#i think my favorite part of the Brain Scene is when they get howdy out & he's like. half collapsed on the curb w/ an oxygen mask

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Wait holdup what’s this about Howdy’s shop burning down and nearly taking him with it?? (talking about human au)

oh yeah lmfao it caught fire

it wasn't like... foul play or anything. in my mind it was some sort of electrical failure or bizarre accident. like a lightning strike! actually wait i like that lightning strike idea bc then it could be Raining for this very dramatic scene and i do love me some rain juxtaposing fire <3

and Howdy would've been fine! he got all of his employees and customers out of the building, including himself. he handed them off to Barnaby & Wally, who had been swinging by for dinner with fantastic timing (the fire department was just then arriving). then, like an idiot, Howdy went right back inside the Very On Fire building!

bc, ok, he lives in his store. specifically, above it. the ground floor is the store, then there's a staircase going up to an apartment. and naturally, Howdy was not gonna abandon all of his / the store's legal documents (also his coupon stash) to burn.

so in his mind he was like "yeah ill just pop in, grab these very important files, and then get out. easy!". babe, you're giving Barnaby & Wally a heart attack. that's what you're doing. dumbass (affectionate)

but yeah he's in there, in the burning building, smoke everywhere. meanwhile outside firefighters (and Wally) have to physically hold Barnaby back from going in after Howdy, even though a few more firefighters already went in to find him. its all very dramatic! blah blah blah the front door becomes unusable, blah blah blah the apartment windows explode due to thermal stress & also bc i want them to, etc etc

long story short the firefighters get Howdy out through the back, and mostly unscathed at that! ofc smoke inhalation is a thing, he's got some minor cuts and burns, but it's really not that bad! lucky bastard! he gets taken to the hospital to get treated & make sure he's fine, and he is.

naturally he stays with Barnaby & Wally for a while. he doesn't have a say in the matter lol he was planning on getting a motel room or somethin, but Barnaby picked him up from the hospital, took him home, and went "alright the guest room is ready for you we can go shopping tomorrow for anything you need, you live here now". good thing Howdy rescued his coupons!

the fire damage to the building is, thankfully, mostly cosmetic. it takes a while to clean & fix it, but Howdy has great friends and a wonderful community to help out! everyone chips in, some fundraisers happen, Wally sells some Darling™️ Exclusives™️, etc. long story short they get the store back up & running, and with some new bells and whistles to go with it!

[machinesonix]

Somehow I have made it this long without realizing that none of the screen adoptions of Dune so much as mention the Butlerian Jihad. Like I guess it's burned into my brain so hard I sort of assumed it was part and parcel of the universe. Don't get me wrong, I think that's probably the first thing you learn if you want to dive deeper into the setting, but it still hits me like if the LotR movies showed us the big flaming eyeball tower and was like ‘Oh, that's why there are bad things, but don't worry, that's just background stuff.’ Yeah, you can understand the movie, but if the story is just like Frodo vs. The Witch King you are losing out on any of the conversation about the corruptive allure of power or theological undertones. So without further ado let's pretend this is for the benefit of interested new fans roped in by the movies and not part of my desperate attempt to silence the howling specters of literary analysis that live in my blood.

The Butlerian Jihad is an event set ~10k years prior to the events of Dune in which humanity won their freedom from the machines that they had enslaved themselves to. As a result, it is a religious taboo to create a machine that thinks like a human. That's frankly the bulk of the information presented by Frank Herbert in the text without dipping into books 7+, but whether or not those are canon is frankly an enormous can of worms, which really makes sense when you consider the size of the worms. But boy howdy, Frank loved his subtext and parallelism. Everyone has a foil character, every theme is hit from multiple angles, and Villinueve has been doing an excellent job of capturing a lot of that in repeated imagery and dialogue. The Butlerian Jihad happens off camera, but it's themes are absolutely critical to the big picture.

The Butlerian Jihad was a holy war. It was not merely a rebellion against the machines, it was a crusade against them. The prohibition against thinking machines isn't just a law, it's in the pan-universal Bible. Absolute psychopath Pieter DeVries himself claps back at the Baron for insinuating he might have a use for a computer, and this is a guy who has been hired specifically for his preternatural absence of morals. Let's hold onto that idea for a minute. 

Probably my favorite scene in the first book is the one where planetologist Liet-Kynes is dying out in the desert. As the last of his strength fades to dehydration he hallucinates conversations he had with his father concerning terraforming Arakkis for human habitability. He's told that the means are not complicated. There is already enough water on the planet, the Little Makers just have it all trapped deep underground as part of the sandworm reproductive cycle. You just need to isolate enough water to start irrigating plant life, and once it's established that'll keep the water on the surface on its own. The hard part is making sure everyone on the planet is environmentally conscious enough to foster a developing ecosystem. Nobody can drink any of that water while it's being collected, because they'll just introduce it back into the water cycle where the Little Makers are. It's going to take generations, so that sort of water discipline is going to have to go above and beyond a social convention. People need to be willing to die before they'll take a sip and compromise the plan. Ghost Dad Kynes concludes that the only mechanism in the human experience to enforce this consensus is religion. 

In the context of this whole parallelism thing, you have probably noticed that the Butlerian Jihad is not the only holy war in the narrative. Paul sees a new jihad as the only way of creating a future where humans can flourish. Now you might be saying ‘Wait now, Machines. I thought the point of Paul’s holy war was to avenge Leto and disempower established power structures by taking away the control of the spice!’ And you’d be right. The thing is, without getting into spoiler territory, Dune Messiah is not going to be about how everything just gets so much better now that Paul has destroyed the economy, government, and untold billions of human lives. This isn’t the endgame. Dude can see the future and the way he does it involves looking into the past. Paul lives in a society defined by a holy war and his goal is to redefine society. 

Putting it all together you can see what I mean about the Butlerian Jihad being essential to the themes even though the story never shows us a thinking machine or a narrative beat where the absence of computers changes the outcome. It helps us see the big picture. I’ve seen a lot of dialogue lately on whether Paul is a tragic hero or a consummate villain and I’m not here to answer that, but I am here to underline the critical detail. Paul intends to be seen as a tyrant. Just like Kynes’ hallucination says, religion is the lever to make a value stick around forever. He wants to traumatize humanity to hate chosen ones and emperors the same way the machines traumatized humanity to change them forever. The Water of Life ritual doesn’t invert his values, it lets him realize these visions of war are the means, not the ends. He is absolutely not happy about it, but this is Paul’s terrible purpose. 

[cisthehuman]

Dev Log--Halloween Tunes 2024

Howdy! It's been a while! I've been enjoying my little hiatus! I actually did some fun planning and completed this years Halloween tunes *before* Halloween! I'm very proud of this one--so proud I wanted to chat about how it was made! Come on down let's delve deeper into these tracks!

Which by the by, the way I make tunes is through soundtrap. I use their music loops and fit them together to make these songs! I have no music bone in my body, but I love listening to music, so I've been going by ear on how to create these songs. In soundtrap you can find different sounds and voice clips. It's a bit difficult because I usually have to search by a general word like 'scary' or 'poetry' to find something usable. I was genuinely surprised how I was able to find a lot of clips using the same person for this. It felt so on purposely cohesive when it was purely luck!

Track 1: Cold Blooded

Believe it or not, this was the last track made. At this point, I was honestly burned out from putting my entire brain into the other songs. When most songs took maybe 3 hours in one day, I worked in smaller amounts of time over the course of several days. It was interesting because this was one of the tracks I was looking forward to, but it turned into a hard puzzle to crack.

As I wanted this song to convey the vibe of the rest of the songs, I wanted to include certain things--strings, guitar, some music change ups, and possibly an outro. The first iteration was very messy and felt very forced. There were too many moving parts and changes. When things get messy, I usually make a new file so I can start on a clean slate. However, I couldn't do that this time. I really wanted to keep the 'Let me out!!' sound clip, but I couldn't remember what words I used to search for it so I kept working in the same file. Since I couldn't restart on a fresh file (and you can't duplicate songs you make on soundtrap) , I went back to my thought process that worked for the previous songs--what's the story?

I've said this before, but my main background is writing! And when making these little tunes, especially the Halloween themed ones, I try to picture a music video and have the music follow the video playing in my head. With that in mind, the story we follow is essentially 'person is walking around a grave, gets kidnapped by a witch, and gets a spooky cast spell on them'. Very easy to piece things together--especially when I was able to find so many spoken clips of the witchy character (which you hear more of throughout other songs). Despite being a mess at the beginning, I think it turned out really good in the end! A good opener!

Track 2: Lurking in the Deep

This was fun! And I believe one of the few songs that doesn't have any spoken voice clips. This song was the fifth one completed, for those curious.

The main conceit of this song was 'weird monster in the ocean that's chasing you'. I imagined this playing during a chase scene or something similar.

One of my favorite things is the sound of the monster. That consisted of two different monster noises I found. One of them is a growl and the other is gurgling noise. I changed the effects of them to make this creepy monster noise. I find weird gurgles scary and uncomfortable, and I think really sells the idea that this being is otherworldly.

I'm also really proud the 'underwater' section. I love when a scene shows characters interacting with music. For example in Brave Bang Bravern, when Bravern first appears his theme music is playing. At first you think it's just a directional choice in the show, but then it's mentioned it's actually playing in real life from his speakers. I wanted to do something similar to the track where the music sounds like its muffled underwater because the person is literally underwater.

Track 3: Come Alive

I wanted to make a fun club like track LOL

So some context, I make characters for these little albums I make. The character here, BATTY, currently has the most albums since Halloween comes around every year and I'm always inspired by the holiday. The first album was really fast paced and dance-y, and I wanted to make another dance-y song.

This song was one of the ones I made in 3 or so hours in one sitting. It was a fever dream. I don't even know if I have much to say about it. This one came together pretty quickly. It was the seventh song made, and is partially the reason I had some burnout when trying to finish Cold Blooded as I put the last bit of my brain into making a Halloween club song.

One thing that I find interesting is there are so many loop that sound spooky. A lot of the trap loops in soundtrap lend themselves to a Halloween-esque sound. I will say, a part of me kinda wants to make an extended version, but I'm not sure. I can be easily convinced though LOL

Track 4: Bloodsucker

This one is a personal fave. I play it all the time lol

It was the sixth song completed, and at first I was a bit lost at what to do, but after I found the main voice clip (I don't remember what I searched for it--I think vampire?), I got a game plan.

I believe the voice clip is a poem focusing on healing mental illness (at least that's what I think), but I found it kinda compelling as a comparison to a vampire settling with their newfound monstrous side. (It also would be good for a Jekyll/Hyde metaphor!)

Props to the guy who recited this poem, he really gets emotional in it. I really love it. His voice reminded me of the guy who speaks in Thriller by Michael Jackson at the end of the song. Really cool. I think the 'Insomnia' vocal clip (a soundtrap loop) is a nice juxtaposition with it. The idea of pairing them together was to perpetuate the idea of being able to settle with the good and bad parts of ourselves. As humans, our ignorance causes us to be bad people at times, but we still have good in us and we can nurture it to live alongside the bad.

Like I said before, this is the third album under BATTY, and I kept thinking about his first one where it was kinda 80s inspired with some of the tracks. I wanted to bring the techno vibe back and I think it fit with this song a lot!

