#i remember liveblogging reading something through a friend and more or less going ?!?!?!?! at half of it

[sforzesco]

Cardinal! just popping up randomly in your askbox to say that i'm OBSESSED with your portraying of della Rovere, especially in the latest comic. he looks so menacing, sinister even, yet he traces Ascanio's scar so so tenderly?? jbfbvkjvd i'd give my right arm for a scene like that in the Borgias season 4!

thank you!!

originally, that scene was supposed to be a lot more weird and hostile, but I didn't want to draw. hallways. for it. so I'll be revisiting it again someday when I do feel like drawing hallways lmao

also, they're so weird! every now and then I'll read something, and I'm like. hey, della rovere. did you fuck that vice chancellor.

once, della rovere asked for the absolute humiliation of ascanio sforza, and then jump cut years later and he's re establishing ascanio's wealth and visiting him every day just to talk. okay guys!!!

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

Hello everyone, today I'll do something never before seen on the flames and darkness liveblog which is read TWO chapters!! Idk man, i havent been able to read more than one chapter at a time recently because this book suddenly turned into such a slog to get through, although granted that might also just be my mental illness making it more difficult. whatever, i'll be in treatment for that next week

Anyway, today I'll be reading chapter 44 which is the star fall chapter, and chapter 45 which is. a chapter. Knowing this book series nothing of note is gonna happen in that one but that wont stop me from reading it

Chapter 44

Okay, theyre mentioning Feyre not looking so emancipated amymore and it made me remember all the weird weight shit from the start of this book. Like, she was losing weight because she was throwing up all the time and then not eating a lot and everyone was constantly remarking on that and it was unbelievably uncomfortable, but then when Feyre officially joined the night court and everyone immediately stopped talking about it, it almost feels a little manipulative, if that makes sense. Like, this book is ostensibly about Feyres healing journey but the Night Court cannot, under any circumstances, have anything negative associated with it so her trauma basically just disappears so we dont have to see the unpleasant parts of her recovery, she has one (1) nightmare after she starts living there permanently, one (1) moment where she feels too depressed to leave the bed and a few moment where she acts out but then immediately feels bad for it every time

Ughhhhh Feyre is wearing a dress for this which is really frustrating but you guys already know how I feel about that so shant go into that much more detail on this

I swear Im not just saying this to be a hater, Feyres dress sounds so tacky too

yoooooooo is Cassian implying he'd like to wear a tacky ass dress too??

and yet hes just wearing a BLACK TUNIC bro Feyre is literally covered in diamonds from head to toe so she can look like a shooting star or whatever and Cassian doesnt even have the decency to wear a black tunic that glitters or something?? Or hell, maybe even a red tunic to match his siphons, idk, give me SOMETHING im gonna tear my fucking hair out

Feyre is wondering about the IC being her friends and its like, girlie theyre barely even each others friends and youve known each other for maybe half a year to their 500 years

Feyre is describing Azriel hungrily staring at Mor's ass and it reminded me of that one bonus chapter Ive seen discussions about where he's really horny about Elain in a way thats pretty uncomfortable, and a lot of ex-Elriels say that it made them stop liking the idea of the ship because thats when they realized that SJM was just gonna mutilate both of their characters for the sake of smut, but honestly I dont think she would even need to mutilate Az that much

I could not give less of a shit about the Mor/Cassian/Azriel drama but I have to admit its kinda funny reading about Feyre speculating so much about Mor's relationships knowing shes gonna turn out to be interested in women

Mor says that Rhysand was very upset after she had sex with Cassian and beat him up as hard as he could (#incest) but she says he wasnt upset because of her virginity but because of the danger she put herself in by losing it, which is like, first of all that seems like splitting hairs, he was still upset that she lost her virginity even though that was none of his business. And second of all, I think it would actually make sense for him to have the kind of archaic sexist beliefs that would make Mor losing her virginity upsetting to him, considering he was also 17 when that happened just like Mor and Im guessing there wasnt anyone around to teach him feminism. or maybe hes so feminist he came out of the womb believing in womens rights and didnt need to be taught anything

god, the inner circle dynamics are so comically fucked up I have no idea how they can stand being around each other

Again, Im not much of a Feylin girlie but "Your hair looks... clean." >>>>>>>>>>>>>> "You look like a women again." (???? whats thag even supposed to mean)

So Rhysand is not wearing a black tunic, but he is wearing wearing a black jacket which is equally disappointing. atleast he has his tits out i guess

Rhysand was gone for 50 years and yet his best friends are not spending any time with him at their first party together since theyve been seperated, thats what i call friendship goals

Yeah, I guess its kinda sad that Rhys missed out on important holiday that meant a lot to him while undr the mountain but you know who else had to do that? Literally everyone that wasnt from the spring court

So he doesnt wanna tell his friends, who are by all accounts doing alright because theyve spent the past few decades trapped in a beautiful idyllic city, about his trauma but hes perfectly fine traumadumping on a twenty year old woman who just started to recover from her own trauma

Maybe Im just in a bad mood but this bullshit where theyre getting covered in star spirits or whatever feels so joyless to me, like its not whimsical or fun to me

Okay so, Ive heard about Rhysand calling Feyre exquisite and it made me cringe just thinking about it, but it looks like theyve translated that to him calling her 'herrlich' which means the exact same thing but it sounds a lot less weird and bad. once again, thank you, Alexandra

Feyre really just said "You regret sexually assaulting me? But why?" huh

Chapter 45:

Okay, thats the end of the chapter but theres two more things that kinda annoyed me that I didnt feel the need to mention as I was reading. 1) Feyre kept going on and on aboht Rhysand being her friend, it felt so insincere, its like sjm say a post online right before she started writing this chapter that was like "in the best relationships, your partner isnt just your partner but also your best friend" and decided to put that sentiment in her book, and 2) I felt like there were so many moments towards the end of that chapter where Feyre is like "oh, ive never felt this way with anyone" and its very obviously alluding to how she didnt love Tamlin as much as she does Rhysand now, and it was just very strange to read, like Tamlin was haunting the narrative even though hes not even dead yet

Uhm. so i got really tired all of a sudden so I took a nap at this point and read some gay vampire fanfic to rejunivate myself and now Im ready for whatever happens in the next chapter

"I was a traitor. [...] Even though I oficially left Tamlin - it was only two months ago, after all. By Fae standards that was probably barely more than a day." Oh yeah, i havent been keeping track of the time thanks for reminding me that this story about immortals is moving at a breakneck pace for no goddamn reason. But also, as an author trying to write a grand long-lasting romance, why would you write this. I know Feysand are gonna get married at the end of book and now when I get to that point Im not gonna be thinking "wowwww such romance" Im gonna be thinking "damn these bozos did the fae equivalent of getting eloped in vegas after knowing each other for barely a week"

Oh, men of all ages are training at this camp? would you say some of them are. child-aged

Feyre is being all "its so cold here, im freezing in my illyrian leathers I cant imagine a child with no clothes surviving here for a single day, much less eight years" (referring to Cassian) and yet she doesnt spare a single thought to all the children who have to be at this camp as well because this is the camp that the batboys grew up in, its not like this is a different kind of camp where they dont train children

God I hate Feyre thinking about how fuckin powerful the batboys are especially because its like, Rhysand is literally their high lord, he already holds so much power over the guys running this camp we dont need a reminder that he could easily crush their minds or that his goons need more syphons to contain the totality of their power or whatever

I get that these guys are like, shitty misogynists or whatever, but I dont think Rhys throwing them out of the house they live in is some #boyboss move hes just being an asshole

Rhysand would never want to lock Feyre in a house for protection, but he does want to decapitate anyone who lays a hand on her which is soooooo much better

Rhysand keeps calling the.... "females" of this camp "girls" which implies one of two things: 1) hes talking about adult women, hes just calling them girls, which is not very feminist of our feminist king, or 2) hes talking about actual girls aka children which. thank god for our feminist king having equal-opportunity child soldiers

Its actually kind of surreal how theyre at the camp where the batboys spent their CHILDhoods and Feyre keeps talking about what it mustve been like for Cassian while the narrative is actively avoiding talking about children being at the camp at this present moment while also not outright stating "there are no kids here at this present moment"

"'[The clipping of the wings is] to ensure the safety of their women, they said.'" this reminds me of something @/kateprincessofbluewhales said in regards to Rhysand forcing illyrian women to train but not doing anything else to advance their rights, which is that the wing clipping mightve started as a way for men to help women dodge the 'draft' that seems to be mandatory for all healthy illyrians. I dont really have anything else to say about that, it just popped into my head and i thought it was interesting

Rhysand is talking about how at some of the camps, women are declared anti-marriage material if they train and how he cant do anything about that and its like, even if these women are not officially declared unmarriable or whatever, the misogynistic men that make up these camps are probably not gonna wanna marry a women who trains, so what difference does that really make

Also, he says the only thing he could do about 'laws' like that is to murder the warlords and take their children/trainees? under his wing and I guess he thinks he would have to do that for every camp that does that but honestly, I think just doing it once or twice would send a powerful enough message to discourage other warlords from being misogynistic. And he wouldnt have to raise all these children all by himself either, Im sure he could get the help of a few non-sexist men or even, gasp, some women. Like those priestesses living in that library Im sure some of the ones that have already recovered from their trauma somewhat wouldnt mind teaching some boys about the harm that misogyny does

Okay so the blood rite is called a Blutritual [blood ritual] in german which is a little confusing because a ritual is a pretty specific thing and I dont think the blood rite is that specific thing but whatever, it sounds cool enough

Ive said this before, I am not a Tamlin girlie, at best I prefer him to Rhysand, and I dont like or trust Rhysand at all, but imagine hearing that tragic story about how their families killed each other, leaving them as the only survivors and being like "I cant believe Tamlin killed Rhysands family!!" especially when its like, the only person Feyre actually knows Tamlin killed is Rhysands dad who sucked ass, its not exactly a great loss

I feel like i had a lot of thoughts about a lot of things in this chapter that I couldnt write down because theyre these abstract half-thoughts, so I think I'll let those marinate until theyre full thoughts and share them with you at some later date

[retro-rezz-the-est]

I posted 14,399 times in 2022

3,390 posts created (24%)

11,009 posts reblogged (76%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@adampage

@roofgeese

@beardedbarba

@smallmansection

@axelwolf8109

I tagged 6,188 of my posts in 2022

#my inbox has been filled - 728 posts

#rezz liveblogs aew - 500 posts

#rezz liveblogs raw - 474 posts

#rezz liveblogs sd live - 400 posts

#rezz liveblogs nxt - 257 posts

#anonymous - 169 posts

#rezz liveblogs aew rampage - 161 posts

#'the thirst is real' tag - 102 posts

#what a beautiful white man - 93 posts

#axelwolf8109 - 61 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#i literally said from the jump that he's nothing more than a shit-talking shit stirrer who's lost his touch and everyone clowned me for it

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

so i finally got my final grades/GPAs for the semester and I'm so proud of myself 😭👏🏾

For the semester, it's a 3.79 and my cumulative GPA is a 3.64. I can finally breathe 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

44 notes - Posted May 11, 2022

#4

I forgot to take pictures yesterday so here are some pics of my new hair that I took just now lmao enjoy 💙✨

56 notes - Posted March 1, 2022

#3

not only was I one of the first people in line for the Oscar Isaac panel, bUT I GOT TO ASK HIM A QUESTION

HE CALLED ME DARLING

HE LAUGHED AT MY LITTLE JOKE

HIS LAUGH IS JUST LOVELY AND SO IS HIS SMILE

HES PRETTIER IN PERSON YALL TRUST ME

HE LAUGHED SO MUCH AT MY ACT IT WAS GLORIOUS

I’m legit shaking crying screaming etc etc

(I asked him if he’s ever “liberated” anything from any of the sets/studios/stages he’s worked on and what those things were and where they were now, and he said that he would steal little props from all the shows he’s worked on and keep them in his basement and closet on shelves as mementos)

He also called Pedro his slut of a husband and that he would never leave him (someone asked about their relationship/bromance) and honestly that’s just a W in general.

Overall: I have officially won at life and literally nothing can/will top this moment 😌

58 notes - Posted October 9, 2022

#2

she's pinky, she's pinky w/ a brain 💕💕💕

71 notes - Posted May 13, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Heart Strings

Pairing: Damian Priest x female!Reader

Word Count: 7,073 (talk about a comeback lmao)

so @kalliravenne challenged me to write an incubus!D. Priest fic with hints of darkness and dream fuckery....and i think/hope i achieved that.....

this is also the first thing that i've written in the past year and a half so it's bound to be a bit more than rusty but regardless, i hope you enjoy it!!! much love <3

(also this was supposed to be short but managed to be long as shit with hella filler. so read as you will lmao XD)

For as long as you could remember, the club you worked at was always packed, booked, and busy on Halloween nights. How could it not be? A decent enough drink at a less-than-decent establishment with a pretty bad good chance of going home with someone you’ll forget in the next twenty-four hours? What could be better this time of year?

The line already started to curve around the block, with girlfriends dragging along their boyfriends, girl friends having a fun night out with their girl friends, and lonely twenty-somethings just wanting to get their rocks off. You rolled your eyes at the sight as you slipped through the “employee’s only” entrance and dropped your bag inside your locker in the backroom lounge. 

The place was damp, the neon lights were shitty, the bar was sticky with gum and drinks you couldn’t quite scrub out, and the walls were covered in graffiti and scrawled-on phone numbers and who knows what else…but you couldn’t help but smile as you filed in behind your coworkers because it was home, your home for the past few years.

“Hey!” one of your coworkers yelled from across the room, calling your name and rushing towards you in a cloud of gold and glitter. “Where’s your costume? Kevin wanted all of us to get into the holiday spirit tonight.”

You dropped your bag into your locker before reaching inside and pulling out a plastic bag. As much as you loved your boss for tolerating you all these years and keeping you hired, he always had a flare for dramatics that was incredibly extra. He had texted every one of your coworkers that you were required to dress up for tonight’s holiday festivities and then proceeded to - at least, to your knowledge - doused the insides of the club with so many cheap Halloween decorations that you’re sure he ran the local party store fresh out of their stock for the next year.

“I know, Cynthia,” you told her, pulling out a small wire halo and angel wings covered in white and silver feathers. “Can’t you tell what I’m gonna be?” You plastered on a smile and gestured down to your all-white party dress and heels.

“You never wear all white, though…” She gasped. “Are you an angel?”

“Exactly, and you are…?”

“Cleopatra, silly!” she smiled, giving you a twirl, the glitter adorning her bodice and skin spreading everywhere. “I’m gonna be by the door handing out flyers and stuff for the dance competition later, so I gotta look cute and eye-catching somehow.”

Cynth gave you a wink before rushing back off to finish her makeup, her beaded headpiece clacking away and making you smile softly before you slipped on your own accessories over your “costume”. The heels you wore were just for show, after all, just for showing Kevin that you actually tried to put some effort in for tonight.

“Fucking hell,” you muttered, forcing a smile onto your face as you stumbled your way past your coworkers and through the back of the club, finally pulling back the curtain that lead into the main dancefloor.

The swirling neon spotlights damn near blinded you when you emerged, the DJ already setting up hisetlist for the night as mini pumpkin, ghost and other Halloween confettis absolutely littered the floor. There was orange and black confetti coming down from the ceiling, giant bat stickers on the walls, orange and green glowsticks linen the floors….there were even Halloween themed condoms in a cup by the bathrooms in case there were any rowdy couples who can’t keep it in their pants.

Kev really went all out this year, huh, but guess who has to clean all of this up later tonight, you thought to yourself, silently cursing your boss before taking your place behind the bar and pulling out the foam slides you always hid below the glasses, immediately slipping off your heels and sliding them on with a sigh of relief.

You always leave your space tidy and well-kept despite how crappy it may look at first glance; you always kept your glasses cleaned, your multiple bar towels ready for the multiple accidents that always seem to happen on the other side, your tumblers are always together and you always restock your various liquors weekly. It’s your home away from home, your place to control and dictate.

You were cleaning off some glasses nearby with one of your bar towels, trying to shoulder one side of your angel wings back onto place when the music really started to kick up, the bass hitting you all the way in the back just as the front doors opened and the flood of people started filling the space.

In a matter of minutes, both the main dancefloor and the smaller second floor were full of eager partygoers looking for a good time, the air around the bar already feeling hot and stuffy from the bodies packed against each other.

Speaking of, the bar was packed with people looking forward to their first drink out of many of the night, each person and group shouting off what drinks, cocktails and mocktails they wanted off the Halloween menu Kev had you create and memorize the week prior.

But you’ve always loved a challenge, and tonight proved no different.

You never knew what kind of people you were going to get as you threw your bar towel over your shoulder and began taking orders, jotting them down with the person’s description on the small notepad you kept in the side cabinet. Some nights it was mainly loners, drifters who couldn’t quite find their crowd, sometimes it was scared twenty-one year-olds getting dragged along with their older friends as they threw literally every high-alcohol content drink that you had down their throats, and other times it was creeps who couldn’t quite keep their eyes in their heads and their hands to themselves.

But something deep within your mind told you otherwise; it told you that tonight would be…different. Something told you that tonight would finally make you feel something.

Yeah, right, you scoffed, reaching for your glasses and getting ready for the long night ahead. Like that’ll ever happen.

See the full post

171 notes - Posted June 29, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[scabopolis]

Omg congrats on 600 followers! Honestly any fake dating with Jonah x Amy would be amazing, although I love number 44 and/or 48 on your Google Docs <333

This is my first Jonah x Amy fic and I offer two caveats: 1) I’m still not sure if there is a particular vibe people who read for this pairing preferring, so...here we are, and 2) I have only made it through 4x12 of Superstore but am pretty familiar w/ what happens the rest of the series. 

