#in my quest to give you songs you dont already know a lot of them ended up being from the same artist haha oops

[the-sparkling-diamond-satine]

christian and satine <3

There's a lot of stuff you'd expect on this playlist so I tried to choose songs you might not already know! Also you're the only person who asked me about these two so you get a bunch of songs haha

Don't ship these two but I love the song!

Tbh I have mixed feelings about this POTO song for Christian x Satine (*chomping at the bit, barely containing a spoiler-filled infodump/rant*) BUT out of context it is VERY PRETTY and you don't know POTO so. The vibes fit the movie characters better but you also like them so I think you will still appreciate!!

Characters I DO ship!!!!! Guy x Girl 🤝 Christian x Satine!! I LOVE right people/wrong timing romances of course haha! And Once is one of my fave things I've seen live the music is SO GOOD and it's criminally underrated

Do you want some sad Christian songs?? Regardless of your answer, I am inflicting them upon you

Want a hyper-specific song from an AU where post-El Tango de Roxanne goes differently and there is COMFORT??? (Yes. You do.)

And since NO ONE asked me about Nini (criminal tbh /j) I am making you care about my Nini playlist with me. Here is another hyper-specific song about a couple (?) on a murder road trip which I imagine takes place in an AU where Nini killed the Duke to protect Satine and now she and Santiago are on the run. Women's wrongs >>> (this also has such Sweeney/Lovett energy)

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 14 first part

(RR The Untamed Masterpost) (Canary’s Pinboard - more Masterposts) 

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Murder Turtle, Continued

Lan Wangji wakes up after a good night's sleep leaning against a rock wall, to find that his leg is no longer splinted, and his perfectly clean and unbloody headband has been put back on his head while he was sleeping.

Leaving aside the "not waking up" part of things, how, exactly, did Wei Wuxian get his headband on without mussing his hair? Did he bring a crochet hook?

Wei Wuxian gives him a sitrep and then they cozy up and have an extended conversation about the nature and history of the Tortoise of Slaughter. Wei Wuxian is interested in everything Lan Wangji has to say, and Lan Wangji talks a lot more than usual; they are completely on the same wavelength here and are enjoying swapping obscure knowledge.

Lan Wangji: My lacerated leg and I are actually super aware that it has big teeth, but thanks for the reminder.

In the course of the conversation, Wei Wuxian mentions his plan to 1. sneak into the tortoise's shell and 2. drive it out of its shell so they can attack it. 

OP did a little tortoise research and learned that the only species of turtle that can leave its shell is the Koopa Troopa.

Good news for Wei Wuxian: If you jump on its shell in the right spot, you can rack up a pile of extra lives.

Does that make the Tortoise of Slaughter a giant Koopa Troopa? Perhaps...the king of the Koopa Troopas?

I'm gonna say yes.

(More after the cut)

Let’s Go Killing

Wei Wuxian is exhilarated by the idea of fighting a giant dangerous monster with Lan Wangji. Some day Wei Wuxian will found the Nike clan, because his motto is definitely "Just do it." 

It's sweet how, in his romantic notions about chivalry and Lan Wangji, he's completely elided the original reason they were (sort of) told to venture together. 

Wei Wuxian: I'm still on the "find the Yin Iron" quest; I'm just skipping the "suppress it" part.  

Wei Wuxian weighs up their chances against Bowser and tells Lan Wangji that even if they die, it will be badass to be killed by a famous monster, so they won't have to feel embarrassed.

This is the exact moment that Lan Wangji's feelings for Wei Wuxian go from "smitten" to "gagging for it."

Lan Wangji: as soon as we get out of here I'm going to borrow a whole lot of books from Nie Huaisang

The boys come up with a plan that involves a rather long montage of collecting archery equipment and deconstructing it. This potentially-dull montage is fun to watch because they are both very, very good looking.

Artists who want to draw Wang Yibo as an elven archer, this is your episode.

Now we suddenly have, with zero explanation, telepathy. Ok, sure. It seems to work kind of like a phone conversation, in which they say specific things to each other, rather than like Cherry Magic telepathy where you can hear everything the other person is thinking. Or at least, neither of them is embarrassed, so I assume they are maintaining some mental privacy.

Club Ruohan

Same, Wen Chao, same

At some point there is a boring sequence at Club Ruohan.  Wen Ruohan doesn't know where Xue Yang is, but really wants his hunk of Yin Iron. Wen Chao thinks that WRH's 3 pieces of Yin Iron should be able to beat Xue Yang's 1 piece, but apparently he is dumb and that is not how math works. O...kay? OP does not understand this either but whatever, Wen Ruohan is boring, moving on. This scene is really just here to make us think about Yin Iron before Wei Wuxian jumps into Bowser's shell.

Bigger On The Inside

So then Wei Wuxian climbs into Bowser's shell, which is, to quote The 12th Doctor, bigger on the inside.

Bowser’s shell is the approximate size of my entire house. It is also bathed in a hellish pure red photo filter, which OP has done her best to remove for these gifs, because it gives me eye strain and it obscures Xiao Zhan's hotness.

Camera Operator: What did I do? 

Wei Wuxian wanders around inside, finding random corpses encased in slime cocoons. Tortoise, spider, xenomorph, whatever. There are also random curtain things hanging all over, and then at one point Wei Wuxian stares into the face of a corpse, and then does a jump scare response at the camera operator even though nothing particular happened. 

I imagine the corpse was supposed to open its eyes and say "killl meeee" but it got censored. He also makes about 8 other faces at the camera operator, so we get that the inside of this TARDIS-like tortoise shell (must...resist...temptation...to...say...TORDIS) is yucky.

Lan Wangji waits outside listening to Wei Wuxian telepathically complain about the smell.  He is anxiously clenching a bundle of string and an arrow, and wishing he could clench Wei Wuxian Bichen instead.

Serendipitous Yin Iron

Wei Wuxian backs his way through the TORDIS until his butt bumps into a sword that is steaming with resentful energy. That's right: Wei Wuxian is about to pull a piece of Yin Iron almost literally out of his ass.

He grabs it and is overwhelmed by its screaming resentful energy and has to let it go again.

So this is what a vibrator with 4 batteries feels like

When Bowser comes looking for him, however, he quickly decides to go for it, grabbing the sword and singing "I've Got the Power (Gonna Make You Sweat)"

Wei Wuxian plunges the sword into Bowser's lower jaw, and Bowser pulls his entire head out of his shell with Wei Wuxian attached, while leaving the rest of his body and all rational laws of physics inside the shell.

Gamera Versus the Cultivators

What follows is one of the more ridiculous action sequences in the history of the world, and I say that as someone who likes Mothra movies. 

Wei Wuxian hovers in a perfect horizontal plank while “hanging from” the sword, which is held well below the level of his torso. While Bowser spins him around. For much of the time, Bowser keeps his head still and just waves his neck around.

Lan Wangji and the camera operator do everything they possibly can to make "guy pulls on string" look interesting. 

Everybody tries really, really hard and the actors are great at pretending something is there when it isn't, but this whole sequence is just horribly conceived.

What works well, though, is the Yin energy and Wei Wuxian's wrangling of it. He starts off being frightened and overwhelmed, and looking like it's too much for him; I dont' know if they made his face puffy on purpose or if that's just what happens when you spend days hanging from the ceiling fighting an imaginary monster. But he looks slack and unwell as he grapples with the iron sword.

Which makes this moment, when he gets control of it, deliciously creepy. He uses the power of the Yin Iron to stick a bunch of pokey things into Bowser's neck.

Lan Wangji has seen him struggling and now sees him...not struggling. Which scares the piss out of him, and he moves to finish the fight as quickly as possible, slicing up his hand and breaking the string. Combined with the pokey things, this does the trick and Bowser dies while Wei Wuxian faints and falls into the water.

Do the Whumpty Whump

Lan Wangji rescues him and wakes him up, and Wei Wuxian clutches the Yin Iron sword and tells Lan Wangji that he was knocked out by the screaming of disembodied voices.

This certainly sounds like a strange and dangerous phenomenon, so Lan Wangji carefully asks him to explain everything.

Ha ha ha j/k. Lan Wangji asks him exactly nothing about the strange sword or the black smoke or his weird evil smile or his new power over pointy objects. Lan Wangji appears to have a Star Trek: TNG level of unconcern about strange phenomena happening directly under his nose. But in fact he has noticed what's up, which is why he will be instantly distressed when he sees Wei Wuxian's flute moves at the Wen Corporate Headquarters.

Wei Wuxian has a fever (stay positive test negative) and comments on Lan Wangji's being so nice to him.

Wei Wuxian: I could never have imagined Lan Er Gongzi acting this concerned about me. Lan Wangji: what else have you never imagined me doing, while we're on the subject? 

Lan Wangji transfers a stream of spiritual energy to him. Lan Wangji has so much spiritual power he can be a battery for Wei Wuxian without breaking a sweat or, like, noticing whether Wei Wuxian has a golden core or not, for that matter.

Wei Wuxian basks in the nice feeling of gigajoules for a while but then decides he's bored. So then he pouts, whines, and cajoles Lan Wangji in exactly, EXACTLY the way he whines at Jiang Yanli.  I think this, while annoying of him, is a leap forward in his relationship with Lan Wangji.

