#i still dont think theyd end service i just think theyd like

[reignbowarbiter]

also ik ppl are talking about enstars ending service and while thatd be cool i genuinely dont think theyll do that😭

[snowthedemonfox]

still don't know if it's legit or not, im just posting this so i can come back to it later, but multiple sources across multiple platforms (reddit, twitter, discord, youtube, etc.) are claiming to have seen TADC on netflix earlier today, under 'worth the wait'. it seems to only be a US (and maybe UK?) thing, and it's since been taken down after people started posting about it. did anyone here see it while it was apparently still up?

links to the publicly posted videos/photos: twitter: X reddit: X, X, X, X youtube: X (there were screenshots and videos sent over discord, but i dont want to post those publicly out of respect)

there was apparently a link to the preview, which eventually turned into a "lost your way?" page. but now, it just redirects you back to netflix's home page. some people are also claiming TADC was only visible on the tv and app versions of netflix, not pc.

at first, i thought this was just a very well done photoshop with some decent editing skills, but with at least 7 different people over multiple platforms with photo/video/screenshots of it happening, it's hard to think it could be fake. the images all show different netflix title lineups, and having to edit together that many individual images and videos for a bit seems like a lot of effort.

we've been reassured that TADC will remain free on youtube (cube said it in the glitch inn) after this news came out, but there was no clarification on whether this news is legit or not, which.... if it was fake, id assume that would be an easy "no, this isnt real" answer, right? but we didnt get that?

what concerns me the most is that glitch has said they didnt want to partner with streaming services in the past, so why would they be changing their mind now? would this just be a 'netflix hosts the show but has no input' deal, or would netflix now have involvement with the show's production?

if this is real, i can at least hope it's that first option. as stupid as it is to host a FREE show on your PAID streaming service, as long as theyre not involved with TADC, i dont care what netflix does. theyd be paying glitch money to host it, and that money would go towards show production. seems like a win-win situation for both parties, as dumb as it sounds.

but in the end we still dont have any answer on if it's real or not. we'll just have to wait for either glitch, netflix, or someone else involved to clarify the truth. maybe it's all fake, and someone really did go through the effort to edit together this many photos and videos, and have that many alt accounts.

i just wanted to post this here, both so if it's fake we can at least respect the effort put in, and just in case anyone here on tumblr saw it before i could (all this happened before i woke up this morning, so i didnt get a chance to check netflix myself).

[triptychofvoids]

First things first, I love your head cannons and the way you draw it's very very crunchable, now the question, do you have any science party head cannons? That's all, thank you!! :3c

thank you i appreciate it!! and yes i have a few im normal about them <- foaming at the mouth btw

you know the drill theyre going under the cut in case it gets long

someone made a post about this already i think and i dont remember who but medic and engineer would be so good at parallel play. theyre both content to be in the lab or in the workshop doing their own thing just alongside each other, maybe occasionally dragging the other over to look at what theyre working on either to show it off or get feedback of some kind. they both find each others work to be fascinating even if they dont completely understand it, and on the occasion they combine their knowledge to work on something together it always ends up being Really Fucking Cool and fun for them, regardless of whether or not it ends up being something successful. thats their idea of a date. parallel play working on fucked up and evil science stuff

out of all the mercs, engineer and heavy strike me as the ones that would do most of the cooking. not that the others cant cook (although i think some of them would need supervision....) but most of the time they just dont really want to, and besides theyd both be very good at it. but anyway engie would know about medics sensory issues and him being picky about certain foods and hed always try to make meals everyone will enjoy. if there is something in a dish that he knows medic wont like then he will either mess with the recipe a bit in order to exclude it or will just make it on the side so everyone else can have some but medic wont have to deal with it.

medic uses a weighted blanket and likes to hold onto things in his sleep as well so anytime they share a bed engie gets compressed into a jpeg. this is sometimes avoided because it isnt uncommon for engie to pull an all-nighter or for medic to wake up freakishly early so sometimes medic will already be asleep and/or will get up before him but still, its like a hydraulic press in there

like i said about engie knowing about medics sensory issues and whatever else, sometimes on the battlefield if medic is starting to get overwhelmed he will fall back to a dispenser and engie will shoo anyone else off to go find a health kit instead so medic can get just a few brief moments of peace

they have the kind of relationship where neither of them ever get bored of each others company and neither of them ever run out of things to talk about. which is very cool and awesome for them and sort of boring and awful for anyone else who might get stuck in a room or a car with them for any extended period of time

medics love language, platonic or otherwise, can be best described as 'all of the above'. hes very affectionate and bitey and he isnt always very good at communicating that he cares but he tries to convey it through things like weird gifts (like how a cat brings back dead animals), surgery and medical evaluation, talking a whole lot and hoping it counts for something, acts of service but he can only kill and dissect, etc. and engie somehow has the patience to put up with it. engie is big on acts of service and words but it doesnt matter because medic saps up any and all affection he is given like an infinite sponge and then tries in his own deranged way to return it tenfold

also. i think shipping these two is so funny because at first glance it might look like medic is the feral one and engie is the responsible one but then you look again and the roles have switched. and then you look a third time and theyre actually both a little unhinged. anything in the name of science

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

VERY unpopular gallavich opinion time:

i dont hate gallavich as parents, i just dont love the idea. i mean, sometimes its cute, and i do believe theyd be great parents, but i feel iffy about it. firstly, i wish the writers awknoleged yevgeny after season 8 (esp awknoleged what happened to mickey and ian in 3x06) and honestly if im going to read a gallavich as parents fic it has to be with yevgeny because i love him, but even those fics arent great because im not sure how loving mickey would be towards yevgeny because of what happened. second, i vaguely remember cam saying ian and mickey will end up back in prison ten years from season 11, and it makes me think- they both are prone to getting themselves into deep shit, especially with mickey being a milkovich and ian’s mental illness. not like his mental illness would make him a bad father, it wouldnt, but it could potentially get him into legal trouble like it has many times before. i also think people should consider that neither one of them could adopt a child because theyre both convicted felons (I MEAN MICKEY WAS ARRESTED FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER FOR CHRISTS SAKE) and so theyd probably have to get a surrogate, but things may still be difficult with child protective services. its not that i dont like the idea of them as dads and i definitely see that happening for them but i also feel like it’s frequently written ooc and it would be INCREDIBLY hard for them to get a kid. if they do, they both definitely need a lot of therapy first, especially mickey dealing with terry/what happened with svet and ian dealing with his fear of turning into his mom

[clericofkelemvor]

so sil joined the church of kelemvor roughly fifteen years before the game. now in the comics we DO get a little bit of a glimpse at kelemvor's church in the gate. theres a chapel dedicated to him, managed by father alby and nerys kathon, as well as other unnamed (and i think not shown, but like, its not just the two of them ofc) clergy.

some canon info and a lot of conjecture under the cut abt the way the church of kelemvor works, but tldr: over fifteen ish years, sil first works in the city then travels to places in need of a death priest, and they get kidnapped for illithid purposes while theyre on the road.

some time after 1485DR, likely still during the 1480s, thieves get their hands on the relics kept at the chapel and nerys, through circumstances, becomes and adventurer. with minsc!! and other people. the next significant thing is in 1492, after elturel is restored to the prime material plane, this particular group of adventurers comes back to baldurs gate and encounters the cult of the absolute. father alby at that point has been infected by a parasite and he has an ominous conversation with nerys, fights her and her companions that night after they prevent a ritual from completion, and dies by nerys's hand shortly after at the chapel - a mercy kill, before he fully turns. nerys also notes when she comes back to the chapel that it is in a state of disrepair and kind of falling apart.

what this means for sil is that 1) they very likely knew both nerys and father alby, and its totally possible that theyd heard of minsc specifically as nerys' friend/adventure companion! i dont think the inverse would be true though, they didnt hold a very high position and weren't a fixture at the gate at that point, but thats a fun bit. 2) i think they would have heard of the cult of the absolute. even if the mindflayer bit was kept secret, there had to have been an explanation given for father alby's death, and the cult was already somewhat known, though not the illithid part. we dont see what happens there, so im assuming nerys handled or took part in alby's burial before leaving again like three days later (only 2 of which were not filled with adventuring stuff. busy life.).

thats kind of it in terms of canon, although im gonna try to read the comics and see if i find anything else or can get more precise timelines.

now members of the death clergy seem to have somewhat varied roles. im pulling this from the forgotten realms wiki and a 3rd edition i believe book on deities (but seemed like very little had changed between 3rd and 5th edition for this).

i think sil started as a novitiate in the city and helped mostly with burials and administrative matters around those. considering their disposition at that time, they definitely avoided being the person consoling the grieving (or were kept away from it by other clergy), so they prob ended up doing more things like giving last rites, assisting with then later on leading funerals, and helping out with matters related to the deceased's wills or last wishes.

this next part is definitely more me extrapolating but what is dnd if not a beautiful sandbox. anyway. there are a few special statuses in the death clergy, but sil isnt an actual cleric until the game starts, and they were much too despondent to take on a more warrior role before then anyway. i think they stayed a regular acolyte for all these years, but specialized in travelling to communities that needed the services of a death priest. this could include small settlements that simply dont have anyone to perform burials, but also diseased or ravaged areas with a lot of death, in need of care for both the dead and the living. the wiki indicates that followers of kelemvor opposed the lengthening of ones life through necromancy or magic and despise undead (:^)), but also that they tried to ensure people didnt meet their end before they were supposed to. i interpret that as caring for the living as well as the dead; the grieving or abandoned who might take their own lives, and the injured and sick who might succumb too early. so i think for a good decade sil mostly traveled, at first with others but then gradually more often alone - due both to gaining enough experience to handle their duties by themselves and their very taciturn demeanor not making them a particularly sought out travel companion - to either remote settlement or places that had suffered/were suffering some sort of calamity, like hostile raiders, natural disasters, or fast spreading illnesses. they developed an affinity for medicine and treating people, a good sense of whats needed to handle inhospitable environments (say, mountains in winter, flooded villages, stuff like that), and eventually scripts they can fall back on when interacting with the distressed people they would inevitably encounter.

theyd be back in the city when the stuff with father alby happens, and help with restructuring the clergy there, and at that point start having a more important role within the church in the gate. theyve been around for a while, theyve fulfilled their duties well, and theyre in the right place at the right time to have a say. they're still very detached, but theyre dedicating whatever's left of their life to the church of kelemvor and they want it to run well. i dont think theyd get a higher rank necessarily, but theyre listened to when they say something, and just have more weight. i think that means theyd be targeted for tadpoling; as a fairly unremarkable and easy to disappear for a bit person who still has some connection to the rest of the church, and can thus be a gateway to infecting more people in an organisation that the cult has tried (and managed!) to take over before. they go back to travelling a couple months after the father alby stuff so i figure they got abducted on the road pretty easily.

the church of kelemvor presence in the gate doesnt seem huge, and doesnt seem actually particularly concentrated in one location. the chapel is presented as the seat of it in the gate and is situated in the lower city, but it seems pretty small, and while kelemvor isnt a widely followed deity it still makes more sense to me that the chapel seems so small because most members if the clergy are spread out across the city in smaller offices, either attached to cemeteries or legal offices and maybe even with the fists and guards. something thats also mentioned in the wiki is the "most solemn order of the silent shroud", composed mainly of workers, artisans and crafters whose activities are related either directly or peripherally to death (embalmers, gravediggers, etc). their task is to "inform the church of gravesite desecration and undead sighting", but i figure theres also just logistics that ties them to, if not the church, then their local clergy, and specifically death clergy. so i think itd make sense that theyd work closely together and that youd have scattered members of the church; their role in general doesnt particularly benefit from them being all in the same place, and esp in a city as big and frankly fucking messy as baldurs gate theres prob need of them in plenty of places. plus, like sil, i figure a fair amount of them operate outwith city boundaries as well.

i think thats most of the thoughts i have on this so far. i like thinking abt it bc this is actually such a huge part of their life, not just in terms of amount of time but bc they genuinely believe in the work and in kelemvor's guidance of souls. for backstory reasons :^) that im sure ill expand in eventually

[pesterloglog]

Dave Strider, Dirk Strider

Act 6, page 7917-7922

DAVE: damn

DAVE: and i thought our houses were pointlessly tall before

DAVE: it just doesnt stop from keep constantly getting more and more vertically enormous

DIRK: Shit is downright precipitous at this point.

DIRK: Like, upways.

DAVE: haha yeah

DAVE: we made sure as fuck not to come right out and literally describe that building as tall

DIRK: Hell yes.

DIRK: Who needs small and serviceable adjectives when the most ass-backwards way of saying a thing is right there, tantalizingly hidden within the vast ocean of language.

DIRK: Like a treasure in a huge shitty clam.

DAVE: we are way on the same page philosophically here

DIRK: Who is surprised by this?

DIRK: Zero people, is who.

DAVE: sounds like a club for losers to me

DAVE: theyre lucky they dont have any members, otherwise theyd all be lame as hell

DIRK: Yeah.

DAVE: so uh

DAVE: why do the houses need to be so tall again

DAVE: i never actually understood that

DAVE: except to reach the gates but once we all figured out how to fly and shit that became so pointless

DIRK: Yeah. After a while in the game, building kind of stopped mattering.

DIRK: Except near the end. Getting them to the top is just a point of completion.

DIRK: Then you dump the grist rig on top of it, apparently.

DIRK: That lets the thing spray out all the grist from the hoard in the planet's core, kind of like a huge oil derrick I guess.

DAVE: oh

DAVE: how do you know this

DAVE: do you guys have like a manual or

DIRK: I'm in communication with Arquiusprite.

DIRK: He's working on it now.

DAVE: so youre in communication with him like...

DAVE: RIGHT now?

DIRK: Yes.

DIRK: Via my shades.

DIRK: Which he incidentally used to be.

DIRK: Like, as a computer, which he lived inside as my Auto-Responder.