Prompt: “You know we’re not actually dating, so why did you propose to me in front of my family?” / “I’m sorry, I panicked.” --- Title: the scene of the complication Fandom: Superstore Pairing: Jonah/Amy Other Characters: My crippling insecurity writing for a new fandom, sleep soft mornings, dumbs being dumb (but, like in a cute way) Additional Tags: friends to lovers (or idiots to friends to lovers??), fake dating shenanigans, alternative universe where Amy’s HS pregnancy test was negative and she and Jonah met in college Word Count: ~2,100 ---

It started with a chance meeting ten years ago, and somehow it’s brought Amy Sosa here: awake in her childhood room with Jonah Simms beside her, sleeping off upwards of half a dozen tequila shots. Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised. She knew that day they met in the lecture hall that Jonah was a person who would make her life exceedingly more complicated. 

And ten years later, here they are, practically leaving complicated behind in the rear view mirror. 

(“What are two hopes and one fear you have for your first lecture on your first day of college?” the guy sitting to her right asks. 

Amy doesn’t answer at first but this stranger just waits for her, all blinking, bright eyes and freshman eagerness. It’s barely morning. Is this her life now? 

“Hope one,” she says, holding up a finger, “that I’d sit next to someone quiet. Hope two,” she holds up another, “that no one would talk to me before I managed to find coffee.” She holds up a third finger. “And this moment right here is what I feared.” 

For some reason, her shortness delights him. His smile is open and affectionate, and he nods in appreciation. 

“Noted.” 

And Amy fully intends to never speak to this wide-eyed panda boy ever again, but then their General Psychology professor informs the class that the person they’re sitting next to will be their assignment partner for the semester. 

The next lecture her partner – his name is Jonah, she learns – brings her a cup of coffee and doesn’t speak a word until she takes a long sip. 

Complicated.)

Jonah snuffles in his sleep, his eyelids fluttering slightly. His hair is doing that thing it does when he’s hot or drunk or has run a hand through it too many times, where a single lock of hair hangs in the middle of his forehead. Amy resists the very real urge to brush it away. Because, yeah, she has those kinds of thoughts a lot and they also make things complicated. They’re friends. Maybe even best-friends, but definitely not ‘tenderly brush a lock of your hair away’ friends. 

Do those kinds of friends even exist? 

Jonah stirs again, and now that it’s clear he’s actually waking up, Amy reaches for her phone and opens Candy Crush. The last thing she needs is to get caught staring at him like some weird stalker.

“Oh, god,” he groans, his voice scratchy. He stretches out with another groan, his foot bumping against Amy’s as he does. Rather than move away, he kind of just rests it there on top of hers. And this is something she is all too familiar with. Drunk and/or hungover Jonah is yet another complication. More accurately, his propensity to cuddle indiscriminately is a very real complication. 

“I need—” Amy reaches for the glass of water on her night stand and hands it to Jonah, stopping him mid-thought. “Do you have—?” She hands him two ibuprofen. “Thank you,” he says. 

“You’re welcome.” She looks back at her phone. 

Jonah swallows the two pills and drinks the entire glass of water, and then lays back down, curling slightly into Amy’s side.  

“I made so many mistakes last night,” he says.

“I’m aware. As are your 80 Instagram followers.” 

“I liveblogged it?” 

“And tagged everything with the hashtag ‘best noche ever.’” He groans again and turns his face into Amy’s side. She sets her phone back on the nightstand. “What got into you?” 

“Your dad is intimidating.” 

“My dad?” 

“Yes. Your dad. And then he and your brother kept pouring me shots—” 

“I knew this had Eric’s fingerprints all over it.” 

“Well, it was kind of my fault, too.” 

She frowns. “What do you mean?” Jonah doesn’t answer and Amy kicks him under the covers. He looks up at her. His eyes are red-rimmed but also so sleepy and soft. Complicated. “Jonah.” 

“They kept asking me questions. About you and me. And I was so worried I’d say something wrong, I kept taking shots to avoid answering.”

“You could have found me.” 

“I know, but—” he trails off. 

“But what?”

“I want them to like me.” 

“Oh, Jonah.” She gives in and brushes the lock of hair off his forehead, and he looks up at her. “They’ve known you for 10 years. They’re never going to like you.” 

“Thanks, I feel so much better.” 

“I do have one more question.” 

“Okay.”

“You know we’re not actually dating. Right?” 

He closes his eyes and nods. “No. Yeah. I know.” 

“So why did you propose to me in front of my family?” 

“I panicked.”

“Panicked?” 

“Your dad asked what my intentions were, and there were just so many shots. 

“And that’s why you shouted ‘I intend to marry her!’?” 

Jonah flips the comforter over his head. “I just got wrapped up in it all.” His words are muffled from under the comforter.

She’s glad for the moment of respite, with Jonah unable to see her. If Amy didn’t want things to careen so off track, she probably shouldn’t have agreed to let him come to her dad’s retirement party as her fake boyfriend. 

(“I don’t see what the problem is,” Jonah says, spooning more cashew chicken onto his plate. “You don’t still have feelings for Adam, do you?” 

“No. No. God no,” she says. “Absolutely not.” 

“Alright. I’m clear on the no.” 

“It’s just the last time I saw him— Well, you know.” 

“I recall, yes.” 

And he does. Jonah knows all about Amy’s high school boyfriend. The one she liked but never quite loved. The one she broke up with when the pregnancy test came back negative. The one she slept with again the summer after their senior year of college. 

(An event that occurred in no small part because Jonah was dating Mindy and the two of them were talking about moving in together. Maybe moving to the west coast together and Amy realized there was a very real possibility she was going to be left behind. 

Jonah doesn’t know that part of the story.) 

Adam is also the guy who thought having sex in her childhood bedroom meant Amy wanted to get back together. He’s the guy bringing his very beautiful fiancée to her dad’s retirement party. Because he’s also somehow the guy who still helps her dad with home improvement projects. And Amy is just Amy – the one who doesn’t visit St. Louis enough, and is using her very expensive liberal arts degree to work as a survey researcher for Cloud9, meaning she’s basically paid to manipulate shoppers. 

And, not that it should matter, but she’s also very single. Has been for a while now. 

She mostly blames the man stealing chow mein from her plate for that. She blocks Jonah’s chopsticks with hers, and a piece of cabbage goes flying. 

“Stop that,” she says. 

“You’re not eating it.” 

“I’m too annoyed to eat.” 

“If you only ate when you weren’t annoyed you’d starve.” 

“I hate you.” 

She pushes the chow mein around her plate. God, when she thinks about it, this really is Jonah’s fault. If she could just find a way to get over this stupid, dumb, little crush that has creeped up – without her permission, mind you! – then maybe she could actually—

“I could do it,” Jonah says, interrupting her thought spiral. 

“Do what?” 

“Go with you to your dad’s retirement party. Be your fake boyfriend.” 

“You think that’s a good idea?”

“I think it’s a great idea. Besides, I am very close to getting your dad to like me.” 

“He’ll never like you.” 

“It’s not that I didn’t like the painting—” 

“—How would this even work?” she asks, cutting him off. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “I think we act like we normally do, but maybe you can hold my hand and be nice to me.” 

“Eww.” 

Jonah smiles around a large bite of cashew chicken. She really needs to stop hanging out with him so much – he’s become immune to her insults. It’s rude. 

And him as her fake boyfriend is a terrible idea. Truly awful. If Amy is looking to get over her crush and make things between her and Jonah less complicated, there are better ways to do it. 

Except. 

Except she kind of wants to. 

“Okay. Let’s do it,” she says. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yes,” she says decisively. “But if you try and kiss me, I’ll cut your lips off.” 

“That seems like a proportionate response.”)

“So, to be clear, I told you kissing wasn’t allowed, and you thought that left proposals on the table?” 

He groans again from under the comforter. It’s a little sad and a lot pathetic. Poor guy. 

She pats the comforter in the area of what she hopes is his shoulder. As annoyed as she is at having to untangle these threads, it’s not his fault. Not really. She knows her family is relentless. Amy slides down and flips the comforter over her head as well. 

Jonah rolls over onto his side to face her. Amy does the same. 

“It was better than Adam’s proposal.”

“Adam proposed?” 

Amy nods. “Ish. If I remember correctly he said, ‘I’ll marry you if I have to.’”

“Yikes.” 

“Right?” It’s cozy under this blanket. Intimate even. “You did say some nice things. Even if they came out kind of slurred.” 

“Amy—”

“Sexy, huh?” 

“I really didn’t mean to shout that to all of your dad’s—”

“Because it’s not true?” 

“No!” Jonah winces and Amy isn’t sure if it’s ‘I have a hangover’ induced or ‘I am revealing too much’ induced. “It’s true. Of course it’s true. You are very, you know.” 

“Sexy on a completely objective level? Or, are you saying that you, yourself, Jonah Simms, think I’m sexy?” Jonah goes completely still. Amy isn’t even sure he’s breathing. It’s entirely uncharacteristic and a little unnerving. She pokes his cheek. “Are you blushing?”

“Big time, yeah.” 

That does enough to break the tension under their blanket enclave, both of them laughing, at first awkwardly and then more genuine. Once they stop to catch their breath, Amy notices they’ve shifted closer together. 

This would be the perfect moment to flee from the scene of the complication. But the complications don’t seem so terrible at this specific moment. She blames that lock of hair of his.

“How long have you held this opinion?” Jonah frowns at Amy’s question. “Regarding my sexiness?” she clarifies. 

“Amy—”

“What?” 

“What are you doing?” 

“I just want to—”

“Really? You really want to have this conversation?” 

Jonah stresses the ‘you’ and Amy knows why he does. There isn’t a topic or feeling that is off-limits to Jonah – he’d happily discuss every feeling he’s ever had. It’s her. It’s always her. 

Their faces are so close they’re practically sharing the same pillow. It takes no effort at all for Amy to close the distance between them, lightly brushing her lips against his. As quick as it began it’s over, and even in the dim light under the comforter, Amy can see Jonah’s eyes blown wide. She’s sure she looks just as shocked and she’s the one who did it.  

“You said if I kissed you you’d cut off my lips.”

“Which is why I kissed you.”

“Oh,” he nods. “Makes sense.” Jonah taps out a slow but erratic rhythm against the side of his leg. She just knows he’s trying to stop himself from verbalizing every single thought in his head. “To be clear, was that a friendship kiss, or—” 

So Amy kisses him again. This time Jonah recovers quickly from his shock, winding a hand into her hair, his palm cupping the back of her head. It’s just unbelievably good. 

“Okay,” Jonah says, his voice unsteady as he pulls away. “That answers that.” He traces her jaw with his thumb. “Any chance we could do it some more?” 

Amy rolls onto her back, putting some distance between them. “I don’t think so.” 

“Wait. What?” 

“Your breath is awful.” 

Jonah breathes into his hand and sniffs it to confirm. “What if I brush my teeth?” 

Amy sighs, long and exasperated. “I suppose that would be—”

Jonah is out of the bed in seconds, scrambling for his overnight bag, and Amy presses her lips together to hide her smile. From the way Jonah smiles, soft and delighted as he backs out of the room, she isn’t fooling anyone. 

So far past the point of complicated, she thinks, her heart still racing. But then again, maybe complications that make her feel like this are okay.

[silvermuffins]

NieR:Automata: oof, been a hot minute

Let me hit up two big topics before we dive in, for the maybe five people who will read this and the one of you who was awaiting this but already knows the deal: Firstly, the five month absence of anything from me was the result of work getting super busy (STOP MAKING YOUR MOVIES TWO AND A HALF HOURS LONG, HOLLYWOOD, NOBODY ACTUALLY WANTS THAT). My other hobbies also got busy. And, well, both getting the PS4 going and liveblogging as I play games took more spoons than I was left with. Things are finally kind of chill again, at least for now, AND the two cats who pilot my meaty contraption actually agree on what to do, so here I am! Secondly, my laptop's keyboard is kind of fucky and some specific keys ain't workin' right. They are: A D B N X , . / - and enter. We may see some typos, folks! Or some completely incomprehensible bits, won't that be fun!

ANYWAY, let's get into it!

haven't even started the game, have no memory of where i'm at so we're just gonna Go

man i need a less awk setup

oh right fuck i got new internet and need to hook my ps4 up to it

hot damn i actually remember the new wifi password. doot doot updates and shit, probably shoulda done this before i started the post but you know what, I have never once in my life not been a disaster so why would i suddenly start now

okay NOW we Go

see if i even remember how to play

probably not

i have sidequests to turn in!

gee this map really is a lot bigger than i got to explore the first time through the game....hmmm

being friends with the meeses now really do be like "/walks out of vending machine" "/suddenly, MOOSE"

this leadup suggests either i am going to have to fight Jackass or she is going to explode me

i am pretty sure there is lore somewhere in this game as to why there is no day/night cycle but fuck if i have found it

found the Cruel Blood Oath! I am excited for this sword purely because my bestie and I used it for something in some of our secret fandom shenanigans--

i feel like this "project gestalt" is going to be relevant somehow

anyway i found jackass and it feels weird because i think even without the whole....alternate runthrough thing we've technically met her before

9S sweetheart please don't try to lie, you're bad at it

speed star wont talk to me which is fine because i suck at his quest anyway

fuck you, sir star

oh right this sidequest was shaping up to make me feel weird in the moral bits, like several others have done

Type-E?

ooooh

oooooooooh

dont like that

creepy chant starts up!

............i have questions about if those she was ordered to kill were really deserters

..............

well. at least she DID pay me.

2B did not confirm she didn't know

time to have a go at Daddy Serves

......i regret typing that but fuck it it's staying in

so he has 10 levels on me but i fight well and have healing items

.....sir are you going to just, have me cutscene kill you, or do i gotta get through another hp bar first?

iiiiiit's the latter

anyway pascal gave me monies thank u pascal

....wait what was i supposed to do to progress plot again? where do i find that out??? is there a main quest tracker somewhere???

literally right on the front of the goddamned menu letty be less stupid

....i don't have much to say to this part, okay, i already did it as 2B

i sorta wish i could find a list of the sidequests that are only completable as 9S? and maybe of the hackable things. just for completion's sake.

my cat really wants snuggles but has something against bent knees so she won't lapcat

forgot a dead machine's head hatches into emil

wha

flashback to the forest king founding....

time to finish off the photographs sidequest! see if this one will make me feel uncomfy in the moral bits,

it did not!

but as usual it was pretty existential

....i am losing steam i think imma call it here tonight

[1863-project]

Why My Tablet Is Named “Chuggington Depot Dispatch Tower,” or That Time I Wanted To Date A Human On A Train Show

This is something I apparently haven’t lived down for seven years now because people still associate me with the show, which is very much a property aimed at preschoolers. I have no children.

Anyhow, if you peruse my Tumblr archives, you might notice a frequently used tag is ‘stupid train show.’ The show in question is Chuggington, a talking train show for the preschool set - more or less a more utopian version of Thomas and Friends, where the trains are actually nice to each other for the most part and society has maintained steam, diesel, and electric locomotives who work in harmony together. Overall, it’s a cute, harmless show for little kids. I grew up watching the much more violent Thomas and Friends/Shining Time Station when I was younger, so Chuggington felt weirdly benign to me when I found it.

I found it because in January 2014 I was in grad school and up at 1 am doing readings for my library science degree. I adore Buster Keaton - we both like trains, baseball, and comedy - and so when I was flipping through the channels trying to find background noise Chuggington caught my eye because I thought I could make a few Keaton references to myself to amuse myself. Instead I was greeted with an adorable episode of two trains going human-spotting (if humans who go train-spotting are derisively referred to as ‘foamers’ or ‘anoraks,’ what’s the derogatory term for a train that goes human-spotting?). Cute, very cute. Shouldn’t become a fixation or anything. Right?

Unfortunately for me, there was Eddie.

Now, as I mentioned above, I was in grad school at the time this happened. I was very lonely at the time - if I got to see my friends once a month, I was happy. I was in class during the week and working as a historical tour guide on the weekends. I wasn’t getting to see other people very often, so I was a bit contact-starved. I was more or less primed to have yet another crush on a fictional character despite turning 25 later that year. It also didn’t help that the fictional character in question looked a lot like my first actual crush, a kid I worked at a history camp with in high school who did Revolutionary War reenacting. (I never saw him in non-historical clothing. This is probably why I crushed so hard.)

So I’m sitting there at 1 am, tired from a long day of grad school and commuting, and this guy who looks like an adult version of a boy I liked when I was younger shows up on a talking train show. I instantly need to know more. I proceeded to stay up until at least 3 am because it turned out Chuggington had a wiki, and I did a drawing of Eddie to get it out of my system. I presumed I’d be moving along now that I’d dealt with it.

I did not move along. I watched every available episode of the show.

I liveblogged this experience on this very blog, often using the tag ‘goddamnit Eddie’ to express my frustration over the fact that I had come across a person with the traits I usually look for in a significant other and he was fictional. Again. But this was a kind young man who approached engineering problems around him with enthusiasm and delighted in little discoveries like old popcorn wagons and busted electric guitars, and he had patience with the characters around him who were still learning and growing (remember, this is a preschool show). As an autistic woman I’m attracted to patience, to say the least. I don’t really know any men like him in real life, and if I did I’d be...well, interested.

Anyhow, I had a brief period of notoriety amongst my friends on this website because I went really hard. I watched every available episode of every available season of a train show for preschoolers in the span of a month and a half or so. I am, to this day, the blog that mentions Chuggington the most on this website. People still associate me with the show. I still get asks about the show from time to time in my inbox. Eddie is still everyone’s answer to “ship me with a fictional character” memes if I reblog any. I cannot escape this.

And at this point in my life, I’m not sure I want to. It wasn’t hurting anyone, and it was bringing me a lot of enjoyment during a fairly stressful period in my life (grad school is exhausting, let me be honest). Sure, we all look back at things we did and enjoyed when we were younger and sometimes we cringe at ourselves, but ultimately, if we were having fun and weren’t hurting anyone with it, was it really that terrible? And maybe we learned from what we were enjoying - some new information, some new skills, or maybe how to treat people better as we developed social skills and a better understanding of other people through our fandom interactions. Is it really cringe if we grew during and from it and had a good time?