Track 5: Lucifer, Fallen Angel

This is where we get to my artistic fascination with the devil. Ol' Luci is an interesting character and I wanted to make a song kinda describing his descent into hell.

This song was the 3rd one made out of the group! And it was made as a pair to go along side Hell.

Here you get to hear the witchy voice again! It was only on a relisten that I noticed that she's heard here and in the following track, Hell. Accidental cohesion there. It kinda adds a layer of 'maybe the speaker who was kidnapped by the witch is going through a bad trip or something through the spells' to everything. Imagine to your heart's content what the overarching story is!

One thing that was cut out from this was a sound clip of like a metal scream of 'SAAATAAAAAN!!!'. I was going to use it during the metal section of the song, but I was afraid it was going to be a bit too hokey LOL Maybe next year I'll use it. I love making metal songs now since soundtrap finally added TONS of guitar loops

I was unsure of adding this one at first, as I thought it didn't sound Halloween enough. But then I said fuck it and kept it in LOL

Track 6: Hell

Whoooo!!! Let's give it up for the track that set the tone for this little collection of musiccc!!! Whoooooo!!!

That's right folks, this was the first completed song. It made me so pumped. I love intros that build up, and this one has like an over minute long intro.

This one probably has the most sound clips used. I just love all of the demon clips I was able to get. After piece them together, I thought 'ohhhh....I could do all of the songs like this'.

Piecing voice clips together actually came from a previous song I worked on that I'll use for my new stream opening. I know, I'm on hiatus and I'm working stuff for when I inevitably come back lol That song was like my trial run, while Hell was the like proper execution of the skill if that makes sense.

And we have an outro!! I never really made outros too much, and I just listened to KNOWER's song Nightmare that has a fun little outro, and I thought 'I gotta make an outro for people to groove out to'. I'm kinda obsessed with outros now because this one was so fun. I'm really happy with this one, and I'm glad I finished it first because I didn't have a direction when making tunes this year and this totally put me on the right track!

Track 7: Rest in Peace

This was the second track to be completed! And originally the final song.

After the high I had on finishing Hell, I jumped into making this one the day after. The voice clips of the first girl is actually the same in my new stream intro and outro music lol, she has a lot to pull from.

This turned into a very uplifting song. This and the last song, Ashes to Ashes, are my exploration of death. Death is a major theme in Halloween, and one I often avoided for years. This song didn't touch on my thoughts with it too much as the next one does, but I was surprised how calming it ended despite the strong intro.

And there's an outro! I told you I became obsessed with them after I finished Hell. What was cool was this particular music loop pack had a sample of the main melody in two different ways. So I could start and end with the same melody but with a different tone. lol it makes me seem more masterful than I am.

Track 8: Ashes to Ashes

Ahhh the namesake of the album, and another high key favorite.

This was the third song completed, and it made me very reflective.

I mentioned this several times of my little blog, but I lost my father suddenly three years ago. It has made my relationship with death much closer than I thought it would be, at a time much earlier than I thought.

I was never someone who liked talking about death even when my dad was alive. My dad on the other hand talked about it as if he was just talking about the rain lol that's just the kinda guy he was. At first I was a bit scared to do this song, as I believed it would make bad memories come up. The more I found sound clips and pieced everything together, I felt this wave of calm come over me.

It was very weird. I felt more and more at peace with everything. It was a bit of a full circle moment. I saw a post online of an ignorant person who talked about a celebrity who's personality is grieving her partner, and it made laugh. I don't wish ill on that person at all--in fact, I hope they remain ignorant. Grief is a body altering thing. It's something you won't understand unless you experience it, and I genuinely don't want anyone to experience it for a long time. Trauma changes everything about you, you turn into a different person, your brain acts differently, your body changes.

Rebuilding yourself from the ground up takes so much work. I've come to terms with not being able to be at 100% anymore. I'm happy I can make it to at least 60% every day.

With that being said, yes, I'll keep talking about my grief. It's only because my grief led me to making music and streaming as an outlet.

I know I didn't really share any tidbits about making the song with this one, but I think its more important to share how I felt when making it. I hope it makes you reflective as well!

And that's it!! Whoo!! Thanks for reading and for listening to the tunes!

I'll try to have more music out--I know I have a huge backlog lol

Either way, enjoy the spooky season!!! I'll see you on the next oneeeeeeee

[bearded-shepherd]

LET’S TALK: LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS VOL 3 (few spoilers)

THREE ROBOTS: EXIT STRATEGIES >>

The first episode starts out super strong with everyone’s beloved robots! On their next stop, they’re visiting where all the sorry fukers hoarding all the money come to cower in isolation. The whole short was just jabs after jabs towards humanity, tech bros, and billionaires have me ded laughing… bet Musky boy is lovin this… on top of his ‘elongate’ thing (:

BAD TRAVELING >>

I dunno how ya can put a whole ass movie in less that 14:00 min, but they did it somehow! Also, ya never really thought crabs can be so terrifying and yet so delicious at the same time. But anyways, the short took me on a loop (especially the ending).

THE VERY PULSE OF THE MACHINE >>

Kids, drugs are a powerful thing; and if ya start hearing your dead friend spouting deep shit like it’s 3 o’clock in the morn on a weed session, then uh … idk it’s all vibes from there really.

Damn I can’t get enough of the visuals, stunning and trippy. What I really like about this short is that it take same story of dying in space. Most stories ya have the person float out into space, drifting further and further into the black ink… alone; But in this short, ya have the feeling of not being alone in an array of beauty ( even if it’s the drugs doing all the talking).

NIGHT OF THE MINI DEAD >>

O man I fukin love this; just full fukin chaos out the wazoo. I love the literal aspect of it all. It’s like one of those shitty mobile games that is constantly advertised and ya know it’s false advertisement, but actually came to life (or in a mini short). I will honestly play the fuk out of a game like this.

KILL TEAM KILL >>

If the Terminator, G.I Joe, and The Edge had a fuck up baby, this is it. What more can ya ask for; just 3 loving parents raising an edgy child. Pure fukin testosterone shooting up to ya brain creating a whole ass fever dream. This is Adult Swim gold right here.

SWARMS >>

That Guy: Let’s exploit this alien race (presumably non sentient) for profit Everyone Else:  … da fuk you aint

Humans being humans I suppose. So  uh, we all skipped the sex part right?

MASON'S RATS >>

First of all, what the hell was in the GMOs? Second, how did WW3 end? And third, how rich is this fuker to be able to buy all this tech?

Another thing, these rats hold ZERO grunges even if the main guy bought tech to literally commit rat genocide… like wot, did the rats not eat enough GMOs or somethin to think for a sec. Whatevs, that’s not the horrifying part, that goes to the Traptech guy and his tiny ponytail friend.

I can’t deny, I did laughed pretty hard on the long scene with the TT-15 over killing one of the rats tho.

IN VAULTED HALL ENTOMBED >>

This is a long video game trailer right? Right? I mean Ya got ya generic male lead that was randomly created by  a COD character creation thing. HOWEVER, this short, the true lead is Cthulhu’s lost sibling Cbhubhu alright. My eye is on them and only them. But no seriously, if this was a game I would actually be interested in; I wanna know the story/world and I wanna get to kno… them.

JIBARO >>

Now boy Howdy, this one fuked me. Girl out here fuking it up on the waters and slaying the boys in the yard. Can’t resist a lil jingle jangles in our brains and it goes strait to our jiggly asses; except for that one knight, he was deaf… (:(:(:

Anyways, fukin brilliant, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I love how confused the siren was when she realized the guy was just not reactive at all.

Honestly, this short haunted me the most (well besides the traptech guy…)

Overall, great season; I really enjoyed it and for me, a definite step up from the last season. It’s hard to choose a favorite on this one; but I do say, the true winner was the soundtrack. The music in each short just fit so well.

[daxieoclock]

Give me one favorite quote for each of the phantom thieves! >:3c

thank you for the ask! i'llll give a couple favorite quotes i think, where appropriate. this game has a whole lot of really phenomenal dialogue at times djhfbgbhj

Ren: "Checkmate." - one of his like only four voiced cutscene lines in p5 the game. really fucking good. "Nice to work with you, Ryuji!" - fucking amazingly charming little exchange from the p5 anime where ann playfully blows off ryuji, who gets grumpy about it, to which ren immediately chimes in. it's so fun and cute and full of personality.

Morgana: "We are the Phantom Thieves, and we're here to take your bride!" - great line, definitely should have been haru's and not his, but it's still fantastic. "I want to stay here forever!" - morgana coming clean right before he returns to the thieves legit makes me tear up. it's such a wonderful scene and this line lives rent free in my head.

Ann: "I will rob you of everything!" - final line of her awakening cutscene and it STILL gives me chills. "He called me pretty lady :D" - hearing this during Jose's introductory scene in royal made me laugh so hard i almost choked. it was so fucking funny and cute and just jdhfbgjhbj g-d. ann getting happy cause this tiny little baby boy was nice to her, just makes me grin.

Ryuji: "There's a place for you here too. Right next to me." - the chariot 9 confession scene that never was. g-d. canon ryuji has it fucking rough, crushing on a guy who is Contractually Obligated to be heterosexual. anyway this scene is great and this line is great. "Stop looking down on me with that stupid smile on your face!" - another awakening line that just fucks so incredibly hard. it's really good shit.

Yusuke: "No matter how often I may lose my way or stumble on our path...I will always return." - Yusuke's third semester awakening scene was probably the only section of his canon characterization that i really liked? but boy howdy was it good. it was REALLY good.

Makoto: "Don't get all cocky because I normally behave myself. I am DONE playing nice." - yet ANOTHER awakening line that fucks severely.

Futaba: It's impossible to pick one specific line for this slot but I'll just say every single line Futaba has in P5S between battles and for treasure and stuff. She's a constant delight, literally throws out meta references to the series' MUSIC "Bring on the mass destruction!" "Wanna give 'em a last surprise?" it's fucking amazing djhfbgjh. and her MENU lines??? she makes autistic noises every time you open her part of the menu!!! biggest grin

Haru: I've said some of my favorite haru lines in a previous ask today but if i had to pick a specific line i liked from her cool moments in Scramble... "No matter how many times you fall, you can always get back up and start again!" - throwing mariko's own words back at her, giving the same pep talk mariko gave her when she was a child. it's sweet and cliche and i love it.

Kasumi: "You're telling me I'm not cutting it? As if I don't know that better than anyone!" - another awakening line that gives me such fucking chills aaaaa g-d. so fucking good. Laura Post did fucking AMAZING with this.

Akechi: Honestly, the entirety of the boiler room scene could go here. I don't think I could quote it by heart or anything, but it's damn close to that level of rent-free djhfbgjhb. Especially "So how!? How can someone like you have something I don't!?" fucking kills me every time. g-d. insane in the brain.

[kineticallyanywhere]

got tagged by @writingondaisies! 

How many works do you have on AO3?

14 (there’s one I should move from ff.net soon, but it’s not there now)

What’s your total AO3 word count?