DAVE: right

DAVE: and

DAVE: uh

DAVE: why... did you make that thing again

DAVE: not that you ever told me before

DAVE: 'again' is just like a stammering tack-on to that sentence so as to try and not sound too fucking rude

DIRK: I don't think it's a rude question. It's perfectly fair to wonder what was going through my head when I made him.

DIRK: I've spent a lot of time wondering about that myself.

DAVE: so you just

DAVE: straight up programmed a copy of your brain

DIRK: There was some programming involved, but also a bit of cheating, through the mapping of a captchalogued ghost-imprint of my brain.

DIRK: I guess part of it was just about trying to understand myself.

DIRK: But I don't think I would have put it that way at the time. For a while I insisted he was meant to be a "debate partner" or some horseshit.

DIRK: I was pretty young, and had some stupid ideas.

DIRK: About irony in particular. But also a lot of mostly faux-intellectual thoughts on a wide variety of topics.

DIRK: Like philosophy, consciousness, programming, identity, history, ancient pop-culture... really it ran the full gamut of pretension.

DIRK: Not that I don't still find that stuff interesting. I'd just like to think I'm somewhat less full of shit about it all now.

DAVE: yeah me too

DAVE: i mean, about my interests and stuff

DIRK: Creating him was an interesting exercise I guess, but over the years I came to see his development as one of my biggest mistakes.

DIRK: He sort of turned into a monster. But I could never bring myself to get rid of him, or even really blame him for being an asshole, because he wasn't actually that different from me.

DIRK: Like, by definition.

DIRK: He seems alright as Arquius though. At least it keeps him busy, obsessing over his muscles, asking for milk and shit like that.

DAVE: hmm

DAVE: i guess i started some projects i regretted

DAVE: but nothin like making a milk weirdo eventually exist

DAVE: it sounds fucked up but is also kind of an awesome story in its own way

DIRK: I guess so.

DAVE: maybe im lucky i was never that good with computers

DAVE: now computer ART thats a different story

DAVE: ok it actually isnt i fuckin suck at that too

DAVE: but dammit i try my best and make some magic happen at least in my own mind so maybe thats good enough

DIRK: It certainly worked out for you in my universe.

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: i mean

DAVE: i DID captchalogue my own ghost brain once but i didnt know what to make of that and thought it was kinda weird so that never really went anywhere

DAVE: probably for the best

DIRK: It definitely is.

DIRK: Tinkering with your own mind, or identity or whatever... it's a dark road to go down.

DIRK: There are enough splinters of everyone running around out there as it is, just as a natural byproduct of our reality. For me in particular. Probably for you too, as a time player.

DIRK: That process doesn't need to be encouraged or fucked with.

DAVE: for real

DAVE: my bro did cool things with computers too

DAVE: i mean nothin like making a clone of his brain or anything thank god

DAVE: just some absurd bullshit with web bots and stuff mostly to help prop up his various "enterprises"

DIRK: You mean the porn stuff?

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: but with puppets of course

DAVE: it was always about the puppets

DIRK: Naturally.

DAVE: he made all these porn bots that would just talk to each other in a chatroom endlessly

DAVE: all like gettin each other riled up about squishy bottoms and whatnot

DAVE: actually it was pretty entertaining to watch them go at it for hours

DAVE: i think they may have been teetering on the threshold of SOMETHING resembling self awareness?

DAVE: except they only seemed to apply that faculty to reach even more heightened states of sexual excitement for a bunch of nude soft puppets

DIRK: That sounds...

DIRK: Oddly rewarding.

DIRK: I mean, not to say he wasn't still a douche.

DIRK: But as a pastime, cultivating a group of earnest, erotic puppet-loving chatbots sounds so much more relaxing than painstakingly constructing a version of your own brain, and then arguing with it for years thereafter.

DIRK: Almost like tending to a little flock of pigeons.

DAVE: yeah you know he did some cool things

DAVE: it wasnt necessarily all inherently terrible

DAVE: things i would really appreciate under better circumstances

DAVE: he definitely had a lot of drive and also some uh "ideas" that warranted a certain amount of respect i guess

DAVE: he just

DAVE: maybe should not have been allowed near a child?

DAVE: sall im sayin

DIRK: Sounds about right.

DIRK: We really don't have to talk about him anymore though, if it is going to stir up more bad shit for you.

DAVE: nah im alright

DAVE: i think that is all mostly out of my system

DAVE: i mean not forever because i dont think thats how things work

DAVE: i just mean my venting fit is over and im probably good for another 16 years or so and i can return to being mostly deadpan and rad

DIRK: Ok.

DIRK: Well, in sixteen years, if you need someone to vent to again, let me know.

DAVE: sure

DAVE: assuming we havent been killed by like 10 jacks before that i will

DAVE: you certainly seem to be the right guy for that

DIRK: For what?

DAVE: i mean like the most suitable recipient of my hysterical fits on that particular subject

DAVE: there is no way i would ever tell karkat all that

DAVE: i mean maybe some stuff but not ALL the stuff its just too heavy

DAVE: i certainly wasnt gonna mention the stuff to rose or john or jade or whoever else

DAVE: if i was ever gonna do one of my patented acrobatic pirouettes off that particular handle to anyone it really only could have been at him

DAVE: except he was dead

DAVE: and even if he wasnt and i did say all that shit

DAVE: theres no way it would have resulted in anything resembling reconciliation

DAVE: which i think

DAVE: was something i kinda needed

DAVE: but didnt realize it

DAVE: so....

DAVE: thank you for being a really plausible stand in for him who i could rip to shreds??

DAVE: while still being basically innocent of all that terrible garbage

DAVE: so you end up sorta being like an avatar for him that is much easier to forgive

DAVE: i mean

DAVE: maybe FORGIVE isnt the right word because im not sure he deserves that and anyway it doesnt matter because hes been dead for years and at this point is just an irrelevant deceased weirdo who doesnt matter anymore

DAVE: i guess i mean coming around to a place where i dont have to feel rotten all the time anymore

DAVE: and i guess im lucky i got to blunder into a reality that just happened to have the exact right version of a dude which made that possible for me

DAVE: sorry this fuckin ramble is really getting away from me

DAVE: i have no idea if im making sense anymore

DIRK: I think I get it.

DIRK: And sure.

DIRK: You're welcome for me existing.

DAVE: hey can that be like

DAVE: the motto on our family crest

DIRK: I think it already is.

DAVE: all that melodramatic sadbabble aside

DAVE: i think its perfectly cool if youre still curious about your adult self

DAVE: and i dont mind tellin you more stuff about him if you want

DAVE: i know im still wondering about what my adult self got up to

DIRK: Yeah.

DIRK: Well like I said, any time you want to know more, feel free to ask.

DAVE: kay how about

DAVE: we do this thing

DAVE: when i met roxy we did a thing

DIRK: A thing?

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: its called the lightning round

DIRK: That does sound like a Roxy thing.

DIRK: Does it by any chance involve asking a rapid-fire series of questions, some of which end up being a bit too personal or invasive?

DAVE: well yeah when she does it

DAVE: we could be chill though

DAVE: when it comes to asking about each others secret crushes and shit

DIRK: Then I guess I will disclaim in advance that I don't have any, and I don't care about yours even if you do.

DAVE: it is settled then on the fact that we are a couple of cool dudes who know where to draw the line on certain topics

DIRK: Cool.

DIRK: So how do we start.

DIRK: Whose lightning round is this, mine or yours?

DAVE: it can be yours go ahead shoot

DIRK: Ok.

DIRK: How...

DIRK: Did...

DIRK: He, um,

DIRK: Come to "adopt" you?

DAVE: i was a baby and i came down to earth on a meteor while riding a pony with a pink heart on its ass

DAVE: he found me in a crater on top of a dead pony and gave me a lil baby pair of shades that look exactly like the ones youre wearin now

DIRK: I see.

DIRK: So you decided to ditch those shades for the aviator glasses?

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: years ago john got me these for my bday

DAVE: it might have been like an "ironic dare" to wear them i dont remember

DAVE: but when i got em i was like hell yeah im wearing these

DAVE: gonna rock these fuckers til the end of time

DAVE: they were ben stillers

DAVE: like literally

DAVE: they actually touched his weird sort of gaunt face in one of his films

DIRK: Wait...

DIRK: THE Stiller?

DAVE: yeah

DIRK: Incredible.

DIRK: Also, such a shame what happened to that poor man.

DAVE: wait what happened to him

DIRK: I can tell you when it's your lightning round.

DIRK: Or mine. Whatever. I'm still not sure whose lightning round it is when you're the one asking questions.

DAVE: dunno ask roxy

DIRK: Ok. Anyway, didn't mean to interrupt.

DAVE: but yeah we would send each other stuff sometimes

DAVE: me and john

DAVE: well we all would

DAVE: usually absurd birthday packages and such

DIRK: We did that too.

DIRK: Except I had to send things through time.

DIRK: Always had to figure out stuff small enough to send through the sendificator, even if it was piece by piece.

DAVE: nice

DAVE: one time it turned out we ACCIDENTALLY sent presents through time

DAVE: i mean not literally, more in a roundabout way

DAVE: we all sent john a rabbit

DAVE: but all three rabbits just turned out to be the same damn rabbit

DAVE: because of stupid time shit

DIRK: Once I deliberately and quite literally sent a rabbit through time.

DIRK: It was a robot.

DAVE: wow

DIRK: He was a loyal friend to Jane. I don't know what happened to him though.

DAVE: yeah i dunno what happened to johns rabbits either

DAVE: rabbits am i right

DIRK: I hear you, man.

DAVE: what next

DIRK: Hm.

DIRK: You say he owned Cal as well?

DAVE: yep

DIRK: Did he come down to Earth on a meteor with Cal too?

DAVE: i think so

DAVE: that was a long time ago

DAVE: kinda weird to imagine him strutting around with that puppet as a kid in the 80s

DAVE: or maybe just kinda funny actually

DAVE: he sure held on to it a long time

DAVE: must have gotten attached at a really early age and just never let go

DAVE: i guess you fell to earth with one of those things too?

DIRK: Yeah.

DIRK: But if I came to Earth on a meteor the same way you all did, then I guess I just got dunked right in the fucking ocean.

DIRK: Which makes sense. One of my earliest memories is of using Cal as a flotation device.

DIRK: So he sorta saved my life in a way. I guess I bonded with him too, the way your bro did, even if that sounds a bit stupid.

DIRK: Then again, it didn't help matters much that I lived alone in the middle of the ocean. He was my only real life friend. I mean, until I built some new ones.

DAVE: hmm wait we fucked up

DAVE: i asked you a question its not my turn

DAVE: keep firing

DIRK: Ok.

DIRK: How did your bro die?

DAVE: he died fighting one of these jacks

DAVE: at this point i almost forget which one

DAVE: no wait

DAVE: ok yeah it was the omnipotent dog one

DAVE: the jack from our session

DAVE: he was fighting like a lesser form of him and then jack got extra prototyped by dog powers and then got outmatched and stabbed with his own sword

DAVE: pretty sure davesprite was fighting with him and almost died too but then it turned out he didnt

DAVE: but now im at least 99% sure that davesprite is DEFINITELY dead and wont suddenly reappear as a stupid surprise or anything

DIRK: I hate stupid surprises.

DAVE: word

DIRK: So, you said he "trained" you.

DIRK: I'm guessing that means he knew what was coming?

DIRK: Or, some things about your future, at least?

DAVE: seems that way

DAVE: not sure what he knew or how he knew it

DAVE: all our guardians seemed to know bits and pieces of stuff and did vague mysterious things to prepare

DAVE: to this day i have no idea if he was training me to fight lord english or if he even knew who that guy was on any conscious level

DAVE: or it was more like general purpose training to be able to survive some hard shit after the end of the world happened

DAVE: youd have to ask him but thats impossible

DAVE: i do know he managed to get the drop on a meteor before i entered the game

DIRK: What?

DAVE: as far as i can tell he stood on top of it and split it in half with his sword

DIRK: Um,

DIRK: Not to be too much of a wet blanket on that rad as fuck anecdote, but that sounds kind of far fetched.

DAVE: yeah it does doesnt it

DAVE: but then again so does a baby getting dunked from space in the ocean then floating on a weird doll and then growin up by himself with no adults around

DIRK: That's not far fetched. It was pretty straightforward.

DIRK: I think I just found a building poking out of the water, climbed up, then I just started foraging for food in there like a feral infant.

DIRK: Supplies which I'm sure your adult self must have left behind for me, seeing as he clearly must have known some things about the future too.

DIRK: Speaking of which, maybe it's your turn now?

DAVE: yeah ok

DAVE: questions about me hmm lets see

DAVE: ok FIRST the fuck of all

DAVE: what happened to ben stiller

DIRK: He was deemed a heretic, and was crucified on the Washington Monument by some clowns.

DAVE: wow

DIRK: Due to his dedication to freedom and peace, he came to be seen as a martyr, and then a holy figure.

DIRK: He was left on the monument as an example to all, but thousands of faithful gathered below to gaze up at his pious, sort of gaunt face.

DIRK: For years thereafter, his followers would carve stone busts of him in his memory, capturing the piercing glare of his final expression.

DIRK: But they were all smashed to pieces by the presidential church.

DIRK: That religious movement didn't last very long.

DIRK: Rumor has it the batterwitch had a lot of experience crushing righteous insurrections.

DAVE: did my adult self get pissed about stiller

DAVE: i bet he got pissed

DIRK: Yeah. There was a whole series of final insults that led to his active rebellion, instead of just producing subversive media.

DIRK: At one point, the witch "remastered" all of his films to clean up all the shitty artifacts, and released them in stunning high-def quality all over the world, using a rational business model and everything.

DIRK: That REALLY set him off.

DAVE: what the fuck

DAVE: how fucking dare that woman

DAVE: so then he tried to kill the batterwitch right

DAVE: who is the same exact alien as the condesce in this session??

DIRK: Yes. Same one.

DIRK: And yeah, he teamed up with Rose from the same era.

DIRK: They supposedly put up a good fight, but both died.

DAVE: so...