[thecrenellations]

Return of the Thief Notes, Part One: The Book of Pheris, Volume I

Notes from my first read, October 2020. (Part Two | Part Three | TaT)

Contents:  "So, so, so” watch, Costis watch, swearing, trashing the king’s attendants, being objectively wrong, boundless enthusiasm and love 

I promise I’ve had more developed thoughts since these often incoherent ones, but I’ve enjoyed having these notes to refer to - for sentimental reasons and for  entertainment, so here they are, for others who enjoy liveblogs and/or being whisked back in time to their first read of this wonderful book.

Format: Page number. My thoughts (Context?)

Dedication, Table of Contents, Exordium:

There it is – to Sounis

Exordium – vocab #1

Interregnum?!? Alyta?

Pheris!!!

Yeah I love him from the first page

MOIRA

MOCKING COMMENTS HELP! Gen lives!

A new level of unreliable narrator

Moira, messages of Gods, Pheris, messages of __

Wtf is going on in this study? A zoo?

high king vs great king vs annux?

okie dokie dude

Chapter 1

1. Susa – Costis

2. Infirmity – who gets to be hero/tell story (I started reading right after the book launch, in which mwt spent some time talking about her writing influences and decisions connect to this question - Pheris isn’t her first disabled protagonist and storyteller, of course, but it was lovely to meet him properly directly after hearing her talk about it. Book launch foreshadowing part 1...)

Melisande?

Is this why he wasn’t taught to read?

3. Always the summer

Bees!

4. Hunting cat… hm…

Ok … shrine … 😬

5. Once again we start with a disaster or having to flee

Which Eugenides precipitated

Bite!

Little monster :(

6. Falling…

:(

7. :( :( :(

His purpose? D:

8. YIKES

Chapter 2

9. Hello there! (Gen!)

Massive chair?

10. CRACKED WATER JUG (amphora motif???)

11. Triangle from seal!

Gen that’s rude to Pheris :( (“He will fit in very well with my attendants”)

Wait. This must have happened before ACoK! (nope)

12. :(

Xikander … never made an impression before

How old is Pheris? (lol)

13. Philologos come thru!

Royal closet reappears!

14. Hello weird secondhand scene!

He is Eugenides

Marina…

15. Petrus? GALEN? OH SHIT! 

Is this why Galen was called? (nope)

16. Hell yea Petrus

Miras’ golden balls oh no

All these previously unnamed sucky attendants!

17. Ula – goddess of hearth and healing

Ok … Galen … or a god? Eugenides????? (why did these options occur to me before Mr. Shows Up At Your Bedside At Night himself)

18. Finally the attendant floor plans I crave + hunting scenes!

19. EXCUSE ME he slept through Sounis + Eddis wedding!!!

Again – high king!

20. So Ion is beautiful … hmm.

Yeah … Sejanus has facets. I like it.

21. Clearly no one would know what king would do … lol

Don’t mind me just sorting the attendants on a spectrum of awfulness!!!

22. SO SO SO – ION!!!!!

How many fucking attendants are there and how many are on my hit list!

Is “the necessaries” bathrooms or like … him stealing? (just the bathrooms ... the Gen-Pheris parallels were really getting to me at this point)

:(

23. OH MY GOD THE UNIFIED CREST

Also … frogs. Frogs.

24. Big day for Gen huh

Definitely an aura of Something as he writes about Gen

25. HELLO EVERYONE

26. Sorry Kamet, Pheris does the physical descriptions better. They’re beautiful

I’m blacking out at Eddis and Sounis

27. Jesus Christ. The bear.

Cousin time!

Under the table is the new up on the roof!

Uh… twin imagery ….

Gen’s feet!

Jesus. The matching

28. Cleon … wtf? A cousin?

A trial for Sophos?

Show! Us! Sophos’s! Shoes!

29. If u throw things out the air shaft you might hit the king

Was it a chicken?

Lol nvm the guy at night is Gen. That is … very sweet

- Showing up at night

- Accent

- Complaining about Petrus

- Swearing

- One hand

I am judging Costis and Sophos for not describing the paneling in Gen’s room!

Chapter 3

30. Was it a chicken?

An earring huh, good hand huh

31. Literally screaming “NO!” at Gen. Don’t joke about dying! I am killed by Gen on annux day. This is. My boy. Yes he is perfect. Yes he will refuse to get up. I love him. I died on page 31

Philologos is still the best of them

32. Dancing bear indeed

Always the powdered gold

Ruby!!!!! <3

Aww a smile!!! <3

Pheris he likes you!

33. They both love invisibility and lost it … I cry

Erupt like the sacred mountain excuse me!

OR WORSE return to bed! Lol

34. He’s Eugenides when he’s talking to Attolia

Ouch hero talk

! from Irene!

My queen!

Hey Phresine!

They way we do <3 he’s hating it but he’s so comfortable with her

Sister and bro mention! C’mon!

I love them

EYEBROW

35. Honestly that’s a yes (“I have no idea what you mean, my queen”)

It’s so cute they hang out in the morning … like how long was it even since they’ve seen each other lol

:( tough walk for Pheris

Is it prophecy time?

Lol how long does this construction take?!

Also … she’s pregnant, huh? but no one knows (nope)

Is befriending someone weaponized as a prank count for Gen’s enemies to friends list?

Also SHOW ME the magus. I know he’s here!

36. Pheris excuse me, why not recreate this!

Lol cast off language of history indeed

Feel the thrum of the goddess!

EXCUSE ME… a minor goddess? Mystery goddess? Or Philia?

Oh Gen

37. Well, Gen, someone is having a worse day than you.

Damn, how far we come.

Aww Sounis, babe, I love you and so does Gen

[drawing of the four of them sitting in a row]

38. Artadorus???? Pomegranate?

39. HEIRO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A friend! Also lol. Two smiles, for Pheris and Heiro..

40. Yesss Melheret joke in action.

Costis has left tho right?

Jesus, Melheret

SHE GAVE HIM A HORSE (I COULD NOT DEAL with this entire conversation, but then again I could not deal with this whole book.)

41. I love them all so much

“on that horse, you will look like a king” I can’t with her sense of humor

He sure did say that

I feel like I’m missing something with the fight on foot thing … remembering battles?

Helen called him Gen!

Sophos stop talking about yourself and bringing apricots into everything lol

Lol these bystanders don’t know how lucky they are. Nor does Pheris, yet

42. She’s protecting him

Also … Gen … you didn’t want to be a soldier.

43. Guards have capes

2 startled men … hm …

Oh Gen. The fucking brutal echoes…

44. :( :( :(

Gen tell your wife you’re sick!

The attendants are so dumb

45. So, so, so :(

Tell who? Petrus?

Wink!

Yes?

46. Bleeding! Salt! Lemon! Heck no! What is he, a piece of meat?

Oranges?

47. “savoring each bite as if it were my last” ... Same … but with this book

Hmm… Alyta! Goddess of the gentle rain! (despite this “hmm,” I did not put the pieces together)

48. Oh no Teleus! And someone?

Aw he realized <3 lemon water

49. Gen eat your broth lol

50. I love them.

Ion’s really trying to make up for what he did that one time

51. Without the approval of the great goddess HAHAHA

I love them. Cousin time! Growl?

Idk whether or not to be reassured, Gen.

Wow Cleon I do not like that. Also didn’t he die? (...)

Comma (“I am not, Eddis”)

Go smack him!

52. Gen I love you.

Helen I love you.

He’s so bad at self care but I love him

Chapter 4

55. love that our narrator just disappears and reappears

56. Attolia’s brother’s bedroom? Yikes. Ominous. A detail in a story we’ve already gotten, different every time <3

57. fucking attendants. 3 good ones. Medander you were beneath Costis’s notice before but I hate you. Costis didn’t have time for you or Xikos or Xikander and nor do I

58. interesting pawn talk!!!

59. <3 Pheris :(

The Gen comparisons though

:( :( :( :(

60. flamboyance <3

Cemphora bush

Bees

61. I love him

62. I love them

Also lol “Your majesty?”

63. Name … hm … (“I have deliberately omitted [my tutor’s] name here”)

64. more twin imagery I swear

WAIT … it was his birthday! Not just Annux day?!! Gen was born in late summer???

Attendant list thank you

65. laying it all out there, huh … (that one Gen quote)

Lol they’re the same but Pheris likes horses

66. Insellia! Hello nice to meet you

67. Gen that’s mean. (“He is hardly even half of one.”)

68. Coleus leves???

“I am Eugenides.” <3

Gen why

69. Gold cups???? Hmmmmm. Also lioness. Def invoking Costis. (they’re probably not the cups, but STILL)

Earth….

70. Moira! Hi!!! Rainbow shawl!

Like a rabbit!

Pester!

I’m … very sad he uses his Attolian accent with Helen

71. Aaah so good

Mortals

Moira knows another messenger?

Does he think he can’t die in battle?

72. hmm are they WRANGLING?! (Galen and Petrus and my Fire and Hemlock word association)

Kill that pastry Irene I love you

morning training with his … guard? (Is that the whole guard or a guard? Costis senses tingling once again.)

73. Oh gen.

Ouch! (“to send people to their deaths and not risk my own is contemptible”)

Is she implying he’s paying Therespides?

74. Interesting Cleon plan. So many doubles

OUCH. (“Only if he comes back from the dead.” I assumed Lader had died in the war; it’s a different ouch now. I love that they both accidentally say things to each other that poke old wounds, and it’s not a big deal but it’s also not dismissed! Their relationship has come so far, and I love them so much.)

75. Verimius – Lavia – Celia??? Somebody is queer in there!

A GUARD

This scene confuses me. Xortix? Layteres? Aris! but dice thing is less political … so maybe? (just wait....)

76. So many reasons to hate Medander

Hey Costis! You exist! KoA happened!

Gen is just … still so uncomfortable and miserable. He chose, he has people, but still.

RIP Clopius also WHAT

77. Lol Hilarion’s grand statements

78. Yorn Fordad Hello!

Luxurious mustache

The mighty Pents?

Besin Quedue – she’s coming 4 you watch out

79. RIP Baron Hippias

Chapter 5

80. Spring! Plays! Cenna!

81. Oh dear

Oh dear

At least they said he was pretty

83. ?!? :( wine

Uh oh. Stockpiling

85. What even.

AAAAAAAAAH COSTIS

86. Omg Irene. Hissing. I love her.

Also … Gen’s the viper

Also this scene was written by Pheris.

Damn.

87. oh no.

What better man

She fucking quoted Howl. I love them.

Also, bees (this scene killed me)

90. Falling?

Oh shit

Also … Juridius and Pheris, Susa and Costis (comparing demands for information)

93. oh my god (IT’S THE WINDOW SCENE)

Oh my god

Uh

94. She! Called! Him! Gen!

I love this and it scares me

Lol Chloe

Irene you learned from her though

95. D:

96. :(

97. water stuff

98. what the heck

OH NO (Quedue scene)

Hm

100. yikes

Omg

Wow.

102. yikes yikes YIKES

103. a blade has protruded from his chest (tbt to The Thief)

jesus

106. shit

Did Gen hit him?

108. lol Phresine

109. lol

I want genuinely every character’s reaction to this shit

Chapter 6

111. what the heck Gen.

112. like a god [crown doodle]

114. Perma?

116. Gen. Gen. Gen. Do not.

117. AAAA (god intervention)

122. Juridius to Dite

124. bye Iolanthe and Ileia! Tell us about Caeta and Silla.

125. did not expect so much Ion

Chapter 7

127. Fryst god of winter

She laughed!

They’re so married

128. OH SHIT (Costis ship is sighted and I remember what’s about to happen next)

Interesting timing

He rode the horse home?

131. Beauty and good, beauty and kind

134. The gods’ goodwill

Keep them safe <3

135. Is that his MOM?!! Wtf (it was!)

Pheris steal those earrings!!!

RING! SMASH BOX!

137. AMPHORA EARRINGS (and flowers)

138. I love Phresine

139. Why do I feel like all the game birds are pigeons

140. meanwhile Gen’s been hanging out with Kamet. Shit. I cannot.

WELCOME HOME BOYS!

HELL YEAH KAMET ATTEND THOSE MEETINGS!

RELIUS COME THRU

141. lethium soup! The reversal

Safe for you

142. of course he knew <3

143. Kamet time! I love him. We get to see Kamet!!!

Also … echo of Gen’s notes on Mede

145. very handsome. … gaycostis vindication (referring to @costis’s url at the time and this post. Little did I know what else was to come in the next chapter and then a few months later with the adaptation news...)

Do you know who I am?

Chapter 8

147. Of course he’s a cartographer

A favorite huh

148. of course she didn’t tell us his age!

149. the angsty window staring I crave

Music!

151. adventure, huh

I do have a soft spot for Melheret

152. concerned about amphora gift

153. Glad they can be well and united in spite!! (Gen and Melheret)

154. Pheris loves math and I love him

155. Hello Teleus. Hello olives

Lol Relius is not into math

156. pigeons. Inkpot!

157. yeah honestly. He tortures people. He was NOT tortured by the king

159. lol (“I have noted the elective nature of certain behaviors” ... I love Relius and Pheris.)

160. The Invitation! I <3 it

161. EXCUSE ME WHO

Legarus!

FOLKS HERE WE ARE (I cannot overstate how wonderful it was to read this page. I did not know who the poem was from, and “Someone loves me very much, even with all my faults” is even sweeter to reread, but it’s just ... his confidence is so different from the tentative consideration of a new philosophy of trust and love we see in KoA. And there is subtextual queerness in the books before this one, some more apparent and some more subtle (and what is obvious to one reader may be subtle or invisible to another, in these books especially), and there is the attendant love triangle a few chapters back, but HERE - here, Pheris acknowledges the real feeling and love in Legarus’s disastrous relationship and tells us directly that his lover was a man, here he seamlessly makes it clear how bi and poly Relius is, and he quietly ties these relationships and realities to his growing understanding of the world. It’s not subtext. And there’s a lot more to come, but this page really hit me, and sort of promised the “more to come” while assuring me that what had come before, more subtly, was there. I used to have heteronormative readings of both these books and myself, and when Thick as Thieves brought them crashing back into my heart after years away, I knew better about myself, and I saw that - or the possibility of that reading -  reflected in the new book, and it was such a good surprise. It meant a lot, and this page meant a lot, and that is why I’m writing a small essay to accompany this note.) 

Lol wow

162. Where are you traveling, man (this question remains)

163. Fuck you, Orutus

164. Stole an inkpot!

165. the map!!! (Kamet’s)

166. I love them!

167. The Math Master hmm

Am I an oracle (Nope! :) )

[gascon-en-exil]

FE16 Blue Lions Liveblogging

Chapters 5-6. A fair amount of story progress - I just hope the tense music used from searching the monastery on the latter chapter doesn’t stick around. It doesn’t set a great mood for wondering around and talking to everybody and rooting through their stuff.’

I like how each student gets their own dormitory room, which are individualized via little touches. They’re also not split up by house, but rather between nobles and commoners and...nobles who wanted a ground floor room? There’s a few of those. Like Bernadetta, who came out of hers for the first time in Chapter 6.

The monthly tournaments are a good way to pick up decent forges for free, but I don’t like how nerve-wracking they get toward the end since your entrant’s HP doesn’t replenish after each bout. I’ve also been getting some good use out of choir practice, and sometimes the dining hall features for motivation and small boosts to stats. Getting training from the staff is another matter, but then I’m not focusing much on Byleth’s growth.

Beast fights certainly feel different from anything else in the series. I’ve done two so far, the story one with Sylvain’s brother and one against a giant bird. I assume later fights will make it harder to keep them stunlocked until they die.

I missed out on the Death Knight’s Dark Seal again because I still don’t have a thief, but then I remembered that I have no male casters anyway. Does dark mage offer anything that mage doesn’t, apart from Miasma? It hardly seems worth it for the trouble of getting a special seal.

I do however have a handful of units in intermediate classes, so I’m getting to play around with Canto on Sylvain and Ingrid and Ashe’s increased bow range. Unlike in FE10 the accuracy drop from using bows at longer range is actually noticeable in almost all fights. Dismounting meanwhile feels a bit clunkier than in FE5, but that might be a way of discouraging you from using it too frequently. Dedue gets to show some skin as a brawler, which I’ve read is a better option than brigand for characters with iffy SPD. His axe rank is still great regardless. As for the casters, I wonder if spells learned as class skills remain after the unit changes to something else. I’ll find out when Annette promotes again since she doesn’t learn Fire inherently.

I don’t like how it’s not explained why Dimitri is unavailable for the Chapter 6 story battle. I know why Edelgard wouldn’t be there for the Eagles (benefits of spoiling yourself on everything first), but there’s no reason given for Dimitri, or I assume Claude, to miss it.

@mwritesink said that Gilbert’s C support is pre-timeskip only, so I’ve been looking for every opportunity to recruit him so I can start working on that sweet, sweet incredibly buried-in-flat-subtext S rank with a guy who looks like he’d need about a tumbler of Cialis to get it up. Hey, my eyes are very clearly elsewhere when it comes to the M/M content on this route.

And speaking of that...my first paralogue involved Dedue returning to Duscur to mediate a rebellion situation. I know you can temporarily recruit characters from other houses for their related paralogues, but it wouldn’t surprise me if your first one always comes from your own house. The shipping content was sweet as ever, but the map itself was a convoluted mess with a bunch of narrow paths and aggressive NPCs stealing half the kills. Not great - would have been better had Ingrid been a pegasus knight first.

On supports, a bunch of the B ranks I’ve gotten are shown in red. Means that they can’t grow anymore until after the timeskip, I’m guessing.

Story/Character observations

Sylvain reminds me of Lex in how offhanded he appears to be about killing his own brother. I wasn’t expected that coming from someone so ambivalent about crests and what having one means for him.