270,817

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

In order of recencey... Dungeons & Daddies, RWBY, Red vs Blue, The Flash/Arrowverse, Danny Phantom, Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja, (back into ff.net days, Kim Possible, American Dragon: Jake Long, a Percy Jackson one-shot... another thing... Warriors)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Mind over Matter (Red vs Blue)

Fourteen, and four thousand, years old (RWBY)

Flying, falling, stand your ground (RWBY)

The Way Out (Red vs Blue)

Washin’Boose (Red vs Blue) 

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to for long-running fics and for especially long or intense comments, but I’m usually just so nervous ;<; they all warm my heart tho, there is not one that I haven’t read more than once

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I’m typically allergic to straight tragedy, but... I think probably Put your Stampler in a box (D&Dads), since the whole thing is a hypothetical lead-up to a magic teenager going on a rampage. Mind over Matter has a really emotional ending, but I like to think it’s more bittersweet than straight angst. Fourteen, and four thousand, years old swerves into angst, but nobody’s dying or anything so... yeah!

Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Heroes Under Drinking Age is the incomplete MASSIVE thing which is supposed to ultimately crossover Danny Phantom, RC9GN, American Dragon, and Kim Possible. I hit a hard writing wall on the ADJL and KP side and just never got over it :( I still dream of finishing it

Oh I guess there’s also a TMA-D&Dads crossover I’ve put some thought into, where after s5 Jon and Martin land in Faerun to replace The Library, and they get to decompress in this strange world, meet the Likelys, and hear about the eldritch-adjacent beings from other worlds. 

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nope! (knocks on all the wood) at least not if you’re not counting someone pointing out spelling stuff unsolicited or stuff like that. 

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

n o p e 

when I did Demons not sold separately (D&Dads) they kiss like two times and talk about the prospect of doing more, but it doesn’t go anywhere cause there’s kids nearby. I tagged it as “ace writing allos” just in case, cause boy howdy do I not know what I’m doing in that department ^u^’

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that I know of? I wouldn’t know where to start checking for that and if it’s happened, no one’s told me about it

Have you ever had a fic translated?

only in my dreams

Washin’Boose got a pod-fic tho!! 

What’s your all time favorite ship?

I don’t ship too much and I slide around a lot when I do, but Clark KentxLois Lane 4ever

Whats a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Heroes Under Drinking Age, my beloved...

I’ve also got a number of AUs for DnDads, some with enough written that I may as well post some of the stuff as one-shots to maybe expand on later. One is a high school au where Hen (14) comes to Earth early, another is an exploration of what it might be like to be a sort of demi-god descendant of a chaos entity with the Doodler Cult coming back (called Puberty, ????, and You). Idk if Done Sons and Dragons counts, cause that’d be a whole comic. I’d love to publish something of at least one of these

And then there’s a half-baked idea for Yet Another Oscar Time Travel AU for RWBY, that would take place starting after v8 and would feature Oscar and Emerald traveling back to the series start (on purpose.)

What are your writing strengths?

I’ve gotten quite a few compliments on my prose and scene pacing! I like writing prose like it’s the thought process of the character I’m following, and I often find myself getting a bit poetic about it. I’m a big fan of parallelisms and using repetition for impact. 

I also put a lot into trying to match the original tone of the content I’m writing fic for, and have gotten quite a few compliments on my character dialogue. I just get their voices in my brain and they don’t leave. On only one occasion have they paid rent. The freeloaders. 

What are your writing weaknesses?

I bite off more than I can chew and never finish 

I worry a lot over making sure emotional beats connect, and that it doesn’t feel like I’m jumping from point A to point C, and I’m afraid that makes me over-explain point B. Like I was rereading HUDA: Alpha after I posted it to ao3, and I have a lot of grace for my high school self, but some parts of that fic could have been smoothed out quite a bit. Parts of Mind over Matter are a bit wordier than they needed to be, too. 

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I feel like it’s best done by people who are fluent in a language. Language isn’t just changing words from A to B, it comes with cultural connotations and altered meanings and layers that are only going to come across perfectly when it comes from someone who knows exactly what they’re talking about. so like if I were ever to use more than a few words or a common phrase in another language in a fic, I’d find someone who actually speaks it to help me out. 

as for how to format it... if the meaning needs to be understood by the reader, you may as just put it in the fic’s main language and alter the formatting (like with itallics) or dialogue tag to denote that they’re speaking another language. If it’s small bits, I don’t super mind footnotes at the bottom or just leaving it untranslated, like a special bit for people who speak the language or are willing to look it up. 

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

warrior cats! me, my best friend, and my older sister all had OCs and were part of RainClan, our OC clan. Their camp was made in the trunk and branches of a big willow tree that made a kind of sheltered dome. I didn’t even know what fanfiction was back then

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

Mind over Matter. Hands down. For one, it’s actually done. That would put it in contest with The Way Out, which is also multi-chapter and complete, but MoM is WAY longer and took SO much more work but was SO worth it. It started as just scratching an itch and then grew into something that helped me prove to myself that I can do a long-term project, including themes and foreshadowing and narrative hootenanny and character arcs and character relationship arcs. the html coding. It was a great time, I’m so proud of it, editing it helped build one of my best friendships, and there is nothing I would trade that experience for. 

tagging @aryashi, @cinaed, @hedgiwithapen, and @glowstickia

[neeterloveschenford]

RNM 3x01

Howdy partners! It's finally happened. Roswell New Mexico has come back from the war! Last night was super exciting. I agree with everyone that said it was like a brand new pilot episode. I have slowly but surely gotten more excited over the last year, ever since she who should not be named got the boot. And it looks like things can only go up from here.

If you're new to my blog, I try to do a review of each episode just giving my opinions and speculating on what's to come. It's a long read because I really dived into almost every aspect this time, so I'll put the rest under the cut.

So without further ado, let's dive right in!!!

Mopey Max is mopey.

I know he was reverting back to his old way of doing things in not telling Michael and Isobel about dying, but I have to believe that he did it to have good memories for himself as well as for his siblings. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being generous, but I’m willing to give him a little grace this season. It’s a new beginning, so maybe we’ll get some growth from him this season.

Not gonna lie, Heath is a hottie. I can see what Liz sees in him. He’s kinda like if Max and Kyle had a baby. I hate her boss though.

Love the pod squad hanging out together. They were very funny and very much like real siblings when they were in the mindscape. And Isobel digging on Michael about Alex was so good! Also, how has no one noticed that Max is shooting up acetone like heroine.?

I’m gonna surprise some folks, but I ain’t mad about Delmanes. I think Greg has chemistry with everyone and they established that Maria and Alex are still in contact (I’ll get to that in a minute.) So I don’t think he’s going to have a problem with them. Frankly, I think they are going to sweep the thing we all hate under the rug and never bring it up again. And I am a-okay with that! Y’all, I want to love Maria so badly! She was my absolute favorite character from the OG and if they have to forget about questionable things that we all know were a product of CAM self inserting, then I am ok with it. Besides, she’s cute and he’s cute and they can just be cute together. I also don’t think she was dragging Michael when they were talking. She made a comment about Michael’s bad boy demeanor. Something that he has been cultivating for over a decade now. And her saying that some things aren’t meant to be…… I mean are we going to argue that point or something? I could have told her that last season.

Also, I want to try some of Bert’s mead.

Kyliz!!! I love their friendship so much! Few people challenge Liz the way Kyle does. He treats her with so much respect, but doesn’t hesitate to call her out when she’s being stubborn. Go Team Liz!!!!!

Michael Guerin stopping to fix his hair before he welcomes Alex Manes back just about broke me y’all.😭😭😭😭😭😭 My sweet son! I love him so much!! And I am so proud of him. I think the old Michael would have walked right up and made some sarcastic comment. But this Michael is respecting Alex’s choices and being a real friend. I am truly sad we didn’t get any one-on-one Malex content, but I know that this is just setting us up for an amazing journey for our boys.

It was also gut-wrenching to see Alex stepping off that bus and being confronted with Jesse’s statue. But it was nice to see him smile when Forrest came to meet him. I am nowhere near a Forlex shipper, but it was good to see Alex happy for once. And Michael’s face when he saw them.😭😭😭😭😭😭My baby boy. I just want to hug him so badly!!

Kyle trying to help everyone was so wonderful to see. He’s the best person on that show. If only folks would listen to him!!! But I am intrigued by this vision.

Damn Tyler Blackburn is ripped! Good lord son. You are killing me!

So here’s where we come back to Maria. It’s kind of a throwaway line, but Alex checks his phone and says it’s his brother and Maria making sure he got in ok. (Followed by that super cringy did you get in ok line from Forrest.) (No wonder they weren’t exclusive after a year!) This shows me that Alex still considers Maria to be his best friend. There’s no flinch. No negative reaction. He just starts returning texts before Forrest starts revealing that he’s in Deep Sky.

Wyatt Long is such a douche.

HAHAHAHA!!!! Forrest is nothing more than a low-level henchman! I love it! And I can’t blame him for falling for Alex. Who could? But let me tell ya bud, keeping secrets like that is no way to ingratiate yourself to one Alex Manes. You could see the wheels turning in Alex’s head. How much does Deep Sky know? Is Michael in danger? What lengths will he have to go to to protect him? I’m finding Deep Sky to be quite fascinating.

Max’s brain manifesting Liz when her song comes on the radio was so sad. He loves her so much, but is just so bad at being a good partner. You know he just wants to see her one last time before he dies. And once again, bravo to everyone’s hero Dr. Kyle. He’s tired of Max keeping this a secret. I just love them together. They hate, yet respect each other. It makes for a very interesting dynamic.

I’m like Liz and Heath. They had fun shenanigans! I enjoy shenanigans. And of course she would leak their patent to keep it from becoming a wrinkle cream. Like a boss!

“It’s a cactus! There’s a flower on that testicle!” Wyatt, you are an idiot. But why would anyone think that tacking Linda on the end of Rosa would be all that they need to do to integrate Rosa back into society. She looks the same! At least give her a new hairdo. And Wyatt was right on the money when he pointed out she writes on her shoes just like she did before. They really shouldn’t have given up on the makeover from last year. She definitely needs a new style.

Michael’s speech about being happy the last year was so good. He was so happy to have his family back. So was Isobel. They are totally right to be angry with Max. He always makes the decisions and never asks them. Their heartbreak hearing that Max’s body was rejecting the heart just made me want to cry.

I also didn’t hate Michael’s interaction with Maria. It’s rough having to be friendly with an ex. But they did care very much for each other. It makes perfect sense that he would want to let her know about Max to keep her from trying to force more visions. And she would of course want to comfort him when he tells her. He’s losing his brother. I would react the same way if that were happening to any of my exes. Because that’s how normal people react. And there was nothing even remotely romantic about that scene. Her teasing him about Alex didn’t bother me because it was just an awkward attempt to get back to their previous banter-filled friendship. Will they ever get there? Who knows. (Well, I’m sure Chris does.)

KYBEL!!!!!!! I had forgotten how much I shipped them in s1. I am all for them getting together. I have had a big suspension that smelling rain was an indication of a cosmic connection. It’s been confirmed so far with Liz and Alex. And Kyle did say that Max smelled like rain last season. He just needs to get some alone time with Isobel when she doesn’t have on the undoubtedly expensive perfume that she wears. I just know he’s the one for her.

Max listening to Liz’s tape was so sad and beautiful.

Kylex! (Has anyone else noticed that all of the really great scenes featured Kyle?) He’s so great at being the voice of reason. And I love that they are friends. If anyone other than Michael can convince Alex to not join Deep Sky, it’s Kyle.

