in the troubleshooting topic in the forums for me to realize my mistake. On one hand, I’m grateful it was a simple matter of human error and not something worse (like my laptop being old and weird), but on the other hand the play session was put off by a whole day because of that blunder. But hey, it’s not like this is the first time I’ve made embarrassing and easily avoidable mistakes in the course of this playthrough.

Regardless, everything worked out, I recovered from the psychic damage I took from my foolishness, and here we are! There’s…I mean, I’m not entirely sure where this chapter could go aside from a few basic points. But I sure as heck remember where the last chapter went, and that’s what I’m gonna recap right now!

While training to take on Serra, several of Xera’s Pokémon evolved, namely: Vulcan into Pignite and Emboar, Frost into Vanillish and Vanilluxe, and Rumble into Scrafty.

Xera makes her way through the mirror-clad rooms of the Voclain Estate, eventually coming across Bennett and El again. Bennett explains that he plans to be a Gym Leader himself some day, and to train for that he asks all of his mother’s challengers for a battle, and so he does the same with Xera.

Xera defeats Bennett in a hard-fought battle, and El praises the two Trainers’ skill. He then tells Bennett has the potential to go much further than being a Gym Leader- with his skill, he could become a member of the Elite Four. El insinuates he could help Bennett reach such a position, and Bennett eagerly follows him to discuss the details elsewhere.

Xera arrives at the Gym arena proper to challenge Serra, with El and Bennett watching in the stands. After another challenging fight reflected by the mirrors of the arena, Xera barely manages to achieve victory.

El takes Bennett outside to continue their prior conversation away from prying ears; at the same time, Serra awards Xera with the Rime Badge. Suddenly, the mansion is shaken by another tremor, and Serra goes out to investigate- just in case another building was teleported on top of her house.

Outside, El tells Bennett will need to give him his full compliance if he is to be introduced to the Elite Four. As such, he immediately asks Bennett to reveal what he really knows about Luna’s whereabouts, as he knows the boy was not being fully honest before. 

Bennett admits Luna mentioned a place called Vanhanen Castle; when further asked by El, he also confirms Luna had with her an Emerald Brooch, which was given to her by El some time ago. With this new information, El is immediately ready to leave and practically orders Bennett to follow, barely giving the boy enough time to say goodbye to his mother before the two leave.

As Xera and Serra rest in the living room, Serra explains the PokéMart has teleported away at last, although where it was sent to is unknown. She also explains Bennett having left to study to join the Elite Four, feeling rather indifferent despite being his mother. Regardless, she sends Xera on her way to track down the PokéMart. 

Xera finds the PokéMart far away from Spinel Town, all the way near the entrance to Tanzan Mountain. She is finally able to buy some Herbal Extract, and leaves the Mart to bring it back to the Belrose Manse at long last.

And so, the quest for life-saving medicine ends in success! All it took was waiting for teleportation gimmicks to kick in and defeating an entire Gym Leader! Needless to say, it was a pretty big day for Xera, and…well, it might get even bigger, I don’t really know. I know we’re probably gonna be giving the medicine to Anna, but after that…I’m not sure. I mean, there’s still the unsolved mysteries of Spinel Town’s teleportations and the earthquakes, and at least one of those is sure to come to a head sooner or later- I still think Team Meteor’s responsible, but there still hasn’t been any confirmation for my paranoia. 

But, the only way to see where the story goes next is to actually keep playing! Now that my technical issues have been fixed, there’s no reason to hold off, so let’s do it!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

[popculturebuffet]

Christmas in July: Jingle Belle: Ring a Ding Jing (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hohoho all you happy people. Christmas in July is almost done and i'm almost out of here. For now though we have some more presents to plop down your chimeny

No no we're not there yet. Get back in the cage mickey rooney. No today's present is another look at Jingle Belle, a character created by DCAU legend Paul Dini.

Since it has been a few years, a quick recap: Jingle Belle is santa's 20 something but actually pretty dang old daughter who gets into trouble and stuff. That's... pretty much it.

