#i'm also aware the event is seen to be ambiguous though i'm not looking to debate it -- i have my thoughts but it's not my place to tell

[adelphenium]

Your Adam Larsson peice is so so delightful I’ve been trying very hard to be polite and not ask for him with Dunn, but I’m picking out an outfit for a funeral, so fuck it (no pressure bud, your art is genuinely brilliant and we are blessed to have it, just wanted to ask in case you felt inspired)

hello there, i'm so sorry for your loss -- i hope you're doing as well as you can in these times 🫂

thank you for your kind words + the req!! unfortunately, while i'm still learning more about hockey culture + history, there are some players i would rather not draw given certain things i have heard or seen about them, and sadly dunn is one of them :(

it's never my intention to shame or "cancel" anyone (esp not other hrpfers); it's more that i'm not really comfortable with drawing certain players knowing what i know -- i hope that's understandable.

instead i hope this solo lars can brighten your week a little!

[tired-gae]

Prompt #27: "That's not the point"

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: Teen (for cursing)

No warnings as of now!! (If there is something that should be put here, let me know!)

(No ships either)

Premise: Post-revival (Died in Infinity War, ambiguously is Alive at present time, between Infinity War and Endgame) Loki and Clint have a conversation.

---

Loki had been in the Avengers Compound for nearly a week. It had been a few days since the revelation that the Invasion of New York was not done voluntarily on Loki’s part (and since he’d last seen Barton.) Thanos was a topic of heavy discussion, of course, given the whole ‘Snap’ business. Loki’s almost glad he was dead at the time, if only because he didn’t have to witness that event. 

He and Barton hadn’t made eye contact since he’d returned. This did not come as a surprise, and Loki expected this pattern to continue.

So imagine his shock when, as Loki is sitting against a wall in an unused training room in an attempt to think uninterrupted, Barton walks into the room and sits down mere feet from him. Loki glances over but chooses not to react. Whatever Barton is trying to accomplish, he’s sure it will make itself clear soon.  

He observes the agent quietly. Barton looks tired. He’s staring, eyes half-lidded, at the floor, and appears older than Loki remembers. (Though, he supposed, it had been a good number of years since New York. Mortals aged quickly, did they not?) He takes note of Barton’s lack of weapons. (Visible ones, anyway. He is a spy.) A display of benevolence, perhaps? He can’t imagine it’s a display of trust, considering it all.  

Loki looks away once again. It continues to be silent.  

The silence is expected. Loki can hear the gentle whine of Barton's hearing aids. (An old pair, presumably worn for comfort reasons. Stark had bought (made?) him a pair recently, after deciding the technology around Clint's ears was subpar at best, and that the archer could do better. Loki had yet to see him wear them.)  

The silence is also fragile. Barton is the first one to break it.  

"You too, huh?" 

Loki hums quietly. "In a different way, but... yes." 

Barton picks at the skin around his fingernails. "I had a feeling." 

Loki's head snaps toward him, stunned. He struggles to find words for a moment, mouth opening and closing stupidly. He settles on, "Pardon?" 

Barton's eyes finally flicker over to Loki's, his eyes still half-lidded, tired. "You do realize I remember a good amount of my time under the mind-control crap, right? I mean, it wasn't that hard to figure out." He looked away again. "I don't actually have pigeon shit for brains."

Loki takes a moment to form his response, choosing only to respond to the last part of the statement. "I'm aware. You were the brains behind the stunt in Germany, and subsequently the entire plan, after all. I could hardly think you were stupid." 'A distraction and an eyeball,' if Loki remembered correctly. 

Barton's face twists into a grimace briefly before he shakes it off. "Anyway—the point was, I remember a lot of those few days. I remember you going into a trance-like thing a few times, and coming back from it all shaky and shit. ...Not that you weren't really shaky the whole time. You were weirdly weak, and despite telling us not to overwork ourselves, you didn't really seem to sleep at any point..." He shrugged. "I dunno. After I more-or-less got over it all, it wasn't exactly a difficult conclusion to come to that there was something fishy going on, that you weren't really the big bad." 