There’s an Eastern church too, but they’re said to not be very influential because they also have to answer to the Alliance. I wonder if that will come up again....

Felix’s father shows up but hasn’t done much of note yet. They do explain decently how Miklan’s actions have affected his territory, but it still seems a bit random. Dedue’s observation that Rodrigue visited Dimitri several times after Dimitri’s father was killed doesn’t really smack of a developed surrogate father/son relationship, nor does their behavior around each other.

Gautier territory sounds like the North from GoT, only (slightly) more French.

I’ve barely talked about Flayn. I know exactly who and what she and Seteth are (and Rhea knows too, right?), and I can sort of piece together how she ties into the Flame Emperor’s plan with regard to Monica, but I don’t have much to say about her otherwise. That might change since I think she’s going to be playable now.

Onto supports, Dedue/Felix is as violent as expected (so much for a threeway), Mercedes/Annette is shippy right from their C and only becomes more so, Mercedes/Felix also pulls the “you’re like my sibling” bit and will eventually resolve itself in sex, Ashe/Felix looks to be setting up Felix for the really close friends *nudge nudge wink wink* with the king scenario, and Ashe/Ingrid oddly sidesteps the sexism Ingrid faces, positing that the reason she can’t be a knight isn’t because she’s a woman but because she’s the only heir to a crest. Cyril needs to calm down in general, but he’s less over the top than some past FE workaholics. Dimitri runs away from women and needs Sylvain to bail him out, and meanwhile knight NPCs are spreading dirty rumors about how, ahem, close he is to a man of Duscur. Mercedes almost kills Dimitri and gets into some genuinely interesting comparative theology with Dedue, and Anna randomly shows up in one of the supports I don’t remember too well (Ashe/Annette, maybe?).

Side note: I am personally annoyed that, as of right now, whoever’s been writing up the TVTropes* page for the Three Houses casts has deemed Dimitri, Felix, and Sylvain Ambiguously Bi for their paired endings amongst each other...but has said nothing about Dimitri/Dedue. Hmph.

*Never the most reliable source for anything, but I’m feeling petty.

[alas-poor-cesario]

I’m watching Wonder for the first time and I’m kind of curious how bad it’s going to be based on this opening dialogue. So below the cut is going to be a liveblog of sorts of it

First of all - I’d like to say I was born with a craniofacial defect, one of the more common ones actually and I first heard about this film from one of the team I’m with for that. I’ve got a Cleft Lip and Palate. I know the kid in the film doesn’t have the same thing as me and different experiences are to be expected but y’know 

first of all I dislike the wearing of the helmet - he would be sent straight to the psychologist on whatever team he has (assuming he has one because he should?)

second - like Penelope, I expected the thing to look worse

the film is saved Mandy Patinkin is in it

same with Daveed Diggs 

They don’t actually save it if this turns out to be as painful as it’s being so far 

Kids don’t hide it as well, no, but they’re often the nicer ones about stuff too once you start to explain. It’s the parents that give the weird looks. 

Asking questions like “what’s the deal with your face?” can often come across as harsh but you get really good at answering them in a polite way? And yes, the kid here is being mean but it’s a question that he should have heard before?

Unless his parents kept him secluded at home and he never showed his face ever

Major downfall is not casting an actor that has something like what the kid has 

I was about to question allowing him to wear the helmet to school - thank god they took it off him

I love the silent shaking of the head - I have done that look so many times to teachers and lecturers 

Once when I had just got braces and they tried to get me to read something with a lot of ‘s’ sounds in it. 

It’s veeeeery heavy handed? And I’m not sure how much of that was intentional and how much of it is them genuinely not knowing how to portray people with things that mark them out as different?

Auggie should not be allowed to wear that helmet around dinner table? 

I have had that same crying thing about “you gotta say that because you’re my mam” type of thing. That hit me hard a bit.

It will always matter, kid, the difference is you build up a way to reply and deal with things like that. Also telling your kid “I have these wrinkles because of you” is NOT a way to deal with it. I would 100% not have included that. 

The way to calm your kid down after something like that is by not telling them that they are essentially causing you to be ugly.

The sister is so much better at giving advice and comfort. Holy shit.

I like that he asked about her day - thank you. 

And here’s the other thing ... if you have more than one kid you need to remember that you have more than one kid. Yes, Auggie will need a lot of attention because of his surgeries and all of that, but she needs parents too

The “It takes a lot of work to look this good”  - I think I have used that exact line after my surgery ngl 

Also one of the weirdest things that I’ve found is that I think I look awful for months after the surgery - like all the photos of me I realise how weird my nose and lip look.

Then it hit a point and I just became so much happier with how it looked and it seemed to be less solid looking?

Yes!! The grandmother is good and I am happy that she’s got someone in her corner. Or had someone at least.

DIRTY DANCING WITH THAT SONG I AM GOING TO HAVE TO TRY SO HARD TO GET OUT OF MY HEAD AGAIN

The sister is kind of right though? Like I went through the complete opposite thing (as do many people I know) where they immediately jump on the “oh god i’m sorry i messed up your day my thing isn’t nearly half as bad” 

Just saying that’s something I’ve noticed that’s done differently here

Also guilting people into being friends with kids who look different is not how to get them to actually be friends

I kind of expect Summer to go ahead and hit Jack Will for that? 

Kiss him. Do it. Go on. Please

Called out by a little kid for playing the fiddle wow 

And there’s the kicker too. She probably feels guilty that she doesn’t feel like him, has had thoughts about hat if she looked like him and all the rest of it. 

I want Olivia to call her parents out on it. She deserves to call them out on it.

Real friends wouldn’t have been as hard to find if the kid went to a school or was socialised in some way before now just saying....

Okay I got distracted by making and eating my dinner but I’m back now to comment on what I’ve missed in this 

So I love the head - you get the sense that he actually understands the kids

I loved the kids coming together to beat up the bullies - put me in mind of films like Stand By Me

I’ve liked little moments of this film but I’ve not liked it overall? It’s been way too heavy handed, had some very clear issues with how they dealt with the kid’s craniofacial defect

And I feel bad for it but I kind of wish someone else had got the award. Because that’s what happens. You don’t get the special treatment all of the time, you just get told to catch up when you miss class for appointments and surgeries and never get 100% attendance 

Seeing Chewie next to Daveed Diggs has made this a little bit 

Back to the point I was making before - his friends, teachers, sister, parents ... all of those guys deserve an award too.

I am glad the father took the helmet away because honestly? He was hiding behind it way too much and if you’re never seeing your kids face then there’s a problem. 

[keepyourpantsongohan]

Ayesha Liveblogs Naruto Shippuden S20 (Pt. 3)

I wonder if going after Karin’s Tsukuyomi bulb was happenstance or whether Tobirama went “I smell an Uzumaki” and had at it

“Just be quiet for a bit” How dare you speak to your father this way Sasuke, Kakashi does nothing but love you

“EVERYONE WILL OWN A DOG. GO GET A DOG, HOKAGE’S DECREE!“ you’ve got my vote, Kiba

Mirai as a baby is an absolute unit and I love it

Shikamaru, getting down on one knee in front of Temari: Will you not marry me?

You know what. All these dreams are extremely realistic. I buy it. A teenage boy would totally dream about kicking his friends’ asses for fun even if he had the opportunity to do anything in the world. 10/10 believability 

Sai dreams about being told he has a nice smile and being twirled around by Naruto my boooooy 😭😭😭😭😭😭

“[My Sasori transformer] will be the guardian deity of the Sand” Kankuro pls

Omg Temari’s dream is so cute she wants her little brothers to need her

God the fact Gaara’s dream is about having a happy childhood PICK UP THE PHONE RASA I JUST NEED TO TALK

“Madara, don’t you dare talk about the Uchiha. The only one who has that right, is my big brother.” But he did... murder them, Sasuke. That is a thing that happened. My dear. My dude. He done did it.  

Having read Itachi Shinden none of this should be shocking but FUGAKU REALLY YOUR SON IS FOUR WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS

“Listen Itachi, never forget this sight” well he sure won’t now that you’ve given him CHILD PTSD FUGAKU

“We finally have peace, and we must do our best to maintain it” Hmmm.... must you, Fugaku? Is that a thing you must do?

“What is life, anyway?” Damn my existential dread didn’t kick in at least until I was in school, Itachi

Sasuke was such a weird-looking newborn I love him

I wonder how the English dub will deal with the mild implications of inc/est between Itachi and Izumi

Please Mikoto your son is like 6 why are you having him babysit

God I am so used to every version of Itachi having the voice of a grownass man that hearing a child-like voice even when he is 6 is almost off-putting lmao

Full offence Obito but why do you have to be such a little bitch

“Oh good, I knew that you’d be alright” HE’S 6 FUGAKU

Why is Naruto just sitting in a basket on top of his father’s grave??? Who let you do this? Hiruzen what is wrong with you??

“I’m glad that you didn’t die” an accurate representation of Itachi’s social skills at all ages

DFhsdjfhkdsjhfk I love that Itachi has accidentally become these kids’ leader 

AHHHHH I guess that’s Hana next to Itachi I wanna see the cat ninja and dog ninja fight 

“If the fighting can be stopped, I’d like to stop it” Shisui <3 

Itachi’s sweet tooth is so goddamn cute ahhhh what a little nerd

Hhgfkhjfhl SASUKE’S PAW ENCYCLOPEDIA THE PREQUEL THIS IS WHAT I NEVER KNEW I NEEDED

“I mean, [ladies] are clueless” “How dare you insult my woman” Turns out the alcohol this cat was drinking was Respect Women Juice

God I love Minazuki-sensei he’s such a mess

“No they blew away in the wind” guess Itachi hasn’t picked up his snitching tendencies yet lmao

Baby Sasuke has acquired a younger voice too I guess. It is real late in the game to be establishing these lmao

Obito. I’m. Stop???? Please. Is this how Kakashi felt during the war

God I love Shisui the tiny ninja detective they really have left off some of the cooler aspects of being a shinobi in all the wild and flashy jutsu like during the Land of Waves arc when Kakashi kept noticing relatively mundane clues

“Shisui picked up on how I felt right from the beginning” welcome to empathy Itachi

“I’ll hand this intel over to Lord Hokage, and he will deliver a just and fair judgment” I like this ANBU vs. ROOT dichotomy but bold of you to assume Hiruzen won’t ultimately let Danzo do whatever he wants lol

Damn what the shit how does Shisui know who the foundation already isn’t he like 12 

The animation of this arc is nice but also so weird they really did make Itachi and Shisui’s eyes like half of their face

These wholeass adults getting between by two prepubescents lmao 

“A teleportation jutsu has no mass” wait WHAT I have so many questions Shisui what does that MEAN 

“I want to you to think of me as your older brother” HELL YEAH HE DOES

Ffgdfkghkjh what an abrupt voice change between age 8 and 11 Itachi

How many times have they animated these same goddamn Itachi scenes 

Holy shit it’s like they tried to tell the story of the Itachi Shinden novels and then got bored halfway through gfkhgfkhgkjh

“I’m exhaAAAUsted from my mission” Itachi pls why say it like that

“You have the Mangekyo as well?” Fugaku had a friend???? Unrealistic. Blocked

THEY KIDNAPPED NARUTO??? I DON’T REMEMBER THIS IN ITACHI SHINDEN

Genjutsu but I don’t remember that either ?!?!?! Doesn’t Fugaku spend all of Itachi Shinden being emotionally distant and sending Itachi mixed moral messages

Who is the Fugaku hater on this storyboard staff lmao I’m crying

I have a lot of thoughts about this art direction honestly why is everything in the shadows why are the character models so weird why is Itachi suddenly outside in the lightning for his murder discussion meeting instead of inside the council room if you had to shout over lightning people could hear you 

“I challenge you to the high jump” “You’re no match for me” Sasuke you’re the most obnoxious seven-year-old in the world I love it

“There’s something that I’d like you to help me with” a very casual opener when you’re proposing the murder of your entire clan but okay

They really leaned into the horror movie aesthetic huh fair enough 

I have some objections to register about Izumi’s death like both options are weird but at least in Itachi Shinden she wasn’t humiliated by Obito begging for Itachi to save her she had a degree of awareness and it was an impactful if strange scene

FUCK THE TOBI VOICE I KNEW IT WAS COMING BUT I’M WHEEZING

Cute new ED but also the idea of Tobirama giving anyone a fistbump amuses me immensely 

“Who would’ve thought that that scuzzy bearded jerk would’ve been able to use a taijutsu like that” RUDE but also ‘scuzzy’ jhfjghkjhfgj

Omg that’s so funny they literally gave the former owner of Zabuza’s blade the same voice

This doesn’t make any fucking sense how could Juzo have the executioner’s blade when Zabuza would be like 21 when Itachi was 13 oh my god 

“The Hidden Mist doesn’t keep any prisoners” unsurprising but interesting

Is this meant to imply that Juzo is killed and then Zabuza immediately finds the sword and starts a coup because that’s hilarious

Wait how does them fighting the Mizukage make any sense isn’t Yagura under Obito’s control lmao who wrote this

Did Itachi just.... accidentally cripple the Mizukage omg [Zabuza screams in the distance]

Hahahaha I know it’s supposed to be evil but it’s really funny that Kakuzu killed his partner for being too slow

“I wouldn’t know how to cater to your moods” kjfhgkdhfgjh Kakuzu just got wrecked by a thirteen-year-old LMAO 

“I’m not sure what to do with you... whether to kill you right now or find a way to use you” KILL OROCHIMARU, ITACHI, IT’S GONNA SAVE YOU A LOT OF TROUBLE 

Why the hell would Kabuto be hanging out near the Akatsuki anyway isn’t he in a long term infiltration of the Leaf Village lmao or can Orochimaru summon him like a snake

On what basis does Pain decide these partnerships did Kisame and Sasori take a babysitting course or smth

The cutaway without the “This... is art” scene is almost funnier because it implies Itachi just had to flash his eyes at Deidara and Deidara was like, “HELLO AKATSUKI I AM HERE”

“I wouldn’t mind giving you a taste of my art” [insert ninja sex joke about Deidara’s mouth hands here]

Deidara really should not be old enough to be here by this point in the narrative but this entire arc has been wacky timeline wise

Man it must be fucked up to fight a puppet version of your own corpse

“What I really wanted... was to get a hold of Itachi’s body” you are the definition of stranger danger Orochimaru

From what I remember the video games had Kakuzu and Orochimaru approaching Hidan and not Konan and Itachi but I’m game for any Orochimaru erasure lmao

 I’m pretty sure all of that blood was Hidan’s?? World-building whomst

“He licked Kakuzu’s blood” did he though?? Show me his wound Itachi

OMG they’re really heavy-handed with Leaf!Itachi as if we did not just watch a bunch of episodes of Itachi caring about his village like honestly look at this:

Kisame: So even you have feelings for your birthplace, is that it?

Itachi: No. Not at all. [Sasuke, I hope that you’re safe.] 

(Me too Itachi 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭)

“It’s been a long time... Saaasuke” could you say his name a little less weirdly please Itachi

You really can’t get mad at Kakashi for teaching Sasuke chidori Itachi like maybe if you would murder less people Kakashi would feel a little less overprotective

God was the only point of animating and voicing these scenes again so that Itachi could mentally apologize every twelve seconds? You know what fair enough, anxiety and depression be like that sometimes

“You still have people who’ll protect you” Oh plot twist Itachi was actually writing a “Nice” list instead of a “Naughty” list and Kakashi, Jiraiya and Naruto are all on it

Oh yeah I kind of forgot that this was all supposed to be like a 5 minute span for Sasuke’s flashback of Itachi’s entire life lmao

You know.... it’s real unclear to me how Obito wakes up from his trance lmao he may not be in a cocoon but he’s certainly exposed to the light

“Be careful. We’re surrounded on all sides by four of his shadows” “Yeah I know that” Yeah, Naruto knows it, but Sasuke’s warning where the Shadow Madaras are entirely for Kakashi and Sakura’s benefit BC HE WORRIES MY BABY BOYYYY

“This chakra is even way stronger than Ten-Tails” I really heard “Tenten” there and I was like, wait what did I miss with Tenten kfhkjhgkjhg

OH GOOD ANOTHER UCHIHA FLESH MOUNTAIN JUST WHAT WE NEEDED

“They’re turned into White Zetsu” I hate this nonsensical bit of world-building it made more sense and felt less weird when they were Hashirama clones like what the fuck

Oh I can’t believe this is making me feel almost bad for Madara did Zetsu really edit the Uchiha Stone Tablet’s Tsukuyomi section to say “Peace Plans” ain’t that how like the CIA entraps people 

“Hashirama... where did I go wrong” We’d need a lot more time than you have to unpack that Madara

“Countless nights passed” I mean. Was it countless nights. Because I think it was. A couple hours. This war arc spans like two days. I have spent more human hours on this arc than they’ve spent ninja hours in this war

“I can’t believe such a person existed” neither can I Sasuke it’s almost like she was invented specifically for this arc

For real Obito no offence but like why aren’t you dead it just doesn’t make much sense khkjfdhkjhgkjh

Hmmm not 2 be that gal but Kaguya’s voice is v pleasant on the ears 

“Sorry to be so rough with you, Obito” Kakashi. You loving, kind, dumb bitch. He stabbed you THREE TIMES in the past two days you really owe him like -1000 apologies

“This is also one of those times where your body just moves on its own” SASUKE CALLED OUT FOR LOVING HIS COMRADES

“I’ve got to get to Naruto” I love your dedication Minato but I feel as though the loss of both of your arms makes helping more difficult

Kakashi is not NEARLY as surprised about this levitation thing as he should be. I think as this point he’s just like. ‘This might as well happen’

All other things aside Kaguya’s really fun to look at damn

Okay okay okay not to look for too much logic in this ninja show but don’t both Naruto and Sasuke have Six Paths chakra why can only Naruto float is a metaphor for Sasuke’s fall from grace