He's letting his guard down and not just allowing Lan Wangji to take care of him; he's demanding to be cared for on multiple vectors, when he asks the guy who's already busy healing him to sing to him as well.

Lan Wangji obliges, singing him the song he composed about their love cultivation journey, while Wei Wuxian (or possibly Lan Wangji) (or possibly both) has a flashback to assorted sexy interactions that they've had so far.

Wei Wuxian memorizes the song perfectly on one hearing, before passing out.

Writing Prompt: Baldur’s Gate III / Untamed Crossover AU featuring elf archer Lan Wangji

I DARE YOU

Soundtrack: 1. Everybody Dance Now by C+C Music Factory 2. Paradise by the Dashboard Light by Meatloaf 

Wei Wuxian fainting tally (cumulative): 3

[jostepherjoestar]

hey cozy! ik requests are closed at the moment so u dont have to answer this im only sending it so i dont forget the idea! u can answer once requests are open again haha so like what about hcs for la squadra members actually playing yakuza? im not a yakuza player but my friend is and im trying to get into it!

La Squadra playing Yakuza 0 HC’s

AAA! Anon I love you for requesting this!! I know the niche in the Yakuza and JJBA venn diagram is kinda small :0 but here we go regardless because this mixture has literally been my shit for a year so far!! Hc’s for them playing Yakuza 0 since that’s a very nice entry point 💖✨(also deffo give the game a try it will BREAK UR HEART)

also maybe Yakuza 0 spoilers?

Risotto

Risotto will be hard to convince to do anything fun or relaxing since he’s always working. After a loooooot of nagging he will finally give in and say he’ll play a chapter or two.

Silent standoff with Kiryu because Risotto can R E L A T E.

Is surprised that he likes the fighting mechanics and quickly picks up the combos, literally obliterates enemies with his skills.

Gets sucked into the story and will play more than two chapters because he just needs to know what the fuck is going on.

Risotto is BAD at the karaoke mini game at first, not really having much experience with games in general, especially rhythm games. He gets a little better over time but still can’t get over a 92 score.

When he gets to Majima he will  R E L A T E again. He feels a connection between the complicated situations in the game and his own work life, he’s glad that it’s fictional because he’s already feeling a bit stressed thinking about being in those situations.

Will finish the game pretty quickly, doesn’t do too much side quests or minigames because he loves the story too much. He does like the Cabaret Club Czar minigame, he enjoys talking to the girls but won’t finish it. Ignores the existence of Pocket Racing.

Formaggio

Is into casually gaming every once in a while and is open to the game but isn’t really sure he will like the story.

Oh but he falls hard. He’s totally in love with this game, literally loses his shit at the end of every chapter.

Will get distracted and play way too much side content instead of the main story despite wanting to know what happens next. Will also ragequit if he can’t get the hit in baseball or grab the plushy in the claw machine.

Likes the silliness of the side quests but gets a little whiplashed from the emotional tone changes in the main story.

POCKET RACING IS HIS SHIT! Will complete the Real Estate business thing just so he can spend all his money on car parts.

Is pretty good at karaoke and will start randomly singing the songs throughout the day. Also really loves Cabaret Club Czar and grind till he finishes it. 

Formaggio is a loud gamer, will say his thoughts out loud and attract an audience from his housemates.

Is a literal mess at the end. WHY CAN’T WE HAVE NICE THINGS?

Illuso

Doesn’t really game but like Risotto will finally cave so whoever’s nagging will finally shut up.

Is suspicious of every character and what their part is in the story. Has a bunch of predictions at the start, actually got a few things right before knowing what was up.

Really loves Nishiki and wishes he could be friends with him in real life. Does still think he’s hotter than Nishiki even though he has great hair.

Doesn’t bother too much with doing a lot of side quests and finds it really annoying he can’t run through the map without getting into a fight every 2 seconds.

Oof he doesn’t really like Majima but gets where he comes from, just doesn’t really relate to him.

Gets annoyed by Kiryu’s denseness sometimes.

Enjoys the story but doesn’t really get emotionally attached.

Even though he will have enjoyed it, he won’t play any other games from the franchise, he has better stuff to do.

Prosciutto

Prosciutto is not a gamer AT ALL, has a hard time getting into it and barely understands the controls.

Will offer live snide commentary about the stupid stuff that happens.

He does enjoy going ham every once in a while once he gets beast mode.

He tries out almost everything available sidecontent-wise and eating at restaurants just to see what it’s like.

Does get bored easily and doesn’t care if he finishes the game or not.

Well shit... he dropped the game before he even got into it.

Don’t bother him again with playing games unless it’s cards, he’s an old man like that.

Pesci

Pesci enjoys gaming every once in a while and is actually pretty good at them. He can really lose himself in them, fully concentrated and having a lot of fun.

He loves Kiryu and looks up to him, he can relate to Kiryu being a bit lost as well. Majima on the other hand is very cool to him but he doesn’t really get his transition.

Will love playing Cabaret Club and completes it. He truly does his best to talk with the hostesses, making it practice for when he actually has to talk to girls.

Has a crush on all of the girls, if they’re somewhat nice to him he’ll think about them for days.

Pesci is pretty good at fighting in the Colosseum as well, enjoying being able to focus on successfully beating the hell out of those idiots.

Wants to swoop Makoto off her feet and speed off to safety. Cheers her on quietly and cries whenever bad things happen.

Absolutely crushed by the ending but will still want to continue playing the other games in the franchise.

Melone

Did someone say new hyper-fixation? Because it sure sounded like it!!

Melone plays to game from start to end fully into it and only wanting more. In between jobs he’ll spend most of his time playing, fully immersed.

He wants to 100% the game at any cost, so he will do premium adventure to get all the achievements.

Sometimes he isn’t even having fun anymore, just doing the things he needs to get that 100%. Will have heard every single karaoke song a million times and still listens to them by choice.

He looooves playing Cabaret Club Czar and doesn’t even need a guide to know how to get the most out of his hostesses. He’d actually love to manage a hostess club now that he thinks about it.

Will get a crush on Majima, will cry at all the horrible stuff that happens and he will stan him even harder in the end.

Melone is already planning his trip to Tokyo for a thorough tour of Kabukicho (Kamurocho), won’t even need a guide since he’s memorised the map.

He will also purchase all the other games available in the franchise. Honestly he’s never been this into any game before but he’s so glad to have found it.

Ghiaccio

Just like Formaggio he is a loud gamer. This game will get on his nerves, especially since he isn’t immediately good at fighting.

No matter how angry he gets he will NOT quit! Gritting his teeth and slamming the controller but HE WILL CONTINUE FUUU-

Can relate to Majima a lot, sometimes he feels like another pawn in a game he has no power in. Maybe it inspires him to be more rebellious or let go of mental restraints.

He will try for hours on end to get a 100 in karaoke. When he finally gets it, expect a loooot of yelling and whooping.

Secretly loves dressing up the hostesses but is too embarrassed to play too much Cabaret Club in case someone walks by.  

Ghiaccio will also get annoyed at Kiryu’s sporadic stupidity.

He’ll also spend a lot of time on Pocket Circuit but he won’t finish it once it gets hard, unlike the fighting in the game, he will quit this minigame.

He won’t let anyone see or know but he sobbed like a baby at the ending. He really liked the story and got attached to these wonderfully weird characters.

[trashcatsnark]

I've been thinking about what you've touched on before, that Johnny doesn't think that he's good enough for V, and he's both too stubborn and too anxious to confess how he feels about them, and he sees them falling in love with other people and knows that the day they will have to split for forever in Mikoshi is coming soon... reminded me of "Something about us" by Daft Punk 😥

Oooh, thank you for the song rec!

And johnny hidden behind his arrogant front, knows how cruel hes been how far hes pushed everyone away. Calling himself a selfish bastard comes really easily, same with calling himself fucked up in the Sinnerman quest series.

I always find his wording in that interesting. Because that mission series happens later on in the game. I believe you need to have Life During Wartime (panam main quest missions) done and maybe have a specific street cred level but im less sure on that part. Meaning its generally meant to be a later stage mission. Personally, I like to so it after the oil fields talk, so that also impacts my perception, so your mileage might vary on this.

In those main quests, Johnny largely is always trying to tease and taunt V that they're just as fucked up as him. That they were fucked up before he came along: "that makes you a real deviant", "you're more like me than you know", "you're starting to remind me of me, fifty years back minus the charisma and impressive cock". Yes, i had to fully quote that last one. V never hesitates to tell Johnny he's garbo in the beginning; they question his actions, his morality, his everything. And Johnny does what he does best when someones poking at his feelings and making him feel worse than he already does about himself; he lashes out and projects. Oh no no no no, you're fucked up too, V. Dont act like Im the only asshole here.

Then things change, V gives him more chances than he deserves. He starts to awknowledge his faults without projecting them on V and wants to change. Hell, if V at the oil fields mentions that sometimes they feel more like Johnny, do things he'd do and it feels right. He is terrified and says, we need to get this chip taken care of thats not good. The man who once was trying to convince V how similar they are; hates hearing V admit they may be becoming more like him and doesnt hesitate to blame it on the chip instead of implying V may just be as fucked up as him.