Loki stared at the wall opposite them, fingers digging into the flesh of his arms where he was crossing them. It was silent again for only a moment. 

"Oh, and SHIELD's known since forever." Barton added like an afterthought. "I mean, they combed through basically every piece of footage from the invasion, I've seen the clips. They analyzed the shit out of the footage from the collapsed PEGASUS facility, they couldn't really ignore all the signs that you weren't quite... at your best when you showed up." Understatement of the millennium, Loki thought with very little mirth. Barton looked over lazily again, though this time Loki was the one avoiding eye contact. 

"Anywho." Barton continued, quieter. "This isn't forgiveness or any crap like that." 

"I wouldn't expect it to be," Loki agreed. 

"It is... I dunno. An olive branch I guess." He shrugged, crossing his arms in a mirror to Loki to stop himself from picking more at the skin on his hands. "Part of me still wants to put an arrow through your skull, but, y'know, it's a small part." 

Loki frowned. "You would be completely entitled to do so, if you wished. I would not stop you from taking that revenge." It likely wouldn't even kill him, he mused. Nothing seems to be able to do that these days. 

Barton groaned, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. Loki can't help but wonder what he'd said wrong. "See, you say shit like that, and it makes that part even smaller. I mean, dude. I'm not actually gonna fucking shoot you." 

Loki can't say he understands why not, but he can't say he understands much about Barton. (Despite quite literally being in his mind at one point.) None of these mortals make much sense. 

Barton sighed, letting his hand drop again. “Anyways. That’s not the point. The gist is... we’re OK, all things considered. If you catch me using a printed out picture of your face on a dummy during target practice, mind your business. That’s just how my brain works.” He shifts, standing back up from their position of sitting against the wall. “I’ll see you around, terrorist. Don’t die on us again. Still needja for the whole killing Thanos thing.” 

Loki rolled his eyes at the ‘terrorist’ nickname. “Never losing that epithet, am I?” 

“Not a chance.” 

[queer-ragnelle]

I would love your opinion on Black Sails! I was never able to finish it (even though I want to). Seasons 1-3 felt linear and natural in the way the characters were driven and motivated. Season 4 changed so much... undoing character growth, scrapping character beliefs for new motives that were narratively weaker, and using way more shock/gore than there had been used previously. I would love to know your opinions on it, and if I'm talking out of my ass on this. Love the show! Would love to finish it. Would genuinely love to hear you do a character analysis, if you felt up to it. Ty!

Hi Anon! I'm going to put this below a cut since it's not strictly relevant to this blog and yet I have much to say about it lol

It's been over a year since I watched Black Sails in it's entirety, but I'll go on record saying it's the best show I've ever seen. I love the writing, the acting, the costuming, the filmography, the music, the everything. It is [almost] perfectly balanced. Ironically I felt season 1 was the weakest and didn't take the same issues with season 4 as you did. My biggest criticism of season 1 involves the plot regarding Max's captivity on the beach. I think connecting her with Anne could've been achieved some other way (or even a similar plot just overall less sexual violence/quicker resolution). But even so, I still stand by that I recommend it, particularly to those who love a blend of historical and fiction/mythic characters.

I would love to see an Arthurian retelling on that scale and with that tone. Starz had produced their show Camelot in 2011, three years before Black Sails, and while that first season also has some issues, I'll forever be heartbroken it wasn't renewed. I fully believe they would have developed Camelot into an epic tale ala Black Sails, particularly with strong female characters and queer storylines. We could've had it all....