“I am Kaguya’s child” I can only imagine a Game of Thrones-eque shadow flying out the hooha situation

“Just before the seal took hold, she gave birth to me, in order that she could be restored” I can only assume Kaguya fucked Bitterness and Regret and you know.... fair enough

I gotta tell you Zetsu being the primary narrator of this arc is jarring

Tenji seems kinda nice it’s a shame something terrible will probably happen to him

Say what you will about SP’s animation inconsistencies they can animate some beautiful-ass skies

“Is there anything that you desire” Get u a man like Tenji

Fellas is it gay to sit under the stars with your handmaiden who adores you in comfortable silence

“Even now you’re not scared. That just makes me like you more” take a shot every time a man is Like That (bah dum tss) 

“Do Not Touch Me,” wow Kaguya mood

I will clarify I said that BEFORE she exploded the men gkhkjfhgkhh

Tenji, that Aino lady is your subordinate are you really gonna leave her with the creepy That man u are not the man I thought you were

“Just tell him, and I’m sure that Lord Tenji will forgive you” to be fair Aino you could’ve elaborated u were just like ‘yup she killed them’ and left it at that

WOW I RESCIND ALL COMPLIMENTS TO TENJI CALM DOWN DUDE

When life gives u lemons use people as fertilizer for ur infinite lemon tree I guess

Are you telling me 1) Gamamaru has existed since the DAWN OF CHAKRA and 2) He knew all about this Tsukuyomi shit just like. Kept it on the DL. WHAT KINDA WORLD-BUILDING

Okay but for real did the Otsutsuki clan stem like.... all the clans, because there’s the Kaguya clan (through Hamura I guess?), and the Hyuga clan definitely through Hamura, and then the Senju, Uchiha, and Uzumaki through Hagoromo like just how many people did your kids sleep with and for that matter how long ago was this

“A real talking toad! Think people would like it if we caught it and took it home?” Why are Hagoromo and Hamura the cutest things in the world this is the sibling content we deserve

“You’re just a snake oil salesman, and not a very good one” oh I think I love Hamura oh no I would love a character who gets stuck on the moon 

Take a shot every time a woman exists to die and make a man sad 

“She fell in love with the ruler of this land and in time she became pregnant with the two of you” notice that at no point does Gamamaru say they got married can u believe Kaguya invented premarital sex

You know none of this goes against mine and Sloane’s Kagumo theory

“How can you see so far into a toad’s heart that clearly” Gamamaru and Hagoromo’s interactions are killing me

How much time has passed for Hamura’s hair to grow that long

Hamura @ Kaguya: BROTHERS BEFORE MOTHERS

HOW MUCH TIME HAS PASSED FOR HAGOROMO TO DEVELOP THIS BROW RIDGE SAGE LAND TAKES A TOLL 

Tenji doesn’t even appear in this flashback about love and betrayal it’s just Kaguya being bitter bc her gal Aino died they were in lesbians together

Every so often I’m reminded that Kishimoto has a twin brother and I wonder what he thinks about making the twins fight

“You enabled me to awaken the mangekyo sharingan and rinnegan” how do u even have words for those things. Didn’t they just happen right this moment

Wow this is all very Little Shop of Horrors, Momma feeds the tree with people juice and in turn it wants to protect her from harm

“I split the Ten Tails into nine souls” SOULS? HAGOROMO CAN... JUST MAKE SOULS. COULD HE POINT AT GAMAMARU AND SAY “YOU ARE TWO FROGS NOW” AND THAT’D JUST BE TRUE?

“We won’t be that far apart,” said Hagoromo, just as his brother was about to teleport to the moon

Side note: Maybe ur crops were failing bc without the moon the tides are all out of whack and you know, the moon was apparently just invented right now

“Time passed, and so did Hagoromo” I love this particular literary device

“Time after time I’d approach the reincarnates of Indra and Ashura” okay so we’re supposed to be down for not only regular reincarnation in Naruto but Indra and Ashura ONLY BEING BORN TO THE SENJU AND UCHIHA CLANS REPEATEDLY WHAT WHO WROTE THIS

Does this mean that people Naruto and Sasuke every 50 years????You’d think the Land of Fire would just. Get used to it

“Just with that alone, a thousands years passed” well at least we have some idea of how much time it’s been since Kaguya era lmao 

Ur telling me that this horseshit happened bc Tobirama doesn’t know to leave dead bodies well enough alone

SHHHHH I PREFER THE ZETSU BEING WEIRD HASHIRAMA CLONES

This montage of Zetsu taking credit for everything Madara and Obito did is not appreciated lmao take some responsibility for your actions!!!!

I’m gonna keep harping on this for the rest of the war honestly like where is the ACCOUNTABILITY

“So your teen rebellion continues” LMAO UR NOT WRONG

“I know that this could be our last hurrah, but we gotta give it our best shot” not much of a plan Naruto sweetheart but fair

Tag urself I’m Kakashi’s look of despair at his hormonal students

“And Sasuke? Sorry that my sexy jutsu didn’t work” I was not prepared for the sincerity with which that line was delivered

The Sad Old Man™ energy radiating off Obito is... Immense 

“We’re all ready to die” R U THINKING OF RIN BC SHE WAS READY TO DIE OR BC UR READY TO SEE HER EITHER WAY IT’S SAD KAKASHI

“I want to thank you for helping me out. And for helping Sasuke” “No, there’s no need to thank me” this is the first time Obito has been right about something since the age of 13

“I’m not going to waste time on speeches,” said Obito, in the middle of a dramatic speech 

Minato..... how did you chop the branch.... with no hands to pick up a kunai???????? What kind of yoga contortion was involved

What I imagine the subtext of this scene to be:

Hagoromo: New old son!!!! I am dad now

Hashirama, whose dad was Butsuma: [choking back tears] Okay

Tobirama: I also hate our father

They’re all taking to this “demi-god pops out of the bottom half of dead ex-comrade” thing pretty well but to be fair they’ve had a complicated day

[dreamersscape]

The Raven Cycle: A Liveblog (Part 4)

(Let’s just pretend the gap since my last installment was a much shorter and more reasonable period of time than it has actually been, shall we? I tried to make up for it with the length of this edition. Suuuuuper long post under the cut.)

Me, reading TDT’s opening quotations: Okay, yes, good. Taking things out of your dreams into the waking world. Got it.

Me, reading the last quote: ‘I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven’t got the guts to bite people themselves.’?

YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING OF MY PEOPLE, AUSTIN STRINDBERG. GET THEE HENCE.

‘He always returned with gifts, treasure, and unimaginable amounts of money, but to Ronan, the most wondrous thing was Niall himself. Every parting felt like it would be the last, and so every return was like a miracle.’ RONANNNNNNN. (Is it weird that it feels like Ronan is supposed to be my favorite bc he seems closest to my type and goodness knows I can relate to the grieving-a-father feels, but that’s not really the case so far? I love him dearly, but it feels like I should love him more. Weird? Not weird? I dunno.)

*carefully takes notes about the alleged details of Ronan’s birth because I know now every minor detail is actually Very Important*

‘Theoretically, Blue Sargent was probably going to kill one of these boys.’ Oh, good, it’s only a theoretical death. Glad we got that sorted out. Guess I can stop worrying about it now, right? :P

'Adam’s hand glided over her bare elbow. The touch was a whisper in a language she didn’t speak very well.’ I really like this line! Also, somewhat sadly, relateable.

'It had five tiny white buttons: four arranged in a cross shape, and one off by itself. To Blue, that fifth button was like Adam. Still working toward the same purpose as the other four. But no longer quite as close as the others.’ Oh, so we’re going to make my heart hurt over Adam Parrish in the first ten pages of the book. Fine.

'In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her raven boys.’ Aw, those lines sound familiar. ;) And we’re all right there with ya, Blue.

'The dorms were emptier than they would’ve been during school term, but they were not empty.’ Whoops unrelated-to-TRC-but-nevertheless-on-brand feels ahoy.

So it’s been long enough since I read TRB that I can’t recall if I had any particular feelings about Declan then, but definitely feeling pretty sympathetic towards him now, what with his father’s seeming dismissive attitude toward him and the assault from this Gray Man. Also, have I read the word Greywaren before? Not sure.

Oh. So Ronan is the Greywaren, then. Guess that answers that.

’Mom is nothing without him’? Woooow, Declan. Wow. A bit less sympathy, now. (Maybe there’s something about their mother I don’t know yet, but still…)

’Creature was a good word for him, Ronan thought.’ Oof. He’s gonna make me eat my words, isn’t he? I already said I love you dearly, Ronan!

And now he’s gonna divert himself from his unpleasant thoughts with an external distraction. Oh good. That doesn’t mirror any of my other favorite characters at all.

'Back then, it had surprised Ronan; he hadn’t realized yet that Gansey could persuade even the sun to pause and give him the time.’ [drags a hand slowly down my face] Don’t do this to me, Maggie. Haven’t you already put me through enough with Adam and Gansey?

'His thoughtless expression was one of wonder or of pain; with Gansey they were so often the same thing.’ Well that–that’s a sentence.

’“Ronan, there’s no reason for that,” Gansey said sternly, as if Ronan had hurled a toy on the floor.’ Gonna start listing all the mom-friend!Gansey moments, 'cause I gotta.

'He laughed enough that Chainsaw abandoned her paper shredding to verify he wasn’t dying.’ This is cute, other than the implication that Ronan genuinely laughing is a all-too-rare occurrence.

’“So what you’re saying is you can’t explain it.” “I did explain it.” “No, you used nouns and verbs together in a pleasing but illogical format.”’ Hee!

I half expect tired-of-potential-and-only-being-useful-needing-something-more!Blue to break out singing ’I want much more than this provincial life/I want adventure in the great wide somewhere/I want it more than I can tell’ and I don’t say that at all in a disparaging way, that’s just what it made me think of. It’s a very understandable desire on Blue’s part.

’“Jane!” Gansey said joyfully.’ I will never tire of this. :)

'When she returned, she leaned on the table beside Adam, who touched her wrist. She didn’t know what to do in response. Touch it back? The moment had passed. She resented her body for not giving her the correct answer.’ So! Freaking! Relateable!

'Kavinsky headed directly to the large table in the back, and the postures of the other boys all changed drastically….Gansey stood, leaning against the table, and there was something threatening rather than respectful about it.’ I live a protective!Gansey appreciation life.

The Gray Man is quite a character.

Ummmm so chapter eight just hurt my soul a whole lot? Here’s a list of the culprits:

'He’d spent just two hours at the easiest of the jobs — Boyd’s Body & Paint, LLC, replacing brake pads and changing oil and finding what was making that squeaking noise there, no, there — and now, even though he was off, he was ruined for anything else. Sticky and sore and, above all else, tired, always tired.’

'The only rub was, Blue was another troubling thing. She was like Gansey in that she wanted him to explain himself. What do you want, Adam? What do you need, Adam? Want and need were words that got eaten smaller and smaller: freedom, autonomy, a perennial bank balance, a stainless-steel condo in a dustless city, a silky black car, to make out with Blue, eight hours of sleep, a cell phone, a bed, to kiss Blue just once, a blister-less heel, bacon for breakfast, to hold Blue’s hand, one hour of sleep, toilet paper, deodorant, a soda, a minute to close his eyes. What do you want, Adam? To feel awake when my eyes are open.’ (This hurt less than the 'to go home, to go home, to go home’ passage, but ONLY JUST.)

'He’d already seen the ignored, unopened envelope emblazoned with Aglionby Academy’s raven crest. For two days he’d been stepping over it, as if it might disappear if he failed to acknowledge it.’ (Ah, hello avoidant coping skills, my old friend.)

’[Adam] ached inside.’/'He still ached.’/'his spine aching, shoulders aching, soul aching’

'They stared at each other, both hurt.’/'He tried not to let it sound like he was still hurt, but he was, and it did.’/'She tried not to let it sound like she was hurt, but she was, and it did.’

’What do you want, Adam? He didn’t even know.’ (T.T)

'His wide eyes and gaunt face peered back at him, troubled but not unusual.’

I’m so done, he thought. No more. Please, I can’t take any more.’ (SAME.)

'The difference in tuition between this year’s and next was twenty-four hundred dollars. That number again. It couldn’t be a coincidence.’ (SERIOUSLY THOUGH, I CAN’T TAKE ANYMORE GANSEY/ADAM TENSION/CONFLICT/FIGHTING. WHEN DO WE GET TO THE GETTING BETTER PART?)

'They couldn’t hurt Gansey. Nothing could hurt him; people who said money couldn’t buy everything hadn’t seen anyone as rich as the Aglionby boys. They were untouchable, immune to life’s troubles. Only death couldn’t be swiped away by a credit card.’ (Oh Adam honey, you don’t even knooooow. :()

Adam! Some people show and feel love through acts of service! It’s not an inherently bad thing! Concern and the desire to help are not the same thing as pity!

Also, Blue’s “Then don’t be pitiful!” response was kinda strange, even for an impulsively perturbed remark? Just felt weird.

'She was looking at the box that served as his nightstand. Somehow it had moved several feet away from the bed. The side was badly dented, its former contents scattered violently across the floor. Only now did he remember the act of kicking the box, but not the decision to kick it.’ (Crap.)

'He calmed enough to remember that if he waited long enough, carefully analyzing how it felt, the emotion would lose its inertia. It was the same as physical pain. The more he tried to mentally decide what made pain hurt, the less his brain seemed able to remember the pain at all.’

'He’d never escape, not really. Too much monster blood in him. He’d left the den, but his breeding betrayed him. And he knew why he was pitiful. It wasn’t because he had to pay for his school or because he had to work for a living. It was because he was trying to be something he could never be. The sham was pitiful.’

'Some nights he lured himself to sleep by imagining how he would word the favor for Glendower. He needed to get the words exactly right. Now he rolled phrases around his mouth, desperately reaching for one that would comfort him. Ordinarily, words would tumble and lull through his mind, but this time, all he could think was Fix me.’ (On a related note, I’m dead.)

'He had a strange, disconcerting feeling that he couldn’t trust his senses. Like he was tasting an image or smelling a feeling or touching a sound. It was the same as just a few minutes before, the idea that he’d glimpsed a slightly wrong reflection of himself. Adam’s previous worries vanished, replaced with a more immediate concern for this ragged body he was carting around in. He’d been hit so many times. He’d already lost his hearing in his left ear. Maybe something else had been destroyed on one of those tense, wretched nights.’ (*Spontaneously revives to continue worrying myself to death over Adam Parrish* WHY CAN’T I TAKE CARE OF HIM?)

'Ronan, Noah, and Gansey were at the Dollar City in Henrietta, loitering. Theoretically, they were there for batteries. Practically, they were there because both Blue and Adam had work, Ronan’s shapeless anger always got worse at night, and Dollar City was one of the few stores in Henrietta that allowed pets.’ These stupid codependent teens.

“Hello? Oh, hey,” Gansey said to the phone, touching a notebook with a handgun printed on the cover. The oh, hey was accompanied by a definite change in the timbre of his voice. That meant it was Adam’ [tries to feel the joy I deserve at this past my intense anxiety about the probable clashing over the tuition thing]

'Ronan rested his forehead on the topmost shelf. The metal edge snarled against his skull, but he didn’t move. At night, the longing for home was ceaseless and omniscient, an airborne contaminant. He saw it in Dollar City’s cheap oven mitts — that was his mother at dinnertime. He heard it in the slam of the cash register drawer — that was his father coming home at midnight. He smelled it in the sudden whiff of air freshener — that was the family trips to New York. Home was so close at night. He could be there in twenty minutes. He wanted to smash everything off these shelves.’ He and Adam both want to go hoooome and I wish I could provide that for them and turns out I am actually Gansey.

'“Glitter,” whispered Noah reverentially, giving it a shake.’ Truly Noah is their light in the darkness. I LOVE HIM SO MUCHHHH.

'Farther down the aisle, Gansey suggested to the phone, “You could come stay at Monmouth. For the night.”’ Like I said. Also, I really, really wish I could hear both sides of this phone conversation.

'Sometimes Ronan thought Adam was so used to the right way being painful that he doubted any path that didn’t come with agony.’ I mean, fair. And heartbreaking.

'Gansey’s back was turned to them. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Ramirez? I didn’t talk to anyone at the church. Yes, twenty-four hundred dollars. I know that part. I —”’ Oh no. It’s happening.

'But one of the marvelous things about being Ronan Lynch was that no one ever expected him to do anything nice for anyone.’ I would hug you Ronan, except there is now more Adam 'n’ Gansey friction and I’m really bad at handling it!

'Abruptly, Ronan’s entire body went cold. Not a little chilly, but utterly cold. The sort of cold that dries the mouth and slows the blood. His toes went numb, and then his fingers….Then Noah reappeared in a violent sputter, like the power crackling back on. His fingers clutched Ronan’s arm. Cold seeped from the point of contact as Noah dragged heat to become visible.’ Oh, so Noah can do that with Ronan too? Because of his greywaren-ness?

'“I lost …” Noah struggled for words. “There wasn’t air. It went away. The — the line!” “The ley line?” Gansey asked. Noah nodded once, a sloppy thing that was sort of a shrug at the same time. “There was nothing … left for me.”’ Not allowed. Just saying.

'He didn’t say, Or maybe something terrible happened to Adam that day he sacrificed himself in Cabeswater. Maybe he’s messed up all of Henrietta by waking up the ley line. Because they couldn’t talk about that. Just like they couldn’t talk about Adam stealing the Camaro that night. Or about him basically doing everything Gansey had asked him not to. If Adam was stupid about his pride, Gansey was stupid about Adam.’ Yes, we know. :)

'From Ronan’s room, he heard Noah’s laugh. He and Ronan were throwing various objects from the second-story window to the parking lot below. There was a terrific crash.’ Having witnessed my younger brother doing basically the same thing once, I can vouch for the authenticity of this teenage-boy activity.