And again, the nonlinear nature of some of the missions can throw some of this off, but like in sinnerman, at the convo in the dinner, i feel like we see a subtle shift. Johnny does go his usual full lecture spiel in this mission, hes annoyed at V talking religion to him, and even jumps to try to make himself sound/feel badass about how V drops to their knees before gods and he pops them in the head. So, in general it has pretty usual Johnny lecture vibes. But this wording always catches me.

"Hes fucked in the head. And you're fucked in the head, cause my fucked up head is inside it. Maybe thats the trick to changing the world, first step gotta get fucked in the head"

Its subtle, but I think him fully saying he is the reason V is fucked in the head, says a lot. Hes no longer trying to act like V and him are both fuck ups, disasters, and morally bankrupt people. Hes the reason V is fucked up. And i think that, among other things, does help show that at a certain point he really does see himself a being this fucked up mess and V is this too good of a person, who for some inconceivable reason doesnt hate him.

Also while i dont have the heart to play it, but looking at some of his dialogue from devil ending and how he can literally tell V that the relic made them more like the old him and hes become more like how they were before the relic; the awknowledgement that before this betrayal, he saw them as good.

Like all of that tells me he does massively feel like V is this too nice for their own good, strangely kind merc. And hes just an asshole, finally trying to change after fucking up his first life.

This answer kind of went on a tangent, but i also wanna say with love interests and potentially watching V fall in love with someone else. I think Johnny gets real torn between that part of him that wants to be better, knows V deserves better and he'll be gone anyway...so he shouldnt even think of getting in the way of it. And this more selfish jealous part of him, that for as long as he is here, he wants to hold on to keeping V to himself and they can find someone else once hes gone so he doesnt have to see it.

[you-cant-spell-subtext-without]

hello hello hello!  and welcome to Season 12 of Supernatural. 

I admit that initially I STRUGGLED WITH SEASON 12.  I LOATHED the British Men of Letters (other than Lady Antonia Bevell; her hot working mom energy can get it); I have...mixed feelings about Mary; overall it was not a stellar season for me the first go-round.  HOWEVER I shall now give it a second chance,  and look for the subtext within the bad (and if my theory tracks, there will be much subtext as...there is much bad).  Maybe I’ll even develop Ketch appreciation.  **ONWARDS ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH, MY FRIENDS:

When we last left Dean, I neglected to mention that Amara brought his mom back (this is how much I repressed Mary Winchester I guess?)  We cut to Mary, confused, in a nightgown (I get this is part of the character and that’s why she is wearing it sO wE kNOw iTS rEAlLy MaRY WinCHEstEr because of her nightgown and not Sam Smith’s exquisite face, but honestly WHY - LIKE DID SHE WEAR THE DAMN THING IN HEAVEN THE ENTIRE TIME TOO?).

DEAN [breathing heavily] 

Mom. Listen to me. Your name – your name is Mary Sandra Campbell, okay? You were born December 5, 1954, to Samuel and Deanna Campbell. Your father, he bounced around a lot for, uh, work, and you bounced right along with him, and you ended up in Lawrence, Kansas.

MARY 

How do you know all that?

DEAN 

Dad told me. March 23, 1972, you walked out of a movie theater – Slaughterhouse-Five. You loved it, and you bumped into a big Marine and you knocked him flat on his ass. You were embarrassed, and he laughed it off, said you could make it up to him with a cup of coffee. So, you went to, uh, Mulroney's and you talked and he was cute and he knew the words to every Zeppelin song, so when he asked you for your number, you gave it to him, even though you knew your dad would be pissed. That was the night that – that you met –

MARY 

John Winchester.

DEAN 

August 19, 1975, you were married... in Reno. Your idea. A few years later, I came along, then Sammy.

***DEAN DESCRIBING EVERY DAMN DETAIL OF THIS HAS MURDERED ME.  Also, I know John Winchester “told him the story,” but something about this retelling - these are NOT John Winchester’s words (other than maybe “big Marine”).  The emotions, the feelings, the “you talked and he was cute” Dean is describing is Dean’s retelling, the version he created in his mind of this damn meet-cute, this little love story he played over and over in his head, and that makes me feel warm and tingly and also want to ingest sharp knives.  

***Everyone already knows about the damn Zeppelin reference but just in case you wanted to be tortured, please recall that later on we will get

THIS FUCKING SHIT

Nothing to see here other than Dean using a reference from this LOVE STORY on Cas.  I HATE it here in super hell.  Next rounds on you, Sam.

Anyway, Mary has caught on:

I paused here just now because I had a tHoUGHt.  This season is all about exploring Dean and Sam in their role as sons (this is discussed at the SDCC panel prior to the season; btw they are all free on Prime and I recommend watching before you start each new season for little “reveals” behind some of the plot lines).  We know Sam has no relationship to Mary really, he was a baby when she died, but Dean was a little boy - with a personality, character traits, identifying characteristics that his mother probably knew like the back of her hand.  That’s why my first run-in with Mary left a bad taste in mouth during this season - LIKE THIS IS YOUR KID, and there is NO inkling or recognition until THIS moment?  In a show that just spent an entire season exploring the “unexplained connection” between Dean and GODS SISTER, there no immediate “OH” from his own mother?!

But then I realized why she only connected at this very moment.  This particular moment - and not the moment where he lists the factual details about her before the story of the night she met John.  That little story with all those cute details - that’s the part of Dean that Mary knew before she died - when that part was ALL of Dean.  Before hunting, before John’s quest for revenge turned him into the person he is today, before he saw himself as a blunt little instrument.  That’s why initially Mary has no recognition that this is her son - because the Dean she knew was sensitive, and kind, and OPEN, and liked love stories, and laughing, and warm hugs and maybe flowers. Because if you think about it WE DONT KNOW THAT DEAN.  We only know Dean AMD. (After Mary’s Death).

*****************************************************************************************************

So maybe Mary represents Dean Before Mary’s Death, and whatever part of that Dean remains, no matter how deep he has been buried.  The part that connects with people; the part that doesn’t want to be alone.  The part that helped Amara.  The part that loves Cas.  And that’s why Amara brought her back.  

*****************************************************************************************************

Ok, if I think of it this way, I may like Mary a little better now.

BUT ALSO MY BABY:

Cut to Cas.

[THE MAN WALKS OVER TO THE EDGE OF THE CRATER MADE BY THE LANDING AND SEES CASTIEL PULLING HIMSELF OUT.]

MAN 

Holy mother.

[CASTIEL STANDS UP AND LOOKS AROUND]

CASTIEL 

Where am I?

MAN

Uh...Earth?

CASTIEL 

No. How far am I from Lebanon, Kansas?

MAN 

Uh... Th-three hours, maybe. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Who – What are you, man?

[CASTIEL WALKS TOWARDS THE MAN AND TOUCHES HIM ON THE FOREHEAD. THE MAN DROPS TO THE GROUND. CASTIEL LEAVES HIM THERE AS HE DRIVES OFF IN THE TRUCK]

***I spy a Season 11 random parallel

And Cas says, “Earth - 

***Also, I often wonder if in his mind’s inner GPS, Cas bases distances on how far he is from Dean. 

In the meantime, Bad Things Are Happening to Sam.

***Toni Bevell, don’t join the British Men of Letters you’re so sexy hahah

Other than noting that this is yet another too oft- repeated Sam, the Victim, Always Gets Tortured scenario, I see no point in recapping these parts.

I will just continue to post Toni Bevell hotness for these portions of the episode. Ok?  Ok.  You’re welcome.

BACK TO THE BUNKER:

I already posted this sweet baby reunion in my final Season 11 analysis/recap, but lets see it again at another angle and from Mary’s perspective CAUSE CLEARLY she has...*thoughts*

Poor Cas had no idea he was about to MEET THE PARENT 

It melts my little heart that Dean uses Cas’s full name to introduce him to people.  Especially members of his family who are trying to kill him.

Anyway, then we get a much longed for gem of typical Cas deadpan:

(*I still miss Casifer a little bit though*)

And then we have 

A MOMENT OF CONNECTION!  

At the SDCC panel, Misha specifically noted that both Mary and Cas are outsiders, so this tracks. 

They head to the garage:

[Exhaling sharply, Mary walks towards Baby. She runs her hand lightly over the car.]

MARY This was John's car. Oh, she's still beautiful.

DEAN Hell, yeah, she is.

MARY Hi, sweetheart. Remember me?

[MARY LEANS DOWN AND LOOKS INTO THE CAR SMILING. SHE STARTS LOOKING AT THE FRONT SEAT BUT HER EYES AND HER THOUGHTS LINGER ON THE BACK SEAT. DEAN LEANS DOWN LOOKING AT THE INTERIOR OF THE CAR WITH PRIDE. DEAN LOOKS AT HIS MOM AND REALIZES SHE’S HAVING VERY SPECIFIC MEMORIES OF TIME IN THE BACK SEAT. DEAN LOOKS AROUND THE CAR, AND LOOKS AT HIS MOM.]

***this is where you truly see that Sam Smith is a genius because she took those directions and put them all into THIS:

And then THIS:

DEAN 

Oh…

[MARY LOOKS UP AT DEAN. DEAN REALIZES HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN CONCEIVED IN THAT CAR, STANDS UP QUICKLY AND LOOKS OVER THE CAR. DEAN SWALLOWS HARD, AND GLANCES AT CASTIEL WHO GIVES HIM A QUIZZICAL LOOK.]