On that note, Black Sails was absolutely vital in my journey as an author adapting Arthurian legend in a historical 6th century. The meta about ambiguous storytelling subject to biased perception or outright misinformation and thus misconceptions about people involved in historical events fascinated me. On one hand you have Jack Rackham's obsession with his legacy, almost uncannily aware he's in a story and his limited time to leave his mark. Then there's Charles Vane's hanging in Nassau, when the history books say he died at Port Royal. It circumvents expectations, not with shock value (looking at you, Game of Thrones finale), but in service to the narrative by calling into question the validity of our accepted reality. Beyond that, it seamlessly blends historical figures, the cast of Treasure Island, and original characters created to incorporate more women and people of color into the narrative. Everyone's developed and fascinating and complex with clear motivations and fleshed out backstories (except for Silver, lol, which itself makes him compelling). Bernard Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles does similar things. He utilized Saint Derfel as his point of view character to analyze the Arthurian legend through a [semi-]historical lens. But I think Black Sails does it better. It also seems to transcend genre at times. It's adventure and action, but it's got everything from romance between a network of characters in all different Stiuationships to the horror of Flint's past haunting him (literally). And yet it never feels like too much. It doesn't lose track of what it's doing. Nothing set up is dropped or forgotten about. It's frustrating when the goal post moves yet again, but in a way which draws us in closer to the characters and makes us all the more driven to see it through. When another hiccup arises we must overcome, or even a devastating and insurmountable shock (Miranda....), it feels earned. Of course that was liable to happen. How could we have been so foolish to think things would have worked out?

This show gave me permission, and frankly, the determination, to experiment with my own retelling. The people who made Black Sails knew when to stay true to the past, drawing on facts to develop the story in accurate ways (such as utilizing the colony of escaped slaves to bring Madi and her people into the story (which also ties into Treasure Island in which Silver had a black wife!)) and when to follow the rule of cool (Jack Rackham in his definitely-historically-unviable-but-undeniably-cool shades). Literally life changing.

I don't think I could narrow down the characters enough to do a full analysis of one of them, I love them all for different reasons. But I did name my borzoi Long John Silver, so, I kind of have to talk about him, right? Well I think the character's lack of a backstory, ie his unwillingness to disclose it, acts as a surrogate for the viewer. We ride the wave with Silver, thrust into this predicament with the map and the gold and the very culture of Nassau's pirate trade whilst Silver somehow remains a blank slate mystery as he navigates this dangerous world with a quick mind alone. While Flint could certainly be considered the main character, and we're quite often in his head, his memories, his nightmares even, I don't think the viewer's supposed to identify as him so much as with him. Flint is Flint. But we are Silver. (Scary thought lol)

If you couldn't tell already, I'm long winded. :^) So I'll stop here and the real deep dive character analysis happens in my books. Gawain is just landlocked Flint if you squint<3 Thanks for asking about Black Sails! Everyone go watch it.

[darkwithasharpenededge]

Another day, another book: A review of The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

Rating: 83/100

Summary: Book club bait, down to the pretty descriptions, the structure, and the ambiguous ending. Consider me fucking baited, I guess, because I gave this one four stars on my spreadsheet. As always, SPOILERS.

Characters: Elle is the type of character that many people will hate, because she's cheating on her husband. I liked her enough to tolerate nearly 400 pages in her head, though she's certainly not one of my favorite characters I've ever seen. However, I liked neither Jonas nor Peter. The flashback and present day scenes seemed determined to make Peter come off in the worst light possible so that the reader will side with Elle when she ultimately makes her decision (Elle and Peter argue ALL THE TIME, like ALL THE TIME), but Jonas doesn't look much better, and there's no real reason to side with him other than the history between him. He doesn't exactly come off as Prince Charming. Most of the characters in this book were the kind of people I'd despise in real life, but fortunately this was a book and I like reading about people I'd hate. Also, the story seems determined to make Gina bitchy in order to make the reader feel less bad about wanting Elle to break up Jonas' marriage, but it basically left me wondering why Jonas and Gina were even married.

Format: The book bounces between present day and past segments. Most of the past segments were relevant to the plot, although some were not and probably could have stood to have been cut. Kill your darlings and all. I liked the format, but I'm pretentious and like that kind of thing.