Okay THAT'S pretty much it. He's done occasional stories with the characters at a bunch of diffrent indie comics companies. Kev's a fan so he asked me to cover some more.

So with that we can get to today's story which involves casinos, the mafia, the rat pack and jing becoming a mob boss. You know christmas! Under the cut!

Ring a ding jing is a two issue story from a 2004 mini series done by dark horse.. which the image above lets you know, the previous two being the previously covered special christmas special.

Now that's out of the way we begin with a letter to santa: An old friend of his is asking for help, Bud Coleman, a kind old man who's been running a santa theme park in lake tahoe since 1962 which santa came to see open himself. I do like this bit, that santa took the time to help an adjacent park open and gave it his blessing. Feels very santa. He writes back he unfortunately CAN'T hlep but before he can provide presumibly some advice.. our heroine comes in

I hate to take sides.. but Rusty.. you brought this on yourself. He was trying to borrow her snowboard.. without asking her and when again she put a keep out sign. Immature.. yes. Clear as fuck? Yes. Implies Rusty does this shit a lot? Also yes.

So santa in his "infinite wisdom" decides to send jing to help this poor old man.

Seriously just... this whole story is at least 20% Santa's fault for sending Jing down there, knowing both what she's like. Granted I can't completely fault him for not thinking this goes where it goes, it's a bit chesnuts and not roasted on an open fire, but he still should've known this wouldn't end well. IT's why the ending dosen't sit right with me but we'll get to that.

For now Jing flies in and is unimpressed with what's left of the park, if nice to bud. Sadly the parks in deep disrepair, the rides busted, the reindeer replaced with a very good boy, and Bud's wife having been seriously injured in a fruit cake accident and really needing a doctor but not getting one because Trauma is funny right? I mean if it happens to a house cat named tom sure

But in this case meh. Jing needs twelve million dollary doos for her plan to save the park, but hears bud's friends joking about him being part native american and that gives her an idea: GAMBLING. She plans to turn part of the park into a casnio. Bud's not sure but Jing's got the charisma to talk him into this. She then gets busy grabbing some of her dad's staff specifically

Well a wolverine that fights a robot to test it for santa, but he acts like logan so he counts dammit. She grabs a few menehunes, some slot machine parts, paul anka and some cocaine. you know the things you need for a good casino.

So naturally when Bud gets back, he finds his park has been turned into a nightmare

Bud is naturally.. horrified by all this. Except the house band, they fucking rip. But wolverines as bouncers, lemmings as servers and something called

Ah yes the most iconic of x-men, texas murder alligator. Side note ask Gail Simone to add Texas Murder Alligator to her run. He really needs the work.

Bud is horrified with Jing wondering if she screwed up.. but he's pacificed a bit by the profits since it's more than they've made in 20 years. Jing naturally has let the success go to her head but soon has to deal with the greatest monster in gambling

But since that all happens in a tie in issue we instead see her get abducted by the mob. Specifically Leo Gatch, who runs all the casino's in the area and is impressed with her work.. but wants his cut. Jing refuses and he responds by telling her "Join up or get your legs broken" We end the issue on that cliffhanger.

So naturally she escapes.. by summoning a giant reindeer named thrasher. Or goat. Whatever he is he's got the poots and poots on gatch as jing runs away

So Jing comes back and Bud about dies when he finds out who Jing just pissed off wanting to apologize. We soon find out naturally letting a teenager telling a mob boss to go jerk off in a lake has consequences, as Gatch has cut off the food and entertainment. Jing being responable and entirely likeable.. decides not to. I like this panel of her going beetlejuice over her frustration at the situation before deciding to fight dirty

So she fights back. She has wolverine deliver a message telling Gatch

Has him eat his whole buffet and then invite him to see their new act

Yes Jing has brought in toy versions of the rat pack who are loyal to her and help throw gatch out, though she did skimp on the accuracey a little what with frank going AGAINST the mob, but ey creative lisesnce and all that. She also clearly hates Dean martin as he's the only one to get a joke at his expense. Or paul dini does and that sir I just don't understand.