DEAN 

We should go.

***At this time I would like to remind everyone that Cas is also generally in the back seat of this car.  

MOVING ON

Meanwhile-

Back at the bunker, Cas is Continuing to Connect with his boyfriend’s mother:

[EXTERIOR DAY; INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS AND THE NOISE OF VIDEO GAMES ARE HEARD. THE CAMERA PANS TO MARY WHO’S WATCHING THE SCENE. CASTIEL IS PICKING UP COFFEE.]

CASTIEL 

Thank you.

[CASTIEL TAKES THE COFFEE TO MARY AND SITS DOWN.]

CASTIEL

This must be difficult for you. I remember my first moments on Earth. It was jarring.

MARY 

One word for it. I grew up with Hunters. I've heard of people coming back from the dead before. But to actually do it... after 30 years. A lot's changed.

[MARY LOOKS AROUND.]

MARY A lot.

Cas:

This is usually a look Reserved For Dean, so its interesting Cas is looking at Mary here [they also weirdly joked about Cas hitting on Mary at the SDCC panel and now I'm giggling because if Mary represents the soft part of Dean this all makes PERFECT SENSE).

BONUS

Actual footage of Sam in super hell

The Cas/Mary bonding worked BTW:

[INTERIOR: GREGORY IS SITTING IN FRONT OF HIS DESK WITH CASTIEL, DEAN, AND MARY STANDING BEFORE HIM.]

DEAN 

So, you dug the bullet out of his leg, no questions asked?

GREGORY 

She offered me 100 grand.

MARY 

And you took it?

GREGORY 

Student loans were a bitch, okay?

[ANGRILY CASTIEL STARTS TOWARDS GREGORY.]

DEAN 

Cas! Cas! Cas! Don't hurt him. Not yet.

**Disclosure: I do not accept the “Cass” spelling and take creative license to change it in the script whenever it appears**

GREGORY 

All right, look, she didn't give me her name. When we were done, the driver bailed, I got paid, and then some other chick shows up, and they all drive away.

MARY 

And that's everything you know?

GREGORY 

(insincerely) Yeah. Totally.

****Um, Mom that’s my boyfriend you don’t order him around like tha-

Oh, well, ok then.

***This is important, because Cas doesn’t obey anyone (other than Dean) blindly ever since he invented free will and all that.  Hence Dean’s surprised/impressed look to Mary above.  

Meanwhile:

I recall that I spent most of my first watch of Season 12 gushing over Toni Bevell, so I’m glad to know this won’t be changing.  You’ve been warned.

Next up, Sam is again sex tortured, Cas is a Helpful Boyfriend, and for some reason, Rick Springfield.  

[curechocolattymilk]

TES V OC Thingie

[Got tagged by @jessaryss​ ! ]

Pause your game! Wherever your OC is in their game currently, tell me about their story so far.

✧✧✧ General

Current Level: 56

Name: Jeer-Tei Perdes

Name Meaning: Literally got it from a name generator lol. But lore wise it was a name gifted to them in honor of an Argonian who served beside Tei’s mother during the Great War

Pronouns: They/Them

Age: Early 30s where they are story wise???

Race(s): Argonian

Place of Origin: Hammerfell

Pick A Theme Song For Them: oof that's tough... From a Crowded Wound or maybe even Firstwake? If you really played around w personal interpretation/the lyrics that is haha

✧✧✧ Locations

Where Did You Begin Their Game?: Argonian Assemblage, Windhelm (Alternative Start)

Where Are They Currently In Your Game?: Whiterun

What Are They Doing There?: Just finished attending a party held in their honor (Post Blood of Kings)

Homes?: Breezehome, Proudspire, Lakeview & Autmnwatch

# of Locations Discovered?: 274

Dungeons Cleared: 104

Misc. Quests Completed: 87

Favorite Areas and/or Locations: Falkreath / Lakewview Manor. Both areas are where Tei heads off to in order to collect their thoughts/feel some sense of calm.

✧✧✧ Main Quest

Are They Dragonborn / Do They Know It At This Point?: Yes & yes

How Do They Feel About Being Dragonborn: It's...complicated, being thrust into the role of savior by gods of the Cult, which in turn are followed by the folk who see you lesser than them. Tei already has a dislike towards the Divines, this doesn't really help lol

Main Quests Completed: 21

Where Are They In The Main Story Line: Alduin's dead, currently trying to ignore the Civil War as long as they can before the Empire forces its hand into forcing them to join their ranks

Dragon Souls Absorbed: In total overall? 147. The amount currently stored in Tei? 45

Words of Power Learned: 64

Shouts Mastered: 21

Favorite Shout: Firebreath / Dragonrend

✧✧✧ Combat

Most Used Weapon(s): Daedric war axe OR Dragonbone battle axe. Tei technically has both on them at all times during adventuring, alongside a shield, so which they used depends on the situation/which they grab fastest.

Combat Style: Two/One-handed tank. Main tactic is to rush in, cause as much damage/chaos as possible to shake up the opponent, & clean up what the ranged attackers of the party (usually Rumarin, Inigo and/or Lucien) weren't able to deal with.

Armor Type / Level In It: HEAVY ARMOR BABYYYYY (Level 100 + 35 extra points via enchantments)

# of Training Sessions: 99 in-game, lore wise its a lot of self-teaching/keeping their skills learned from Hammerfell sharp. Some of these are magic but lore-wise this doesn't happen cus Tei is not a magic user, save for shouts. I just did those in-game for exp OR so I can help Lucien raise his magic skills :'D

Who Taught Them?: In-game?? Fuuuck so many npcs. Lore-wise? They learned this from their schooling in Hammerfell, going off the canon-lore that it's p much expected for everyone to have a grasp on combat & weaponry! Though they did learn a few things from Kaidan & Anum-La.

Favorite Enemy Type: Dragons! Despite the fact Tei does not have the best magic resistance, it's one hell of a challenge they love to meet.

Least Favorite Enemy Type: Automatons, because of a bad experience with them as a child. Also Undead, because they were raised not to disturb them & it just feels so wrong having to fight them/go into tombs.

People Killed: 945

Animals Killed: 749 (Hunterborn makes hunting fun lol)

Undead Killed: 766

Automatons Killed: 105

Daedra Killed: 136

✧✧✧ Magic

Favorite School(s): None, actually. Destruction is okay though....they guess

Most Used Spell(s): Firebreath or Dragon Aspect. Tei doesn't consider shouts spells though. It's totally different guys shut up they ain't no smelly mage gods

Spells Learned: 9 in-game, mainly due to the spells you're kinda forced to learn for some quests/the ones you automatically know

Items Enchanted: 19 (Tei technically doesn't enchant, and wont next playthrough for sure I wont give in this time >:[ )

College of Winterhold Quests Completed: 8

Where Are They At In The Questline?: Main quest is done bcus i dont like seeing unfinished quests in my journal lmao. Tei's involvement is completely different from canon though in my take. Moreso was hired as a guard for the expedition & was, unwillingly, dragged into the rest of the mess. Is not offered the Archmage position, that went straight to Tolfdir.

Opinions on Magical Guilds (Arcane University, Winterhold, Psijics, Synod, Radiant Dark, etc.): As they get older, they tolerate the guild & magic users more n more, BUT, Tei grew up in an environment that frowns upon the practice of magic, & it shows. They mainly mistrust necromancers/illusionists & still hold onto that belief that reliance on magic, especially for combat, is a weakness.

Bold words for someone with shit magic resistance.

✧✧✧ Crime

Current Gold: 10,640

How Did They Acquire Their Gold?: Odd jobs, selling a lot of the items they made/harvested from smithing & hunting (jewelers are their go-to hirers bcus Tei is great at getting things like ivory), Dwemer ruin diving (they refuse to loot the tombs), also yknow....being part of the Dark Brotherhood helps

Largest Bounty On Their Head: 11,240

For...?: Unfortunately they did not stand down when they were being falsely accused of murder in Markarth. First time Tei called down dragons (Sahrotaar, specifically, Tei managed to get command of Miraak's dragons post-Dragonborn) to absolutely smite some fools.

Current Bounty: None! They're good at not getting caught/threatening and/or bribing guards. :)

Locks Picked: 15 i think?

Jail Time: 1, Cidhna Mine

Jail Escapes: 1, teamed up w the Forsworn lol

Murders: 28

Assaults: 307....In their defense people keep getting in their way during dragon attacks

Items Stolen: 37, most of them from the nobles of Windhelm

Thieves Guild Quests Completed: N/A (wont be doing this storyline unless i cant find a mod that'll let me get the shouts locked behind it)

Dark Brotherhood Quests Completed: 20

Where Are They At In Those Questlines?: DB is completed main arc wise!

✧✧✧ Relationships

Relationship Status: Married to two lovely fellas

Current Companions: atm? none

Housecarls: Lydia & Rayya

Friends (outside of party): Zora Fair-Child, Inigo, Lucien, Anum-La, Morndas, Aela the Huntress, Nazir, Babette, Scouts-Many-Marshes, Isobel, Madesi

Children: Khash, Chases-Starlight, Ram-Ku. (going of where Tei is now - Otero & Mei come around later on in Tei's story!)

Romantic Interest(s): Kaidan & Rumarin.