Prose Quality: The writing is fairly pretty. I have read so much sparse prose since I started writing these reviews that just about anything could enchant me, so perhaps I shouldn't be trusted. Anyway, I enjoyed it.

Romance: I already mentioned that I disliked both Jonas and Peter. I don't know what else there is to say. My preference was for Elle to stay with Peter, because it would create the least disruption in her family, and I didn't think that she would be able to create a stable relationship with Jonas. Not that her relationship with Peter seemed all that stable, they argue throughout basically every scene they're in, and most of the good parts of their relationship were conveyed through telling rather than showing. They seemed more comfortable in their relationship than actually in love.

Sex: Sometimes the book felt like it was trying to meet a sex quota, for the bored housewives in their book clubs. I'm a lesbian and used to the sex in books not being to my taste, but it still managed to make sex read like a description of the wallpaper. None of the sex scenes were long or particularly detailed, and I'm not sure if I'm complimenting the writer's wallpaper descriptions or bashing her sex scenes or both. It's possible I'm doing both. As far as I remember, Elle is only described as having finished once.

Plot: Elle cheats on her husband, Peter, with her childhood friend, Jonas. She has been infatuated with Jonas for a long time, but they were parted in the wake of their murder? manslaughter? of her stepbrother who raped her. Jonas is the only person who is aware that she was raped by her stepbrother. I personally think that if Elle had told Peter about the rape and about how she and Jonas killed him, I think that would have helped her get past a lot of the negative feelings she was having about her marriage, but what do I know about communication. The whole plot is about Elle deciding which man to choose in the wake of her infidelity, combined with flashbacks to past events.

Ambiguous Ending: The ending of the book is slightly ambiguous. The consensus (both from me and from a google search) seems to be that she chose Jonas at the end of the book, but there's still an element of doubt. Book club bait shit! I would have preferred to know more clearly I think, but I suppose it's not that kind of book.

The Rape: This books contains rape and sexual assault. Slightly more than necessary, I think, and it really comes out of nowhere at first. (In the first fifty pages you find out that the narrator's mother was assaulted by her stepfather as a child, in a little more detail than strictly necessary. I do think that this was relevant later, especially the very specific detail of the narrator's grandmother slapping her mother when she literally saw it happen, but I was still VERY blindsided by the scene when it appeared). I applaud this book for not exceeding my personal thumb for "number of violent rapes by strangers" a work of fiction is permitted to have, because after all violent stranger rape is the coward's way of trying to make your female character interesting. I also applaud this book for letting her kill her rapist. And one more round of applause, for having her mother believe her. I do think the author should have cut the irrelevant catcalling scene though. We get it, she's sexualized too young, irrelevant catcalling scene was still irrelevant.

Peeing: Now for something lighthearted, a funny quirk of the author's that I noticed was that Elle pees a lot. There is a LOT of page space compared to literally every other book I've ever read dedicated to Elle peeing. She also pees outside a lot. I can't believe I'm mentioning piss in a review again.

Final Verdict: I actually did enjoy this book, but it's DEFINITELY not for everyone. I love pretentious books about insufferable people being insufferable, as a pretentious insufferable person myself.

Review Word Count: 965

[puzzle-paradigm]

So... What happened to Diego's eye?

Alright, it's a fact that I'm an overthinker. Also a fact that I enjoy The Umbrella Academy. I've consumed about as much media about it as I can, and I'm eagerly awaiting more. In the horrible waiting period until then, I've overthought one of the minor mysteries that nobody but me cares about:

What happened to Diego's (aka #2, The Kraken) eye?

For those who have only seen the show (and there's no shame in that), this is what Diego looks like in the books:

Note that his mask only has one eye hole, because he only has one eye.

In his very first appearance, however, we can clearly see that he has both eyes:

Diego is second from the right, between Luthor (1/Spaceboy) and Allison (3/The Rumor)

Now these two pictures of him as a child provide us with a valuable piece of information if we are trying to figure out when and how Diego lost his eye: We are explicitly told that this outing takes place when the characters are ten years old. Therefore, Diego had to lose his eye sometime after his first ten years of life.