DAVE: does john know that he is literally about to go fight betty crocker yet or what

DIRK: I have no idea.

DIRK: I really don't know John at all, or any of your friends.

DIRK: I know Jane was the heiress to the Crocker brand. Uh, obviously? It is her name after all.

DIRK: Was John the heir to that empire in his universe?

DAVE: nah

DAVE: i mean not to my or his knowledge

DAVE: he just fuckin hated that company for some reason

DAVE: i think his reason was literally as mundane as just being slightly overexposed to cake

DAVE: thats classic john though he doesnt get pissed about anything except for the absolute dumbest shit

DAVE: but i guess his instincts were right in this case

DAVE: maybe we should just

DAVE: not tell him

DAVE: that hes fightin crocker i think the poor dude has probably had enough mental breakdowns for one adventure

DAVE: we all have

DIRK: I'd like to get to know him.

DIRK: Not to mention Rose and Jade. Would have been nice to hang out and chat, in a circumstance where we weren't supposed to prepare for an imminent deadly struggle.

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: well i guess we could have hung out there a few minutes longer

DAVE: i mean you wouldnt have got much outta jade who is stuck in perma-nap mode

DAVE: just like old times i guess

DIRK: Huh?

DAVE: she used to sleep a lot

DIRK: Ah.

DAVE: but yeah there wasnt much time except for like a bunch of heys and oh nice to meet yous

DAVE: and also i think i would have still been a shitty train wreck socially if we all just hunkered down right then and there for another extensive round of freestyle paltalk

DIRK: Right, I was kind of nervous about lingering there for more than a minute too.

DIRK: Mainly because of Jake.

DIRK: I didn't want to make him uncomfortable.

DIRK: I think I have done enough of that.

DAVE: i guess jake was kinda like your john of the group huh

DAVE: wait that was a pretty dumb observation never mind

DIRK: Nah, sounds about right.

DIRK: Seems like John was your close buddy growing up, and Jake was mine.

DAVE: john and i never really had anything like a falling out

DAVE: except for not talkin to each other for a few years on account of being on a meteor and boat respectively

DAVE: but i guess you two had some buddy troubles or somethin?

DIRK: Yes. A lot of buddy troubles.

DIRK: I vaguely touched on it earlier. I was a really bad influence in his life.

DAVE: what happened

DIRK: A lot of things, that were mostly my fault.

DIRK: Basically, I think I bullied him into dating me.

DIRK: Although I had plenty of "help" from my Auto-Responder.

DIRK: There were a lot of insane plans that he hatched on my behalf.

DIRK: But in fairness, I went along with them.

DIRK: To this day, I can't really tell how much of that bullshit was his doing, and how much was mine, which I've just covered up through denial or selective memory.

DAVE: wait

DAVE: you

DAVE: you dated jake?

DIRK: Yeah.

DIRK: That didn't last long though.

DIRK: It was really lopsided and kind of forced.

DAVE: ...

DAVE: so

DAVE: you

DAVE: ...

DAVE: hmm

DIRK: What?

DAVE: nothing

DAVE: i think were breakin one of the rules here

DAVE: this tangent got too personal

DIRK: Oh yeah.

DIRK: I forgot we weren't doing that.

DIRK: Anyway, carry on. You were asking about adult Dave?

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: so that covers how he died

DAVE: taking a futile stand against some unbeatable foe

DAVE: cant say im too surprised about that cause what else is even new

DAVE: what about his early life though

DAVE: guess i arrived around the same year my bro did in my universe?

DAVE: just came down on the same dead horse i rode in on

DAVE: into a world full of opportunities

DAVE: how did i get started

DIRK: His early life isn't well documented.

DIRK: There's hardly anything to read about him until he broke into show business with a few obscure projects at the turn of the century.

DIRK: It all snowballed from there.

DAVE: i guess the one thing we know for sure is i didnt find a kid in a crater and take him under my wing

DAVE: that was probably for the best

DIRK: Heh.

DAVE: actually maybe its better that most of his story is left to my imagination

DAVE: kinda like how you said you spent a lot of time thinkin about him

DAVE: filling in the gaps of his ridiculous exploits

DIRK: Right.

DIRK: There's certainly a lot of lore to work with.

DIRK: Urban legends and stuff.

DAVE: like what

DAVE: actually wait

DAVE: dont tell me

DAVE: at least not now maybe down the road it would be cool to hear some

DAVE: i think id prefer to fill in the blanks myself for a while

DAVE: really it sounds dope as hell to imagine that sort of blank canvas life

DAVE: dropped on earth as a kid in the 70s or 80s or whatever with no bossy adult to reel me in

DAVE: and just having to figure stuff out

DAVE: especially knowing that many years later it all worked out ok

DAVE: really wonder what i did

DAVE: was i like some homeless eighties ragamuffin???

DAVE: jesus christ that sounds fairly adorable if so

DAVE: maybe i slept in an alley on a bed of rubix cubes and alf merchandise

DAVE: or maybe i offered my old school rap services for food

DIRK: Like, through a shitty cardboard booth?

DIRK: You know, like the one from the fuckin' Charlie Brown comics.

DIRK: "This is what the refrance," FYI.

DAVE: yes exactly

DAVE: this sounds like exactly the life for me

DAVE: what if without a penny to my name and the wind at my back i hopped a boxcar to the big apple

DAVE: because as a dumb child i naively believed thats where they made all the apple juice

DAVE: id be sorely disappointed when i got there but it wouldnt matter because id probably scrape together a living on off off off broadway like...

DAVE: making shitty cartoons

DAVE: on stage

DAVE: and saying

DAVE: you guys

DAVE: this will be SO much funnier once the internet happens TRUST ME

DAVE: then the aristocratic patrons of fine theater just shrug and dump their shillings into my orphan hat

DIRK: It sounds to me like you've been reading up on the urban legends already.

DAVE: hahaha

DAVE: i wonder if he had like

DAVE: friends

DIRK: It sounds like he knew a lot of people, at least later in life.

DAVE: sure

DAVE: i mean im sure he knew rose at some point because obviously they teamed up

DAVE: but as fairly old people?

DAVE: it sounds as though they only knew each other as a result of their notability

DIRK: This seems likely.

DAVE: i mean more like the friends i grew up with

DAVE: he couldnt have grown up with john or jade as friends because they were already old by the time he got there

DAVE: this cool 80s kid fantasy was probably just a lot lonelier than ive been picturing in my sweet daydreams

DAVE: i didnt even have the MAYOR god what a nightmare now that i think about it

DAVE: i wonder if all he cared about was making ludicrous shit and fighting evil pastry moguls

DAVE: do you know if he had any other interests

DIRK: Like what?

DAVE: i dont know

DAVE: did you ever read any urban legends about.....

DAVE: paleontology

DIRK: Paleontology?

DAVE: yes the scientific study of dead shit

DIRK: Not that I recall.

DAVE: hmm

DAVE: i guess he probably didnt do anything with that

DAVE: what a shame

DAVE: maybe he never even got the idea since he had completely different experiences

DAVE: but if i were suddenly dropped back in the 20th century id probably look into it at some point

DAVE: i dunno how though

DAVE: i think it would be mainly like

DAVE: some sort of theraputic interest

DAVE: something relaxing to think about instead of a bunch of ironic and stupidly ambitious objectives

DIRK: Yeah, like the porn bots.

DAVE: yeah exactly

DIRK: Maybe some day, when we're both old men, you can live a quiet life tending to your fossils, and I will do the same with my dear collection of simple-minded chat robots fixated on puppet ass.

DAVE: sounds like the fucking life to me

DIRK: What was the lightning round question this stemmed from again?

DIRK: I forget.

DAVE: dunno

DAVE: maybe were tapering off with the lightning round stuff anyway and its just naturally deteriorating into regular dudechat

DIRK: Maybe.

DIRK: You sure you don't have anything else before we say it's officially deteriorated?

DAVE: k heres a curveball

DAVE: what the fuck are you wearing

DIRK: My prince gear.

DIRK: You know. Leggings, slippers, the poofy asshole pants, a hood with some sort of cloth tiara deal embedded in it.

DIRK: Basic stuff for princes, apparently.

DAVE: huh

DAVE: gotta say

DAVE: some of these god tier ensembles really are...

DAVE: something

DIRK: I thought I hated it at first.

DIRK: But over the couple hours I spent flying back, with time to think about all sorts of stuff...

DIRK: It kinda grew on me.

DIRK: The asshole pants are pretty damn comfortable, so I dunno if I even care how stupid they look.

DIRK: And I *am* kind of an asshole, after all. So who am I to complain.

DAVE: i thought the same thing about my cape outfit at first

DAVE: felt like some bozo from the renaissance festival

DAVE: like maybe i should get on a horse and sing a shitty ballad

DAVE: but then it grew on me pretty quickly

DAVE: hardly ever took it off in three years

DAVE: youre right its comfortable and theyre fuckin magic pajamas or whatever and they start to feel like part of who you are after long enough

DAVE: i mean they are supposed to last you forever right

DAVE: kinda by definition since they come along with immortality

DAVE: maybe part of their magical nature includes this insidious quality where they grow on you

DAVE: or not i dunno maybe this is bullshit and ill just wear some normal person clothes when this is all over

DAVE: what about you are you gonna wear god duds forever

DIRK: Nah. I'm sure I'll wear regular stuff again at some point.

DIRK: If a shirt with a hat on it can be deemed regular.

DAVE: im cool with deeming it as such

DAVE: yeah maybe youre right and we should all stop dressing like tools from an infinite magic slumber party for floundering teens

DAVE: and just look like standard floundering teens

DAVE: some of the getups are pretty out there

DAVE: jakes tho...

DAVE: uh

DAVE: damn??

DIRK: I...

DIRK: Yeah.

DIRK: That page costume.

DIRK: I'd have commented on it, except that would've been casting a stone through a particularly fragile glass wardrobe.

DIRK: So... I just flew away.

DAVE: yeah there was uh

DAVE: some palpable awkwardness there

DIRK: Hm.

DAVE: sorry im still

DAVE: tryin to

DAVE: like

DAVE: wrap my head around

DAVE: ...

DIRK: What?

DAVE: uh

DAVE: dammit

DAVE: ok i guess i might have to break one of our lightning round rules

DAVE: only a little tho

DAVE: i hope

DIRK: About what?

DIRK: The personal stuff?

DAVE: yeah

DIRK: That's fine.

DAVE: ok maybe im not even asking you anything

DAVE: maybe this is just a starting point to ramble to myself

DAVE: on a certain topic

DAVE: i think...

DAVE: there is a SLIGHT chance...

DAVE: i may be the biggest idiot in the world

DIRK: ?

DAVE: when it comes to understanding some things about my bro

DAVE: some pieces i never really put together

DAVE: about him

DAVE: until maybe literally right now

DAVE: which i think makes me an objective dumbass

DIRK: What does this have to do with me and Jake?

DAVE: idk

DAVE: nothin

DAVE: maybe i dont wanna ask you anything about jake

DAVE: maybe ill just keep abiding by the code of basic dude manners on that

DAVE: if i bother skirtin the line of this rule maybe id rather ask you other stuff instead

DIRK: Like what?

DAVE: like

DAVE: um

DAVE: say one of your best friends is a knucklehead you havent seen in three years

DAVE: and unless you use ultra direct and explicit language he just wont put two and two together himself

DAVE: and also say ANOTHER best friend is a girl you feel like you had kind of a special relationship with but you ALSO hadnt seen in three years

DAVE: and shes asleep

DAVE: but at some point shell wake up and youll have to talk to her

DIRK: ...

DAVE: this is dumb im not making any sense

DAVE: lemme start over

DAVE: ok lets say

DAVE: way back whenever

DAVE: howww

DAVE: ...

DAVE: how did you tell your friends

[teeth-and-tea]

ANIME & MANGA I HAVE BINGED IN THE LAST MONTH: May 2021

I've Been Hunting Slimes for the Past 300 Years and Now Ive Maxed Out My Level: incredibly long name aside, cute af slice of life that suffers Same Face Syndrome. I'm still happy to watch it because of how feel good and fluffy it is though, Im probably gonna forget about it in two or three years tho. 8/10.

Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro: I found out this was a webcomic first and suddenly all the HORNINESS made so much more sense. A Femdom, Degradation, Humiliation, Dacryphilia Bullies to Lovers story disguised as a high school rom-com which, I'm not going to lie, misses SKEEVY CITY by mere inches on a regular basis. However, I'm a Dom/Switch and this entire relationship sets off my dom brain center like New York City just shy of midnight. So if you're into that sort of scene, this anime is for you. If not, it's still fascinating but you're probably gonna be a little put off by how mean the Girl!Bully is to the guy MC. Unless you find out something about yourself, in which case, congrats! Stay safe, sane, consensual, and learn about the traffic light system on top of safe words, I promise you'll have a better life in general after that. Still Ongoing, currently 10/10.

Fruits Basket: IM GONNA CRY I LOVE THIS ANIME SO MUCH???? The original anime came out when I was in... I think middle school and my parents were really strict on what I watched so I never got to experience the first wave and I never bothered to watch the show ever after I moved out of the house years later. However, now that I'm much older I honestly can say this is one of my favorite anime to date, and all the characters are charming, lovable, with their own problems that I can connect to or sympathize with, and I love the MC which is always a treat tbh. Except Akito. Akito can suck a sandpaper dick. I'm only on S2 tho so no spoilers! Anime 11/10.

Monster Girl Doctor: went in thinking it was gonna be a monster girl who's a doctor with a homoerotic assistant (her name is SAPPHY okay sue me for thinking it) and ended up watching the entire dubbed harem series. Honestly, I've seen worse and this one has consistent follow-through on interesting characters and backstory enough for me to shove aside the blatant under-monstrousness of the female monsters and the harem-ness of everything else. Dubbing is honestly really good, which is a treat, and the monster designs are not the worst and the MC is tolerable. Honestly, I don't mind having watched it! The mix of cgi and the traditional animation together work pretty strangely though, and it often doesn't flow super well. 7.5/10

So I'm a Spider, So What: Dubbed version which honestly isn't that bad. Took me a bit to get into it, but after realizing that it's got a mismatched timeline a la The Witcher, it made so much more sense. Heavily done in cgi, and you can definitely tell between the 2D and 3D animations, but not the worst in the world. I went in not expecting much but it ended up being an Issekai I can stand and even enjoy. On god has a decent story... with the spider. I'd be a liar if I didnt say I skipped some of the human parts just to get back to the best part of the show. 8/10.