Sexual Orientation:

GAY

✧✧✧ Religion

Pantheon: Yokudan, with a hint of Hircine worship in there

Patron Deity(ies): From the Yokudan pantheon: Tei mainly views HoonDing as their main patron, but also prays to/pays respect to Satakal.

They are also Hircine's champion.

Daedric Quests Completed: 3 (Hircine, Vile, Dagon - the last Tei didn't really help, moreso pissed off)

Aedric Quests Completed: 1 if you count the whole Alduin thing I guess?

How Devout Are They?: Tei is rather devout, esp to their Yokudan patrons, praying or making offerings daily. They aren't the type to really push it in your face though, but have no issues answering questions one might have.

How Do They Feel About Talos Worship?: Deep down they acknowledge & admit trying to ban worship is terrible, but....Tei also lets their bias/experience with Windhelm, the Stormcloaks & especially Ulfric kinda cloud over this. If the Nords want their old ways so damn much, why fight for a divine from the Imperial Cult? Why not go back to the actual old ways? No, this isn't about worship, not to the men leading this so-called rebellion, they just needed something other than their racist bullshit to fool the common man into throwing their lives away for the nobles sitting comfortable in their thrones.

Also during their whole thing of getting into their role of dragonborn, they get a bonus 'fuck this dude actually' towards Talos, Ysmir, whatever the fuck he calls himself. (tldr; it sucks but good luck hearing Tei say that fully)

✧✧✧ Politics

Gray-Mane or Battle-Born?: Neither, ask them again they will punch you for the love of Ruptga they get asked that every time they enter Whiterun.

Stormcloaks or Imperials?: Also neither, Tei hates em both n think they can all choke. Unfortunately they were forced to join the latter due to, yknow, calling dragons & causing massive damage in Imperial territories during isolated fits of rage and the group being more aggressive in wanting something in return for "letting it slide"....oops

Opinion on the Thalmor?: Oh absolutely despises them, they loudly complained having to work with them during the CW & would go out their way to disrupt their plans/piss them off. Sneaking was an option they did not take during the Embassy quest, if it helps paint the picture.

Opinion Of Ulfric Stormcloak?: Tei doens't say they hate people often...but they sure as hell hate Ulfric. Again, their experience in Windhelm added to this heavily, how both the Dunmer & Argonians were treated like shit, with no help whatsoever from the Jarl or guards when the local Nords targeted them. It's still up in the air if I keep this for Tei's story, but I have it where they knew Chases-Starlight's parents, who were killed. When Tei went up & demanded justice/an investigation, only to be brushed off because it "wasn't a priority," it completely destroyed what little empathy or hope they had left for Windhelm as a whole.

Opinion of The Empire?: Cowards too weak to continue fighting back against the Thalmor, in their opinion, & holds these views they grew up with even when being strong-armed into aiding them. If anything they're at least attempting to use their influence to hint towards a rebellion against the Thalmor, but the Empire could also full-on dissolve & they could give less of a shit.

Civil War Quests Completed: 0

✧✧✧ Personal

How Are They Doing? Need Some Juice? A Nap? A Hug?: The whole event of Blood of Kings has fucked with their head, to say the least. It's the starting point of Tei's eventual spiral. So uh...yeah they're not sure how they're doing everything they knew about reality was kinda challenged & they don't rlly have anyone to talk to about it so its cool, its fine, its all good.

A nap is probably needed, not sure about a hug theough they're super flinchy rn

Days Past In Game: 196

Hours of Sleep: 846

Food Items Consumed: 1833

How Many Playthroughs Have You Done With This Character: Tei actually is an older character from the 360 days so uh...maybe 5 at most? This playthrough & their S:EC one coming up when the mod releases being the main ones focusing on their story

Overall How's Your Level Of Fun: Alright I would say! I just been stepping away from Skyrim more often lately to avoid burning out from it

Must Have Mods To Play This Character (for story or other reasons): Ordinator, Wintersun Faiths, Immersive Armors, Sarcastic Player Dialogue, 3DNPC, Inigo, Lucien Flavius, Kaidan 2, Khash the Argonian, Alternative Start, Leviathan Animations, Beast Race Body Paints, Beast HHBB, Apocalypse Magic, Deadly Dragons, Growl: Werewolf Overhaul, Pronouns, uhhh....idk what else without actually listing my current modlist lmao

----

And that's it for Tei! Anyone who wants to do this go on ahead!

[popculturebuffet]

The Legend of the Three Caballeros: World Tree Caballeros and No Man is an Easter Island  aka Whelp, Xandra Sucks Now.

Salduos Amigos! We’re back.. and today we have two Cabs episodes.. because the top 20 of 2020 list last week took a day longer than expected, so that meant I had a day of my schedule go thbbt and thus had to compress a bit, like the darkwing reviews i’ve done but not NEARLY as much. And if this works out I intend to do more cabs 2 or evne 3 in ones in the future to help speed along the finale. Still giving Kev his 55 bucks worth mind you, just speeding it up a bit in case anything comes back, and because I have a lot of double and triple reviews coming in Feburary due to a very tight schedule, so might as well train for it now.So with that in mind, WELCOME BACK TO THE RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS, and the legend of the three cablleros. I can fit in what little exposition there is on the way, so on with the show after the cut!

World-Tree Caballeros:  We pick up where we left off last time: Sheldgoose and co are returning to earth, and it’s been a few weeks, in story time, with Sheldgoose exausted and hungry and Feldrake.. not exactly getting that minons need food to live and wanting to jump right into destroying the Caballeros since their right next door.  And while ignoring his minon’s basic needs is just.. dumb, I do appricate that Felldrake is the kind of villian who dosen’t stupidly not attack the heroes if he knows where they are and does try blasting them, with Sheldgoose in his cloak of course to avoid any deniablility. I mean Sheldgoose is impossibly wealthy and in disguise here. No court is going to convict him. But there is a reasonable explination why they can’t do that: since Clinton wasn’t stupid he put up magical protections over the Cabana and while Feldrake COULD break them.. he can’t do it with as little power as he currently has in the staff and has an idea where to get it. But Leopold’s bushed from taking them all the way back from space, to Feldrake’s disapointment so Sheldgoose.. simply offers up his private plane, then uses his mass wealth to get them all the way to their destination the World Tree... yes the NORSE World Tree... in italy. 

Yeah you can probably tell there were some rewrites here. This ep, given it features Yddrasil, was SUPPOSED to be about the Norse gods.. but Marvel didn’t want “brand confusion” with  THE MIGHTY THOR!

Which originally I scoffed at a bit. Mostly because why would you, Disney, one of the biggest brands in the world NOT want a potetinal crossover with your other properties? I mean .. is this why we haven’t had mickey and friends in avengers costumes yet? If so... BOOOO. Why would you buy Marvel without this ever happening? You put fucking light sabers in kickin it, one of your lesser live action shows though olivia holt is neat and Rudy was alright, but... you won’t put MIGHTY THOR, in a donald duck series? Especially since you already used marvel in one of your shows?

The cat is out of the bag.. just let crossovers happen dude. Your not giving us any decent marvel animated series, and only What If is on the docket for now the future. WHy not? I wasn’t the fondest of the idea at first but then I realized “Wait this could be awesome and rediculous”. And again you’ve already hit a low bar for using this stuff.. just use it.  That being said, while we’ll get to it in a moment.. I do get WHY they didn’t let them use the norse gods... possibly.. but it does seem like they really dot’ like crossing the streams character wise and that bothers me it bothers me a lot. 

So yeah the world tree is in the snow capped mountains of italy.. which they might have so touche, and the montage of Sheldgoose getting there is great as is Feldrake’s reaction of “Eh i’ts no leopold”. Aw he loves his monkeybatdonkeyrat. So they open the entrance and prepare to go up the massive flight of stairs... only for Sheldgoose to point out the elevator. Which they take instead. I will say Feldrake’s characteriztation.. slipped a bit in these two. It’ snot bad, he’s by now supposed to be someone who WAS so powerful, they don’t get the concept of finesse and it works better next episode.. but hear a good chunk of the episode is just Feldrake shoutng at Sheldgoose and complaning a lot and even at one point tripping over himself with his own stupidity. We’ll get to that. Point is it’s a bit of a step down from last episode but as a result Sheldgoose gets to shine a bit more with Wayne Knight getting more lines to really go full newman and become a smug yet clever jackass. SO it’s a trade off I guess and it does ballance out next time. 

So back at the Cabs Cabana, our heroes are having pop corn fights, which Xandra joins in on... this was the intro but I put it here...