We get an even clearer view of the timeline by looking at the spin-off, You Look Like Death. While that book primarily focuses on Klaus (4/The Séance) being kicked out of the house, it does help clarify an order of events.

First of all, because all of the main characters share the exact same birthday and time, we can confirm that Diego is in fact 18.

Secondly, while we only see Diego briefly in the book, there is one extremely noticeable detail: He is in fact missing his eye.

This means that sometime between the ages of 10 and 18, Diego loses his eye. Unfortunately there is no real information on how this actually happened that I'm aware of (though if anyone knows any, please let me know!), but narrowing down the when is also important.

Slight tangent, but we also get this small piece of information, which somewhat implies that Ben (6/The Horror) is in fact alive at this point. though it is ambiguous, it does potentially shed some light on one of the big unexplained mysteries of the series.

(also I just find this panel very funny)

Anyway, the above image implies that Diego lost his eye in an event other than Ben's death, unlike what I had previously assumed.

To conclude, this information helps us create a timeline of a mystery that probably nobody actually cares about, but it matters to me.

[usagi-chan95]

So a few days ago I was on TV tropic looking up a few shows I like and of course I'm a huge Umineko Fan so I looked up the character and everybody who knows me just a little bit now I said I ship this one character with Black Hat. So why not list all hee traits that he would probably like about her. In the end I think the two would get along with each other.

Affably Evil: She is completely indifferent towards the suffering of everybody else, but she sure is polite.

All-Powerful Bystander: She has more than enough power to solve any problem in the setting or destroy everything in the blink of an eye if she wanted to. Fortunately, Featherine prefers to remain a spectator for the most part while she lets Bernkastel cause all the trouble she wants. The one time she does intervene in the plot during her "fight" with Lambdadelta we see that everything would have been lost with Featherine as an active enemy.

Always Someone Better: Bernkastel is regarded as the strongest Witch, but even she knows not to get on Featherine's bad side. Even Lambdadelta, who was more than holding her own against Bernkastel earlier, is terrified at the thought of having Featherine as an opponent. It makes sense when you realize Featherine is not just a Witch, but a Creator as well. She may just be a Witch in name only.

Ambiguously Evil: Both Bern and Lambda describe her as extremely nasty, and indeed she doesn't think much of humans, but she doesn't really have any Kick the Dog moments, and in the end she gives up on publicly revealing the contents of Eva's diary, thus preserving the catbox as Battler and Beato wished.

Curb-Stomp Battle: Delivers one to Lambdadelta in Episode 8. Special mention to the fact that Featherine didn't even have fight at all; she simply wrote down "I utterly defeated Lambdadelta and sliced her into pieces". And then poof, Lambda is completely dismembered.

The Dreaded: Anyone that can inspire genuine fear from Lambdadelta and even Bernkastel is definitely not to be trifled with.

Evil Mentor: Implied to have been Bernkastel's in the ???? of EP6.

The Fog of Ages: She has lived for so long that she needs a special horseshoe-shaped device around her head to keep her memories and avoid insanity.

God Is Evil: Averted, though just barely. She's not so much evil as she is uncaring of how she achieves her goals... though given the things she does do in the story (and apparently before it), you'd be forgiven for thinking it was played straight.

Greater-Scope Villain: Featherine is said to be a Witch thousands of times more powerful and evil than Bernkastel could ever be, but she never becomes a direct villain to the story and remains a bystander for the most part. However, she is indirectly responsible for all the problems from EP7 afterwards as she was the one who gave Bernkastel the power to keep messing with the game board because she wanted Bernkastel to rip the game apart for her and give her the answers to the mystery.

Insult Backfire: When Lambda pulls a You Monster! on her, she takes it as a compliment, which really makes you wonder what amount of chaos she caused in her distant past. It's fully possible that, being Bernkastel's mentor, she possess a trolling capacity far surpassing her miko Bern's... and considering Bern is the most malicious character in the story, that is a scary thought.