So here’s my theory on Wyatt. Of course he’s going to forget that he’s a racist piece of crap after being injected with Byterical(?). I think Rosa’s going to try to help him be a better person and maybe come to terms with Kate’s death. But I don’t think it’ll end well. They’ve already talked about how the mayor’s racist son is going to factor into things this season. I think he’s going to end up trying to re-corrupt Wyatt. Either he will succeed or Wyatt will end up sacrificing himself to save Rosa. It’s not ideal, but as long as there isn’t any kind of romance there, I can endure. (Also, that was Maria’s necklace not Rosa’s, dumbass Wyatt.)

I don’t trust Max’s one night stand. I know in the sneek peaks she’s shown to be a reporter, but I think she’s more than just that. Maybe it’s because I remember how horrible a character she played on Teen Wolf, but I just don’t trust her. She’s after something besides a story.

Sorry, Forrest. You messed up and let’s be honest. You never could compare to Michael. Alex’s reaction was so bittersweet. He trusted him. But he knows what he has to do now to protect the people he truly loves. And that’s exactly what he’s going to do. So buh-bye Forrest. It’s been real.

I think that the alien mask guys that attack Maria are going to be part of some kind of racist gang.

I’m veering away from thinking it’s Michael that’s going to die. Alex was pissed, not distraught.

Why does Jones look like he’s a bad yogi? The shirt and the rings? Aren’t you supposed to be naed in the pod? Did Michael and Isobel put those clothes on him? Howdy partner indeed!

So that’s my take this time around. It’s been a hell of a wait for this episode. But all in all I think it delivered!. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season. I think we’re going to have a blast this year! Till next time1 my lovelies!!!!

[thegreatobsesso]

More about me as a writer..

[[ As I write this I am feeling the very strong effects of the second dose of Moderna. I am GRATEFUL to finally have it inside my body, but boy howdy, do I hurt. I cannot sleep or function so I'm gonna talk about myself to take me old mind off it. ]]

Things I think I'm good at:

✩ Dialogue. It comes to me unbidden most of the time. I love finding different character's voices and have no difficulty imagining what they might say in a situation.

✩ Character. I have four POV characters in my WIP and I think all their voices are identifiable and unique, and I know them like my own children and love 'em that way too. They are my BBs. I'm getting better with side characters, finding that sweet spot where I know enough about them outside the story to make them real without having a nervous breakdown over not knowing their top five favorite songs, u feel me?

✩ Character arcs. Putting this as a different item because man. My biggest pet peeve when I'm really enjoying a book or movie and find myself super connected to the characters is when their arc randomly goes down the tubes. I am 100% unfazed when a plot is full of holes and heaven knows mine is so far, and I can let just about anything go that doesn't make sense in the world if it serves a character's growth. So because I care so much about that I generally have a solid grasp on where these people's stories are headed from an emotional perspective, and how I want them to change and grow.

Things I want to improve upon:

✩ Creating plot tension. I don't know quite how to describe this except to say, I get an idea in my head of where I want things to go. My brain naturally draws a nice, straight line to get there. Aware that straight easy lines don't make for good stories, I try to throw in obstacles, because that's what all the advice says to do. But somehow the obstacles feel... manufactured? Which, they are - I manufactured them, obviously. The jury's out on whether this is an imagined problem or not. All the same, it troubles me.

✩ Dynamic description / making the scenery part of the scene. I imagine these gorgeous rooms inside my castle and will decide to put a scene in one of them, but then struggle with describing it, because it has no relevance. I would like my beautiful castle to be a character in the story that's one of the things I will focus on in the second draft.

✩ Action. But I kinda feel like, who doesn't? I have a couple fight scenes under my belt at this point that I think work decently, but still, it don't come easy.

✩ Being able to conceive of ANY kind of short story. :) Now that I have a Tumbly-bloggo I am asking myself what kind of bits of my writing I could even consider posting and I don't have a clue where to start. This is how a 37-year-old who has never written fiction in her life ends up spending four years writing 56 characters of a first draft. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It would have been lovely to start small, but I guess that slow-burn element really gets me going. A friend of mine suggested, when I was having a lot of angst in that first year over my ability to string a plot together, that I write a series of short stories about my main character. That sounded like great advice. I sat down and tried and literally could not, lolz.

---

That's it for now. My body feels like ten thousand demons got pulled through it on their way from one dimension to another. I am going to lay down on the couch and melodramatically moan. Cheers, tumblebuddies

[ramblesanddragons]

When Someone Has Your Back

(I thought I posted this last night but apparently not.)

Here’s my entry for @forduary based on Week 2: Trust/Paranoia.

Summary: Life on the sea has done wonders for Stan and Ford Pines but a stop in New Orleans brings an unwanted, surprising, and dangerous guest.

Word Count: 4417

Warnings: There is fighting in this (this was good practice for me since I've never written a fight scene before) but no mentions of blood. I did not want this to be considered graphic. 

Ao3 Link for those who prefer!

“Ford for Pete’s sake I can handle myself. You want to do your nerd thing and I want to go hang out at a bar. It’s okay,” Stan said slightly exasperated.

Close to a year at sea had done wonders for the old Pines twins. Stan hadn’t felt so at peace for a long time. Sure, that fact that some of his rougher memories had been AWOL for most of the year helped but being with Ford at sea, doing what they always dreamed of doing? Well it was a dream. Even dreams have rough patches though.

Ever since Stan had been erased to defeat some sort of dream demon his brother had been perhaps a little too protective of him. It was an improvement from the sad sap that Ford had become after the erasing. That had really pissed Stan off as more memories of who his brother was came back. He wanted to sail with his brother not this sad, sullen nerd that was holding his tongue so much that Stan was sure it had bled a few times. Stan put his foot down before they sailed out.  

“Ford if you don’t stop being so down and start being yourself, I’m not going out with you. I’ll probably throw you overboard within a week.”

That had worked more or less. For the first time in years they talked their problems out. It was a good start and within a day Ford had been back to bantering with Stan like they had never been apart. Of course, that hadn’t stopped the other issue Stan was having. Ford had become incredibly protective of him. Sure, that had been a thing in a way when they were young. Stan handled the bullies and Ford covered for him with the one he couldn’t deal with, their dad. He would stick up for Stan and help him when homework got too hard. Once he had even stayed up all night to talk Stan through his whining when Carla McCorkle had broken up with him.

Now it was different. More...intense. Stan knew it was a strange mix of Ford’s caring for him, wanting to make up for his so-called sacrifice, and his paranoia. Boy howdy was Ford paranoid. Not that Stan blamed him. Whenever the subject of his time traveling the multiverse was brought up his brother would only speak of the good but there had been bad as well. Stan hadn’t told Ford but the memory of the quick change in the fearimaid had come back a few months ago. Stan remembered the scars that told a horrific story across his brother’s body.  

So, Ford had every right to be paranoid and Stan would let him have that. He could understand this at least. He let his brother be the odd boy guard he really didn’t need and went along with whatever protective measure his brother saw fit to take. He would deal with his brother being uptight in crowed places and seeing danger everywhere. He was there with his favorite tea when the nightmares would wake him in a fit of crying. Just like Ford was there for him when nightmares wrecked his own sleep.  

But Stan was also a grown 58-year-old man and had most of his memories back and he just wanted to go get a damn drink.  

“The tour is fascinating though. I thought it would be a good place to start for ghost hunting,” Ford reply looking like a slightly hurt puppy.

“We can go ghost hunting later. I promise but it’s hot as hell here and I don’t feel like going.”

“Then I’ll go get a drink with you.”

“Ford. I know you feel like you need to like watch over me or somethin’ but I promise you, I will be okay. Okay? Look if we don’t do some things apart, you’re gonna get sick of me.”

“Stan, I have told you over and over again I will never, ever, get sick of you.” Ford said standing to grip Stan on the shoulders.

“Yes, and I believe that now...mostly,” Stan ignored the frustrated look in his brother’s eyes, “But everyone needs space now and again. I’ve been to New Orleans before I know where I’m going. While we’re here I can show you all the good places to eat. Look how about I go get a drink, you go look at tombstones or whatever and we’ll meet back here to find a place to eat. We got these cell phones for a reason you know.”

The kids had insisted that they get phones if they were going travel like they were. McGucket had even decked them out so they would work wherever. Ford and Stan, with lots of help from the kids, had even figured out texting.  His twin sighed and let go of his shoulders.

“Very well. But keep that ringer of yours on okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

So, they parted ways. Ford seemed hesitant to keep walking down his street but eventually kept walking. Stan found the place he was looking for and took a seat. Jazz wasn’t his favorite thing in the world but nothing beat a good live band and a fruity drink that he wouldn’t be caught dead drinking any other time. The afternoon passed in piece and as the sun started to get lower in the sky Stan made his way back to the boat. It was a good afternoon and Stan had even scored a date for tomorrow, which meant some working around his brother but the boat had separate rooms for them for a reason. All and all a good time. He walked lazily back to where the boat was docked when the sound of a dinosaur roar made him jump. Mabel thought it was a good text tone for his brother and, while she wasn’t wrong, it still made him jump from time to time.  

I need to get her to tell me how to change it.  

Stanley. I will be back at the boat in 10 minutes time.

Ok Ford. ‘Bout to walk on.  

…

Please remember to turn off the alarm!

Stan rolled his eyes. Ford had installed some sort of proximity alarm and he had to turn it on and off as he came and went but it eased his brother’s mind so whatever.  

Stan had only managed to take a single step on the deck of the ship when a cold feeling went up his spine. Someone was watching him. Before he could react, there was the thundering footsteps behind him and the feeling of something blunt on the back of his head. He fell onto his knees and yelled out in pain. Looking through blurred vision he turned to face his attacker. Stan almost screamed again. A dark green creature was glowering down at him. It vaguely reminded him of a snake if a snake had grown arms and legs and had been on a steady steroid regiment. This had to be an alien of some sort, right? Despite what Ford thought Stan did pay attention to his nerdy rants. This didn’t match any of those cryptids he was looking for around here unless a snake man was an option, he wasn’t aware of. Well it was Louisiana.  

“Stanford Pines,” it hissed, “it had been too long.”

An alien that’s looking for my brother. Wonderful.  

He will be fine. Everything will be fine.  

What if he had a memory lapse?  

He hasn’t had one in 6 months. If he does, he keeps his facilities on him enough to ask for help. Your number is his emergency contact.  

What if he gets hurt?  

He’s right he’s an old man who can care for himself!  

This internal argument had been on repeat in Ford’s head for about two blocks now. He forced his feet forward anyway. He did it for Stan’s sake. He needed space and Ford needed space even if he would never voice that to his twin. Stan was right, not about Ford getting sick of him no. Ford was determined to use his last 30 years or so to make up for lost time. Traveling with his brother brought about a pure joy that he didn’t think was possible for him to feel again and he would never want it to end. But they were still very different people and being stuck on a small boat for months, even with separate rooms, had frayed a few nerves. Yes, this was healthy and needed.

But Ford’s damn brain would not shut up.  