Meanwhile Bud has to turn some kids away and realizes "maybe this giant casino war with anamatronic dean martin has gotten jus ta wee bit out of hand. "

Anyways Gatch heads back to fly in some muscle to break her legs and kidneys, but finds his casnio is super paying out. Turns out the people he told to fix the machines> He then passses out and awakens. Jing has taken over and plans to become queen of lake tahoe and then the rest of the world.

Sadly she forgot about her dad... who i'm suprised she dosen't just throw out as he found out about the scheme. And here's that part where I don't like him... he outsourced this to his michevous daughter, didn't bother to look into what she'd just requested when she came back and grabbed a bunch of his pepople for her scheme and didn't think to do ANY followup till bud called him. I'm not saying Jing's out of the clear, she lied to a man, turned his park into a casino without his consent, got into a war with someone very clearly part of the mafia, and then planned to become queenpin. She done fucked up, but multiple people can fuck up and it's hard to feel bad for santa when HE SENT HERE THERE. He sent her to his friend and while as I said at the top, he couldn't of seen THIS coming, he should've seen something going horribly wrong coming and maybe sent one of his elves to look after her.

Bud is closing down the casino part, so the war with gatch isn't an issue: he got enough to renovate the park and that's all he really wanted. Him calling santa in is a nice touch: it's one thing to make money they badly need to remodel, the rides were out of date and needed to be refurbished or replaced. That's fine. It's another to turn his place into casniopolis.

Gatch and Jing don't get off the hook though just because this solved all his problems: Gatch is let go, having claimed to learn his lesson.. but is told by santa to donate to several charities. Which is a slap on the wrist but given what Jing's put him through, I doubt he wants to piss off Santa as he won't play as dirty but he will play to win. Jing is left.. handing out fruitcake.

This two parter is.. decent. The idea isn't terrible, but Jing feels very one dimensional mostly either being manipulative or angry in the first half and the setup is nonsenical. Again Santa, why did you think sending your teenage daughter fresh off nearly murdering her cousin would work?

But honestly the jokes do help: from a wolverine refrence, a cheap pop for yours truly, to the rat pack, the picked up screwball pace of the second half really helps the story and the ending does mostly work. I just would prefer if th efirst half had more jokes than "Jing thinks starting a santa casnio is a good idea" as a santa themed casino isn't that shocking to me or over the top. It probably exists. Now elves fixing machines, a wolverine eating his buffet and anamatronic rat pack that's my forte.

So overall a solid story just not a lot to talk about. You'd think they'd have more but i'm wrong.

[wrestlingisfake]

Dog Pound Cage Match *****

The United Empire. vs War Dogs cage match was probably the best WarGames type thing I've ever seen. It's not for the squeamish, but if you can handle the Blood & Guts stuff in AEW, you can handle this. (And if you are squeamish, you should check out the show anyway for Danielson vs. Sabre.)

The concept of WarGames always fascinated me from the moment I first heard of it, probably in like 1991. But when I finally got to watch any of WCW's WarGames matches, none of them lived up to the hype. I enjoy AEW's version, but even with them it feels like they've run out of steam by the time the last couple of guys enter the cage. That's a problem when the original concept is that the match doesn't even start until all the wrestlers are locked in.

I went to see GCW's first Art of War Games show in 2021, and that lived up to the hype. Figures that a deathmatch promotion would know how to pace themselves and keep the escalation of violence on a steady course. Nick Gage was the last guy in, and his entrance blew the roof off the joint. For once I felt like I was really seeing "the match beyond."

New Japan's version had to be different, of course. It was telling that they didn't use boxcutters to get the canvas off the ring frame, because somebody must have been like "that would make no sense, because if you have a box cutter why wouldn't you just stab your opponent?" When they did a thumbtack spot, they had a little tray to keep most of the tacks in one little corner of the ring. The "cage" was more like a ten-foot-high guardrail. So yeah, it's not GCW, but I think having NJPW-caliber talent in there compensated for the diminished ultraviolence.