Somali and the Forest Spirit: I'm so fucking nostalgic for this thing it makes me want to go and hug my dad. About a human girl under threat of being eaten with a monster-dominated world. Very obvious "humans fear what they don't understand" message but instead of the humans learning tolerance it's what happens when they get annihilated first so like, kudos for the mangaka for having the guts to do that. I cried like a baby regularly. It's really good, I watched the dub and ID WATCH IT AGAIN!!! 9/10.

To Your Eternity: Oh my god. O h my g o d. Fell in love on the first episode, ngl. About if an immortal being learned how to be a person from scratch. I love it. HOWEVER. Keep a box of tissues on you at all times because you're gonna need them. I'm only on EP7 because that's all that's out right now but just know. I love it. Not for everyone but certainly for my "what do we define as human and the human condition" ass. 12/10.

Those Snow White Notes: A sports anime without any sports. About shamisen playing which is cool because I never realized how cool this instrument was??? Its neat af. OP1&2 are by Burnout Syndrom so know theyre fire. Gonna be real, its pretty alright, but not extraordinary. You can tell they were using the characters as archetypes rather than actually characters which kinda kills a lot of the emotional value you could've had, but I'm still gonna watch it. It doesn't make me cringe as hard as other sports anime tho so I consider it toptier in that regards but if you're a big sports anime fan you might be bummed out by it. Every single musical performance is INCREDIBLE tho. A solid 8/10.

Toilet Bound Hanako-kun: THE ART OMFG IT'S SO GORGEOUS. Listen, if you took coptic markers and gave them an animation budget with some manga panel direction thrown in there, that's this anime. It's beautiful. Gorgeous. I'm in love with the aesthetic every second. Story? Really good. Characters? I love the MC and his evil little twin brother asshat. Demons? Not super imaginative but I'm carrying on happy as can be anyways. Dubbing? A bit shaky at times but I found the voices charming if a little off for some of them. I'm already waiting for the second season with popcorn at the ready. 10/10.

Prison School: I watched this directly after Hanako-kun and it was like I got slapped in the face by sweaty unwashed titties and some fedora wearing schmuck's piss kink. No character is likable or redeemable. I finished it, but at what cost? 2/10 and only because a character shit his pants and I laughed.

Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle: watched this right after Prison School and it was NECESSARY tbh. Its so CUTE and honestly, im not even kidding you, the fucking funniest anime I've seen in months. I watched the dub and the VAs are having the time of their lives working on this anime not just giving it their all but literally just going ham. Its great. If I read this im sure id be bored outta my mind but the VAs giving it a joyous performance make it an insta fave for me tbh. 9/10.

Sk8 the Infinity: i watched the dub with my bro and I can confirm that its a spectacular show because we both loved it and we have vastly different tastes. Incredibly SUSPENSFUL AND STRESSFUL for an anime about skateboarding but we finished it in a single sitting tbh. The last episode is not dubbed for some reason but we still loved it. Like if Free! was less obnoxious but the only fan-service here is Joe ♡ a beefcake who owns my lesbian heart. I think there's exactly one named female character tho and I legit couldn't tell you what it was if there was a gun to my head. So, over all, 9.5/10.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: I'm going to be entirely honest, I went in thinking it was going to be a boring isekai of no value. I was right about the Isekai part. It was honestly pretty interesting and focused on nation building like you're playing civilization rather than the usual "Get Stronger" narrative or "Get Some Pussy" narrative most isekais take which is delightfully refreshing. Granted there are flavors of that in this which means it doesn't alienate the big isekai watchers out there, but it's not the whole dish and it doesn't make me want to cringe the same way others do. You've got a slime MC just vibing and building a nation of monsters nbd. Does lose points for making the female monsters more humanoid than their male counterparts but makes them back by only doing perfunctory fan-service and nothing that makes me want to cry... except the butt sumo episode but in fairness it was all a terrible dream. Literally, the MC refuses to dream anymore after that. solid animation, decent voice acting, decent story, made me realize how HUGE this is in the Light Novel community???? There's like 18 fucking novels and that's WILD. 8.5/10.

MANGA:

Spirit Photographer Saburo Kono: a one shot special by the mangaka of The Promised Neverland! Honestly a really delicate touch of both super creepy and really touching, and I'm not gonna lie I'm bummed that this isn't a bigger project but the single chapter makes it a good taste for their style. I've been wondering if I wanna read/watch The Promised Neverland and now I think I will. 10/10

Deranged Detective Ron Kamonohashi: from the mangaka of Hitman Reborn comes this Sherlock and Watson derivative! Not even 20 chapters out yet with a sort of spotty schedule, I honestly love it even thought it's exactly as you expect. HOWEVER. Kamonohashi the "Sherlock" character uses mental pressure to kill all confirmed murderers and it's up to Toto the "Watson" character to save all those people before Kamonohashi kills them! It's just recently introduced a "Moriarty" family of crime lords (not a big spoiler don't worry it was obvious) so the tension surrounding Ron's past is amping up rn. Personally, I think the art is GORGEOUS, the characters engaging, and the story quick enough to keep my interest. Most mysteries are solved within a chapter or two so you're not stuck 20 chapters into one locked room mystery which is just peachy tbh. RN, 10/10. If this gets an anime, I anticipate a legion of fangirls who ship the two main characters along with their many friends. I've been alive too long to believe otherwise.

Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro: Yeah I read the manga after I watched the show. A slower build than the anime, but it works for the format, if theyd done the same with the show then I don't think it wouldve done as well. Honestly? Cuter tbh but just as horny. You dont start really LEARNING about your character until like, chap 65 tho and no real "drama" happens until like 75. A good chunk of the chapters are like 8pgs so its a breeze to get through. I love these slow burn idiots of the century. 9.5/10 because you can DEFINITELY tell the mangaka does hentai too.

Yugen's All-Ghouls Homeroom: one-shot by the mangaka for Food Wars, it's no wonder there's this constant perviness from the MC, a guy who can see and exorcise spirits. Takes place at an all girl's finishing school with KICK ASS monsters tbh, kinda bummed its not longer. The MC? Blatant monsterfucker who is also a CONFRIMED monsterfucker???? Idk i vibe with that single emotion. Everything else is hit or miss. 7/10 for monsters and cool concept, lost points for the MC very pointedly being okay with admitting he'd wait for the teenagers to be adults tho. Creepy af. Could live without that.

Hell's Paradise: I finished the entire 127chps in 3 days and I was really enthusiastic about it 90% of the time thinking about how deep it was and then I actually thought about it and I ended up being very neutral about the whole thing tbh. The art is fantastic tho, but DEFINITELY deserving of the M rating. Tits. Tits everywhere. But not tits to be ecchi over, no, monster hermit tits on beautiful women-ish figures. Now generally I give that a pass but a huge theme in the story is that men and women are "no better than one or the other" but like, lady tits are what you see 99% of the time. Men tits are few and far between. I call bullshit on most of the "deep" themes is what I'm saying, so it's like the mangaka was trying for those deep thoughts but missed the margin a little too far for my preference. That being said, the MC is a married man who loves his wife which automatically makes him my favorite character so like... idk so many good things, so many misses, but overall really spectacular themes and imagery. Unique but classic all at once. It's getting an anime and I have NO IDEA how much censorship they're gonna be doing but they're going to be doing SO MUCH. Oh yeah, and one guy is a plant/human hybrid who fucks a 1000 year old plant-hermit which makes him a canon monster fucker. And one canon non-binary character who I, a nonbinary, actually like. So like... gosh I've got mixed feelings. 8.5/10.

Choujin X: From Sui Ishida, mangaka to the mega hit Tokyo Ghoul comes this brand new manga!... Of one chapter, lol. Not really binge-y because it's just the one chapter out right now but I'm already keeping my eye on it. The grasp on anatomy in the art is PHENOMENAL and you can see Ishida flexing his art skill which is great. Can't give a true rating but I'm giving it a tentative 9/10 because I'm excited to see more.

Shag&Scoob: technically not a manga, its an ongoing webcomic I binged an subscribed to in one day and I just think it deserves more attention. Starts off funny with "what if Scooby Doo had a gun" and has been led to "what if all cartoons are aliens that survive and receive their powers by the humans that love them in an epic war with Martians." On god, its good. I finished the current series in a couple hours so it's a breezy read, highly recommend it. 9/10.

To Your Eternity: Yeah I watched the anime and then finished all current 143 chapters in like 3 days. GOD IM WEAK. I don't buy physical manga unless I know I want to remember the story forever and I'm already budgeting for the current books out. Yeah, this is a good series. That being said, definitely not for the faint of heart or those who suffer under common triggers like suicide, molestation, death, etc. It's all framed as bad and necessary to the story don't get me wrong, but it's there and has lasting affects on the characters. Incredible story telling by the creator of A Silent Voice. Keep tissues nearby at all times. 12/10.

[zippodippo]

izuku is lowkey chaotic

listen i love how the fandom potrays izuku but there is NO WAY he spent 10 years with no friends and only the internet as company for him to not understand memes or be completely innocent. the dudes seen stuff

he’s definitely seen the dark half of the internet when he scrolled to deep into a hero forum when he was 10 and accidentally read some sort of all might x nighteye smut and hasnt been the same ever since. that was his first exposure to fanfic. after that he starts reading fanfics but like “all might adopts you” or “all might is your dad”

i saw someone say that izuku writes fluff fanfic like that and after meeting all might he still does it and it keeps on getting more accurate

also that bakugou reads his stuff and hes his favourite writer but doesnt know its izuku and ive adopted that into my hcs i CANT

kaminari + izuku is a underrated duo i love them as friends so much theyd go batshit crazy together

after kaminari quotes a meme and izuku finishes it they look at eachother and just. grin. they look feral. everyone else in the room feels incoming dread and aizawa can already feel his grey hairs coming in faster

they like to knock on eachother doors at 3am and just look at memes together and lose their shit LITERAL platonic soulmates

they also randomly go up to todoroki and quote stuff to see his confused face then fall over eachother laughing as todoroki repeats it

like to record themselves making stuff in the kitchen cause they both cant cook for their life and post it on the class 1a youtube channel cause they definitely have one. bakugou loses his mind everytime a notification pops up and those 2 are the thumbnail

always great to see the usually “smart” “determined” “future member of the big 3” izuku lose it over a deepfriend image of bread

izuku has the rest of the world fooled they all think hes a model student when really whenever he leaves the school he gets caught up in the middle of a villian fight, being held hostage or causing trouble on accident (or purpose)

everyone outside of ua: aw!! bone break kid seems so sweet and innocent!! he wouldnt hurt a fly!!

everyone in 1a: no. you did not see last week when he was laughing so hard at uraraka being told off by iida cause she got stuck on the roof that he punched a table, accidentally activated his quirk, and broke his arm.

all the teachers, nodding in agreement: you dont deal with a emotional teenager who gets into trouble everytime he leaves our sight

izuku: HEY!! >:((

whenever the dekusquad meetup he makes them agree to whatever activity comes to his head first. iida tries to be the voice of reason but gets dragged in. tsu is the true voice of reason dont let the class prez roll make you think different. todoroki and uraraka are always up for whatever izuku comes up with no questions asked. some highlights include

uraraka making a grocery cart weightless and having iida push it as theyre all inside it. ended up with a broken cart, tsu carrying izuku and todoroki back to the dorms and uraraka and iida leaning on eachother the whole way.

they made todoroki lick a pole when it was cold outside as a joke cause they thought he would be able to heat up his tounge and get free. 3 hours later after the emergency services were called they now know he cannot heat up his tounge.

izuku made shinsou sneak out of the dorms with him for coffee at 3am when they had been studying together and used shinsous quirk to make everyone who saw them forget they did. they came back with coffee but with aizawa waiting for them at the entrance. they silenced him by promising to bring him next time

have DEFINITELY had a group costume together

the list continues

hes got a hero blog thats filled with analysis and stuff about life as a hero in training but also just random shitposts. like it goes from him making a huge post about all mights retirement and all his achievements to things like

is best jeanist just sentient jeans that have decieved the entire japan population? +extra points given by todoroki shouto

here are all the reasons toga from the lov should leave me alone (HOW DO YOU KEEP GETTING MY NUMBER?!?!?)

my favourite near death experiences rated out of 10

look at this photo of kacchan i got as he was about to explode me!! isnt he cool :DDD

what is mr aizawas scarf made out of?? i kinda want one just to be able to fling it around

some of his followers are concerned.

this boy is smart+strong but he also had unrestricted internet access like the rest of us. he knows

[matoitech]

18, 19 and 20 !!