'Once, he had dreamt that he found Glendower. It wasn’t the actual finding, but the day after. He wouldn’t forget the sensation of the dream. It hadn’t been joy, but instead, the absence of pain. He couldn’t forget that lightness. The freedom.’ Yeah, don’t we all dream about the absence of pain. *buries face in hands* OH GANSEY BOY.

’“Do you want me to talk to her?” This was something he definitely, 100 percent felt certain in his guts that he had no interest in doing. “I’m really bad at talking, Gansey,” Adam said earnestly. “And you’re really good at it. Maybe — maybe if it just comes up natural?” Gansey’s shoulders collapsed; his breath fogged the glass and vanished. “Of course.” “Thanks.” Adam paused. “I just want something to be simple.” So do I, Adam. So do I.’ This right here? This A Whoooole Lot. Is there anything you wouldn’t do for Adam if he asked, Gansey?

'Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, “He threw me out the window!” Ronan’s voice sang out from behind his closed door: “You’re already dead!”’ OH. MY. GOODNESS.

’"You should come over.” “Not tonight,” replied Adam. I’m losing him, Gansey thought. I’m losing him to Cabeswater. He had thought that by staying away from the forest, he’d keep the old Adam — put off the consequences of whatever had happened that night when everything started to go awry. But maybe it just didn’t matter. Cabeswater would take him regardless.’ I dream of the absence of pain!!!

'His skin shivered and crawled, and he realized it was crawling with hornets, the ones that had killed Gansey all those years ago. There weren’t many this time, only a few hundred. Sometimes he dreamt cars full of them, houses full of them, worlds full of them. Sometimes these hornets killed Ronan, too, in his dreams.’ Oh, Ronan.

’Arbores loqui latine. The trees speak Latin. “You’ve done this before,” she said. Time was a circle, a rut, a worn tape Ronan never tired of playing.’ Huh. Has Ronan been dreaming of Cabeswater for years and years?

'Curled on the mattress, [Adam] covered his face with his summer-hot arm. Sometimes, if he blocked his mouth and nose, just this side of suffocation, sleep would overthrow him.’ THAT DOESN’T SOUND HEALTHY, MY BOY. :(

'He was awake enough to think of the invitation from Gansey. There might be an internship in there. Adam knew it was a favor. Did that make it wrong? He’d said no for so long that he didn’t know when to say yes….He hated the careful way Gansey had asked him about it. Tiptoeing, just like Adam had learned to tiptoe around his father. He needed a reset button. Just push the reset button on Adam Parrish and start him again.’ I am sad. (But maaaaybe he’s starting to reconsider the idea that he can never accept hep of any kind?)

'After he had exhausted this line of thought, Ronan gave in to the brief privilege of hating himself, as he always did in church. There was something satisfying about acknowledging this hatred, something relieving about this little present he allowed himself each Sunday.’ Oh, Ronan.

'“Hey, pal,” Matthew whispered. He was the only person who could get away with calling Ronan pal.’ Awww. :)

'Matthew Lynch was a bear of a boy, square and solid and earnest. His head was covered with soft, golden curls completely unlike any of his other family members. And in his case, the perfect Lynch teeth were framed by an easy, dimpled smile. He had two brands of smile: the one that was preceded by a shy dip of his chin, a dimple, and then BAM, smile. And the one that teased for a moment before BAM, an infectious laugh. Females of all ages called him adorable. Males of all ages called him buddy. Matthew failed at many more things than either of his older brothers, but unlike Declan or Ronan, he always tried his hardest.’ Whoops, I’m attached.

'Ronan had dreamt one thousand nightmares about something happening to him.’ *rubs heart*

'A lady reached over the top of Noah to pat Matthew’s head fondly before continuing down the aisle. She didn’t seem to care that he was fifteen, which was all right, because he didn’t, either. Both Ronan and Declan observed this interaction with the pleased expressions of parents watching their prodigy at work.’ Once again: Awww. :)

'Blue very much liked having the boys over to her house. Their presence at the house was agreeable for several different reasons….And the third reason was that it suggested permanence. Blue had acquaintances at school, people she liked. But they weren’t forever. While she was friendly with a lot of them, there was no one that she wanted to commit to for a lifetime. And she knew this was her fault. She’d never been any good at having casual friends. For Blue, there was family — which had never been about blood relation at 300 Fox Way — and then there was everyone else. When the boys came to her house, they stopped being everyone else.’ THEY’RE FAMILY NOW. <3

'Crossly, Blue realized that Gansey had now called her Jane so often that it felt strange to hear him say her real name.’ Embrace it, Blue. Embraaace it. :D

'He hid the insatiable wanting well, but now that she’d seen it once, she couldn’t stop seeing it. But he wouldn’t be able to explain it to Maura. And he would never really have to explain it to Blue. It was his something more.’ Awww. :)

(Sorry this liveblog is devolving mostly into either EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE or But this is cute! and if that is starting to become boring…)

’"What did they die of?” “Mom always said ‘meddling.’ Gansey completely forgot they were being secretive and let out a tremendous laugh. It was a powerful thing, that laugh. He only did it once, but his eyes remained shaped like it. Something inside her did a complicated tug. Oh no! she thought. But then she calmed herself. Richard C. Gansey III has a nice mouth. Now I know he has nice eyes when he laughs, too. This still isn’t love. She also thought: Adam. Remember Adam.’ 1.) I hope this line of rationalization works out for you, Blue. ;) 2.) I am still feeling torn, though. Blue and Adam are cute together. 3.) I’d be okay with a Blue-Gansey-Adam OT3 though.

'Maura frowned. In a low voice, she said, “I think I need to have a conversation with that boy.” “Someone does,” Calla replied, heading up the stairs. Each stair groaned a protest for which she punished the next with a stomp. “Not me. I’ve outgrown train wrecks.” Blue, alarmed, said, “Is he a train wreck?”| Her mother clucked her tongue. “Calla likes drama. Train wreck! When a train takes a long time to go off the tracks, I don’t like to call it a wreck. I like to call it a derailment.”  From upstairs, Blue heard Calla’s delighted cackle. “I hate both of you,” Blue said as her mother laughed and galloped up the stairs to join Calla. “You’re supposed to use your powers for good, you know!” After a moment, Adam said to her, without lifting his eyes, “I could hear y’all, you know.” Blue hoped fervently that he was only talking about Maura and Calla and not about her kitchen conversation with Gansey. “Do you think you’re a train wreck?” “That would mean I was on the tracks to start with,” he replied.’ I would just like to say that I am miffed by this passage on Adam’s behalf. Thank you.

The chapter where Mr. Gray comes to 300 Fox Way was… interesting.

'Gansey, a furious sun, glowed from the other side of the universe, his gravitational pull too distant to affect Adam.’ WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME MAGGIE I CAN NEVER RECOVER.

So yeah, I just read the part where Adam is thinking back to how he and Gansey became friends and I think my heart just burst from emotional overload.

'Sometimes Adam wondered what would’ve happened if he hadn’t stopped that day. What would be happening to him right now?’ Sometimes, Allan wondered what would’ve happened if Robin hadn’t stepped out of the trees that day. What would be happening to him right now? SORRY, I HAVE A PROBLEM.

Also, it only just occurred to me that Allan and Adam are A-names and Robin and Richard (even if that’s not what Gansey goes by) are R-names. This makes me so unreasonably happy!

'Gansey was giddy now that they’d decided to go back to Cabeswater. He hated nothing more than standing still. He ordered Ronan to put on some terrible music — Ronan was always too happy to oblige in this department — and then he abused the Camaro at every stoplight on the way out of town. “Put your back into it!” Gansey shouted breathlessly. He was talking to himself, of course, or to the gearbox. “Don’t let it smell fear on you!” Blue wailed each time the engine revved up, but not unhappily. Noah played the drums on the back of Ronan’s headrest. Adam, for his part, was not wild, but he did his best not to appear unwild, so as not to ruin it for the others.’ REEELATABLLLLE!!!

'Adam felt like he was watching it all from outside. He felt like he was about to catch another image, like a flick of the tarot cards he’d looked at earlier. Was that someone standing by the side of the road? I can’t trust my eyes.’ Leave him aloooone. :(

'Gansey leaned back, head thrown to the side, drunken and silly with happiness. “I love this car,” he said, loud to be heard over the engine. “I should buy four more of them. I’ll just open the door of one to fall into the other. One can be a living room, one can be my kitchen, I’ll sleep in one …” “And the fourth? Butler’s pantry?” Blue shouted. “Don’t be so selfish. Guest room.”’ He’s adorable.

Huh. Cabeswater’s gone!

'Adam felt that the Pig’s status perfectly encapsulated how he felt. It was not really dead, just broken. He was held inside the question of what it meant for him if Cabeswater was gone. Why can’t things just be simple?’  While this is a legitimate concern, Adam, to be fair, just a few moments ago you were worrying about was going to happen when you returned to Cabeswater for the first time after your sacrifice. Poor guy’s anxious over everything. :/

'Ronan leapt out of the car and slammed the door. The thing about Ronan Lynch, Adam had discovered, was that he wouldn’t — or couldn’t — express himself with words. So every emotion had to be spelled out in some other way. A fist, a fire, a bottle. Now Cabeswater was missing and the Pig was hobbled, and he needed to go have a silent shouting fit with his body. In the back window, Adam saw Ronan pick up a rock from the side of the road and hurl it into the creeper.  “Well, that’s helpful,” Blue said tersely.’ 1.) [Fond but exasperated] Oh Ronan. 2.) I appreciate your reaction, Blue. You’re not wrong.

'“I’m calling Declan,” Gansey said. “And telling him to bring a battery.” Ronan told Gansey what he thought of this plan, very precisely, with a lot of compound words that even Adam hadn’t heard before. Gansey nodded, but he also dialed Declan’s number. Afterward, he turned to Ronan, who leaned his cheek hard enough against the top of the window to make a dent in his skin.’ Please stop dealing with difficult emotions/situations by causing yourself pain, Ronan, honey.

'Gansey rounded on Adam, clutching his own headrest and looking behind him. “Why is it gone?”’ Why is my mental picture of this so endearing?

'Declan’s Volvo glided up, as quiet as the Pig was loud. Ronan said, “Move up, move up” to Blue until she scooted the passenger seat far enough for him to clamber behind it into the backseat. He hurriedly sprawled back in the seat, throwing one jean-covered leg over the top of Adam’s and laying his head in a posture of thoughtless abandon. By the time Declan arrived at the driver’s side window, Ronan looked as if he had been asleep for days.’ Oh, Ronan. What am I going to do with you?

'And as he sat there, observing the set of Declan’s shoulders and the way his eyes looked, he realized something startling. Declan was afraid. Probably it wasn’t apparent to Gansey, who was fairly oblivious, nor to Blue, who didn’t know what Declan looked like ordinarily. And Ronan’s feelings about his older brother were like blood in the water; he wouldn’t be able to see through the bilious clouds. But to Adam, who’d spent a fair amount of his life afraid — not only afraid, but trying to hide it — it was obvious.’ [Gansey voice] I am right to have Allan feels here and I will not be made to feel bad about it! (Also, in blast-from-the-past news, I’m really close to finally done with putting my anxiety-and-Allan thoughts into words and I’m excited for that.)

I love when Noah senses one of the other boys is in distress and goes to them and does his ghostly best to comfort or assist them. <3

'He thought about the day he’d been stung to death by hornets and lived anyway. Gansey ran over the memory until he no longer felt the thrill of hearing Glendower’s name whispered in his ear, and then instead gave himself over to feeling sorry for himself, that he should have so many friends and yet feel so very alone. He felt it fell to him to comfort them, but never the other way around. As it should be, he thought, abruptly angry with himself. You’ve had it the easiest. What good is all your privilege, you soft, spoiled thing, if you can’t stand on your own legs? ’ OH HONEY :( (But Noah does try!)

'“It’s not just the blood,” Ronan said. His chest moved up and down with his breath. “Something else got out, too.”’ Uh-oh.

Phew. They dispatched the nightmare creature while remaining mostly unscathed. Although they needn’t go around asking each other, "Are you murdered?” with the reply, “I think so.” anymore, please.

'“There was another one,” he said. “It got away.”’ Well, that’s not good!

'“It’s for the distasteful thing,” Gansey said. He plucked at the T-shirt with deprecating fingers. “I’m rather slovenly at the moment, I know.”’ [Fond, amused sputtering]

Oh, they’re going to the Barns!

'Gansey, a bit of the gallows in his voice, advised, “Poke its eye.”’ [Confused, taken-aback sputtering]

'“It feels the same as when you guys lived here,” Gansey said finally. “It seems like it should be different.” “Did you come here a lot?” Blue asked.  He exchanged a glance with Ronan. “Often enough.” He didn’t say what Ronan was thinking, which was that Gansey was far more of a brother to Ronan than Declan had ever been.’ Brothers <3<3<3

'Ronan loved it so much. He nearly couldn’t bear it. He wanted to destroy something.’ That’s…one reaction to profound love. (Yes, I know. Profound love for something that’s been stripped away from you.)

'“Ronan Lynch,” he said. It was the voice Ronan couldn’t not listen to. It was sure in every way that Ronan was not. “Stop this right now. Go see your mother. And then we’re leaving.”’ More Mom-Friend!Gansey.

'Ronan walked directly up to her, close enough to see that she had not changed a bit since the last time he had seen her, months and months ago. Though his breath moved the fine hairs around her temples, she didn’t react to her son’s presence. Her chest rose and fell. Her eyes stayed closed. Non mortem, somni fratrem. Not death, but his brother, sleep. Blue whispered, “Just like the other animals.”  The truth — he’d known it all along, really, if he thought about it — burrowed into him. Blue was right. His home was populated by things and creatures from Niall Lynch’s dreams, and his mother was just another one of them.’ Huh.

'My soul’s in enough peril as it is.” At this, Gansey’s face turned to a genuine frown and he looked as if he was about to say something. Then he just shook his head a little….“She didn’t try to see the future. It’s not something she became; it’s something she is. I could just as easily say that you’re evil because you can take things from your dreams!” Ronan said, “Yeah, you could.” Gansey’s frown deepened. Again he opened his mouth and closed it.’ Same, Gansey. Same.

'Ronan looked at him. That look, Blue thought. Ronan Lynch would do anything for Gansey. I probably would, too, she thought.’ If only he knew it. *rubs heart*

'Blue and Gansey exchanged a look. Blue’s look said, I’m so, so sorry. Gansey’s said, Am I the pretty one?’ Bless his cotton socks.

'Ronan thought of what Declan had said all those months before: Mom is nothing without Dad. He’d been right.’ Okay, but does Declan know about this stuff and how it works?

'Ronan interrupted the silence. “Cabeswater. Cabeswater is a dream.” Calla stopped rotating. “You don’t have to tell me I’m right,” Ronan said. He thought of all the times he had dreamt of Cabeswater’s old trees; how familiar it had felt to walk there; how the trees had known his name. He was tangled in their roots, somehow, and they, in his veins. “If Mom is in Cabeswater, she’ll wake up.” Calla stared at him. Silence was never a wrong answer.’ Okay then.

'But those words of Declan’s needled Ronan: She’s nothing without Dad. It was like he knew. Ronan wanted badly to know how much Declan knew, but it wasn’t like he could ask him.’ No, that would be too easy.

'“Says you and Dad were both dreamers,” Matthew said, “and you’re going to make us lose everything.” Ronan sat very still. He was so still so quickly that Chainsaw froze as well, her head tilted toward the youngest Lynch brother, purloined tuna sandwich forgotten. Declan knew about their father. Declan knew about their mother. Declan knew about him.’ Curious. Very curious.

The Gray Man is going to Monmouth Manufacturing!

'He had spent forty-eight hours more or less awake and restless and then, on the third day, he had bought a side-scan sonar device, two window airconditioners, a leather sofa, and a pool table. “Now do you feel better?” Adam had asked drily. Gansey had replied, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “Hey, man,” Ronan said, “I like the pool table.” The entire situation made Blue apoplectic.’ Tag yourself; I’m Adam with a dash of Ronan. Pool tables are cool.

’"You are still wearing those incredibly stupid boat shoes, and of all the things that you have bought, you still haven’t replaced them!” Gansey, bewildered, observed his feet. The movement of his toes was barely visible through the tops of his Top-Siders. Really, in light of recent events, these shoes were the only things that were right in the world. “I like these shoes.”’ Update: he’s still adorable.

’[Gansey] exchanged a glance with Adam, because it had to be done’ 1) What does this mean? 2) I love them SO MUCH!

'In some parallel universe, there was a Gansey who could tell Blue that he found the ten inches of her bare calves far more tantalizing than the thirteen cubic feet of bare skin Orla sported. But in this universe, that was Adam’s job. } He was in a terrible mood.’ Oooooh. 👀

'So these were the people Greenmantle had warned him about. Fellow seekers of the Greywaren, whatever it might be.’ Curious and curiouser.

'Blue cheerfully spit a mouthful of brown water on his boat shoes. It pooled in the canvas over his toes. “Good God,” he said. “Now they’re really boat shoes,” she replied.’ Blue’s crusade continues.

'He knew what it was. He just didn’t know why it was. He said, “Well, that’s a wheel off the Camaro.” And it was. It looked identical to the wheels currently residing on the Pig — except this wheel was clearly several hundred years old. The discolored surface was pocked and lumpy. With all of the deterioration, the elegantly symmetrical wheel didn’t appear that out of place beside the shield boss. If you overlooked the tattered Chevrolet logo in the middle. “Do you remember losing one a little while ago?” Ronan asked. “Like, five hundred years or so?”’ Aggressively the Most Curious.

'Blue held his gaze, unflinching. Crisp, she replied, “None at all.” And it was a lie. It should not have been, but it was, and Gansey, who prized honesty above nearly every other thing, knew it when he heard it. Blue Sargent cared whether or not he was interested in Orla. She cared a lot. As she whirled toward the truck with a dismissive shake of her head, he felt a dirty sort of thrill.’ Oh, you kids.