The match went like 64 minutes. That was after maybe 30 minutes of assembling the cage and recap vidoes and entrances and such. So I can see why people think it went too long. But for me the match was so engaging that the time flew by. I think at about 45 minutes it felt like they were going to the finish, but I was a little disappointed, like "no, don't stop now." I wanted the match beyond, dammit. But these ten guys delivered "beyond" and then some. When it was over I really felt like there's nothing left for them to do to each other.

I'm guessing New Japan won't do another one of these for a few years. In the meantime, it's going to be tough to go back to watching Blood & Guts in AEW. Hopefully the Undisputed Kingdom watched this match and took a lot of notes...

[the-wolfbats]

Thoughts on Mattimeo, Mariel of Redwall, and Triss

Phew only like 4 5 books left until I'm done! (once again I forgot Rakkety Tam) One of those books is Doomwyte and I already know one note, so I'll say it here - I think that's the only time we see a ruler of Redwall with a child.

Also ... out of all the main female characters, Mariel, Tiria, and Triss are just boring. They're no Dottie or Maudie, or Song and Rose.

Mattimeo 

Legit skipped the Redwall bits after the main group left. 

It's interesting to revisit the ruins of Loamhedge but literal centuries (probably) before the titularl book 

Mariel of Redwall 

I feel like this is the last story that had Martin like...this much of a Jesus entity. He's extremely involved in this novel, talking to like 5 characters, possession Saxtus to put the sword by Dandin

Speaking of which, Dandin openly kills a sea vermin(“I didn't come here to take you alive!”) meanwhile, Triss is cheated out of her vengeance on Kurda, a trend that would continue intermittently (but be subverted in the best of the latter books, Eulalia!)

It's not a huge loss to not have these things, but I do wish we saw a few more stories that took place in the South Islands. They're not written the best but with practice, they would have been great.

Triss

If I had a nickel for every time that a pale character in a fantasy series was called Kurda and was killed by falling on something pointy, I have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird it's happened twice 

I bet the audiobook has the most stereotypical German accents for the Pure Ferrets. 

I said in the Loamhedge recap that Martha and Horty were the first hares to just exist at the Abbey separately from Salamandastron and had never gone but nope here's Memm Flackery. 

Turfee the mousebabe scowled darkly. “They scrubs likkle ones t’death in this h’Abbey.” this fellow has had enough 😭

She said you were supposed to be like that old Badger Lord she’d read of, Russano the Wise, her fifth great-grandsire. So she called. So why doesn't Lady Merola rule? The title Ruler of Salamandastron is a little too arbitrary bc it can be decided through prophecy and dreams as well as lineage, but there is canonically one female Badger Lord in Spearlady Gorse. Would have been nice to have another, even as a minor character.  

“It’s called bamboo. My father has a piece of it in his collection of searat stuff. He said it comes from the hot lands beyond the ocean.” How many people reading this did not know the bamboo was a real thing? I mean I knew but imagine being like 10 living in Wales reading this. There's things I've read or seen that I didn't know were real until later. Like the song Hanging on the Telephone.

Ok this is the second time where a name is either similar (Grubbage\ Grubitsch) or spelled exactly like one in a Darren Shan series. 

I wonder if Peace Island is the same mountain as Holt Rudderwake. 

A thing I enjoy is how some of the chapter art looks. 25 in particular is a great use of the fact that the print is limited to black and white. 

Why didn't the adder trio eat the body of the king? How did it not decompose over years? Because it was sheltered in Brockhall? What about - it's a children's book I should relax. 

It's endearing how they call her Trissy. 

They mention Grubbage was considered a captive at the Abbey but the recorder liked him well enough, calls him jolly. So that's the (2nd? 3rd?) “good” rat in the series to temporarily stay at the Abbey. No one mentions it bc it's two lines and no one rereads this book. 

Overall Triss was one of those I barely remember and remember as being what people think of when they think of formulaic Redwall. It manages to rise above it a little - Crikulus and Melbun behaving foolishly is interesting - but nothing else really is