18. Would you want a sequel/prequel or any sort of extra story? And what about?

PLEAASEEE i dont know if id trust trigger for a sequel but i still want a sequel even if its bad... I HAVE THOUGHT SOO MUCH ABOUT THIS HERE ARE THE BASICS OF MY IDEAS ON IT

prequel light novels for galo and lio that actually go into their backstory.  theyre both trans and lio gets canon autistic confirmation too bc i want him to. i write the galo one of course and someone else writes the lio one and we exchange drafts a lot so we can make Parallels

ok i wasnt terribly serious abt me writing the galo one but that would be awesome

POST-CANON WEDDING OVA CALLED GALO DE LION. IF I SAY IT ENOUGH IT WILL HAPPEN. and we get to see who proposed and how they proposed. and everyone dances to a pop song at the end like one of those animated kids movies no im just kidding but that would be really funny

post-canon ova in general im on my hands and knees here trigger. galo and lio Pining. dealing w.. traumas. i have like 5738674 ideas about how it could begin.

i think a standalone manga volume would b cool or just a manga series spinoff but i dont like believe that will happen or anything since promares like Made For The Theatre

12 ep post-canon tv series....... burning rescue fun moments we get more backstory galo and lio gay epic wins. also i guess lio technically works at burning rescue now so can we like See That, maybe

i just want to know what the after-credits scene was. trigger. trigger listen

I HAVE LIKE. MORE IDEAS ABT SPECIFICS ID LIKE TO SEE BUT THEYRE JUST SELF INDULGENT STUFF

19. What are your self indulgent head canons?

at this point im so excited talking abt promare i dont know if i can use my brain for this but heres a few!

everyone gets therapy <3

I WANT GALO AND LIO TO HAVE SERVICE DOGS I KNOW IT CANT HAPPEN W CANON BUT IN MY DREAMS.. THIS IS SELF INDULGENCE AFTER ALL.. 

they get a dog and a cat at least

aina gets a girlfriend. i speak it into existence

THYMA ALIVE

galo and lio canon transgender confirmation (listen if its self indulgence i can do what i want)

kray goes to prison but not before the burnish get to take turns beating him up

when galo and lio get married whoever officiates the wedding stuff pronounces them galo de lion and lio de galon

WE GET BACKSTORY IN GENERAL AND EVERYONES TRAUMA IS TREATED RESPECTFULLY. ITS SELF INDULGENT BECAUSE ITS STUDIO TRIGGER AND THEYD RATHER DISBAND THE STUDIO THAN BE SERIOUS. sometimes i can respect that but not for trauma, trigger!

LUCIA MAKES ANOTHER MECH FOR GALO AND LIO AND ITS LIKE SMALLER SCALE LIO DE GALON AND ITS GREAT AND COOL AND FUN

i cant think of anything else rn wheeee promare

20. Would you/have you recommended Promare to anyone?

i have, not without content warnings though! its a very good movie but it has issues that should b at least mentioned so ppl can prepare for like. a plot w a big theme abt genocide. but yeah i recommend it! i love this movie so much

[thundercracer]

“Soft as Petals”

Fandom: Bandori/BanG Dream! Ship/Pairing: Ichigaya Arisa / Yamabuki Saya - Arisaya

Summary: Ichigaya Arisa wanted nothing to do with having a soulmate. It was rare. And more importantly; it was painful. So, when she starts vomiting flower petals from her lungs? She's clearly cursed. #hanahaki-disease, #soulmate-au

Available on AO3

Arisa felt cheated.

She'd read stories about worlds where soulmates simply shared pain or their names were magically shown on each other's wrists. Where someone saw in black and white until they met their soulmate. Hell, she’d even read about people who had timers on their skin, leading up to when they met their other half!

If only the world she lived in could be that easy.

No; soulmates were a cruel, difficult thing to have. They weren't super common as it were, but they existed. Not everyone had a soulmate. In fact, the vast majority of the population didn't.

Clinics existed for those who did and wanted to be rid of the problem. And many people did - many preferred to not find or love their soulmate as opposed to the sensation of vomiting flower petals every other hour on the daily. To rid themselves of the feeling of thorns in their throat.

It sounded much more romanticized and painless than it was. Who knew coughing up something as soft and pretty as flower petals tore up a person's esophagus and made them bleed? Movies made it out to be some beautiful thing and non soul-bonded folk hyped it up and fawned over the concept.

She stared into the toilet she had just hacked up into, glaring at the petals that hadn't quite made their way inside. As though they were mocking her.

Slightly curled white petals scattered about her, almost shaped like rose petals but not quite. Some of them - the most recent - were speckled with scarlet. Arisa smudged the blood dripping down her chin with the back of her hand as she glared at them with contempt.

Of course she had a soulmate.

Of course life couldn’t be easy for her. Arisa had learned early that life wasn’t an easy thing. Especially for her… Couldn’t catch a damn break, it seemed.

Arisa, of all people, wanted nothing to do with this whole soulmate thing. She’d never thought it was romantic or sweet, the way soulmates dealt with their issues. It was the worst! Most of the time soulmates didn’t even meet, since vomiting flowers wasn’t exactly a way to automatically know who your soulmate was! And most of the time people got them removed because they were disruptive and painful.

She rubbed at her throat, suddenly feeling tired and torn up.

She picked up a relatively clean petal and felt the velvety softness of it between the tips of her fingers. How odd, she thought, that something so soft and fragile could rip up my throat like that.

Kasumi and the others didn’t even know this had been going on. She wanted to keep it that way. She would rather not worry them. Especially if she was just going to get the damn buds removed in the end. Knowing them, they might even try to convince her to keep them.

They were all in a different class, anyway. It’s not like they knew how much she ran off during class to go puke flora. She greatly considered not going to school anymore, like she did before… the damn flowers only started showing up after she’d started attending again.

She was terrified that her soulmate was nearby.

The flowers didn’t start until a person met their soulmate face to face, after all.

What if it’s someone in Poppin’ Party?

She rarely allowed herself to follow that thought. Didn’t want to indulge herself in the ideas of one of her friends being her soulmate. It couldn’t be that easy. Yet… she couldn’t stop from imagining Saya’s bright, warm smile when she thought of who her soulmate could possibly be.

It didn’t make any sense though, as Saya didn’t seem to be having the same problems Arisa was having. In fact it seemed like Arisa was the only one in either class that even showed signs of having the disease.

So, instead, she opted to suffer in silence as more and more white petals fluttered from her lungs. She endured flurries of ivory as petals cascaded from her tired, ragged throat in a whirlwind; a storm. Alone and in relative silence.

Tae seemed to know something was up; she was much more observant than people gave her credit for. She seemed to just… know things, somehow. It was both odd yet endearing. But she’d been giving Arisa the side eye more and more frequently as her condition worsened.

The amount of times she’d been forced to excuse herself from their band practice sessions was increasing, she was loathe to admit. She was just glad she wasn’t the vocalist of the group! And while the others just worried she was overworking herself or getting sick, Tae seemed to be reserved with her concern.

“Arisa?” Tae voiced her thoughts one afternoon. The two of them were alone - a rare occurrence - as they waited on the others to arrive. “Are you hiding something from us?”

The girl in question grunted, trying not to let her surprise show through. She rubbed at her throat, not really thinking about it before waving off her bandmate.

“Nothing’s wrong, O-Tae. Don’t worry about it.”

“But I am worried.” Tae’s face was stern, serious. More so than Arisa could remember it being. “And so are the others.”

“Geh…” Of course they’d been talking about it. There was no way they weren’t all concerned with her, after running off all the time. Probably didn’t help when she refused to comment on it, either. “It’s… not that big of a deal.”

Tae gave her a piercing look before allowing the conversation to deviate away from dangerous territory. Arisa just didn’t want the others to be weirded out with her… like she was some sort of diseased, condition-ridded freak.

She’d been looking into clinics that offered removal services… But she found herself hesitating every time she went to call to make an appointment. As much as she wanted to permanently rid herself of these accursed petals… she still found herself wanting that connection with someone. And thus she found herself exploring the idea of being in love. As if someone would want to be in love with a person like her.

Saya had been showing signs of weariness in the times following Arisa’s confrontation with Tae. She had unusual bags under her eyes and her smiles didn’t quite reach her eyes, the way they always did. The way they were supposed to.

The girl immediately confided in the band, taking comfort in the support and presence of her friends. The exact opposite of Arisa…

“I think I have a soulmate,” Saya admitted one late afternoon as everyone packed up instruments and wrapped up the evening.

Arisa felt her heart lurch towards her throat, feeling the itch that pricked her lungs every time she so much as glanced in Saya’s direction. She looked up at her, dismayed.

The others gathered around, chittering excitedly.

“Oooh!” Kasumi’s voice was bubbly and thrilled. “Do you know who they are? What flowers are you growing?”

Saya laughed lightly, a lovely sound, as she entertained Kasumi’s prodding questions. “I don’t know who they are… But I’ve been coughing up daisy petals for a few weeks now. Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I needed to let you guys know.”

“How do you know they’re daisies?” Arisa found herself piping up, almost against her will. She ignored the itching at the back of her throat as Saya’s sky blue eyes met her gaze.

“Oh, that’s the easy part.” Saya offered a smile, though it seemed confused as she rubbed at her own neck. “There’s lots of sites with flower languages and soulmate flower identifiers and stuff like that.”

“Oh…” Arisa hadn’t ever thought of that… She wondered what her own white petals were and what they meant.

“Yeah,” Saya continued, “I guess daisies mean purity, innocence, and true love. It’s so cute! I really want to meet them…”

Arisa ignored Rimi and Kasumi squealing and cooing as she stared right at Saya. She felt the burbling of petals building in her chest, dying to be let free. Before she could think - before she could even consider rushing out - she found herself in a coughing fit.

The others were around her immediately as she curled in on herself, her face in the crook of her elbow as she fought against the flurry of pain that battered against her gullet. She couldn’t see the bewildered expressions the others had as she hacked up petal after alabaster petal.

Saya stared at her with open awe. She moved, resting to a stop in front of her. Arisa’s skin burned as Saya’s gentle yet calloused hand grasped her wrist.

“Arisa?”

She couldn’t answer - she couldn’t breathe - as her coughing fit only worsened with the searing touch of Saya’s skin against her own.

Hands cupped her cheeks as she was forced to look into Saya’s eyes. The other girl had begun coughing herself, a single white petal resting on the bottom of her lip. It was thinner, more narrow than Arisa’s own thick petals… Not curled, but just as white.

The other members of Poppin’ Party seemed glued to their spots, unsure of how to proceed.

“Arisa?” she heard Saya’s voice, low and gentle, murmur by her ear. She felt her heart jolt and clench at their proximity. “Do… I guess this is a silly question, but do you have a soulmate?”

Arisa tried her best to glare, not quite succeeding as her eyes were watery.

“Is it me?” Saya asked in a tone that was too hopeful for Arisa’s comfort. As though she’d love nothing more for that to be true. As though being Arisa’s soulmate was something so desirable. “Are these gardenias for me?”

“You even know these ones too?” Arisa managed to get out, her voice shaky and cracked. “How much time did you spend researching this shit?”

“Gardenias… ‘They symbolize purity and sweetness. They indicate secret love. They convey joy. They tell the receiver they are lovely’.”

Arisa felt her cheeks brighten considerably as she grumbled, “Didn’t even answer my question…”

Saya grinned at her, something smug and teasing. “Do you think I’m lovely, Arisa?”

And, in a moment of sudden boldness, Arisa said, “Who wouldn’t?”

It was rare to see Saya’s cheeks bloom with the colors of spring, but Arisa found herself being treated to it. What a lovely sight it was… Arisa felt the aching of her lungs fade with the warmth of love as she went to swipe at the tears that had sprung from the seas of Saya’s eyes.

“Don’t cry, dummy…” Arisa chided halfheartedly. “I’m sorry for not saying anything sooner…”

She squeaked in surprise as Saya wrapped her into her arms, slender yet strong. Saya was openly crying as she said, “You’re always trying to take everything on by yourself…” her voice warbling.

“I know… I’m sorry.”

“I love you,” Saya said, as though they were the only ones in the room.

Arisa felt the thorns in her throat, in her lungs, wither in her chest as she was brought into a kiss as soft as petals.

[gammija]

The Hollow review/summary/rant/explanation of why i hate the ending I wasn’t sure whether I should post this, but I did enjoy reading others experiences watching this show, so here’s mine under the cut. Edited from a convo with a friend.

(Obviously, spoilers!)

Me: Okay so to properly express my disappointment i gotta take you through the major beats

The show starts with three teens waking up in an almost empty room, finding out they all have amnesia. They quickly solve a puzzle to escape the room, and just as quickly Adam and Mira realize they have superpowers (superstrength/agility and some weird 'speak to animals/know all languages' hybrid, respectively. also she can breathe underwater and swim really fast. its kind of vague)

Kai is already clearly a comic relief, discount Ron (from HP, the movies, no idea about the books) so me and sister correctly predict he'll get jealous of adam and miras relationship (even if there is none), gets pissy and jealous that he has no powers, but then finds out he has powers anyway he does, hes a fire bender. cant say im not bitter about that cause id put my money on invulnerability but eh its alright he has red hair after all hes still fun

Friend: Of course he is

I just feel bad is all aldjs

Me: adam gets a throwaway line of 'maybe were dead' and kai never lets it go

this food might be poisoned but im starving and hey were dead anyway! right, adam

Friend: I love him??