By the time Ford reached the tour Stan had already been mentally kidnapped by swamp creatures 3 times. Maybe just texting his brother would help, or would that annoy Stan too much? Ford had been trying very hard to be considerate of Stan’s feeling since he had spent so much time frankly not doing just that. Part of his worry was that Stan would maybe get tired of him and want to stop, go back to Gravity Falls with the treasures they found and get Ford to leave him alone. The old scientist knew he was hard to deal with at times but Stan seemed to take most of it stride. What was worrying was his twin brother seemed to really understand what he was going through. Why would Stan know about the need to watch his back almost constantly? Why did he insist on having his own pistol under his bed and brass knuckles on him at all times? Both of them hadn’t been very forthcoming with bits and pieces of their past but at least Stan had an excuse up until now. He claimed he had most of his memories back so he was just choosing not to share at this point.

“Sir?” Ford jumped and his hand flew to his concealed weapon before he focused on the young man that looked wide eyed and concerned.  

“Sorry I didn’t mean to scare you it’s just the tour is about to start are you joining us?” In his thoughts Ford had paused to think and the tour group had started moving without him.

“Ah sorry just didn’t see you there. Yes, I’m coming.” Ford said awkwardly shoving his hands behind his back. The young man gave him a thumbs up and started the tour with an explanation of the above ground graves they were walking by. The guys’ voice reminded him of Fiddleford a bit but there was a difference in the drawl, it lacked that mountain twang. He found himself thinking that he should give his old friend a call tonight after dinner. Ford followed at the back, away from the crowd. It was an ideal position; he could watch the people in the front and look out for things behind him. The crowd was bothering him no matter how hard he tried to shake it.  

That was another reason he had wanted his brother along for this. Ford had gotten used to Stan’s presence in his life. Knowing he wasn’t alone all the time anymore had been a Godsend for his mental health if he was being honest. Paranoia is easier to deal with when you know someone has your back. Standford Pines could trust his twin brother and it made a world of difference.  

The tour was informative and it led to a good place to start for some ghost hunting. The watch Ford had modified had picked up on several ectoplasmic disturbances and he was pleased with the adventure he had planned out with Stan. Ford finally allowed himself to text his brother. He had managed to only text him two times before now in an attempt to show some restraint with his worries. Hopefully Stan would turn off the alarm as it made a very annoying buzzing noise come from his watch. The alarm annoyed Stan, especially when he had a guy or girl over and he had to fiddle with it before getting to whatever business they were doing for the night, but he never told Ford to get rid of it.  

There was a sigh as the alarm went off and Ford put it to snooze. A minute later it went off again and it sent a worried ringing up the old man’s arm. Ford texted Stan.

Please turn off the alarm.

Another minute passed. The alarm buzzed some more.

Stan?

A knot began to form in Ford’s stomach. He gave up texting and called.

“Hey uh this is Stan Pines. Leave some info unless you’re the IRS.” Straight to voicemail. Stan had promised to answer it and keep it on him. Something was wrong. Ford immediately began to run the remaining distance between himself and the boat. 5 minutes of straight running was making his lungs burn but he didn’t care, he had to find his brother. The docks were empty as he finally caught sight of the Stan of War.  

Not good no one around to see if he got dragged off dammit Stanley you had better be okay!  

The running stopped as his trained eye spotted something shine on the deck. It was Stan’s phone. He had made it to the deck of the ship at least.  

Focus. Look for clues and calm down. You’re no good like this. What’s your big brain good for if you can’t find and follow clues? Use your logic. Okay he made it to deck that’s for certain maybe...is that...my voice?  

Ford’s head snapped to the cabin. Muffled voices were coming from behind the door. With more stealth than an owl hunting in the moonlight Ford made his way to the door. Inside it was indeed his voice coming through the wall as well as another that sounded so familiar, his mind raced to place it. It had to be one of the bounty hunters that had been after him in the multiverse he knew that but which one? The unknown hunter and his brother were in the middle of a conversation.

Good Stan keep it talking I need to think of a plan!  

“And what about those extra digits?” The unknown voice questioned.

“Had them cut off. They were a very identifiable mark. You’re not the only person after me after all. Perhaps it would be best to not to deal with me so hastily. Don’t want to have any other bounty hunters jealous of you, do you?” Stan said imitating Ford’s voice.

“Your time here has made you forget. The multiverse fears me. No one would dare challenge me. Prepare yourself, your head is now mine.”

“Very well. If last wishes are something you care about just leave this dimension when you are done.” Stan again said in his impression of Ford.

The impression was flawless, just like it had been in the fearimaid. Ford finally put two and two together. A cold feeling enveloped his body as thoughts of a memory gun in his hand and his brother at his mercy swam to the top of his consciousness. This was worse.  

Oh, sweet Moses.  

He’s pretending to be me again.  

He’s about the take the fall for me again.  

Stan’s about to get his head chopped off by a blood thirsty inter-dimensional bounty hunter to protect me.  

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO, NO!  

In a rare moment all logic left the mind of Stanford Pines.

“GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!” Ford screamed bursting through the cabin door and tackling the killer into the other side of the cabin, causing it to drop the razor-sharp blade it was holding. Ford began to punch it in the face with all of his might.  

“Oh, hey Ford there you are.” Stan quipped in his normal voice. Ford could barely hear him over the roaring of blood in his ears.  

The hunter was thrown off by the sudden appearance of another Stanford Pines and Ford wasn’t going to waste the opening. He tugged at the hitman’s blaster, wresting it free from its holster. The hunter gave him a powerful kick to the chest that sent Ford halfway across the cabin.

“Hey Ford I know you’re a little busy but if you get something sharp my way, I can cut myself out!” Stan shouted.  

“Shut UP! I don’t know what sort of magic this is but I’ll kill you both for good measure!” The creature hissed and lunged for the gun. Ford’s chest was aching but he didn’t pay it any attention as he pulled his own gun.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Ford roared and fired. The shot hit square in the chest but the monster’s hide was too thick. With a cold jolt in his being Ford now fully recognized the bounty hunter. They had clashed more than a few times over the years and every time Ford barely managed to escape with his life. The last time had been 6 years ago. That encounter ended with Ford jumping into a rushing river as a last stitch effort of escape.  Its species was tough and blaster fire barely did a thing to them. The scientist in him often wondered if more traditional firearms would work better but the pistol was under Stan’s cot, there was no way to get to it. Ford kept firing desperately.

A part of Ford was sure he wasn’t going to survive this encounter with the hunter and it didn’t matter to him if he did in the long run, as long as he brought the monster down with him. He would not let him hurt his brother. If he died and the hunter was still alive Stanley would have to face it alone. So, Ford couldn’t die just yet and if he did, he’d just have to get back up again until Stanley was safe. The hunter picked up its own blaster and aimed for Ford’s head when Stan crashed into the creature chair and all. The blaster went sliding again across the cabin.

“Hey dumb-ass you kind of suck at this if you can’t tell two targets apart!” Stan heckled the thing from his now prone position. The creature hissed again and lunged at Stan’s neck but Ford was faster. He took the thing by its neck and slammed it into the floor and struggled to put his own gun to the creature's head.

“Let’s see if you can shrug off point blank ARGGGGG!” Sharp claws ripped into Ford’s shoulder and peeled him off. The hunter sprung to its feet and gave Ford a kick, and then another. Somewhere in the chaos Ford’s gun flew from his hands and landed under a desk. There was a crack of something in his chest and face but Ford didn’t care. On the third kick he grabbed the boot of the killer and tossed it off balance enough to give Ford time to stand.

Get it away from Stan! Get it away! Repeated in his head.

Taking out his knife Ford slashed at it wildly. Each step towards it brought claws closer to his face but he didn’t care. Seeing an opening Ford got in close and with all of his might he shoved the hunter through the door of the cabin earning him a clawing to the chest in the process.  

Ford had exactly one idea but he needed to reach the stern of the ship. He managed to make it half way there when the killer caught up to him, using its claws to try and bring Ford down again. He stumbled but stayed uptight turning to face his attacker. It had managed to pull another blade and swung, missing Ford by a hair. He took the chance to kick it back away from him but it had less of an impact that he hoped. Sharp black claws ripped into his sweater and it held the blade at Ford’s throat.

“30 years of chasing you and this is how it ends? How pathetic!” It rose its arm to swing when another pair of arms appeared underneath the creature’s elbows. Stan had gotten free and with all his might pulled it away from Ford. Stan threw it into the wall of the cabin and started to go at it with his knuckles covered in brass.

“30 years huh? Well you’re never fucking with my brother EVER AGAIN!” Stan thundered.

Ford saw his chance. Pushing back the sickness in his stomach at the thought of pointing another gun at Stan he reached the harpoon at the stern. “STAN MOVE!”  

His brother didn’t even need to look back to tell what he was doing, with a leap the way was clear and Ford fired, hitting his mark. There was a loud crack as the harpoon broke the cabin wall. Then silence.  

Ford collapsed onto the deck of the boat.

“S-Stanley,” he croaked, “are you okay?”

Stanley stood and ran over to him wincing at the sight of the damage. To Ford’s relief his brother only seemed to have a minor injury or two.

“AM I OKAY!? Ford, we need to get you to a hospital!” Stanley began to try and lift Ford who responded with a hiss.

“No, no we can’t leave that here like that. What if someone comes by.”  

“Ford it’s 5:30 on a Friday night no one’s gonna see this.”  

Ford began to try and stand on his own. “Really Stan I’ve had worse. I’ll sail us out to open water, deal with him, and then maybe rest.” Try and he might his ribs wouldn’t let him stand.  

“FORD SIT THE FUCK DOWN!!!” Stanley screamed. Ford finally obeyed and gave his brother an owlish look in surprise.

“You’re worried that much about people finding it? Fine I’ll sail us out a bit, deal with it then I’m getting your ass to a hospital.” Stan stood and within a moment or two had the boat pulling out of the dock. Ford was quiet for a moment, observing his brother and making sure no underlying injuries were causing problems. Five full minutes of silence passed before Stan spoke again.

“He was looking for you. I guess I don’t blame ya for being so paranoid,” he muttered.

“Yes. Stan...Stan I’m so sorry.” With the adrenaline wearing off all Ford could feel was the pain and the fear. Fear that his brother almost died again.

“I-I should have warned you this could happen...I know I haven’t been very forthcoming about my time away but I’ll tell you now and, and...” Tears were building in Ford’s eyes. Stan turned from the wheel for a moment to look at him.

“Ford you don’t have to tell me anything okay? And stop apologizing.”

“YOU ALMOST DIED BECAUSE OF ME!” Ford’s voice cracked with the stress. Stan flipped on the auto pilot Ford had built and sat next to his now sobbing brother.  

“Ford...”

“Stan, I heard you. You were pretending to be me again. Why? You were going to let him kill you t-to protect me? Why?”

Stan opened his mouth.

“And don’t you dare say better you than me!”

Stan coughed to perhaps give himself a moment to course correct and spoke. “Meh I was okay...”

“Okay? How...how are you so calm with this...how did you know t-that?” Ford was sure he had taken too hard of a hit there was no way Stan was okay with this.

“If ya let me finish Ford. I was saying I knew I was going to be okay because I know you’ve got my back.”

Stan, to Ford’s utter shock, was smiling.  

“You know the more I remember about my past the happier I am to be here. I mean that in all senses of that statement too. Like to be alive. People have tried to kill me before too and I was all alone then. Just like you were. And it’s awful.” Ford wanted to hug his brother and simultaneously find whoever had dared to go after him. That’s why he understood so well.  

“But I think I’ve finally managed to hang on to the idea that you’ve got my back and I’ve got yours. Hell, even if you woke up hating me again tomorrow, I’d still have your back.”