Point is next time we see them our heroes are all cataloging everything with the girls help, including a positivity totem, this generation’s talky toster. Xandra gets enraptured with a phone but gets defensive when being called out of date and mocked by the girls. This is SUPPPOSED to set up a character arc for her and I was excited for Xandra to get an episode but we’ll get to that disappointment soon enough. The point is our team gets the call to adventure. And Xandra’s excited because the roman gods, old friends of hers are at the world tree. The Roman Gods are what the planets are named after and are mushed together with the greek gods for reasons I didn’t have time to look into. This review is late as is. Point is they don’t get used as much likely because of the planet thing and the greek gods having a wider range of gods at that with better names. I mean Hades just.. sounds more godly than Pluto. Posiden sounds just as badass as Neptune if not more and Jupiter just dosen’t have hte same wring Zeus was.  But for today the only Roman Gods present are Jupiter, Venus and Mars, stand ins for Odin, Frigg and THE MIGHTY THOR respectively in this case but still drawn uniquely. She’s excited to show the boys them and ports them. THIS TIME, the port isn’t you know, stupidly placed and the desert thing seems to have been a one off fluke, and easily could’ve been where a city WAS, but again that could’ve been mentioned. Here it’s just at the foot of the stairs which while inconvient, as Xandra didn’t know about the elvator and Panchito gets on it without thinking to tell the other two who are forced to climb, makes sense: it’s risky to have a direct port to a giant tree that grows planets. Which is also awesome. In the wrong hands the raw power of a tiny planet could be devistating, or someone could make their own galaxy with them as god emeprror if given enough time. Which if you know about the world tree and somehow manage to steal enough planets to make a galaxy of your own without getting caught, you clearly will surivive the eons needed for it.. or could just time speed it up. Point is this place is out of the way for a reason this time, elevator or no.  So then we meet the ROMAN GODS... and they’ve not only clearly aged, but have given up fighting for gardening, with Mars being a decript old man who can’t remember xandra’s name, which given she heavily implies they were a thing is not great, and goes on and on about Tubers. Yeahhhh... I can’t exactly blame marvel for NOT wanting one of their biggest characters depiected as a doddering old man obssed with potatoes. LIke the brand confusion thing is still stupid, I want MIckey, Donald and Goofy as Cap, Iron Man and Hulk yesterday you cowards..., but thinking this would be confusing for kids or would hurt the character a bit? yeah fair enough, a bit paranoid but understandable given Marvel is the backbone of the company these days and at this point, had been massively sucessful with avengers and everything. So I do get it even if I don’t get shifting the setting from the world tree, and suspect there they had to rework the episode during production. 

So we not only meet our gods.. and the reason this isn’t the best episode. It’s not the worst, we’ll get there in a moment, but it’s not very good. And the reason... is Xandra. Her reaction to the gods being out of shape and old and retired, tending to the tree and not really fighting or doing hero stuff anymore is to get upset and wonder how her friends and as we learn later inspiration fell this low. That’d be fine and somewhat intresting. Problem is.. the Gods explain they quit after the titan wars which gave Mars some VERY obvious PTSD tha’ts VERY uncomfortably played for laughs. Look in comedy you can joke about just about anything, that’s the nature of it. But there are some things you REALLY need to tread carefully with. Now Family Guy, and this is late seasons “race jokes and shock humor” family guy mind you, somehow got this with Quagmire having ptsd in one episode where the show was set in diffrent time periods... due to hearing fortunate son over and over in vietnam.

This is actually funny, parodies something else, paticually overblown namsplotation in media and overuse of a great song that really dosen’t need to be used ALL the time in everything. This.. is just “HA he’s rattled because he was in a presumibly bloody war wand given ther’es only four gods left, we see one next episode, they probably all died.. and if they are still alive reincarnated.”. It’s just.. uncomfortable and if this bit was taken out, the episode wouldn’t be great, but it wouldn’t be as odious and Xandra HORRIBLY unsympathetic. It’s not helped by the fact that even without the ptsd.. the gods just watn’t to semi retire. They haven’t given up their duty, their still tending to the world tree.. they just dont’ want to fight or quest anymore because they were in a possibly centuries long bloody war that dwinlded their numbers and clearly left mental scars. Xandra comes off like an insenstive ass for putting her old version of them over the new and while the moral’s SUPPOSED TO BE that she shouldn’t cling to the past and had it simply beeen about her realizing she has to let them be who they are now, it would’ve worked.. instead it’s just “You guys suck because you won’t traumatize yourself more. “. The worst they do is hide under a table instead of fight and again, it’s very clear at least one of them if not all have PTSD. The only thing that keeps this from being truly awful is I genuinely don’t think the writers thought out the implicatoins of Mars line, which while still not a great train of thought to have modern writers not get that, it’s better than nothing. It just sinks the entire episode as i’ts emotional core.. comes off as a snotty teenager forcing some old people into combat and getting rewarded for it.  The other side of the plot is not half bad though. The boys catch Feldrake and Sheldgoose trying to steal the planet, with Feldrake enlarging a bunch of termites we’ve been seeing so far in the episode to attack the cabs. But what really shines is the Cabs. They work well as a team, have camradere, face Sheldgoose with no fear and while they do run from the termites, which look HORRIFYING by the way, and then come up with the hairbrained but still not half bad scheme of covering donald and wood and using him as bait. This ends up working since Xandra rallies/guilttrips the gods into ignoring their ptsd and fighting anyway. I mean “Heroically helping them realize they stil have fight and fighting like the heroes she looked up to”... and then we get the climax which is just awesome.  Sheldgoose and Feldrake get the planet afterall raining metors down so while the Roman gods take those out, Xandra calls on the guys to distfract Sheldgoose and Feldrake so she can snipe the planet out of his hands. How do they do this? Juipiter fast ball specials them up to the asteroid he’s on! If your wondering what a Fast Ball special is.. you’ve certianly seen it but here’s a practical demonstration. 

So yeah that. OUr heroes take it in stride though and awesomely use how much Sheldgoose is irritate dby them to distract him by basically playing whack a mole, so he slowly destroys the ground bellow him, and Xandra snipes him, sapping him of his new god-tier power up and causing his platform to crumble, with the boys escaping falling to earth like the two of them thanks to jose hooking the tree with his cain. As I said this episode shows how far the boys have come: from greedy idiots who were scared.. to true heroes ready to step up, running away when tactically advantageous and easily taking on the main villians and coming up with a plan to beat them on the fly. That.. is what I wanted going into the show and if nothing else this episode gives me that. Also the girls talked to xandra earlier and I missed it. Eh. We do get a nice moment though of the boys telling Xandra she does fit in.. with them. And really as far as i’m concerned she’s one of the cabs, so I like this moment a lot.. I just wish it didn’t ring so hollow with everything else going on.  Overall this ep is okay.. it has it’s moments but the Xandra side of thing just.. drains a lot of the life out of it. What COULD’VE been a solid character building episode makes her come off as a selfish, impatient insenstive asshole who’s trying to crowbar the past in instead of accepting her friends as who they’ve become in the centuries she’s been gone, though Sheldgoose and the boys do keep this from being awful. SPEAKING OF AWFUL. 

No Man is an Easter Island: 

This.. was a rough one. Not going to sugarcoat it. This episode was not very good despite some good segments and despite not mocking a serious mental issue, it’s somehow more obnoxious. The PTSD thing was clearly a mistake.. this.. this was intentional. Let’s tear this one apart shall we? So we open with Sheldgoose and Feldrake where they were last time, Easter Island. It turns out in this unvierse hte moai are actually giant stone men and their heads are the only things visable because the rest of hteir body is undreground, stomping out surfer dude lava lizards who want to come to the surface and burn it. Feldrake.. decides this is a great idea and agrees to help, as does sheldgoose. 

Seriously Feldrake wants to CONQUER the world. In fact he did it once already. We’re not talking about someone like say Negaduck, who I talked about earlier this week: while he MIGHT conquer, he gets just as much joy out of mindless violence and would gladly blow up the world him and all just for the hell of it. Feldrake is your classic evil overloard and wants to RULE the world not destroy it and wouldn’t be happy without something to lord over and terrorize. And Sheldgoose wants the same and is presumibly sticking around to backstab his ancestor at the first opportunity to steal his power for his own. How does setting the world on fire, literally, benefit either of them? Sure they COULD take over int he aftermath, but that’s after the lizards have likely destroyed most of the world, not even taking into account the vast amount of water and infastructure and the size of their home means they’ll run out of troops to use as a living bridge, cool as that is, eventually. Humans would have to invent ways to transport them and given as far as I know we have a through understnading of lava and magma, we’d instead be working on weapons. The lizards woul dmake a good army under the right leadership to sidestep this.. but as a world ending threat while they’d still cause untold damage in lives and suffering, I just don’t see them being enough to conquer the world. It just makes no sense.  The one thing that salvages it and this episode is what happens next, which i’m skipping ahead to because it’s my blog and I do this how I want: Feldrake TRIES just shooting the moai with his magic.. but the one he tries it on just has it harmlessly bounce off.. which given their dealing with magical fire creatures makes sense. So Sheldgoose instead steps in to Feldrake’s reluctance.. and shows his own talents. As a university head and professional asshole, he can manipulate with the best and talks the moai’s into taking a vacatoin, using the staff to hyponotize them so they don’t think about the downsides. It’s.. really fucking awesome honestly, and shows off that Sheldgoose is like the boys: a comical moron yes.. but VERY dangerous in the right cirucmastances. While he did use his great great great grampa’s magic for this a bit with the hypnosis, it’s his manpulations that MAADE the hypnosis work: by giving the moai something they WANT, a vacatoin and a break from a thankfless job, it means they aren’t acitvely trying to break his control no matter what happens and he and Feldrake can focus on freeing the lizards. And on top of that.. Wayne Knight gets one HELL of a musical number, sing talking to the beat as he manipulates and hypnotizes the moai and encourages their partying. While the main plan is dumb the plan to get there is just glorious to watch and Sheldgoose’s finest hour thus far and again we get to hear wayne knight SING. Kinda. And I will not trade that for anything. 