Me: i loved him as soon as he spoke his first dumb words also he puns but basically hes the only interesting char; adam and mira are just cookie cutter 'male lead 1' and 'female lead 1' i mean, he’s cookie cutter ‘jealous 3rd wheel’ but that has more going on than the first two still servicable though

anyway so the jokes are sometimes fun, and superpowers are always my jam. but the REAL reason to keep watching is just, whats going on? ARE they dead? or in some kind of weird gvnmt experiment? some weird magical vampire guide (dont ask) hints they wanted this themselves ooh, intrigue. and the world is very very quirky they start in a gravity falls-y woods and then get teleported to a desert with minotaurs and witches, then get invited for tea by the Grim Reaper and the rest of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse

tbh Grim is the best part of the show but thats neither here nor there

anyway they have a magic map that updates once theyve been somewhere, and it shows them that the hot dry desert and the swampy wood bunker are like right next to each other

so you start thinking, how are they gonna explain that? this is too weird to be handwaved away. theyve gotta be going somewhere

they visit some other exotic locals, like what appears to be the set of Alien (complete with alien) and an abandoned old fair and a floating island with japanese inspired evildoers on it

the weird magic guide keeps showing up and being vague, dropping hints that there are other kids there etc

at some point Mira says "This is no time for games!" Weirdy: "Thats where youd be wrong~" me and sister: Aha! videogame! that connects all the dots, and also makes the tropes clear: small world with all kinds of different areas, quests, fights, superpowers, an updating map, fast travel Adam, a few eps later: guis i think we might be in a videogame me and sister: [high five]

Anyway in the meantime also the second predictable Kai (discount Ron) plot happens: they meet three other kids (boy boy girl) and they act shady but the girl takes an immediate and obvious interest in Kai so obviously theyre gonna manipulate him and have him betray his friends but in the end he'll see through their facade and kick their ass that more or less happens. The other teens also confirm that this is a game, and theyre trying to win. winning is done by bringing the MacGuffin to a tree fights over macguffin ensue situations are dire but our characters persevere

(also Mira kisses Adam and he acts very weird about it, almost as if hes gay and the only reason they didnt make it canon is censors) (no lingering gaze, just him going 'hehe yeah no thanks, its not you, its me', but in a very... he doesnt seem to be saying it with shall we say burning desire in his soul. hes literally just like 'eh youre a good friend.' Cool move, cartoon that made the two main boys have arguments over nothing cause of course the two main guys have constant dick measuring matches)

this all is not the offensive part btw it was all fun and games, its just a flash cartoon i wasnt expecting Shakespeare

anyway so theyre in a videogame, and apparently thats the answer to all the weirdness. A bit of a cop-out, cause thats a very easy answer, but eh, it works. it wasnt immediately obvious.

also something i hadnt mentioned yet: thisd be ideal for making (self-insert) OCs. Unique powers for each person, there are clearly more characters than shown, the world is your playground

and maybe the video game thing could be interesting on its own in the last few eps the game seems to be glitching out a lot they say its breaking apart so they really gotta hurry now maybe they were beta testers for a vr game gone wrong maybe this is part of it but its like a huge experience that you tell all your friends about anyway there are ways it could be cool, could be expanded to a season 2 despite having solved the mystery

but. last episode. our heroes get the MacGuffin, go to a final stage, and fight the Boss Battle (its a dragon). they enter the Castle....

...and the screen zooms out, into a sudden live action stage, where we see the cartoon (literally what you were just watching) on screen. there are 6 chairs, 3 with our heroes, 3 with the other teens, presumably. theres a host and hes dressed exactly like the weird guy (and that was already kind of a clashy outfit in the cartoon). it was all just a game show. but. the worst part is the live action

you. dont. go. from. animated. to. live. action.

other way around? fine, can work. But now? WHY itd still be dumb and dissapointing but if itd been animated too itd at least have been.... nice to look at but the acting.. oh god they didnt even say anything and it was all wrong clearly theyd just picked the first random teens that vaguely looked like the chars and put them in there cause they had no lines so who needs acting?!

the enemy teams girl had, in the cartoon, pink hair. Purple with pink highlights instead of stylizing that into something more realistic or painting the actual hair, they gave some 30-year old woman a wig and called it a day

keep in mind i binged this show in one go

purposely stayed up late to watch the last ep with my sis even tho we shouldve gone to bed and were disobeying our dad cause we Had to Know

and theres more i said they had no lines but i was lying. Kai did have a line. well, his voice actor did they dubbed him also the line was about him having to pee which is already not the most hilarious in animated version but a live action kid whose supposed to be this character you spent 3 hours with but looks nothing like him saying that in a voice that doesnt belong to his throat, as he stands bashfully in front of a live audience, the only words spoken by your main characters in the last moments...

*its actual hell*

oh oh one more thing at the end the six kids stand in a line and kai is next to other girl they glance at each other and as the eyes of this teen and 30 year old in wig cross, her eye glitches for a moment

dun dun duuun

bUT i dont care anymore, The Hollow. You overestimated your own premise. this wont be forgiven. your most interesting part was the mystery, and the answer  to that was "just a normal game show" (which also doesnt make sense on another level smh) soo if you think that im interested in what these two-dimensional (ha) characters will do now about the glitch in the eye of a bitch then i have news for u

i dont

...if they get a second season ill probably check it out though as long as its animated

Friend: Gammi I'm getting the real sinking suspicious feeling that what you saw isn't the real end but bad on purpose because there's more to it

Me: the show didnt seem good enough to be bad on purpose

and yet im still not done, if youll still hear me out

i mean, im an animation fan so ill still watch but if theyd wanted to be bad on purpose they really shouldve done a better job fleshing out the characters thats what people come back for that was a bit of a sidetrack BUT so i said why the live action itself was just terrible in overal quality

but the resolution that 'oh it was all in a game show' doesnt work on multiple levels

first of all, they show a short flashback of "About 5 hours earlier". The kids stand on the stage and are instructed to take their seats in the vr-chairs, and pick their superpower

2 things i dislike about that

1) there goes all the self-insert/oc potential. they werent teens in over their heads, they werent gvnmt experiments, or just some kids who wanted to play a game -they were in it to win it, from the start. thats very specific and not the most appealing to all kinds of characters (goodbye, all the 'im just an average girl whod never step into the spotlight like that' characters).

Also, all the expansion on lore is gone. maybe there were other games simultaneously? eh, maybe, but theyd be all gameshows. Maybe someone ended uo trapped there for way longer? nah its just a gameshow theyre not gonna let anything actually bad happen. Maybe there are other worlds, other areas, other weird creatures? unlikely, they finished the map and familiarity seemed to be a thing for the audience. Now every new idea has to be put not through a 'whats interesting for a player' but a 'whats interesting for a viewer' lens, and whats a selfinsert if not a player in another universe

2) HOW IS THIS A SUCCESSFUL GAME SHOW

who the hell watches a game show for 5 consecutive hours, some of which mustve been just them walking. also, we zoom out of the screen were watching, so implication is that everything up until then has been what the audience has seen. but... we only followed the one team. there were two? why didnt the audience want to see what they were up to? ~reality tv usually thrives on showinf the worst assholes so realistically they wouldve been the focus~

There are also way too many times *both* teams couldve failed, from early on till late in the game. Not a single game i can think of thats played for an audience is set up like that, and especially not a televised one (okay tbf idk if this was televised, i dont remember if i saw cameras, but. it mustve. monetary reasons.)

What r u gonna do if they all 'died' from the monsters in the first ep? Call it a day? boring for the audience. let them restart from scratch? boring for the audience. the existence of an audience messes with everything

AND THEN ANOTHER THING what do you mean, "5 hours ago?" you never get a time stamp to show how long theyve been in there but there are some cuts, when they travel and such. The actual show is a lil over 3 hours runtime. You mean to tell me you sat through 2 hours of the characters just walking?

okay last thing. so. they were clearly second season teasing with the glitching eye thing. i already said this but. theres nowhere to go from here that isnt worse that the first season. your mystery is dead. you clearly know your live action teens cant act so youd have to go back into the game - but why would they do that? how would that be in any way interesting? you explored all there was to explore.

The other, more out there option, is that as you said the 'real world' was a fake-out and theyre still in a game. but. how would- how would you even make that remotely convincing? if youd just left the 'real world' gameshow as animated too this wouldnt have been a problem. but there is absolutely no conceivable reason to justify, in universe, why another meta-level up is 2D animation again unless they were in a game, in a game, in a game. and thats just dumb. yall aint inception

Friend: HONESTLY if they just kept the whole deal animated it'd probably be okay. Not good, but better,

Me: ye me and my sister came to the same conclusion

i couldve lived with that. at least, i couldve just acknowledged the finales existence but chose to ignore it. now however im full phantom planet levels of denial. in fact i dont even know how the show ended anymore, suddenly

Friend: what finale? what show?

Me: also at least now we know why its called The Hollow

it leaves you feeling empty inside

[prairiesongserial]

5.6

The truck bounced and ambled its way down the dust-covered road, tossing its passengers gently from side to side like they were in a ship on a particularly stormy ocean. Cody’s stomach turned over, and he tore his gaze away from the window to look at John and Sailor, who shared the backseat with him.

“Are we sure about this?”

“No,” Sailor growled under her breath. She was hunched over in her seat, gently rubbing her leg where her knee joint met her new prosthetic. “It’s a bad plan. Not enough people, and not enough guns.”

“I thought that was kinda the point,” Nash said cheerfully, from the driver’s seat. “Y’all aren’t supposed to be attracting attention.”

“Nash, respectfully, you aren’t a part of this discussion unless you’re gonna be gettin’ out of the car to go with us,” Cody said, his voice flat.

He knew exactly what Nash’s orders were, unfortunately, and Nash wasn’t coming with him, John, and Sailor. According to what Marc had said that morning at brunch, Nash was coming along strictly as their getaway driver. If they didn’t come back to the rendezvous point within about an hour, Nash was allowed to head back to Texas Waters and leave the three of them high and dry. Cody, for one, had no doubt that he really would. Nash may have been affable enough, but at the end of the day, Marc was the one paying him for his services.

“Fair enough,” Nash said, with an easy shrug. “Your drop point’s comin’ up in a couple minutes, by the way.”

“Great,” Cody said through his teeth. John put a hand on his knee, gently, and he reached down to squeeze it. Having his own gesture returned muddled his thoughts about the whole interaction - he still wasn’t sure what he had been trying to communicate, back at breakfast. At least he could say for certain that John hadn’t minded. Cody refocused himself on the problem at hand, more agitated now than before. “I still don’t see why we have to split up.”

Their instructions were relatively straightforward, all things considered. Marc would be meeting with the heads of a local mob, in a town just across the Mexican border, under the pretense of making an alliance with them. Something about dividing up certain resources they each had access to for a mutual benefit. While the meeting was going on, John, Cody, and Sailor would be pulling off one of the double-crosses Marc was apparently notorious for - considering breakfast, that hadn’t been much of a surprise.

John, Cody, and Sailor were to steal the mob’s supply of water. The only catch was that the supply was kept in a compound located dead in the middle of a nest of muties. The mob didn’t have to spend the manpower guarding their most valuable resource if the muties kept people away for free, after all. All they had to do was guard one tunnel entrance. The mob members transported the water in barrels through a tunnel under the mesa, then raised it up on a lift. The barrels sat out in the open, the hundred-odd feral muties enough of a deterrent for any sane person.

The water heist, as Marc had devised it, was a two-pronged plan. Cody and Sailor would make their way up one side of the mesa, doing their best to go as quickly as possible while also disturbing as few muties as possible. At the same time, John would arrive at the guard station at the base of the mesa, dressed as one of the mob’s security men. While Cody and Sailor reached the compound from the top, John would take care of the guards patrolling the underground tunnel. If all went well, they’d meet as soon as Cody and Sailor took the lift down, then transport the barrels of water out through the tunnel to where Nash would be waiting in the truck.

It was a decent plan, in theory. But there were a lot of ways it could go wrong, and Cody hadn’t stopped thinking up more since they’d left Texas Waters. He was so nervous that he could practically feel the food he’d eaten at brunch rolling around in his stomach, threatening to come back up.

“You really want to fight your way back through a nest of pissed-off muties? I mean, be my guest, but…” Nash trailed off, perhaps remembering that Cody had just told him not to talk anymore. He punctuated it with another shrug.

“He’s right,” John murmured, almost as if it pained him to do so.

Cody frowned. “The last time we split up -”

“Was different,” John said, squeezing his hand back. “Not on purpose.”

“Still!”

“Cody,” John said firmly, then looked surprised when Cody’s attention snapped completely to him. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing conspicuously in his throat, looking a little like a deer caught in headlights.

“Well?” Cody asked.

“...I’ll handle it,” John said at last, a little gruff, diverting his gaze towards the floor. Cody’s frown deepened.

“I know, but -”

“John has the easy job,” Sailor broke in, looking more than a little exasperated with the route the conversation had gone down. “All he has to do is clear the getaway path for us, and stay there to make sure no other goons show up.”

“I dunno about easy. Once he starts takin’ them down, someone’s gonna notice,” Cody said.

“Not if he’s careful,” Sailor said. “He’ll have enough time to be, with us sneakin’ our way up the whole fuckin’ mesa. I didn’t exactly think he was gonna run in guns blazing, and just start shooting people left and right.”

John snorted.

“Hey, he might have to, if his cover gets blown,” Nash pointed out.

“That’s fine,” John said, and then fell silent again, looking contemplative.

Cody watched him, thinking that, strangely, this was the most he’d heard John speak since before they’d arrived at Texas Waters that morning. He wondered how John was feeling, but he wasn’t about to ask a thing like that in front of Sailor and Nash. They’d have time to talk about it later, hopefully.

“Alright, here we are,” Nash said, pulling the truck off to the shoulder of the road. There wasn’t much there - the mesa loomed over them a couple of yards away, but for the most part, it was just scenic desert. Nothing to suggest a nest of muties nearby. “Hop on out, you two, and don’t forget your guns.”

Cody gave John’s hand a final squeeze before letting go of it, and opening the door to let himself and Sailor out of the truck. He hopped down to the ground, adjusting his poncho, and circling to the back of the truck for the rifles Marc had given to them, just in case. Cody had never fired a fancy rifle like the ones Marc’s guards used before, but he’d fired a shotgun, and he reckoned they worked about the same. He had his pistol holstered to his hip again, too, as a last resort.

“Be safe,” he told John through the window, slinging the rifle’s strap over his shoulder. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

John nodded. Nash revved the truck’s engine once, then peeled away onto the road, with apparently little regard for the dust the tires kicked up onto Cody and Sailor. Cody watched the truck disappear into the distance, until he couldn’t see John’s face looking for him from the window anymore.

“Ready to kill some muties?” he asked, turning to Sailor.

“I’m hoping we won’t have to,” she grumbled. She started to head for the mesa, her eyes scanning the horizon line for something. “There should be a footpath close to here that goes up to the top. It was on Marc’s map.”

“Right,” Cody said, following just a couple steps behind. He’d thought the map of the area that Marc had brought out while explaining the plan had been largely for dramatic purposes, but now he felt a little silly for not taking the time to study it seriously.

“What’s with you and Marc, anyway?” he asked. It couldn’t hurt to make conversation until they actually reached mutie territory, and he was curious, anyway. “I thought you were trying to catch him for the bounty. He acted like you come around for brunch all the time.”