'“Hey, Noah.” He was too busy being ghostly to attend to her, however. Currently, he was engaged in one of his creepiest activities: reenacting his own death. He glanced around the tiny yard as if appraising the forest glen containing only himself and his friend Barrington Whelk. Then he let out a terrible, mangled cry as he was struck from behind by an invisible skateboard. He made no sound when he was hit again, but his body jerked convincingly. Blue tried not to look as he bucked a few more times before falling to the ground. His head jerked; his legs bicycled. Blue took a deep, uneven breath. Though she had seen him do it four or five times now, it was always unsettling. Eleven minutes. That was how long the entire homicidal portrait lasted: one boy’s life destroyed in less time than it took to cook a hamburger. The last six minutes, the ones that took place after Noah had first fallen but before he actually died, were excruciating. Blue considered herself a fairly steadfast, sensible girl, but no matter how many times she heard his torn-up breath seizing in his throat, she felt a little teary. Between the twisted roots of the front yard, Noah’s body jerked and stilled, finally dead. Again.’ I feel w o u n d e d.

'They wandered to the door like that, a pretzel of dead boy and not-psychic girl.’ Don’t even look at me!

'Gleefully, Noah said, “There’s a pool table now! I’m the worst at pool ever! It’s wonderful.”’ THIS SWEET CHILD IS GIVING ME EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH.

'Gansey, pacing next to his ruined miniature Henrietta, set his eyes on Ronan. There was something intense and heedless in them. There were many versions of Gansey, but this one had been rare since the introduction of Adam’s taming presence. It was also Ronan’s favorite. It was the opposite of Gansey’s most public face, which was pure control enclosed in a paper-thin wrapper of academia. But this version of Gansey was Gansey the boy. This was the Gansey who bought the Camaro, the Gansey who asked Ronan to teach him to fight, the Gansey who contained every wild spark so that it wouldn’t show up in other versions. Was it the shield beneath the lake that had unleashed it? Orla’s orange bikini? The bashed-up remains of his rebuilt Henrietta and the fake IDs they’d returned to? Ronan didn’t really care. All that mattered was that something had struck the match, and Gansey was burning.’ #JusticeforMiniatureHenrietta

'“Don’t say anything stupid to him,” he told Gansey.’ Did I read that right? Did Ronan really just advise Gansey to be careful?

'The Gray Man recalled the buzz of his phone and patted his pockets. His phone was missing, however. Maura Sargent had stolen it while they were making out. In its place was the ten of swords: the Gray Man slain on the ground and Maura the sword driven through his heart.’ Interesting. Sorry that always seems to be my reaction to the Gray Man, but there it is.

[sailor-cresselia]

Zi-O 34: *Insert Cake Boss Joke Here*

Blah, blah, insert apology for delay here, add in comments about how I’m totally going to watch the two Rider Time trilogies soon, off hand mention of HeiGen Forever’s raw being out, etc etc.

On to the liveblog. I’ve been at this for a long while now, there were. Distractions. (I swear, I really am working on my fics, guys. That was one of the distractions! I promise!)

Todoroki accuses Kyosuke of not only forgetting the Oni code, but of being too soft to take the Hibiki title. Interesting.

Woz’s intense need to Recap is enough to draw him out of a BSOD induced ‘nap’. That’s dedication to his part right there.

Aw, Junichiro’s not entirely certain what’s going on this time around, and looks like he’s kind of intimidated by Kyosuke’s over-the-top stoicism. ...Relatable.

Geiz rightfully calls Kyosuke out on making them go through the training while lying about being Hibiki, and is, of course, shot down by Stubborn McNotHibiki.

Said stubborn git also refuses to answer Sougo’s incredibly justified question as to whether he was the ‘Hibiki’ who trained Tsutomu, so… Sougo asks if Geiz will stay at the shop, while he and Tsukuyomi go to talk to Todoroki.

Poor Woz. Still coming off of his Blue Screen, he gets dragged off with them. While still in a fifty-percent bluescreen state.

“I… don’t remember how to rejoice…? Me…?” ‘Clearly,’ he has no purpose outside of his Proclamations.

Actually… Sougo’s been telling Woz off about the speeches lately, since he keeps trying to do them whenever they go into Trinity. That keeps throwing off the fights, and is driving both Geiz and Sougo up a wall. Maybe he really is losing his old touch.

Hm. So, yeah, Hibiki is, as said earlier, a title, much like being a True Kamen Rider is. It’s downright offensive of Kyosuke to call himself that, when he apparently dropped out as the former Hibiki’s apprentice. To say nothing of taking on an apprentice not only under false pretenses, but while clearly not ready to do so.

This also raises the question of what happened to the former Hibiki, but I don’t exactly think we’ll get that answered.

And Todoroki doesn’t have an apprentice, doesn’t think he’s ready to be a mentor. This, with him having been Todoroki for… hang on, pulling up the wiki because I forgot the year… since 2005, so for around 14 years now. And, as an aside, he didn’t study under ‘the previous Todoroki.’ He studied under Zanki, and said that he… if I remember hearing correctly, that he didn’t feel worthy of his master’s title. So, that’s interesting.

(As an aside, I recently started watching Decade, and just got through the Blade Arc. So it was a bit of a treat when I got to go “Hey! I know that guy!” when Narutaki summoned the AR Todoroki.)

Also… Sougo being all “you dont think your ready for an apprentice, but why not practice for a day? You’re seeing it as a personal weakness, and I have a Loyal Retainer here who’s having some sort of crisis of faith. Maybe you can help each other work through those! :)”

I pout in your general direction, Kyosuke. How dare you insult Junichiro’s cooking! And us having just met Agito, too! So it’s not even a good Distraction Technique, it’s just rude. Besides…

Kyosuke’s more than salty enough to make up for any imagined deficit.

>:3

Geiz left the yearbook out on the table, to get Kysouke to look at it. Geiz is having exactly none of your shit, Kyosuke, you betrayed a small child.

The ‘reading’ fading as he shuts the book is a nice touch.

Geiz: >:( where are you going?

Kyosuke: none of your business >:\

Junichiro: I found the salt! :) … oh. Now everyone’s taken off again… :(

Tsukuyomi: I don’t think leaving Woz to his own devices is a good idea right now. :\ Or inflicting him on anyone else.

Sougo: It’s fine. :)

Ooooh, I really like this fight so far. Kyosuke’s trying to be the one to snap Tsutomu out of his Another Hibiki Rage, but. You know. Can’t thwart stage one, and all. Dude’s not Hibiki, and you need the Specific Riders Power to win. Unless you have something like Zi-O II on hand.

Sougo goes straight into Zi-O II, since, well, it looks like they aren’t getting the correct RideWatch today, after all. I don’t think we’ve seen Zi-O II in a running transformation before now, either, he’s usually stationary.

Yeah, Kyosuke, Tsutomu and Sougo were friends. Why did you think he knew his name back at the shop?

I like the slight reverb effect whenever Sougo’s sword lands a blow, it’s really neat. I think it’s meshing the Cool Techno Music from this transformation with the Drum Aesthetic of Hibiki. It’s neat.

And that’s only added to when Kyosuke catches the finishing attack with his hands. Like. WOW that’s actually REALLY badass, man, I am impressed by that. There’s a sort of… skipping noise? Like a note interrupting itself over and over? I don’t know how to describe it… kind of like a really fast stuck record, but electronic.

But also…. Do Not Block Finishing Moves. That is how people DIE.

See? Now you’re down, and Another Hibiki’s run off. Good going.

:sigh: Sougo, he intentionally took that finisher. Like an idiot. A well meaning one, because he obviously wants to keep Sougo and Geiz from attacking Tsutomu, but still not a good idea. And then he’s an asshole. “No, obviously I’m not okay.”

Sougo, you don’t need to apologize. He’s the one who ran in there.

Kyosuke: “I don’t want your help. Buzz off. I’m the only Kamen Rider Oni we need around here. >:|”

None of the trio is impressed with you, dude.

AHAHAHA Todoroki has Woz doing laundry. (Nice reaction there, bud. I mean, I kind of agree, but way to keep your cool. We totally think you’re a stoic, noble, retainer for your overlord. Yup. That sure is what we’re thinking about you this arc.)

Woz, I get that physical labor isn’t usually your thing, and I get where you’re coming from, but if you’d just told Sougo even a little of what the problem is, you wouldn’t have landed yourself in this situation.

Also, you’re way overthinking the whole birthday thing. You’re not Kogami. Don’t try to be Kogami. Trust me. Do not try to be the cake boss.

And Todoroki’s right – just being with someone is often enough. (I mean, he probably just broke the hearts of any parents who watched Hibiki, but that’s just how it goes.)

After all.

What has Sougo wanted for years, possibly even more than being a king?

He’s wanted friends.

KYOSUKE. You can’t even go sulk properly? At least go further than one building length away.

Anyway, Sougo has to be direct with you. You’ve dodged literally every question that anyone’s asked today. Cut it out.

~ahahaha yes~ Over Quartzer’s acoustic version kicks in for Kyosuke waxing nostalgic about Hibiki.

And turns out that Tsutomu used to say the same things about him.

Okay. Okay i’m. i’m actually starting to cry a little, here. Flashback to when Sougo and Tsutomu were in third grade, Tsutomu’s being bullied about wanting to be an Oni. Sougo RUNS up and shouts the bullies down. Literally shouts – practically screams at them to not make fun of peoples dreams.

They wonder why anyone should care what the new kid thinks, and walk off because they’re bored now.

This means that Sougo’s just transferred in. He’s probably still fresh off of his parents’ deaths. They died less than a month into the school year, so he would have moved in with Junichiro two, maybe three months in, depending on how long he had to stay in the hospital. (probably not nearly as long as Hiryu did.)

Sougo’s brand new here, doesn’t have any friends – won’t have any real friends, knowing what we know of how he turns out – and he jumps to Tsutomu’s defense.

They promptly introduce themselves to each other, their high-reaching dreams included.

(Tiny!Sougo is TINY, especially compared to his classmates. Even the shortest of the bullies is taller than him. He’s so little.)

[At this point, I accidentally paused for over a half hour, because I thought of how to fix a section in chapter three of Press Start to Continue that I was having trouble phrasing. That then led to me patching up several other sections. Why with the small 8 year old protags and the vehicular accidents, Toei…]

Kysouke doesn’t believe that Tsutomu would have called him his hero. He’s none of these amazing things that Hibiki was, he lied about being Hibiki to this small child.

But Tsutomu didn’t know that. He probably found out, and he’s probably pissed at you now, but when he was an elementary schooler… Kyosuke was Hibiki.

Sougo: Work with us. We can save him together. :)

Tsukuyomi: WE FOUND ANOTHER HIBIKI!

Kysouke: … alright. let’s go.

This initial scene in the warehouse is really touching.

Kysouke knows he screwed up, but he couldnt’ help but train Tsumotu – the kid was just so eager to learn.

Training Tsutomu is what made Kyosuke a real Oni. Maybe not Hibiki, not then, but it was… I think that he thinks that was enough, for then. And that is why he’s going to save Tsutomu. He owes him that.

Todoroki listens to all of this from outside the door.

A pink light glows in Kyosuke’s pocket.

(A blogger jumps back to episode 33, to see if they had shown him a blank watch the first time they went to 9-to-5. They had not, they displayed the Zi-O watch. Drat.)

“Master… is this your way of saying I’m ready?”

We have a different passing down of the powers than those before. Whether it’s in Hibiki or in Zi-O.

I still don’t like you, Kyosuke, but. I think this was a really good way to go about this.

Todoroki looks uncertain still. But. He isn’t stepping in. he knew the prior Hibiki. And he said at the top of the episode, that if Kysouke couldn’t take care of the problem, then he would. And now he’s leaving.

Just in time for Woz to stride on in.

Woz: IWAE! A TITLE HAS BEEN PASSED DOWN!

Geiz: (Oh no here we go.)

Sougo: (...is he back to normal now? Or what counts as normal? Even I know he’s weird…)

Woz: I am sorry I was so unprofessional before.

Sougo just nods mutely. (“This is fine.”)

He doesn’t know what your deal has been today, Woz. And at this point, it doesn’t matter. It’s battle time!

Sougo: It’s trinity time!

Woz and Geiz, in unison: WAIT WHAT HOLD ON WE’RE STILL NORMAL SOUGO NO-

AHAHAHA THE TRINITY WATCH DOESN’T CARE IF YOU’RE TRANSFORMED YET OR NOT I’M SO SORRY BOYS

And also apparently it feels wrong to get turned into a wristwatch.

(I tell you, watching Decade now was a great choice. The universal reaction of “WAIT WHAT HOLD ON WHAT ARE YOU DOING BACK THERE” is a gift. The Final Form Rides themselves, not so much. But it’s enough that once Tsukasa shows up in ReUnited, Philip and Shotaro are the ones who are going to warn people. “We’re all teaming up to kick his ass, he has it coming so many times over, but Do NOT Turn Your Back On Decade, he can do Weird Shit to you.”)

That aside, Sougo tries to get them into a fighting pose, but Woz’s gotta Woz. He Must Rejoice. It is in the very fiber of his being. He’s not above hijacking the body. And inside they’re just so resigned to it at this point. Sougo’s little pout when they’re lined up oh my god. (Geiz’s arm is trying not to punch Woz’s. I don’t think he can hold back much longer.)

(Let Geiz have the steering wheel at some point, guys! It’s only fair!)

Kyo- Hibiki: Is that really necessary?!

Sougo: …I mean, we’ve tried to talk him out of it, but…

Geiz: (literally shoving Woz’s arm down) F THIS LETS FIGHT!

And this… eh. It’s a fight. I still like the Trinity finisher(s) – I think I noticed before that there’s projections of the three boys right before they attack. But I didn’t catch that it calls out all three of their ‘finisher names’ in sequence, the same way it calls their Rider names. So that’s a neat touch.

And, at the Passing of the Watch, much like with Blade, Chalice, and Agito…

“Are you sure you want to hand this over? It’s your power. You finally get to be Hibiki.”

“It’s fine. I can find my own path.”

...The lighting in this scene is really nice. It’s not a type we see in Zi-O, though. Is this a visual reference to Hibiki the season? I know that cinematography wise, the first half was very different from the rest of Kamen Rider. And since they had the kanji flashing on screen in this and the previous episode, is this another way of calling back? There’s a lot more bloom than we’ve had before, is all.

“Will you train me again?”

“It won’t be easy.”

“Don’t care!”

That’s really nice. All three of them – Sougo, Kyosuke, and Tsutomu – are making their way down their respective paths.

…

All four of them. Todoroki seems to think he might be ready to take on an apprentice of his own.  

But he has to run it by Hinaka first.

TODOROKI. DID YOU GET TO MARRY HER? IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU GOT TO MARRY THE GIRL WHAT HAD A CRUSH ON YOU!

YOU GO HINAKA. WIN THAT DORK OVER.

((Unfortunately, Toei can’t include her beyond a name drop. Miyuki Kanbe, who played Hinaka Tachibana, passed away in 2008. Incidentally, she was the third actress to play Sailor Moon in the stage musicals, which explains why her name looked familiar when I went to the page for Hinaka on the KR Wiki.))

Okay enough of the sappy stuff! Back to 9-to-5!

In the dark.

On Sougo’s birthday.

Which he has made exactly zero mention of himself.

you guys I really don’t think sougo cares about his birthday. I know they aren’t going to bring this up in someone elses tribute episode, but. The bus thing. Literally four days before his ninth birthday. Puts a damper on it. Just as a reminder. Woz whatever you’re planning may be a bad idea.

:sigh: FLASHY SPEECH TIME.

Geiz and Tsukuyomi are just. Used to this. I think they may have helped him write it. Even Geiz has this sort of. Fond resignation to his expression. ...That, or he’s getting a kick out of seeing Woz make a fool of himself. Could be both.

WHO LET WOZ PUT THE RIDEWATCHES ON THE CAKE.

THAT’S A TERRIBLE IDEA.

YOU CAN’T EVEN TRY TO TELL ME THEY’RE REPLICAS. THE OVERHEAD ZOOM OUT OF THE ROOM SHOWS THE TABLE WITH THE WATCH STAND. IT’S EMPTY. GUYS WHY.

Aaaaand then my heart broke a little inside.

Sougo’s toy robot, the one that could someday give rise to Rento, is next to the cake, holding up a little sign.

Junichiro: Uh, wait, hang on, you’ve been saying ‘overlord’… you mean ‘king’, right? Please?

Tsukuyomi: Yup! Sure! Just a slip of the tongue! You know how over dramatic Woz gets! (Please don’t dig any deeper!)

And yeah. Sougo completely forgot it was his birthday.

(So, rankings between Sougo, Shinnosuke, and Takeru… which of these riders handles their birthdays going forward the worst?)

(i’m kidding, i’m kidding.)

(mostly)

And then there were four.

Only four more watches to go.

Kiva, who’s coming up in the next arc. Okay, technically the current arc, since it’s Sunday now.

Drive, who might be the next one after that. After all, we did just get the Brain special – with five returning actors.

Kabuto, who… I know jack all about Kabuto, actually. I’ve managed cultural osmosis for parts of literally every one of the Phase One Heisei Riders except for Kabuto. I’ve never heard anything except about some sort of Grandma complex, and something about food. That’s literally all I’ve got.

Four… I guess they must not have gotten Den-O in the movie after all?

I’m planning on watching that, at least in raw form, tomorrow. So. Look forward to that!

As for the preview… I’m pretty sure that woman could kill a man.

And. Um. Are those AnotherVersions of the Fangires from Kiva? Or is that just what they looked like, and Toei brought the old suits back out? I mean, they’ve been kitbashing a lot of old suits together lately, so it could go either way.