So what are the Cabs up during this? hanging out, playing cards and doing friend stuff like Panchito doing a dive and them catching him. Jose claims nothing could split us up.. and cue Daisy. 

It.. it’d been so nice without her. And you may recall last time she showed up while I didn’t like her or her actions or how it was written.. she was at least KINDA tolerable. Still a total bitch but you know she MIGHT have had a point and we might learn more about her history with donald. 

Yeah this episode cements that this Daisy is awful and Donald is better off without her. She shows up because the girls talked Donald up, beause their angels.. and also because they apparently live with him now? Like.. don’t Daisy, who dosen’t think Donald’s responsible or their parents, whoever the hell they are, have.. issues with them suddenly living with three 30 something men and an xty hear old Goddess. I mean.. that sould raise a few thousand flags, but frankly at this point if your wondering why a child is living iwth a disney character instead of your parents their probably dead or on the moon. That’s not the problem here.  No the problem her is again, somehow twice in a row, Xandra. After great introductions to both the boys to daisy, Jose flirts and Panchito shakes her hand a bit too hard, same as it ever was, Donald TRIES to bring up being a cabllero.. and Xandra prevents him then explains outside after the girls smooth things over why: telling daisy would bring her into his world and all the dangers with it.....

I HATE this trope. I hate it so fucking much. See i’m a superhero guy. I’ve made no attempt to hide this. So you can imagine the number of times i’ve seen a hero hide their ID and use this fucking excuse “They’ll get hurt if they know” or “it’s too much of a risk” or “blah blah blah bullshit reason for not telling my partner the truth”.  Now i’m not saying the secret idtentity or having some sort of secret world saving thing are bad tropes. They are valid stories for a reason. Sometimes you CAN’T: Peter Parker didn’t tell Aunt May because she had a weak heart, Thor dind’t tell jane foster because his dad was a dick who’d go after her any time he tried and when he finally did.. still did shit to break them up. Because Odin is an asshole. Ms. Marvel didn’t tell her parents because she thought they’d stop her and when her dad found out, if sadly breifly, you can guess what happen. Miles Morales didn’t because he was terrified he’d be homeless as his dad HATED mutants, which he thought he was and wasn’t fond of viglantes, and to make matters worse his mother later DIED, she got better as of secret wars, in a spider-man fight, if not thanks to him obviously, so when Miles DID tell him Jefferson abandoned him for months. He’s gotten FAR better since then and really grown as a person, but my point stands: I’ts okay to hide your id at first to protect yourself as a hero: it’s okay to want to make sure a partner dosen’t out you to the press or something and is stable and loving enough before you tell htem. And it’s okay to not tell them something if htey probably wont’ belivie it or might not be prepared just yet. Now if they have some reason to hate the other you you should probably either tell them and see what happens or explain things, like Peter should’ve tried explaning what happened with Gwen’s dad to her, or break it off for their own good, which will devistate them, but is better than lying to them.  And that’s the problem: As Wonder WOman said in a shockingly obnoxious movie, “Nothing good comes from lies”.. and while groosly oversimplified.. is not wrong here. Nothing good comes from lying to your partner day in and day out. I’ts why more modern works have deconscruted it: Miles, again, had a girlfriend named Barbra, but the recent run broke them up.. however they did so cleverly by having Miles refuse to tell her his id despite her having figured it out and her leaving him for hiding stuff from her. That’s what would REALLY happen. A long term partner isn’t going to tolerate you LYING to them and ducking out constnatly to save the world. Eventually you either have to let them go or try and tell them. I’ve been in barely any relationships but I was ALWAYS honest because again, nothing good comes from lying to your partner. Nothing good comes from deciving them and basically gaslighting them for “their own good”. If their with you and your an adventuer, super hero or what have you.. their in danger. So either don’t date them and find someone your speed like another hero or some mythical being, or TELL THEM and let THEM decide if it’s too much. This kind of bullshit is manipulative, cruel and selfish and I thought we’d settled it. 

And while Donald was intending to tell Daisy to impress her, a bad reason i’ll admit... he was trying to be honest. But the EPISODE tries to portray it as a good thing and as him being noble. It isn’t. He’s listneing to a bad person, who has to EARN my good will back after this, whose only in it for herself. No really she only has the two go out because she’s tired of donald pining for daisy. 

I mean i’ts been a month, and the girls are around but she hasn’t come up once during the last few episodes. So this comes out of nowhere and makes Xandra into a selfish jackass who is willing to send her friend off to lie to his partner with NO cover story for his actions to make him look good just to shut him up. This is someone who need I remind you can travel the world in an instant and knows a lot of magical beings who’d understand donald’s line of work. Instead of setting him up with one of them and abandoning daisy she sets up a doomed relationship. Oh and she and the boys whine about being bored without donald. Fuck off.. not you josea nd panchito, while extra dumb this episode the boys just genuinely miss their best friend and it’s endearing. Xandra though.. she can fuck off. As mentioned Daisy is not much better, and spends the date grilling donald about what he does , as AGAIN, XANDRA GAVE HIM NO COVER STORY OR JOB OR ANYTHING. Now granted she’s hundreds of years old, so she probably wouldn’t have a good one anyway... but she’s the one who INSISTs ON IT BEING A SECRET. And as the girls have shown, again knowing that secret does not hurt. Their mission control, Daisy could be too. Worst she could want is to JOIN them and given the boys started with no experince and are now certified ass kickers... why can’t she be one too? It feels less like Xandra looking out for Daisy and more that Xandra just dosen’t wnat her in her club.. which fair but still.  The point is Daisy still treats donald as shifty and worthless, despite no evidence to this as whiel he has his faults doing nothing is not worth them and even says when he tries to spin it as “helping those in need”  “How can you help other people if you can’t help yourself?”

I mean it’d be something to ponder and a great thesis statment.. in another story. Or even in this one.. if it’d been set up that Donald had been irresponsible. Someone willing to abandon others, prone to anger and a bit of a goofus, all true. But it really says how little you think of him Daisy that you can’t even picture him helping people and assume it’s some excuse. That you clearly hate your ex so much, clearly think of him as so much less than you that youc an’t FATHOM he’s doing good stuff and only think he’s gottne better when he pampers you with fizzy water, though it nicely has scrogoe on the bottle so good little nod there, and lobster. Seriously she dosen’t turn around till the girls, dressing up as a waiter , offer that. I..can’t fathom why we’re supposed to root for this relationship between a flawed but hardworking person.. and his ex partner who STILL never apologized for the brithday thing despite his FUCKING HOUSE BURNING DOWN, i.e. e the THING HE WAS TRYING TO EXPLAIN, and then spends dinner doubting he’s doing anything with his life, distruting both him and his nieces. 

And.. it gets worse. Yes.. yes it somehow gets worse. No foolin. So the bell is sound and Xandra FORCIBLY ABDUCTS DONALD FROM THE DATE SHE TOLD HIM TO GO ON. And both come out really bad, if worse on Xandra’s end by a mile. Donald is refusing to go help save the world or whatever for a date with someone that DOES NOT appricate him and only accepts bribes. Tha’ts a dick move even if he dosen’t realize he’s in an abusive relationship to put getting laid over the world’s saftey.  That being said.. Xandra STILL comes off worse. Despite having the moral high ground.. Xandra dosen’t KNOW what the threat is, or if they really need him, drags him out, dosne’t let him explain to daisy, and then barely lets him go back when it seems it’s just a party. Then drags him back AGAIN when their backs are against the wall without feeding daisy an explination or really caring she broke things up just halfheartdly saying she’ll forgive him and Donald saying “You don’t know daisy”. None of them come off well. Again the boys only aren’t loathsomebecause their oblivoius and just want their best friend back. If the other episode hadn’t already damaged Xandra enough i’m DEEPLY worried she won’t be able to walk this one back. Daisy certainly fucking won’t. 

So yeah our heros deal with the moai and the lava lizards, as the boys fail to get the moai to go back to their job and the lizards unleash their wonderfuly weird queen who rides a bridge of them to the mainland.. fucking love that. When things get dire Xandra does aformentioned forcing donald to come back without actually helping him with daisy or just TELLING HER AND OH MY GOD LET’S JUST MOVE ON. Fuck this episode is aggravating me. 

We do get a nice bit where donald’s angry dance inspires the moai to imitate it.. and thus stomps out the laval lizards and gives our heroes an opening, and Donald DOES prove his worth by having the moai do the belly flop from earlier to stop the queen, causing the rest of the lizards to flee and our heroes to win. Yay.. I guess. Donald goes back to find Daisy gone. 

He dosen’t see it that way and the girls say while he’s still a mess, what he did was noble. that sucks, and they leave him a massive bill instead of paying for it with their tips because their the ones who brought in the fancy food to ply their aunt. Fuck. this. episode.  Final Thoughts for This one: I belivie I said FUCK THIS EPISODE. It had it’s moments, the musical number, the moai beach party, my boys.. but the sheer obnoxiousness, cliche plot that has been throughly shredded for good reason and isn’t in use anymore about secret lives, and Daisy, Xandra and to a very lesser Extent Donald all being deeply unlikable. This episode is just REALLY fucking bad. HOpefully the series gets back on it’s feet next time. Until the next rainbow.. I really need a frigging gatorade. I.. I don’t drink booze. This is one of those times I wish I did. Goodnight everybody. 