“ I never hated you and I never will,” Ford whispered quietly.  

“Meh I think it might have been touch and go there a minute.”

“...I will always be there for you Stan and not because of what you did either, I know you think that’s the only reason I’m here sometimes no matter how hard you hide it. I will always be there for you because you are my brother.”

“Thanks. You know I should probably tell you the people who might have me on their kill list...I just need to remember their names first.” Stan rubbed his sore head.

“Don’t freak out things just get a little jumbled after crazy stuff like that.” He pointed to the hunter.

“I’m not,” he was, “but just so you know if anyone so much as touches you wrong, I’m going to kill them.”

“Yeah I got that point. Guess this isn’t going to exactly ease those nerves of yours huh?”

“I’m sorry I’m so...”

“Ford if you apologize one more damn time, I’m gonna...I don’t know...toss one of your nerd books overboard with that guy.”

Ford closed his mouth.  

“I can handle you dealing with whatever your time is space sideburns land did to you in your own way. I just hope I can get you to relax and enjoy life a little more ya know?”

“I am. With you around watching my back I have been able to relax a bit. Thank you, Stanley, for understanding.”  

20 minutes was all Stan was willing to spend on the job. Stan patched Ford up as much as he could in the meantime. He also started to do the math on the repairs then decided to say fuck it to that for the night. Before disposing of whatever this guy was, Stan pocketed some of his fancier looking stuff to Ford’s amusement.

“What Fiddlenerd might like to look this over.” Was Stan’s only argument.

Once docked he called an ambulance (“This crazy huge dog came out of nowhere and attacked us!”) and they were on the way.

“Once you’re healed up Ford, I’m going to show you the time of your life and some of the best damn food in the world.”

Ford smiled, “Looking forward to it.”

[cbseung]

cobblestones: modern prince hyunjin au - part 9

[masterlist]

[pt 1] [pt 2] [pt 3] [pt 4] [pt 5] [pt 6] [pt 7] [pt 8] [pt 9] [pt 10] [final]

well howdy there pals hope your week has been good to you~! two parts left!!! also a short part this time so the parts line up with each other!!

pairings: hwang hyunjin x reader

wc: 1,100

description: alright here’s the plan: confess to the boy you like but know it won’t work out but pretend to be a couple anyway.. what could go wrong? 

“hwang hyunjin... i like you too”

AH THERE 

YOU SAID IT 

HOW DOES IT FEEL

“.... ᵒʰ ˢᵉʳᶦᵒᵘˢˡʸ I MEAN- i know, who wouldn’t like me” he said smirking

...

.....

did he JUST

“ah no no i’m kidding ... i’m really glad” hyunjin responds back

“so..”

“soo??”

“what now?”

“what do you mean”

“hyunijn,, i have to go home, you have to go home, do we really wanna do long distance?”

“i- i guess you’re right.. so what? we just pretend this never happen??”

“is that what you want?”

“i mean.. i kinda wanna take you on dates and hold your hand and tell you you’re pretty all the time and kiss your cute forehead and-”

“okay! okay.” you say as you freak out and put your hand over hyunjin’s mouth.

LIKE YOU’RE .5 SECONDS FROM BLUSHING LIKE A CHERRY TOMATO

 “why don’t we.. go and dates and do all the fun coupley stuff but not.. actually call us a couple???” you suggest

.. really

(i feel like you read enough fanfics to know that this idea is a horrible idea)

“y/n, i’d do whatever if it makes you happy”

aH

MY HEART

okay this is okay

doing fun couple stuff without the commitment? what could go wrong?

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

“rise and shine beautiful!!”

WHAT on EARTH

“hyunjin??” you mumble

“of course! unless someone else calls you beautiful.. and if that’s the case i’ll fight them”

“omg shh let me sleep”

“no can do!! we’re in charge of last minute preparations for the ball!!”

yoU GROAN

BECAUSE

YOU JUST WANNA SLEEP in

but you’ll reluctantly get up

for hyunjin of course

“ah even with a bedhead you’re still looking as stunning as always”

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

when hyunjin said last minute ball preparations he meant

oh let’s just 

stroll around london pretending to check on the cake and the decorations while we stop for bubble tea and talk about our lives

“no way! you’re an anime nerd!”

“you’re saying that like it’s a bad thing”

“i am NOT!”

“well whatever midoriya izuku has my heart and a half”

you guys sit down for a mid-afternoon picnic when you hear a

“wow mister you’re so tall!! can you help us get the soccer down from the tree??? jeongin kicked it up a tree >:(” a small boy says to hyunjin pouting

“seungmin hyuuunngg i didn’t mean toooo D:” a boy responds back

hyunjin ruffles ‘seungmin’s’ hair and says, “of course buddy”

and you watch as hyunjin gets the ball out of tree

and the boys are awe because ‘woW big tall guy helped get the soccer ball out of the tree!!”

and so they ask if he can play with them for a while

and duh hyunjin says yes because who can say no to those two adorable boys

and so you watch as hyunjin plays soccer with the boys and think about how much fun he’s having and how much the kids love him and how cute he looks with the sun is hitting his face just right and-

“hey y/n you okay?”

“huh?”

hyunjin runs over and puts a hand on your forehead

“you look pretty dazed.. are you okay? and you’re kinda burning up?”

oh that’s probs because you made me blush but haha we’re ignoring that

“uH NO I’M fine i’m okay!!!!”

“you sure?”

“yes yup totally bro”

“uhh okay... one more goal and i’ll promise we’ll leave!” hyunjin says as he leans over and kisses your forehead

cue the blush x2

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

you guys spend the rest of the day together

and like

you thought it went pretty well!!!

“hey hyunjin..” you start to say as you guys are walking back to the palace with your hands intertwined

“hm?”

“i.. had fun today”

“aw you did? i’m glad”

“can we.. do this again? before i leave?”

“ugh don’t remind me.. when do you leave again?”

“ two weeks or so,, but the ball is coming up and i know we’re gonna be busy because we didn’t actually do any work today”

hyunjin laughs and you can’t help but to think that it’s probably your favorite sound?

“it’s a date babe”

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

unfortunately 

that ‘date’ never comes

you haven’t seen hyunjin in like four days?

and the ball is this weekend?

you try to replay your last conversation in your head

he DID say he was gonna take you out on another date right?

and it’s not like you sat on your butt waiting for him

like you asked everyone if they knew where he was

because gosh darn if he didn’t ask you then you would ask him

but no one seemed to know where he was

yeji didn’t know where he was

“hey yeji,, have you seen hyunjin lately?”

“actually no.. i haven’t,, don’t be too worried though i’m sure he’s doing last minute stuff for the ball..”

and felix was no help either

“hey lix,,, have you seen your brother?”

“now that you mention it.. i haven’t seen him in a while.. i’ll let you know when i do, y/n” 

you start thinking things like

what if he’s dead in a ditch and no one knows??

what if he just left england without saying anything to you?? you didn’t have each other’s numbers?? why would you when you were staying TWO doors down from him??

what if he was abducted by aliens and now they’re trying to do weird experiments on his brain?????

but like

you can’t help but to think of him

and your feelings

because what DO you feel for him??

you like him. that’s for sure

is it something more than a simple crush though?

is it 

love?

there’s like

no way

it’s been like 

a day

(technically it’s been a month and a half since you’ve known him)

but still

too soon for love

luckily

three days later,, felix runs up to you and says

“Y/N i just saw hyunjin head outside to the garden”

you actually can’t believe it

so he didn’t leave you without a word

he didn’t die in a ditch

he wasn’t being probed my aliens!!!!

you run and run until you reach the garden

super excited to see the boy who has been running through your mind the past WEEK

and you open the doors with the biggest smile in your face 

and wow! a sight that wipes that grin right off your face

you see hyunjin

linked arm in arm with a girl

a very very pretty girl may you add

“y/n?” you hear him say

“hyunjin?”

you and hyunjin look at each other with shocked faces

but hyunjin is the first one to break eye contact

before looking back at you with a look you can’t decipher

“y/n, meet mirai, my fiancée”

«────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ──────»

a/n: pals i don’t know if you saw that coming but like let me know if you did because while i love the cliches,, you know how it goes

n e ways, next part is the ball scene we’ve been waiting for!! 

thanks for reading pals it means a lot!!!!

[truthbeetoldmedia]

The 100 6x05 "The Gospel of Josephine" Review

Y’all breathing okay? I think there were a few times when I held my breath this episode and boy howdy! I’m glad The 100 can still give me those moments. Now let’s dive right in to the episode:

Bonjour Josephine!

Last week we got a tiny bite of Josephine. Tonight we got the whole "gâteau opéra”, emphasis on “opera”, for the story of the Primes seems to be a long and bloody Shakespearean affair on an alien moon. Jaux!Clarke (see what I did there?) has barely fired up her silicone memories before she dispatches poor Kaylee with a cheese knife. Apparently Kaylee assisted, or at least didn’t prevent, Josephine’s last host body’s “death”, and she’s been on ice for six years waiting for a new host to be born and grow up. (Which we learn later is because they need a fully developed over-21 adult brain to host an adult’s memory chip, as they overload and kill child hosts. Glad we don’t have to see how they know that.)

Apparently Russell and Simone “jumped line” to bring back Josephine so I’m assuming it’s setup like an organ donor list, except people wait actual decades to talk to their loved ones again. The price of eternal life, eh? Also I can bet there will be some VERY unhappy Primes once they find out Russell and Simone cut line to get their daughter back amongst the living. Josephine seems to be hardened by her long life, and thinks very pragmatically and cold. She has successfully “other-ed” everyone except her loved ones...which is not comforting but also, I can’t help but think the gang would be very happy to have old Clarke back when they get a taste of real cold indifference from Jaux!Clarke.

Her “parents” give her time to adjust and we see Jaux!Clarke painting while dancing to French rap — a sentence I never thought I’d type for a sci-fi show review. She’s of course been given a task: find out how many nightbloods, aka hosts, our Space Popsicles have (since we really can’t call our gang the 100 or the delinquents anymore I’ve decided to call them this, fight me) to keep the Primes from becoming extinct. How hard can it possibly be to pretend to be Clarke right? All I thought was give Bellamy Blake and Jordan Green 10 minutes alone with her and she will figure that out real quick. (Also I was SO pleased to discover I was correct with guessing those two!)  

Space Popsicle™️ Fam finds skeletons in the closet!

Jaux!Clarke meets up with Bellamy, Jordan, Gaia and the rest of the SpacePops™️ Fam and starts acting weird immediately. (Subtle at first but someone forgot to check if she knew Trig ha!) She dodges her first bullet and finds Abby to try and find out how many nightbloods might be on the main ship, only to hear herself called a monster and have Abby compare her book to the Eugenics books of our time. I enjoyed seeing her squirm at Abby’s assessment of her book, though Abby doesn’t have a lot of room to judge...

When Abby questions why her left-handed daughter is writing with her right hand, Jaux!Clarke needs to find a reason to exit stage left and she sees Bellamy and Murphy looking for Jordan and follows them. They find Jordan in the spooky science closet full of skeletons (subtle the Primes are not) and Bellamy is of course in full Dad mode™️, asking Jordan what the heck he’s doing. Jordan delivers quite possibly my favorite line of the season, thus far:   

“What you would’ve done, The you before Praimfaya, anyway. Heart over head. That was always my favorite Bellamy.”