“It’s complicated,” Sailor said, bluntly.

“Is it?”

“No,” she answered, after a moment of contemplation. They’d reached the beginning of the footpath, and she started up it, only pausing for a moment to make sure Cody was following her closely. “Not really. He thinks I’m hunting him because I like him.”

“And he likes you, obviously,” Cody said, filling in the gaps.

“Obviously,” Sailor said. “What was your first clue?”

Cody laughed - and then froze, the sound dying in his throat as he abruptly became aware of something moving in his peripheral vision. Sailor snapped her head up to look, and he did the same, already knowing what he’d find. His stomach twisted. There was a group of muties, at least five of them crouched on a ledge not five yards away. Their eyes were milky white with cataracts, and they were hunched over, with necks and arms that looked too long for their bodies. Some of them were chittering softly, Cody thought, unless it was the sounds of nearby animals. But he doubted that, somehow.

“They can’t see,” he murmured, barely moving his lips. If the muties were blind, maybe sneaking past them would be easier than Marc had thought.

Sailor frowned. She stooped to pick up a rock from the ground, slowly and deliberately. Cody wondered what she was doing for only a moment before she wound up and threw it, sending it sailing over the group of muties’ heads and clattering across the ground on the ledge they were on.

The muties reacted in less than a second. So abruptly it was startling, they sprang into motion, turning to lunge on the spot where the rock had landed. They were making low, guttural noises in their throats that sounded like a human imitation of a dog’s growl. Cody thought it might have been the worst noise he’d ever heard in his life.

“They can sure hear, though,” Sailor said, under her breath.

Cody bit the inside of his cheek, and nodded. Somehow, he got the feeling that this was going to be much worse than the last time he and John had split up.

5.5 || 5.7

[krpk-remaking]

what's the au?

thank you for inventing gay rights

under the read more!

ok so basically when bakugos about six inko asks him why he bullies izuku so muchbakugo then proceeds to explain that, since izuku is weak he deserves to be punished which is something he learned from his mom who hits him for being too weakinko obviously flips out and calls child services and like six months later bakugo is izukus brother and also in therapyso far this is just the bakugo izuku brothers au  BUT!while this is happening rei managed to escape endeavor with her four children and meets inko at a mcdonalds bc theyre both low on money and just trying to get by and they start talking exchange numbers and two years later  rei moves in with inko izuku and katsuki whos also a midoriya nowits gonna be bakugo and then rei/inko centric and then id either end it or do a time skipif i do a timeskip izuku would still get OfA because he of course still rushes in to save bakugo whos his brothershoto katsuki and izuku all manage to get into UA together and theyre a little feared because wow three super powerful brothers who all got into uabakugo is a lot more toned down in this au bc he got therapy and away from his mom but hes still grumpy and doesnt want to make any friends but bakusquad of course still happenskatsuki keeps away from his brothers bc he feels very guiilty abt the bullying and hes afraid his quirk and anger issues are gonna remind shoto of his dad  so he keeps to himself a loti think the “its your quirk not his” scene still happens bc shoto would still struggle with his quirk shoto doesnt have his scar but is obviously still super traumatizedstain arc still happens the same except katsuki has super bad guilt abt not being there for his brothersthe exam arc where katsuki and izuku have to work together goes a lot better but katsuki still is like “ i dont need your help i can do this by myself”all kiribaku scenes happen bc i said so kirishima says he had to convince katsuki to come bc katsuki was at kirishimas when izuku sent the text to everyone and they walk home together bc katsuki wants to keep away from his brothers

the katsuki rescue scene is also still the same bc hes shut off from his brothers and kirishimas the one whos actually closest to him

oh and shoto also calls him kacchan sometimes but more mockingly while izuku calls shoto shochan

also i love that theyd all have fuyumi as big sister because i love fuyumi so much and as a fellow big sister i love projecting on her

natsuo is the fun older brother whod buy you beer

im not sure how to include touya bc if he IS dabi he wouldnt become a villain here so. not sure how to handle that so id wait until we get confirmation that he is a todoroki or that he isnt

pleaseeee send me more asks abt this au i would die for u!!!!!!

[curly-q-reviews]

FLIX FROM THE NET

Bird Box, 2018 (dir. Susanne Bier)

SPOILER WARNING THERE WILL BE SPOILERS DONT READ IF U HAVENT SEEN IT YET AND WANT TO

[TW: SUICIDE, MURDER, VIOLENCE, BLOOD, GORE]

well fuck its been a while!!  happy new year y’all hope u had a Fun and Safe time!!!  i for one was at a party where we started playing Shrek at exactly 10:39 PM to see if Smash Mouth’s hit song I’m a Believer started playing right at midnight and to my utter disbelief and elation it did!!!  move over times square ball drop a new arbitrary way of celebrating the start of a new calendar year is here and it involves a large green monster with a scottish accent who really loves his onions (#me am i right ladies)

WELL ANYWAY heres a fun new series ive been thinking of starting cause ya girl watches a lot of netflix movies and has many opinions about them.  i think i’ll do a separate post about the whole Netflix Original Film trend in general and how its changed the film industry at a later date but since i just watched the above movie not too long ago i wanted to get all my thoughts out there right fuckin now!!

netflix is without a doubt the OG king of streaming services, they were really the first to get the ball rolling and then dozens of other companies scrambled to latch onto this money train while it was rolling on the tracks full steam (or should i say.... stream EL;KGHS;EKFSH; please end me) ahead.  it started out as a rental subscription service where u could pick out three movies at a time to rent and then they were sent to u in the mail (like blockbuster but now you never have to leave your house ever again to get that sweet sweet rental content).  and then the decision was made to actually start online streaming, no physical DVD’s required!  ISNT TECHNOLOGY GREAT

well whoooo boy this shit swept the nation, people couldnt get enough of such a convenient and relatively affordable service and netflix started really raking in the dough.  and at some point they got rich enough to say “hey fuck it!!!  lets make our own movies baby!!!!”  and here we are now with Netflix Original Movies and TV Shows, which means a new player has entered the movie game in a very novel and innovative way.  why pay money for a movie ticket and leave your house to go to a theater when cool new movies are being released on a subscription service u already own to watch movies you already know and enjoy?  and then u can sit butt-ass naked in ur bedroom alone stuffing ur face with cheese puffs like an insatiable cheddar beast and see something new and fun and interesting

ok so.  Bird Box.  here we have a movie based off of a book (so i guess this also counts as a Book Movies review but I DIGRESS) starring hollywood powerhouse sandra bullock, featuring Supreme Lesbian Overlord Sarah Paulson and Resident Crazy Old Man John Malkovich, directed by a relatively unknown but competent female filmmaker Susanne Bier (who also directed Things We Lost in the Fire in 2007, a moving drama starring Halle Berry).  this one definitely has a lot of proimse compared to what netflix has offered so far in terms of their original movies (im gonna get into Dumplin’ at a later date cause jesus christ what a mess) and i went in with pretty high expectations

did it deliver???  well uuhhhh yeah sort of i guess!!  we got some pretty strong performances from our leading lady bullock who really does deliver it every time, a few strong supporting roles like newcomer Trevante Rhodes of Moonlight fame (his energy on screen is just so compelling and soothing), not overly obnoxious child actors which is really all u can ask for, and overall a solid story. 

now heres where i gotta say that i couldnt help comparing this film to another movie of its kind, directed by the notorious M. Night Shyamalan.  y’all remember The Happening?  cause i remember The Happening.  i remember that it was total shit and that the twist was that it was the fucking plants making everyone kill themselves.  the PLANTS.  and i also remember mark wahlbergs dumb-ass confused face that he used in every single shot no matter the context, im AMAZED i remember zoe deschanel in this movie cause she may as well have been one of the killer plants with how little she emoted, and i remember mark wahlberg yelling at a fake office ficus and apparently i was supposed to be scared while watching this clusterfuck. 

the way that this movie was described to me by friends who had seen it before me was basically that Bird Box is a slightly better The Happening, and no truer words have ever been spoken.  we basically have the same premise going on here:  unknown force is causing people to off themselves, our lead(s) have to try and find a way to escape this unknown force without even knowing what it really is, and theres some sort of “sanctuary” they gotta try and get to (which is a common plot point in really all apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films).  now whereas The Happening’s rules for this scenario make entirely no fucking sense (how in the fuck are u supposed to be able to out-run WIND???), Bird Box has some rules for dealing with this Unknown Thing that make slightly more sense.  when u open ur eyes while outside, the chance of the Thing making u kill urself in some horrific way is extremely high, so wear a blindfold when ur outside and keep all windows covered when ur inside.  makes sense!  thats something i can believe and get behind which makes me more immersed in the story!

unfortunately like The Happening there are still some little things that kinda dont make much sense and take u out of it.  apparently some people when they see this unknown entity dont wanna die, but instead find it absolutely beautiful, which makes them want to make everyone else look at it to see how beautiful it is.  and its insinuated that these people are mentally ill or have some sort of psychiatric issue.  i get that this adds more stakes to the situation and ups the ante, but it doesnt really sit well with me that once again, mentally ill people are the villains in a horror-type story.  and i also dont really understand why theyd then wanna go around and make other people see the thing??  unless the thing has them in a mind-control state or something and is making them do its bidding but that seems kind of a weird thing for an all-powerful evil formless entity to do. 

and that leads me to the next issue i have with Bird Box.  if ur gonna have an apocalyptic scenario where people do something as serious as kill themselves due to an unknown cause, it almost seems a little cliche and cheesy to have it be some sort of mythical celestial god-like or demon-like entity thats doing the damage.  i actually really liked where The Happening was going with its source of all the chaos being something naturally made, like the Earth deploying some sort of self-preservation mechanism or something.  the idea of that to me is actually loads more frightening than some invisible boogeyman that u cant look at.  and then Shamalamadingdong had to go and make it stupid by saying that it was fucking plants trying to kill people by releasing pheromones or some shit.  like why cant we have the best of both of these??  something naturally-occuring that maybe has even happened before in the planets history (maybe it wasnt a meteor that killed off the dinosaurs after all??), that isnt FUCKING PLANTS, and that doesnt do cheesy shit like make ur eyes turn grey and bloodshot and like whisper to u telling u to take ur blindfold off (i swear that happens multiple times it was pretty silly)

thats another thing, this movie’s tone is all over the place.  there are some moments where a more light-hearted tone is needed to break up the tension, for sure, but it almost as if the writing and dialogue werent really taking this serious of a story as seriously as they should have.  weirdly placed jokes are all over the place, there were some moments where the dialogue made me cringe cause it was so awkward.  bullock’s character gets to have some good breakdown moments which help bring the tone to the level of somberness and despair it should be at, but all the other supporting characters dont really get the same space to process whats happening to them, so it kinda comes off like they arent really affected by, say, their wife throwing herself into a burning car right in front of their very eyes. 

overall i’d still say this is a worthwhile watch, especially considering its a netflix movie.  if you’ve ever wanted to see a not-as-horrible version of The Happening that has some deeper metaphorical stuff going on about motherhood and family and shit than this is for you.  the production value is overall pretty solid (though when it comes to cinematography i actually prefer The Happening from an artistic standpoint) and sandra bullock knocks it out of the park.  go check it out if this seems like something thats up ur alley!!

ok bye for now hopefully it doesnt take me six months to write another review but we’ll see!!  my brain is a mystery and time is an illusion HAPPY 20-BI-TEEN Y’ALL

[plusultrachaos]

i sometimes wish id never been born at all

prompt: dan, one day, wishes hed never been born. he is then visited by a "ghost" (another youtuber) who shows dan everybodys lives if he was never born. dan doesnt believe that anything is worse off until they show phils life which is simply a gravestone.

A/N: i did change somethings from the prompt. i also envisioned the prompt as something similar to the Scrooge.

word count: 2113

genre: angst and if you squint fluff

tw: there are mentions and a viewing of two suicides (the viewing is against dans will  and is only on one of two suicides) there are mentions of depression and bullying. if this is something that could trigger, harm, or cause you pain of any kind, i recommend not reading this oneshot.

________________

its one of dans bad days. its one of the bad days where hes trying to be social, at least talk to phil some, maybe a bit of action on social media, before his inevitable departure from society and hopefully his own exsistance for a little while.

while hes browsing on said social media, he feels phil leaning toward him and picking something from under dans eye, pulling his hand away to reveal a small, thick eyelash.

"howd you even notice that, phil?" his voice was soft, fond, and holding no surprise at phils ability to notice the little details.

"make a wish and i might tell you." phil wore a teasing smile as he failed to wink, the corners of his mouth crinkling, showing the smile wrinkles that had developed as the years of their friendship passed.

'i wish i were never born' was the wish dan had made, he wanted to go hide away, hide the wish hed made in his brain to echo there for hours. everybodys lives would be better, easier, if he hadnt been born in the first place, all the haters wouldnt have to hate him in the first place. phil would probably be further in life. his family wouldnt have him as a disappointment.

"i have to go to my room." he looked at phil, whos face was still in  sort of close proximity to his own face. he didnt say why, or what he was going to do once in there, but phil knew him well enough to understand why the younger man had been quiet the entirety of him being up and out of his room, why he hadnt laughed at a single funny thing that phil had shown him.

"okay. remember to drink water and come out of there when you need food, okay?" phils eyes held the usual, useless, concern that dan knew phil didnt actually feel. dan wasnt worth the concern and he definitely did not deserve the concern or a friend like phil at all.

he nodded, knowing that if phil didnt actually see dan out of the room to get food or water, hed personally bring the food and drink to dan. dan got up and numbly left the lounge for his room. he left his laptop there, knowing he wouldnt need it the next few days or so.

he collapsed on his bed, his thoughts going on about him being worthless and a disappointment, along with other degrading things. he turned his phone off, setting it on his nightstand. he curled up into a ball and became even more numb to the world. when he fell asleep? dan wouldnt have been able to tell you.

when dan woke up, it felt weird. it felt like what his lucid dreams used to feel like when  hed been a kid. he also didnt feel as he did when he assumed hed fallen asleep, furthuring the feeling of this being weird and unusual. well, those things, and the youtube god himself, pewdiepie, or felix as hed told dan and phil to call him when theyd met up in the past, standing at the end of dans bed.