It Amused Me: The main reason she doesn't fit into God Is Evil instead. Physical Godliness and lack of a Freudian Excuse notwithstanding, she's still a Witch at heart and will do whatever it takes to keep herself entertained.

Lack of Empathy: Definitely, but better off than Bernkastel at least. Like any other Witch, Featherine sees human lives as nothing but means of entertainment, but she can show her respect to her opponents when it's due and at least now, doesn't seek to actively make others miserable for amusement's sake.

Manipulative Bitch: In the past, she's used Bernkastel as her monkey wrench to unlock the mysteries of worlds and game boards alike, whether Bern wanted to do it or not. Worse yet, Bern was aware she was being used but couldn't do anything about it because Featherine was just that good. This does in fact happen in the story, where she makes Bern the Game Master to crack the mystery of Rokkenjima when the rest of the cast loses interest in it, using Bern's desire for revenge against the family as her motivation.

Offstage Villainy: Bernkastel, the cruelest example of a witch so far seen, finds her a hundred times more horrific than she could ever be. The evidence is suggested at, but never concretely shown. Within the series, Featherine never does anything nearly as horrible as the other witches. Of course, Bernkastel is no doubt very biased, seeing as how she came into existence because of Featherine's callousness and indifference. She probably has room to exaggerate.

The Older Immortal: By far the oldest witch in the series.

The Omnipotent: Without a doubt, the most powerful character in the setting. She's perfectly capable of pausing the plot when she wants a scene to play out a different way.

Outside-Context Problem: Needless to say Featherine is in a whole other league compared to the other witches Battler deals with in the story, which is really saying something. A single wave of her hand to make Bernkastel the Game Master is all she needed to do turn Battler's happy ending into a non-ending.

Physical God: One of the Creators described in Episode 4's TIPS.

The definitive example is that she's ultimately the one responsible for bringing Bernkastel as we know herinto existence. It's heavily implied that she was the one who abandoned Bern as a piece in the Unwinnable game (that she ended up winning anyway), and while it's never explained how she pieced together/recruited all the physically and emotionally destroyed Rika Furudes, it's made clear in the narration that Featherine was the one who taught what would eventually become her miko and the Cruelest Witch. And why? Because she was bored and wanted someone to help stave off future boredom.It's not so much that she meant harm by creating Bern, more that she doesn't care as long as she is entertained.

If you want a more "literal" example, she can use her power to rewrite the script of reality itself and have people do as she dictates. And you would never even know she's doing it.

Really 700 Years Old: She is said to be older than Bernkastel and Lambdadelta, both who are said to be centuries old. By the way it's alluded, Featherine might as well be a Time Abyss.

Retired Monster: Given what Bernkastel and Lambadelta say about (and to) her, this is heavily implied. Featherine herself personally thinks she's much worse.

Rewriting Reality: Her power as a Witch/Creator and as an Author Avatar. Featherine can literally rewrite the script of reality itself to make events go as however she likes. She doesn't even need to write how things go, she only needs to write the result.

Story-Breaker Power:

Literally. When Lambdadelta tries to attack her with magic, Featherine just says that she doesn't like the development of the story, stops time and begins editing the script of the story herself. Not willing to write a fight scene at the moment, she starts from the end of the fight where she dictates Lambdadelta was smashed into a bookshelf and had all her limbs severed. She doesn't even think about how she accomplished such a brutal attack, deciding to "figure it out later". When Featherine starts time again, Lambdadelta ends up just as she wrote, with "what the fuck just happened" being her last conscious thoughts before dying.

She couldn't comprehend the 'something' that Featherine had killed her with. However, that was only natural. After all, Featherine herself hadn't decided what the 'something' was. However, Lambdadelta did understand one thing. She was already dead.

You Cannot Grasp the True Form: The memory device around her head also preserves her form. At one point in the past it got damaged, abruptly changing her personality and appearance. Her witch power also allows her to weaponize this. Refer to the spoiler in Story-Breaker Power above.