Monty and Harper's son, ladies and gentlemen!! Y’all I nearly jumped to my feet and clapped! Because that Bellamy is also my favorite Bellamy! And this whole season is a little odd feeling to me because Bellamy already feels like he’s been body snatched. Let’s hope this wonderful line delivered with perfection by the fabulous Shannon Kook is a sign we will get some old “I say, screw fear. I’m telling my own damn story” Bellamy Blake back this year! (Can I get an amen!)

Back to the science skeleton closet:

Jaux!Clarke Tries and fails to lure team SpacePops™️ out but Jordan and Gaia keep digging around and they end up watching the first “successful” upload of Josephine by Gabriel and her now very old looking father (og body) Russell. We also learned it took 25 years for them to develop and perfect the AI tech and lord knows how many corpses to get there.

We don’t know yet but I have a feeling we can guess the “old man” is Gabriel and “the Children of Gabriel” are followers against the “Primes ways” and are a result of him regretting playing God to get Josephine back and exiling himself once Josephine and fam got a little to unhinged about “hosts” and “nightblood”, leading others to follow his example. After Jaux!Clarke calls Murphy “John” and says a few other strange things, Bellamy asks to speak to her alone and, I’m just saying, if you watch this scene you see that Bellamy already KNoWS this isn’t “normal” Clarke. He isn’t sure what’s wrong yet, but he knows enough to test her and he can tell she can’t really understand what he’s saying in Trig! So he pulls a signature “Bellamy” move and yanks her back by the throat and starts asking questions because he’s now officially in panic mode —

BUT alas! She had a syringe of that lovely paralytic on hand just in case and the last thing we see in this scene is the horrible realization in Bellamy’s eyes as he lies helplessly paralyzed on the ground: there is a cold stranger behind his best friend’s beautiful blue eyes...and he cannot process his fear and loss fast enough. Welcome back heart over head Bellamy, we’ve missed you!!

Cut to Jaux!Clarke finding Murphy in the bar and revealing her true identity and confessing “Clarke is dead. My parents killed her” (listen I don’t buy it kids) and offering our favorite morally questionable cockroach something he might not be able to pass up: eternal life. Given his recent brush with death and sudden fear of hell….oh boy! It’s gonna take him a minute to realize he should help his friends, I just hope he realizes that before he’s made a full deal with the devil.

Diyoza and the Brat

This pair is a surprising team up, but if I have to suffer through Octavia’s “redemption” they couldn’t have picked a better reward than my favorite Season 5 addition (besides sweet Shaw! I’m still bitter about that guys) DIYOZA! Sassy, amazing fighter, the universe’s longest known pregnant lady. I could watch an entire show about her. (Also Ivana Milicevic is a dream in this role.) She’s the gift that keeps on giving, cool as a cucumber while stuck in space quicksand as Octavia is about to go under because she cannot be still for one second. Probably because if Octavia’s quiet she’ll think and with that comes dark thoughts: how she failed as a leader, how she was willing to abuse, torture and maybe even kill her brother, how her brother, the one person who she thought would always love her through her greatest faults, finally couldn’t take anymore and rejected her. She doesn’t have anything left to lose. Rock bottom meet Octavia Blake, Octavia Blake meet rock bottom.

Now I know I sound harsh but after Season 4 I was beyond seeing her as anything but a villain. I know she is on her way to redemption, but I’m glad they are giving her the long way through the dirt and mud, letting her soak in the cage of her own making a while. And giving us the wonderful Diyoza to lighten the mood. I am all for unsuspecting road trip buddies in shows (Arya and the Hound anyone?) but unfortunately so far all Octavia’s done is try to murder people, throw tantrums, and sulk. Oh well, at least Diyoza is getting in some practice for when she finally gets to have her 200-year-old baby! Really though bless her heart, she deserves some kind of sainthood for this.

Mount Weather + City of Light + Commander worship, shaken not stirred

I actually dig the intersecting of all the “bad guy” storylines into one big villain origin story wearing Clarke’s face. If nothing else it’s a poetic rehash of all the previous seasons, but refreshing enough to not seem stale...for the most part. I grow tired of the Flame/commander story and miss the more simple “teens surviving the unknown my learning to depend and care for each other” story of the first few seasons. BUT considering Season 5’s underwhelming last half, if there is one thing I can say about Season 6 of The 100...it’s not boring! And for a show that sometimes paces the plot too fast I was actually okay with that this time around! I did not want it to take three episodes for our fave family of 150 year old space popsicles to discover Clarke is “dead”. Also I am so glad it was the magic duo of Bellamy and Jordan that made the realization first.

Final thoughts

Eliza Taylor has grown so much as an actress over the seasons! She looks like she had so much fun playing Jaux!Clarke and she gave her such a different “spirit” than our usual worried and sometimes snarky but mostly serious Clarke Griffin. Just the way her eyes dance lets you know it’s not “real Clarke”.

I neglected to mention the importance of Jordan knowing “Delilah” before her change to Priya VII, so his spidey senses also go off around Clarke because he knows what a person who just got body snatched acts like! When he took “Delilah” the flowers I was like my poor son.

This episode was great because the focus was tighter and had fewer characters to keep up with! (Listen I love ensemble casts but they have not given Raven a strong independent storyline since Season 4, and I love Emori but she doesn’t really have a lot to do at the moment either, as for Echo...why she was made a main character when Harper was right there all those seasons? I’ll never know.) All that to say, I like when they break up the cast a bit and just focus on a few at a time to really get that interpersonal development between characters. That used to be the bread and butter of this show. Don’t get me wrong, I still love The 100 and find it unique and fun and twisty and exhilarating and at times beautifully heartbreaking.

(Episodes 1x05, 1x07, 1x13, 2x15, 2x16, 4x13 and 5x13 are perfect examples of this.)

But I do yearn for those slower, deeper days of, say, a boy and a girl grappling with the moral quandary of torturing a stranger tied up in the cockpit of a crashed spaceship to save a dying friend. Sometimes bigger and shiner isn’t always better. But no matter how this season goes, The 100 is still one of my favorite TV shows ever, and deserves a spot up there with a lot of other great sci-fi dramas of the past two decades.

As of now all I need to know is: where the heck is Bellamy Blake and is he okay?!

Gina’s episode rating: 🐝🐝🐝🐝

The 100 airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on the CW.

[comicteaparty]

March 4th-March 10th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from March 4th, 2019 to March 10th, 2019.  The chat focused on O Sarilho by shizamura.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on O Sarilho by shizamura~! (http://sarilho.net/en/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PST), so keep checking back for more! You have until March 10th to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. What do you think happened to the ancient people who left their satellites and other lost technology behind? Will the people of the present be able to recover this technology as they strive to do? Alternatively, are they going to find out secrets better left forgotten?

Capitania do Azar

Howdy everyone! I'm Shizamura and I'm the creator of O Sarilho and I'm very excited

varethane

I love all the scenes with the augur

it's such a creepy concept but the way they all handle it as being totally mundane and normal is gr8

Kaldra

agreed ^

varethane

also, the initial scene with the alien waking up, as the eyes light up and then gradually focus before the thing starts moving-- chilling. I love it.

Capitania do Azar

Augur is just a regular job for these guys, he

March 5, 2019

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 4. Who or what are Argon and Xenon, the gods in the comic’s world? What do you think their original purpose was? Why do you think only Augur’s can deal with them?

RebelVampire

1) the scene where nikita realizes mikhail is, umm, not going to be joining him for anymore adventures. i liked this scene for two reasons. a-the framing was really great because it was fairly normal. like hes injured, of course hed be resting and of course nikita would have to shake him. no reason to suggest anything is off at first until it was all off. b- the pacing was also great. like everything was pretty speedy and then just wham, its like everything got halted for that beautiful moment of horrible realization. A+ adventure retirement scene. 2) I think the ancient people did what all dumb humans do: war against each other until they destroyed themselves. partly cause that be what humans do, partly cause the sense of war in the story seems very ancient and ingrained and i just get the feeling this has existed for longer than anyone can remember. i think eventually they will recover a lot of tech, but i also think theyre going to find out the true price that tech kind of comes at. and that the universe is more than their brains are ready to accept or comprehend.

3) Franquelim. I find him interesting and just in general I like his portrayal. Like you don't even need to know his job to take one look at him and go "this is the weird employee who doesnt fit in and is potentially hated by his superiors despite probably being good at his job." and to me, that makes him a lot of fun. i think he also adds some shenanigans to an otherwise serious and grounded group. and everyone needs some shenanigans in their life. 4) I want to assume Argon and Xenon are AI's that were created in order to advocate for the prosperity of humanity. Granted, probably damaged AIs or incomplete ones since they don't know everything there is to know. As for why only Augurs, I assume its as it was implied: only they can understand them. Which want to go on a limb and say maybe no because magic? It might just be Augurs got the right studying. Like they learned how to read C++ while everyone else only got taught Ruby.

Capitania do Azar

Ah @RebelVampire , these are all very interesting guesses!

varethane

....Franquelim is my favourite too LOL(edited)

Capitania do Azar

He's apparently a fan favourite I suppose it makes sense, he does have a strong personality!

varethane

he stands out in all the scenes he's in

Capitania do Azar

he loves the camera

stealing the show

snuffysam

I'm on team Franquelim as well

like he's just chillin

plus he's one of the few who (rationally) wanted to avoid getting ambushed by the lusitanians

daria is also a fav of mine too though

just, cuz... look at her. every scene she's in she's got the stage presence of someone who just tied a teammate's shoes together

RebelVampire

yeah i have to agree part of the reason i like franquelim is despite his shenanigans, he also is kind of the most grounded in the way. the dude who is like "maybe we shouldnt get ambushed." the dude whos like "hey maybe we should call for backup given the circumstances." he is the beautiful voice of reason in a world gone mad.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 5. What has been your favorite illustration in the comic so far? What specifically about it do you like?

QUESTION 6. How do you think Nikita came to be a “slave” of the Empire, and what else happened that makes him so sensitive about the topic of his past? Will Nikita be able to overcome this obstacle of his life?

5) http://sarilho.net/en/arquivo/comic/ch03p06 This page in its entirety. The contrast here is fantastic between the clean and normal art and the chaotic presence of the piece of god. It's also a fantastic demonstration of pushing the page and website capabilities to bring about a specific feeling, in this case uneasiness and horror. I also like this illustration because it's very well suited to the dialogue. Franquelim is trying to express his ardent belief they need help and this is beyond them. And this sort of illustration really helps connect you to his concerns because you can see with the imagery why he is freaked out. Thus, emotionally it connects you stronger with his emotional state in this moment and scream "YES YES GET THE HELP GET THE HELP." So all in all, I think this illustration has great contrast, pushes the envelope, and does what I think an illustration should do in a comic: make itself so both the story and illustration are needed together to create the full effect.