"felix? why are you in my room?" he was slightly creeped out. he only ever really saw felix at youtube events anymore, and even then, it wasnt much.

"i know who this felix person is, but i am not him. i am the ghost of youtubers past." felix, or rather the ghost, said, the voice was eerily similar to felix' and it creeped dan out further. "recently, youve wished for something along the lines of never being born at all, am i correct to say this?"

"yeah, but hold up, why in bloody hell are you in my -me and phils- flat? howd you even get in?" dan looked confused, he was staying as far as he possibly could be from felix, or the ghost or whatever the fuck it was, which meant he was huddled against the headboard of his bed. "what has my stupid eyelash wish have got to do with any of this?"

"daniel, im here to show you how your friends and family would have really been if you hadnt been born. you see, your thoughts after the wish, about everybody being better off without you, were mostly wrong. your family, that thought, was the only one that was partially correct. yes, if they didnt have you as their son, all of the things that you think they think of you would disappear, but they would have still had two children. your grandma wouldve been just as close with them as she was to you." then suddenly, at the end of the ghosts words, dans room transformed, his fairylights  and comfortable bed morphing into something else. all dan could do was watch.

his surroundings had changed into a huge decorated and lit up christmas tree with wrapped gifts underneath. there were two children, a teenaged girl and a younger boy, perhaps a toddler, pulling at a christmas cracker. when the young boy ended up getting the bigger end of the game, the older sister said "happy christmas!" with fondness that made dans heart ache. the siblings looked close, and happy. happier than dan and his younger brother had been at those ages.  it made dan long for that kind of relationship with the lad. it also brought a bitter taste and thoughts to dan. the girl, for obvious reasons, wasnt dan. their mannerisms very  different, her smile lacking a dimple.

"yazzy, go help your mum in the kitchen." an old woman, that dan immediately recognized as his (or rather not his) grandma, walked in to the room. he hadnt visited the kind, aging woman in years, and seeing this made him feel guilty.

he turned to the ghost, tears forming and wetting his eyes. "can we leave? i already knew i was insignificant in their lives." he said this, his voice small as he looked away from the scene playing out before him. the ghost nodded and then they were in a different location once again.

it was his friend, louises current home. but it was empty, no baby toys or anything in the flat hed gotten used to being busy.

"louises success mightve been all her, but you helped in the process, being there when she needed a friend. she didnt have darcy because she never met her partner." the ghost said this with a grim look. dan looked around, sad eyes gazing everywhere. it was then he realized he hadnt rung up louise in weeks.

"fuck..." was dans whispered response to the situation.

the location faded again, taking them to a park. pj sat on the bench in front of dan and the ghost. he was talking to people that dan didnt recognize. "pj and chris never became a couple because you werent there to help them realize their feelings for each other." dan looked down at the ghosts words. they stung, knowing his friends hadnt gotten together just because dan hadnt been born.

" and chris? what would his fate have been if id never been around?" the ghost pointed at a man walking behind them, talking on the phone. he didnt spare pj a single look.

"without your constant encouragement, he dropped youtube. he got an office job and quickly climbed the ranks." the words sounded sad.

the location changed yet again, to a sight he never wanted to see again. they were in an unfamiliar bedroom, it was dark and there was an even darker silhouette hanging from a ceiling fan. dan feared the worst. the sight of it made dan want to curl into a ball. there was pounding on the closed door.

dan watched in silence, mouth open in a silent cry as the parents of the silhouette opened the door. the mother fell into the fathers arms, crying loudly. the father was frozen, terror shining in his eyes as he took in the sight of the cold and lifeless body. the  room faded into a plain, white room that had no soothing qualities to dan.

"that was ben. in a world with you in it, he would have found the courage to come out as a transmale and gay. without you, he never learned of his parents acceptance. he wouldve committed suicide if not for your videos." the ghost said this softly, its eyes sad. "this is the sad reality of the fans. some are not in good situations and so they turn to youtube for an escape. without your videos, a lot of fans dont have that escape." dans face grew even more sad as he realized that had been the same reality that he had faced before becoming a youtuber.

"and phil? what would have happened to him?" this question had been on his mind the entire time they had been in this weird dreamland. the ghosts already sad face saddened even more and the scenery changed once again.

dan looked confused as his eyes wondered around the area. they were in a graveyard in the middle of the day. except dan couldnt see any services being held that phil wouldve attended.

"where is he? why are we in a graveyard?" his questions were frantic as he continued searching for the wonderous blue-yellow-green eyes and the dyed black hair of his best friend. then his gaze landed on the gravestone of the grave they were in front of. he dropped to his knees, his face blank as he read the stone.

Here lies

Philip Michael Lester

January 30th, 1987-June 22nd, 2012

He was loved dearly by fans, friends, and family.

"phil didnt have a number one fan to skype him to take his mind off his problems, to correct him when he thought of how weird he was and how weird everybody was bound to think of him."

"unique. phil is unique, not weird." dan corrected without hesitation.

"that is what i mean when i say that. he didnt have somebody to do that when youtube comments started telling him he was weird. he didnt have someone to be an iconic duo with. he killed himself when it all got to be too much." the ghost went quiet after telling that to dan, most likely letting the man grieve his best friend.

dan had started sobbing loudly. "n...no no no. take me home, this cant be real, this is not real." he whimpered, his eyes were screwed shut as he sobbed over the possibility of his optimistic, cheery best friend taking his life. he missed the transformation of the landscape, still sobbing loudly by the time hed been back in the comfort of his bedroom.

the ghost was no longer there and there was loud knocking. and to dans relief, phil called out his name with concern that dan was now certain was genuine. phil came in, rushing to the side of the monochrome bed to take the brown haired crying man into his arms. he knew better than to ask what was wrong right away, so he just held him.

"phil, promise me you wont believe people when they say hateful things toward you?" he asked this in a panicked rush, his words stuttered as he looked with terrified eyes at phil.

" i promise." phil held dan close, the sound of his heartbeat tethering dan to reality.

"i had a dream." dan proceeded to tell phil about what hed wished and then about the dream he had afterward. when he was done, phil held him. dan was still crying, but it had subsided a lot with the knowledge of phil being alive. "im sorry, phil. i know i shouldnt have wished for something so morbid and sad, but it was before an episode and i cant control my thoughts during those." he cuddled to phils chest, sniffling.

" dan, you know i love you. you know im always going to be here to support and comfort you." phils voice was soft and supportive, deep unlike what the viewers usually heard. "you dont have to apologize at all for the way your brain works, just like i dont. im glad you realized that that wasnt real, but i dont want you thinking that i wouldve been better off without you because i wouldnt be as far as i am today if i didnt have you by my side. dont ever tell yourself otherwise." he smiled his amazing smile that was saved just for dan.

dan leaned into phils chest, breathing in the comforting scent.   he sighed as he realized that life would be better with him and phil still alive.

____________________

i did end up mentioning dans family, but i only did briefly dont hate me.

[vr2]

*turn around in shorts that say its time for my fuckin opinion on the ass* hey sweaty read to choke on my bns hot takes for uh lets see here uh ... t-two thousand words....

first of all... im pretty easily entertained so if u fail to do that its so like something has gone horribly wrong. i can enjoy pretty much anything halfway decent and i hate nitpicking on shit. but nitpicking implies small problems and sometimes the problem is the whole fucking thing. but man the direction bns has been going in is like. it really be like that, it really be just the most blatantly boring and uninspired it could go and here’s my fucking video essay that i will not do you the honour of being read aloud since the force of my opinion would crush your skull like a grape if spoken in the real world. 

first of all. i generally didnt have a problem with act1 bns story, i honestly thought it had some cool characters, some COOL as fuck cutscenes and as a person that loves lore juice a lot of the characters held a lot of promise and the diary was a fun read despite being the absolutely worst most stupid way to deliver any sort of lore content.

the circular narrative, the tight ending and the callback to all the characters was pretty well-rounded, a little but hammy but adopting the hongmoon kids nad becoming the master of your school was pretty novel. i really felt like there were so many new places to go with this dynamic, like bns could do something new by giving the mc more stakes in other characters rather than being a complete wildcard drifter.

but they keep doing this fucking thing were they repeat story themes in a way thats become incredibly unwelcome. i can understand why npcs would become recurring characters, why certain objects etc are still relevant but the fact that beat for beat the endgame again is divine mandate, mushins there, namsoyoo in danger and someone gets killed off for the sake of idk tragedy i guess. 

i think the worse thing is that the game tries to be tongue in cheek about its tropiness and normally id be like ok cool but the tropes are executed just so fucking blandly and soullessly its kind of insulting like. they really absolutely did not fucking try in the slightest for this one. not at fucking all. 

ryu saying ‘oh it would be so bad if you passed out form poison at an inconvenient time’ and the obvious death flags from bunah and bunyang are incredibly grating when you have absolutely no fucking stake in the story, know exactly whats coming cause the writing repeats itself over and over and know the exact same beats. 

at the very least most people can stand tropey anime, hell you can even ENJOY it if you are absorbed into the world and characters and the tropes are executed well. but this story is wholesale just same fucking shit slightly different npcs. it feels like they tries to manufacture drama in the most blatantly cheap way and it really lets itself down. i could honestly see them killing ONE of the kids for cheap and dirty tearjerking but man all of them leaving you alone again with jsy is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo unebelievably lazy. we have entered asian tv drama levels but at least those are fucking interesting. even the dance number in this act was shit.

i think the most annoying thing is that bns is one of the first mmos i played way back when and i still genuinely like the game up to a point and i like the world and characters. im literally always moaning bout how they did fuck all with the eight masters but gave them the barest most tantalizing hints of interesting characterisation in the diaries. but i think that’s all you need. it doesnt need to be 24/7 ballz to the walls worldending tragedy shock tactics to be entertaining. it somehow feels like they played it so incredibly safe that they looped around and made the worst decision possible and i just really wish theyd hire just your random ass average fucking ln writer cause theyd at least make shit entertaining. like the long form story telling of a truple a game thats reaching nearly 10 acts now should definitely be better than this like. what a fucking way to drop the ball.  

now. my second bone to grind. tell me why they actively REMOVED? ALL SIDE QUESTS? what kind of game, especially an mmo would fucking remove its OWN lore? why would that make any fucking sense? especially for how lore-light this game is but how vast its world is like sidequests felt like the absolute BARE minimum way to furnish this admittedly underdeveloped world. they at least gave us that slight illusion of depth and some of them were even fun! interesting! i still remember the sidequest where you go on a ‘hostage rescue mission’ to save an npc’s son who was kidnapped by lycandi and the npc who fucking gave you the mission murders his own son in front of you cause he was bumpin with the lycandi like. it’s not fucking riveting writing but it gave some more context to the places you visit, it’s SOMETHING about the supposed people that inhabit the world and it clearly makes some places more memorable than just ‘cool sky desert’, ‘cool sky city’, ‘cool sky village’.

im vaguely aware that this was done cause it ‘confused players’ who thought they had to do blue quests to level up to endgame and firstable idk why bns pushes endgame as the only ‘good’ part when its like in my humble opinion really fucking boring. you know people play mmos for different reasons? not just to reach lvl 100 super tier omega hongmoon thornbuster breakre 5000 and be no.1 in pvp. just looking flashy and good combat isn’t really enough to compete these days. im guessing its a push to the esports scene but also like you really want to serve one side better by doing relateively arbitrary thing that fucks over pve ppl? like? 

also there ARE genuinely people interested in the world and content and story as exemplified by all the oc and various comics and even even some official webcomics like i honestly dont think nc at all in any way nurtures that side of their mmo nearly enough especially when you see how healthy and thriving ff14 and other communities are in their oc scene. the sheer fact that people still stuck around despite the experiene of playing bns being patently awfully optimised and an uphill battle in every single way is testament to the fact that maybe some people just genuinely like the game? gutting it is absolutely antithesis to that.

i actually cant wrap my head around purposefully deleting lore cause it makes ‘grinding to endgame’ too confusing like does the story take that low a priority? the fucking ACTUAL game and the story is less important than people mindlessly burning themselves out to endgame, grinding dungeons and buying lootboxes like you cant do in literally every other game anyways? why would you get rid of some of the only shit that makes your game even slightly different? like im not out here saying it was the most revolutionary great shit but at least the side quests TRIED to give a modicum of flavour to bns. like they at least attempted to add to all the zones and make them places rather than set pieces were story happens to you then you leave and never come back. it doesnt even have to be revolutionary amazing writing to do that it just needs to be serviceable to give even the slightest sense of depth.

but for some reason rather than idk. just tell people theyre just flavour text and theyre not compulsory or just toggle on/off the fucking blue quest markers you decide to fucking? nuke the already translated (which someone no doubt paid for), completely unintrusive, absolutely functional, if somewhat tedious sidequests? making the whole fucking game even MORE barren and lifeless? FOR FREE? what a fucking deal.

 i literally cannot understand this clownery this absolute idiot idea could only have been concocted by the specific brand of stupidity found only in corporate sales dept. but like i think its also emblematic of how this game has no creative direction other than make Money which is fucked cause theres genuinely many parts of this game that i enjoy from like characters, music, visuals theres A LOT of promise in bns even if it takes a lot of legwork to get to it. as much as people give htk shit he absolutely made this game what it is visually and thematically, the soundtrack fucking rocks, theres some solid characters and story elements, a lot of the game still holds up visually and som of it dare i say looks fucking good. give bns a try its free to play.

maybe ive just been spoiled by fgo and gbf and literally every other popular game ACTUALLY trying to write good shit. trying to give their readers lore, trying to make things genuinely ENJOYABLE as a game should be rather than a part time job. but man i always forget after act1 bns really reveals why its never broken out from being a midweight grindy mmo