Anyway! That’s 34 Episodes of Kamen Rider Zi-O, in the bag! In the archives? The Recap Vault? ... I don’t even know anymore. I’m getting a little out of it. It’s been a rough week. :waves:

[justselfloathingthings-blog]

Random Musings on Naru (SM)

This came to mind because I want to try and get AT LEAST through Ami’s episode before I go to bed tonight, and I was reading some musings on a liveblog about Naru, but I don’t exactly want to spoil things for them so I’ll keep them here.

This is going to be long and rambly so it’s going under a cut.

I really wish that Naru... mattered more after R? Like she has a couple focus episodes in R and then from S on she and other non-MG characters that had been in Usagi’s life from the beginning just get... phased out.

Like I honestly wasn’t STRONGLY bothered that she was barely in S because it’s a shorter season and far more plot-focused than R and S1 are, but then SuperS comes along and then Stars and she just... clearly isn’t really in Usagi’s life much anymore

And like, on some level I get it. You get additional Senshi to balance, and with 5 (and Mamoru) you were kinda already pushing things at it was, so on some level you have to start cutting characters, and cutting the ones that aren’t adding anything to the story and don’t strictly need to be in it is just common sense.

But like in the original season she was one of the first characters you meet, and she was Usagi’s first real friend. She kind of has a special place in the narrative because of that, and even gets her own extended sideplot in Season 1, and a developing character arc with Umino in the second half of Season 1 and into Season 2. And she doesn’t get the treatment that some characters do, like Ms. Haruna, who just... stops existing, almost, after at the very least being one of the most common Victims of the Week in the earlier seasons.

But at the same time, it just ends up coming across, I think, the wrong way: that Usagi doesn’t need Naru anymore, that she’s found new friends that she wants to spend all her time with and Naru is just somebody that Usagi would be willing to toss by the wayside, which doesn’t make much sense at all.

It kind of doesn’t help that the last scene you see with Naru in R is Usagi going to save the day as Sailor Moon and Naru wants to know exactly what Usagi is doing, and obviously Usagi simply can’t just tell her... so there’s an awkward period and after a bit Naru just kind of... let’s her go, without saying much of anything. 

Which if anything would be kind of touching if it weren’t for like the context. Whatever Usagi did at the end of Season 1, Naru no longer remembers Usagi slowly getting a whole new group of friends to hang out with, in which case spending a bit less time with her is understandable. With how R plays out, 4 new people clearly incredibly close to Usagi just spring into her life fully formed, and Naru is just... not in it so much anymore. As a good friend this isn’t really something that Naru would bug Usagi about; if anything she’d think it was great that Usagi had gotten more social and been able to make all these new connections. 

But Naru... doesn’t really have new connections; she gets along with the other Senshi but they aren’t particularly close, and Usagi is pretty clearly drifting from her life for reasons that Usagi simply can’t explain even if she gets asked, because Naru is a magnet for danger as it is, without having to keep her secret on top of that. 

So like in the end of R either two things are happening: Naru has absolutely no clue what has happened to her friend, her friend is simply not telling, so she moves on and simply lets her go. OR Naru has figured out what’s going on with Usagi and her friends (thy aren’t they subtle, it’s not a stretch), but she simply knows that Usagi will lie if she confronts her about it now, and it’s just not worth it. So she says nothing. 

Like there’s just, no matter how you interpret the scene, a massive gulf between the two now, and even if long-term that can be repaired, and S at least tried to establish that they were friends afterwards, it’s just a depressing moment when you think about it, especially after SuperS and Stars make sure to slowly erase her entirely. 

Like, I guess the point of my rambling and why this matters is that Sailor Moon tends to stay pretty positive, and just in the undercurrent, through how they treat Naru, you get reminded that people change, friendships change, and the people that you were closest to can one day... simply not matter anymore. You drift apart, you get new friends, you get a new life, and even if you stay with them it’s clear that they’re closer to “that girl you know” at this point and less “bosom friend” 

And I think that the fact that R is the almost only time they even bother to engage with this in the text at all, rather than deal with it in a later season and just rip the band-aid off when it was clear how this was going to go, is kind of what hurts the most. 

[miraculouspaon]

Heroes Liveblog: Chapter Three!

Previous

Chapter Three: Louis

I’m not sure how I came up with the idea that one of the three kids would be able to see through their parents’ disguises his whole life, but it worked out so much better than I originally imagined when I wrote this chapter. And I appreciate the opening scene more now that I, too, am the mom of a toddler who needs to be bribed with candy on a regular basis. Marinette and Adrien as both superheroes and parents of three kids is something that’s genuinely very interesting to me, and I’ll probably revisit it at least a few times when Louis gets his own fic after Emma’s in the main series.

This chapter gets more into the sibling dynamics between the three kids, dynamics that I really enjoy writing. Too often in fiction siblings either hate each other or they’re best friends, and in my experience it’s usually a lot more nuanced, a weird kind of both at the same time. They love each other, they tease each other, they’ll bicker at the drop of a hat, and they’ll become an unassailable united front the second any outsider attacks one of them.

This chapter also sports the first mention of Rose and Juleka’s son Henri, although he doesn’t officially appear for another 16 chapters. I had big plans for him so working him in to Dani’s ribbing of Emma was fun for me. It’s also an example of Dani considering attraction to be a joke, which was not intentional foreshadowing of her later coming out as ace because I hadn’t figured that out about Dani yet, but definitely part of the pattern of me writing ace characters without realizing it.

And then we get to the kwami! The nice thing about giving the kids Nooroo, Wayzz and Duusu Rajji, as opposed to Tikki and Plagg like many other next gen AUs, is that their personalities are more or less up for grabs, particularly the way they interact with kids as opposed to adults. I can’t remember if we’d gotten Duusu’s name by the time I wrote this; I don’t think so? Going back and renaming her was never really on the table, any more than going back and renaming Adele to Emilie was. They were very fleshed our characters in the AU by the time their canon names were revealed, and their names are part of them. Besides, everything else in Generations is insanely left of canon, why shouldn’t some major character names be as well?

The running gag of the kids confusing the words kwami and Nooroo is probably way funnier to me than it should be, maybe because after all the tragedy Nooroo endures in Generations it’s nice to just see him gently exasperated by three fourteen-year-olds Trying Their Best.

The reveal that Louis could read people’s energy his whole life and he just never thought to mention it because it never occurred to him that other people couldn’t is brought to you by baby Alison finally getting glasses in first grade and being asked by her exasperated mother why she never mentioned being half-blind.

Next up: The supergrandparents arrive!

[mayajadeart]

How to make Justice League good (or at least not as terrible) Part 1: Introduction.

     As some of you may remember, a little while ago I saw Justice League, and liveblogged the whole thing. I figured when I was done that I’d write a review, explaining my opinion on the movie and why I felt that way. I did start writing this review, but it was less of a review and more of a long ramble about how many ways it could have been good but wasn’t, and eventually it became clear that I should just make that post instead of trying to articulate some kind of score for the movie based on my ramblings. This will be the first of a series of posts where I lay down my plan for how Justice League should have been made. In this part, I’ll be summarizing the key issues with the movie as it is, and establishing the rules I’m imposing on myself to make the process more interesting.

     I want to make a disclaimer that I’m not nor have I ever been a super huge DC fan-- I watched some of the old Justice League cartoon, I’ve read some classic Batman comics, and I feel generally positive towards DC’s various superheroes, but most of my familiarity with the source material comes from having friends who were super into it. With this in mind, my analysis won’t refer to the comics more than passingly for extra information, and my suggestions for improving the movie won’t necessarily align with the lore of the comics. Finally, I don’t intend to hide any important plot points when talking about the movie, so if you care about spoilers, keep that in mind.

The Problems:

     If we’re going to be fixing this movie, we do still have to be aware of exactly what’s wrong with it, and while there are many minor details that detract from the movie’s overall quality, the single biggest problem that I could identify with the film is that it failed to make me care, and there are a number of reasons why I think that happened.

     First, there’s almost no setup for the heroes. Out of the six main heroes, only three are pre-established, and only one of those has been able to elicit any real positive reaction from audiences (that being Wonder Woman, love of my life and hero of my heart). Despite this 1/6 ratio of characters we don’t give a damn about, the movie makes no effort to convey to its audience who these characters are and why we should care, instead bizarrely presenting them as though they’re already established, to the point where I actually thought there must have been a TV series or something where The Flash had already been introduced (there was a show, but it’s not canon with the DCEU and this is a completely different Flash). The result is a bunch of people we don’t know running around acting in ways that we don’t really understand for reasons that we were never really informed of, and the movie expects us to be able to get invested in this. Bad.

     Second, on a similar note, the villain receives no setup whatsoever. Who the hell is Steppenwolf? What the hell does he want? Why is he bad? The movie doesn’t properly establish why a victory by its main antagonist would be bad. Steppenwolf isn’t one of the more recognizable villains from the comics, and from what I can tell he really doesn’t have much going for him aside from being related to Darkseid, but the movie treats him like he’s some heavily anticipated baddie. At no point does an audience avatar step up and ask those questions that I posed at the beginning of this paragraph, and I had to go to Wikipedia to get the answers, so clearly the movie didn’t do a very good job of organically revealing them. With no context for who he is or why he’s bad, how am I supposed to care that he’s trying to take over the world and root for the heroes to take him down? It’s a wonder that I even remembered his name.

     Third, the movie seems to care more about cool fight scenes than it does about giving us a plot that makes sense, and that’s a really poor direction for this movie to be taking. Criticisms against previous DCEU films haven’t been that they were too boring or didn’t have cool action scenes, it was that the plots made no sense, the characters were bullocks, and they were so needlessly grimdark that they forgot to give the audience a reason to give a shit. They have responded to complaints about Batman v Superman being too long by limiting Justice League’s runtime to two hours, but the problem isn’t that people don’t like long movies, it’s that people don’t like being forced to sit through a movie they don’t like for two and a half hours. The way to save this movie isn’t to make it shorter and more action-packed, it’s to shift gears, take time to focus on the characters, and give us a story that makes some fucking sense for once.

     And here’s how I’d do that.

The Rules:

     As everyone and their mother named Martha has already pointed out, Justice League has a huge strike against it before it even starts production simply because of the other movies in the DC Extended Universe being both few in number and poor in quality, and the obvious solution would be to trash every single movie in the franchise except Wonder Woman and start over from there. But not only would that be an unrealistic expectation for a company that cares about making a profit, I also don’t give enough of a shit to try and rewrite the entire DCEU in a blog post. Therefore, the major constraint for my improved version of Justice League is going to be that it has to start from the same place as the real version, and it has to accept Man of Steel, Suicide Squad, and yes, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice as canon, though it can make minor retcons to these films in order to ensure that it flows well and makes internal sense. I’d place a budgetary constraint on the movie as well, but considering that the movie already cost $300 million, making it one of the most expensive films ever made, I don’t think that will be much of an issue. The real challenge will be making the movie look like it cost that much.

     Of course, just because the other movies happened doesn’t mean we can necessarily rely on them to have fulfilled their purpose, and a major hurdle that Good Justice League has to overcome is that in addition to establishing all the new characters it introduces, it also has to establish all the things that the previous two Superman movies failed to do. It’s going to have to set a completely new tone and reinvent its pre-established characters into people who we can actually enjoy and care about in order to have any hope of being decent. It has a lot of ground to cover, and retaking that lost ground is what I’ll be focusing on in Part 2, so stay tuned!

Continued in Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

[skittidyne]

tagged by @lethesomething! thanks darling

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

hahaha. i’ve been stuck with “skitty” as a name since 05, but i went from “digital skitty” to “skittidyne” when i made the jump to tumblr. i wanted something that wasn’t my “professional” name, but could still be skitty-ish, and so i decided to throw some persona into the mix, because that’s how i be. 

“skitty” is a pokemon and the “-dyne” suffix is the highest tier of attack spell in the persona series. and it looked better with an i rather than a y. so i guess i’m the highest tier of skitty spell!

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/subscriptions/hits/kudos).

pedestal hands down. (bbac isn’t even half as popular by any of those categories.) 

3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

it’s ryoji from persona 3! i chose it because... i love ryoji... even when i was drawing regularly, i rarely used my own art as my icons anywhere, except dA or actual art-hosting sites. 

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

oh god i know i’m going to leave people out, and I LOVE YOU ALL, but beechichi liveblogs shit to me on twitter, curiouslylazy leaves me comments longer than chapters, greatdanesandpandas leaves me amazing capslocked comments across several of my stories, haruhi02 and rd both leave AMAZING liveblog type comments on bbac, and unexpectedly but delightfully like every commenter on the kamafuta fake dating story is like, so kind and nice. (upside to writing a rarepair!) 

but i love all of my commenters and there are LOTS i’m missing here and trust me i do notice who comments regularly and across several stories ;; 

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

ghost story, character development, sayuri, a heart swelled to bursting, settling down, the thirty-six stratagems of wáng jìngzé ... a lot of smut fics... (a lot of smut fics)

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

211 subscribed to, and 112 bookmarks on ao3! 88 bookmarks on ff.net.

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

i mean. bbac, i guess. i like things with a magical slant, but i don’t ever stick around the exact same universe for multiple stories? 

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

285 subscriptions to me, idk how to check how many are bookmarked to me? can you bookmark authors on ao3? 727 subscribed & 1043 faved on ff.net though. 

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

hmm. i’d love to write a mafia/yakuza au one day, but i’m not sure i’m afraid of ppl judging me. i think i just don’t want to do that much research. i’d also love to write a sugaring au one day, if only out of PURE BITTERNESS, but that’s a lot of smut to write, and i’m afraid i’d probably start fights in the comments section. 

there’s not a lot i’m more scared of writing compared to other things, i guess. 

10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

commenting! leaving comments would be nice. truthfully, i’d like to work on my personal self-discipline when it comes to writing and getting things done, even though my output is pretty high imo. also, i guess romance writing. 

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

uhhhhhh. i never purposefully do either, and in naruto fandom i spent some time in rarepair hell, and apparently kamafuta is a fuckin rarepair so i’m again sitting in that lonely little boat, but i also tend toward more popular ships in hq fandom, at least. both? probably popular ships? 

12. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

27 on ao3! 

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. if we’re going to get technical about it... 

counting side story collections as 1 “story”, i got: 

61 on googledocs, 16 more on my harddrive. 

i don’t want to meet anyone’s eye right now

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

i ABSOLUTELY keep them in my head. if i start writing ANYTHING down, even if it’s notes or title ideas or character ideas, i know i’ve already lost the war, and i’m committed to writing something. 

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

yep! oh it puts the heart in my chest on wings was with the amazing @h-lovely and where the wild things go was with the lovely @kaiyouchan!

also, technically @tarotdactyl is listed as a co-author on operation: poison tree frog, because it’s his fault, but i’m technically the one doing all of the writing for it. for some reason

16. How did you discover AO3?

i mean, i was on lj and ff.net. things migrated. i don’t remember specifically how it happened. 

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3?

shrug emoji... i suppose i am? i think i still am in pokemon fandom, i know i’m not in naruto fandom, and i don’t even know anymore in hq fandom. (i guess only hq fandom matters on ao3)

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?

skittens!! 

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

@avoidingavoidance and @silvercistern are #writing goals, and while she’s only just writing now herself, my mother has always been a devoted supporter of my writing. past that, it was just reader feedback that kept me goin’ onward. 

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

KEEP WITH IT. COMMIT TO YOUR IDEA. there is no such thing as a bad idea, and even “bad” ideas, if committed to, can turn into FANTASTIC stories/characters/arcs. absolutely keep going, no matter what. 

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

both, haha. i’m trying to get outlines more and more these days, mostly because i guess i’m working with others and for some reason they can’t read my mind. hm. 

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

dude, i was in the pokemon fandom when farla was still around. 

yeah, i’ve gotten things that could be considered “flames”. i’ve accidentally started a ship war, and i’ve gotten nasty shipping-related comments on stories, too. hell, i’ve fought with readers over that sort of thing before. 

i’ve also had rude commenters, commenters who probably just didn’t know any better, and commenters who missed the point so badly i had to go scream into a pillow. it happens. 

for the most part, i try to respond to comments/reviews, because that’s how i was raised on the internet. i try to be polite and pleasant these days, but i’ll put my foot down. i try not to be rude or mean, though. 

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

smut. it’s always goddamn smut. 

romance in general, though. i’m good with the emotional intimacy and casual physical intimacy, but half the time i end up with more of that between the best friend characters than the ships, so... i dunno. i’d like to be more comfortable writing romance, up to and DEFINITELY including smut. 

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

bbac, political intrigue, magical girl au, fake dating au, and a couple of random oneshots. 

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

look, i ain’t happy if i’m not juggling projects. so i guess that’s a given. 

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

only during nanowrimo! some days, i don’t write a word, and other days, i’m easily in the thousands. i’m content with either, because i can only force it so often. 

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

absolutely. even when it feels like i’m stagnating with that dreaded 67-75% of the story completed zone, i know every word i write betters me as an author. 

28. What is your favorite story that you’ve written?

oh man, that’s so hard... mostly, that comes down less to emotion, and more to “what was easiest for me to write”... 

maybe pedestal. but maybe only because i’ve been feeling nostalgic lately, and it’s easy to love a story once it’s completed. 

29. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written?

haha i don’t want to say

30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

finishing bbac

completed trilogy & completed standalone original novels completed, probably in a new fandom, probably agonizing over yet another 500k novel fanfic

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

momentum!! god, when you have it, EVERYTHING IS AWESOME

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

trying to keep momentum... actually, probably, forcing yourself through a scene you KNOW has to get done and you even know what happens in it, but it’s just not happening. bleh. 

33. Why do you write?

for the attention and monetary gain (๑꒪▿꒪)* 

nah, it’s to share stories with people. i like ideas, i like turning ideas into bigger ideas, and i like people’s reactions to those ideas. it’s like friendship sharing except i don’t have to be social! <3 

i’m not tagging anyone directly but if you are an author type and like being tagged then grab this UP!