Capitania do Azar

Frank has had his share of battles and he's not keen to get into newer ones

Steffano knows that if they are caught (or bring an army in), war is bound to happen (again) and he's got his own selfish reasons for not wanting that. He's also not a particularly experienced leader and has trouble making these kind of decisions

The rest of the team kinda reflects what the empire thinks of itself, as Mikhail puts it "we're better trained, we have better resources and we're more talented". That attitude gotta interfere with decision-making as well

RebelVampire

at least mikhail is "retired" now and can no longer preach that sort of thinking? XD

Capitania do Azar

LOOK WHERE THAT SORT OF THINKING TOOK HIM

They're army kids, it's not like they ever had any change of thinking in other terms

Doesn't change the fact that MISTAKES WERE MADE

RebelVampire

6) Maybe some sort of empire betrayal? Like their dad got found guilty of a bad crime or something. As for his sensitivity, I honestly just think it stems from the fact he wants to move on and create his own path and life. And it doesn't help when everyone keeps reminding you and asking questions. That and if he doesnt talk about it, he doesnt have to face the reality himself. As for overcoming the obstacle, I don't feel it'll be solved in a tangible way? More I just feel like the bigger fish that need frying are going to dominant and more and more ppl will just stop caring. Cause again, bigger fish.

Capitania do Azar

ahha I guess people do remind him of that fact a LOT, I never really looked at it that way

what the other soldiers say about Nikita is right for the most part: he does keep a lot to himself and the part where he clearly can't control a lot of things in his life is a point of stress he'd rather ignore(edited)

(I hope I can bring up in the following chapter just how much he internalized his own social situation to the point that he almost forgets that other people can quit their jobs if they so desire)

mangalho

QUESTION wapy can you do a corno/not-corno alignment chart with your cast?

Capitania do Azar

didn't I do that already rsrsr

mangalho

did you????

Capitania do Azar

wait

keep up mango https://twitter.com/Shizamura/status/1096141513514536960

capitania dos azares (@Shizamura)

@Ulisaypo

mangalho

finally

Delphina

Gahhhh, just finished reading, such a good comic! I really liked Shizuka, even though she stayed behind (which turned out to be a SUPER GOOD CALL BECAUSE HOLY DANG). She seems fun, though!

mangalho

How the FUCK is Pimenta in the Corno area @Delphina SAME shizuka is good and also really relatable

Delphina

Daria's scene around the car (http://sarilho.net/en/arquivo/comic/p032) is my favorite fun scene because I love her whole-hearted quest to torment Timoteo. My favorite serious scene is where Mikhail gets his arm shot off because it was such a shocking transition between "here's a squad of kids making jokes and bickering" to "oh shit oh shit oh shit they are in so much trouble for so many reasons" (http://sarilho.net/en/arquivo/comic/ch02p29)

Capitania do Azar

Daria takes self-assigned clown job very seriously!

snuffysam

5) my favorite illustrations in the comic so far have been this page: http://sarilho.net/en/arquivo/comic/oh-nao and the page following it. not necessarily because of the drawing quality itself (these are good, but there's a couple better), but because of how the emotions are conveyed through the pages literally falling apart.

RebelVampire

the page was too strong and murdered my comp with lag XD

i really liked that page too tho

especially the angle

i think the angle really helps express like a sort of feeling of distance

like in the sense youre no longer connected with a person

Capitania do Azar

OMG maybe I should drop the resolution a bit hehe

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. Which characters do you enjoy seeing interact the most? What about their dynamic interests you?

QUESTION 8. What do you think happened in Franquelim’s past that has him so terrified of being captured by the Lusitanians “again?” How might this affect his judgement in whatever situations are to come?

ShaRose49

Gah I didn’t realize this had started already I only barely got past the prologue! Really nice art and lots of character profiles

Delphina

The character profiles are SO HELPFUL, I also appreciate the role call at the end of the last two chapters.

Capitania do Azar

eheh I really like coming up with silly descriptions for characters, so figures it's a good idea to add them

ShaRose49

I just made my first character profile sheet a couple days ago and it’s not as in-depth as this one

Capitania do Azar

It's not that hard! I make most of my characters by making up a number of random facts, which eventually become the text

The stats are mostly out of comparison like this character is more talented than this one, but also slower..and so on

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. What sorts of art or story details have you noticed in the way the comic is crafted that you think deserve attention?

QUESTION 10. What is the strange entity that Nikita and company discover, and what do you think its purpose is? Also, is it really a piece of God somehow? What implications do you think that has for the story in general, especially given Lusitanian involvement?

RebelVampire

7) Well I did enjoy seeing Nikita and Mikhail. I found their dynamic to be interesting due to the contrast. they were just both very different ppl who viewed themselves differently, viewed the empire sort of differently, viewed their place in the empire differently, etc. This kind of made their conversations really insightful into getting two diff perspectives on "the way things are." its too bad mikhail retired. 8) I assume torture at best, hardcore torture at worst. Though for him torture might have consisted of just keeping him eternally connected to god? cause thats be torturous info overload that probably wouldve hurt a lot. As for affecting his judgement, I def think he's the most likely to do something stupid based on it. Like do some drastic thing like set off a bomb just so he doesnt have to get caught again.

9) I want to say i really love the more rampant use of narrative boxes that specify the location in the most recent chapter. TBH, I really struggled to follow the second chapter because the transitions were hard to catch just cause matching uniforms. So in the third chapter this helped out immensely and i think its a detail that deserves to be appreciated. 10) If I stick with my Argon and Xenon are just AIs theory, then yeah, its probably a piece of god. A piece that got disconnected from the network but was original like some waypoint for vast interstellar communication. As for its purpose, I don't think it has one. I think it's gone bonkers cause being disconnected from teh core has made it unable to access primarydirective.exe. As for implications, I think it's going to spark a war at the rate things are devolving. even if nikita and then somehow disappear into the night, the lusitanians are clearly hiding something that cant stay hidden forever.

Capitania do Azar

Your theories are very interesting @RebelVampire!

Also I really appreciate that you enjoy Mikhail's and Nikita's relationship

Capitania do Azar

Mikhail's got a lot less pressure on him, so he gets to be more chill about some things (but not all the things, since he snapped at Dária anyways)

snuffysam

yeah i think you're spot on with the AI theory, rebel. if I may make a prediction - i'm thinking that once this specific incident is over, not only will a war break out, but nikita will be put into action against his will 'cause he never catches a break(edited)

RebelVampire

QUESTION 11. What do you think are this particular comic’s strengths? What do you think makes this comic unique? Please elaborate.

QUESTION 12. What do you think the Lusitanian Eurico wants to talk to Nikita about (or is it a ruse to fight some more)? How might the subsequent events affect the mission further?

Delphina

I think Eurico's goal is probably just to get this squad out of their lands. I expect some level of "you don't know what you're dealing with trying to interact with this God-level technology, so leave now or you're seriously going to get hurt" conversation.

Delphina

Regarding strengths and unique points, O Sarilho's very good at establishing extremely human-feeling characters very quickly. I like the fact that I know Nikita likes astronomy. I like the fact that Daria, Pfeiffer, and Timoteo have a dynamic and history of teasing each other. I like that Franquelim relies on drugs and coffee because he's Seen Some Things. The details brings a lot of personal stakes and heart into what could otherwise be a very dry military post-apoc story, and that's hard to do with a cast this large. I'm looking forward to learning more about the characters! It feels like we're just at the tip of the iceberg for worldbuilding, but I can tell that a lot of thought and care has been put into how technology affects their lives through big things like religious views and small things like what kind of curse words they use. I'm also looking forward to learning about the power/class dynamics that are happening with the military and Houses like Steffano's and Daria's. The integration of web design and animation for impact is also extremely well-executed wherever it's used, but it's not overused to the point where the reader becomes used to it, which is important for giving those scenes emphasis.

snuffysam

For me, the strongest and most unique part of the comic is the visual aspect. Like, even putting the animated and panel-busting pages aside, the colors used are outstanding at conveying the proper emotions. Like even on this early page: http://sarilho.net/en/arquivo/comic/prologo-8 Franquelim's colors are brighter, they're bleeding off his body, and they give off this aesthetic that's the perfect mix of computer-y and mystical. Right off the bat something seems unusual about this comic's universe, yet the other characters barely glance at him. That's great visual conveyance.(edited)

RebelVampire

QUESTION 13. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

QUESTION 14. Given everything that’s happened, how do you feel Nikita’s team will deal with the mission’s outcome so far? Also, will what has occurred affect the peace treaty with the Lusitanians in a negative way? Lastly, are more people doomed to die?

Capitania do Azar

Guys... You're too kind

RebelVampire

11) i agree with everyone else so far in that i think the comic's strengths are the usage of color and the use of animation and web design effects. every choice where these are concerned feels purposeful and really enhances the atmosphere of the moment. i feel they are what give a lot of the scenes their unique punch, as well as also add some visual context to characters' emotions where relevant. 12) Eurico just wants to have a tea party and needs to know if Nikita is game. But joke aside, he probably wants to tell Nikita some truths that Eurico thinks Nikita wasnt told. So that way maybe everyone can leave and nobody else has to die and no wars have to start. Which that last one is wishful thinking imo XD 13) I'm looking forward to more Franquelim doing his weirdo Augur things and everyone being like, "Sure my dude." But really, I just want to see more of that bundle of joy and fun. 14) I think the team is going to deal somewhat poorly. Cause not all of them seemed to take the mission all that serious and I think the hit of seriousness is gonna have some longterm PTSD affects. I mean I'm sure theyll play it off like theyre fine. But itll just be an army of Nikita's in that if they dont talk about it, they dont have to think or deal with it. XD As for the peace treaty, yes and no. I don't think Nikita and company will be responsible, but I think the piece of god might. And yes, yes more people are surely doomed to die. I'd even go so far as to say just assume everyone is gonna die by the end XD RIP

Capitania do Azar

ahaha oh no that is so bleak !!

I can't vouch that they won't die, but I hope they won't

Delphina

If you assume everyone is going to die, you'll be pleasantly surprised when some of them don't!

Capitania do Azar

WELL SOMEBODY'S GOTTA STAY ALIVE IF I WANT THE STORY TO KEEP GOING

(btw thank you for pointing out the big GIF files, I have changed their resolution so hopefully they won't kill more computers with lag )

varethane

Pls dont kill Franq plz plz plz

Capitania do Azar

>:)

Capitania do Azar

your theories are adding years to my life

Delphina

I gotta imagine the peace treaty is going to get affected, though. They're going to try to keep it quiet, but it's gonna get out somehow. Steffano's got a sinister aura around him, so maybe he'd spin the situation in a way that would benefit his political position.

(I could be wrong, but I adore it when people have ridiculously wrong theories about my comic so I'll just throw it out there.)

Also, was it Fausta that the "Foreigner" was trying to communicate through? I wonder if she's got some affinity for that and if she's going to be further used in that capacity

Capitania do Azar

Yes! Fausta is lusitanian-born, so she is naturally empathic and that's why the foreigner picked her out of the crew

snuffysam

it's interesting how the empath was affected rather than the augur. like, from my understanding, fausta's thing is reading people's emotions, while augurs can read the word of the gods/computers. so on the one hand, if the foreigner is communicating with fausta, does that mean the foreigner is human? but on the other hand, franq said that the foreigner's speech feels exactly like what connecting to the gods is like...

Capitania do Azar

I'm gonna throw ash into the fire and say that people tend to compare new things to things they already know ;D

It's past midnight for me, so I guess my time here is over!!

But thank you everyone who dropped by and had the care to read my comic and comment ;u; You make it all worthwhile

Delphina

Thank you for making an awesome comic!

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about O Sarilho this week! Please also give a special thank you to shizamura for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked O Sarilho, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: http://sarilho.net/en/

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shizamura’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Shizamura