[budugaapologist]

when you are reading this rant take full offense its 2am here and im mad as hell

fair warning this post is long as fuck and has several arguments pertaining to specific peeves i need to rant about before i go crazy. if you're not interested just keep scrolling it's not hard it's literally the core of social media navigation

you know what? ima say it.

black flag is the best ac game and deserves more recognition than just pirate drinking jokes because:

nearly every named character (sorry burgess and cockram) has development and personalities. cant say that for that many others in other games.

not too much fucking shit to do in it (unlike uhhhhhhhh every fucking other game in the franchise. stop it. i dont need 500 treasure chests in arno's game he already has an excellent revenue with the cafe. i dont need a ton of side quests. i dont need 30+ chests per london burough. i dont need a million question marks on my map. i dont need all of egypt or greece to be littered with shit to do. fuck this.).

unlocking shit is so much easier. edward knows where every treasure chest is and doesnt pay for treasure maps. and literally unlocking shit is so much easier.

base is slept on. its fucking cool. its fucking fun. its fucking useful as shit. its fucking pretty as all hell. fuck you.

good story, fun story, great dlc, relatable story (unless youre some bootlicking cowardly rich cunt) emotional story but not depressing (unity im looking at your ending. origins stop killing children.), satisfying end.

i can do the combat with one hand. you know what that means? i can eat and drink without pausing. i can reply to text messages without pausing. i can pet my dogs and cats while playing.

main character actually has changed by the end of the game a vast amount. motherfucker, edward changed more in his antó mission than ezio did in his trilogy.

if you dont complete all objectives you still have a passing score on the mission. do you know what its like to be raised to only get good grades on stuff and see yourself getting a 60% on a thing thats supposed to be a pass time just because you forgot something.

the naval combat isnt hard you just need practice. also i know the hunter ship sucks in the first mission you encounter but literally drop your sails but hold the wheel. once its in view let go. swim to it. take out the crew. swim back. bada bing bada boom go oneshot the crew. incredible, you're safe now.

legendary ship battles are really fucking cool and my mom doesnt yell at me for killing a giant beast for next to nothing.

the sea shanties and tavern songs slap.

farm animal petting simulator. not forced to kill dogs (ac3, odyssey).

obviously its good if the other games are just gonna copy paste it.

ed's tattoos are sick.

edward is literally the first canon bisexual. he literally says so in game. he literally fucking flirts with blackbeard. he literally was a pirate. why the fuck do you think birate is such an accurate pun.

diving outfit.

thicc.

the female characters dont have titties all over the place. even anne's boobs arent that big, which is good considering she is underage. the same cannot be said for many of the women in ezio's games.

guess who has a solid, interesting, and realistic personality. not kassandra or alexios thats for sure.

he is NOT moved by man pain (ezio, connor, bayek) to carry out his missions. he didn't want to be poor, he wanted to be able to provide for his family. he is just carrying out his dream to sail a ship. when he starts being "good", he is doing it out of guilt and shame on his past self (what, self reflection? someone, teach jacob this term), not because "wahh my girlfriend/mom/child/family died :'(", he wanted to make it up to his lost friends by making them proud and doing what they wished he had done. his regrets are in not being a better friend while mary was alive, not seeking out her killers (guards at fort). thatch's death crushed him, but he didn't thrust his anger on seeking revenge. and the characters that did die? they had personalities and development and were interesting and memorable. i cant tell you shit about cristina.

he is very respecting of women, especially for a white guy from the 1600s. he, as a teenager (under 17 i believe), attempted to save a woman he did not know and had no intentions of wooing (hey um ezio? you literally only were able to save cristina from being raped because you stalked her because you thought she was attractive. like thanks for saving her but uhh am i the only one that finds that creepy?) even though the odds of winning against three older men were stacked against him and he knew they could (and almost did) beat him to death. fuck if caroline wasnt there he would've been killed.

the modern day stuff is an excellent way to separate intense scenes and the little mini hacking games are fun puzzles. oh boohoo desmond isn't there? yes he was, half the things you hack literally give you desmond content.

rebecca's outfit fucking slaps.

from experience, its fun to play even if you dont know shit about the other ac games. pirates are cool and the story is easy to follow, just be prepared to find some of the other endings big letdowns or lots of the other games' missions boring.

is that fanservice that goes both ways but doesnt oversexualize any gender? why yes, it is!

stop reducing black flag to alcoholism jokes like yall constantly fucking do, it has so many other talking points and if you wanna make fun of something maybe choose something that isnt addiction. literally i make fun of edward constantly without pointing out his alcoholism it isnt that hard. if you're gonna make fun of edward for drinking rum when water in the 1700s often wasnt safe and making fun of him when he was depressed (he has multiple other intended self harming behaviors shown in game so no, he wasnt just drinking because its fun), why don't i see the same "wHy is aLL tHe WiNE gONe?" posts for arno? he was an alcoholic too. in fact arno and edward have a lot of the same forms of depression but oh, arno's a more serious character personality wise and isn't a pirate so his grieving isn't as funny.

and like, there are plenty of other things to make fun of with edward that might not make light of alcoholism because no, edward's drinking in the main story was not written to be a joke. here, a list of things i regularly make fun of him for:

this highwaisted man's got feminine hips

there is no reason for him to be that thicc

his bangs are a mess

his hair???? glows???? okay rapunzel.

his tatts that are just lines

actually you know what his tatts in general what do they mean ubisoft what even language are the words on his body in

how this whore opens the bottled messages on the beach. "ah yes, let me put this mysterious item in my mouth. i have no idea where its been. i could very well open it to read a note that says "i pissed on this""

"woman i just met... must respect her.. man i just met... im either going to give you a death threat, tease you, or flirt... sometimes multiple choices will be done......"

i mean he had the full right to be a bastard to walpole on the beach since he did try to be friendly but walpole was being to bitchy and needy. and like them being stranded wasnt edward's fault but walpole was still gonna make him build a ship and there is no reason for edward to trust walpole since after they get to havana he can easily just be like "thats a pirate, hang him." but like. the way he just immediately decides to steal his identity. legend.

why does he just blindly follow older men's orders like that

he trims his beard to a very odd location. i know it isn't a flattering pose but like. look at the underside of his jaw.

"how many references to dog behavior can we put in one character"

phobia of sleeping in a bed

"you saved my life i am eternally grateful."

edward are you seriously arguing with your eight year old daughter about the difference between a boat and a ship

where are your tanlines

how did he not die of skin cancer first

edward probably doesnt have any body hair because ubisoft didnt want his legs to glow in the dark too

look at his marooned outfit. bitch what the fuck is on your shirt. and where are your hair ties.

his dramatic beauty guru smokey eyes

he held that sword by the blade in the single madman quest. wh

anyway, the long run of this is, if you're gonna reblog an edward post from me specifically to make fun of an overused joke, go fuck yourself.

[tillman]

Sorry about this sad question( i remember you said that the grail quest is sad) pls infodump about lancelot and galahads relationship since i mostly see bad takes about them in both modern books and fanfictions. Do they have other interactions other than the boat scene? And also including about the du lacs family if its okay? since i cant stop thinking about them after you post about them the other day.i know about the orkney bros but not the dulacs and i havent read the grail quest

eowhtfije god. yeah ok. its. ok yeah listen no one has any good takes on the du lacs for some reason when the entire family’s dynamic is way simplier than the orkneys. ill get into the grail quest in a sec cus i know ive talked about taht one before but ok. ok.

the main point of the orkneys being so close and so willing to do QUITE LITERALLY anything for each other is the fact growing up they had no outside figure besides their mother (and i guess lot for the older few, but hes less important to the family dynamic as a whole and more just gawains personal shit). so you have 4 (gareths too young and has an inherent mistrust of most of his brothers) already traumatized children sent to war too quickly and who really only had each other for emotional support and any sense of togetherness. so from this, the 4 literally only have each other. thye know nothing besides each other, and thus will do anything to make sure the others are ok.

this is different from the du lacs who, though in the same boat as the orkneys as 3 kids raised as brothers by one central mother figure, had outside influence and a mother who fights to be there and supportive of them. the du lacs do anything for each other, yea, but the thing is bors and lionel are willing to stand up for morals on top of this. both are willing to call each other and lancelot out when something is wrong, and are willing to help each other make a change for hte better, which is something the orkneys never really learned how to do in a sense? whatever. in short they r all SUPER SUPER close and thus from that have a sense of comradry not as ride or die as the orkneys, but more like. open and willing to talk about shit instead. 

wehn galahad is add to the equation shit doesnt really change, besides the three going full dad mode over baby. bors is repeatedly shown as fighting tooth and nail to protect galahad and watch over him, and lancelot is shown time and time again trying to be there for him emotionally in a twisted mirror of how the lady is there for him. he tries to be what he needs, and though lancelot is not an emotionally responsive person, is almost alwyas seen as making sure galahad is respected and emotionally ok (see boat scene and the scene galahad first gets to court). while lancelot and galahad dont have that many interactions, the few they do are exclusively positive with lancelot either bragging about galahad to others, quite literally crying over how proud of him he is, or him asking over and over if galahad is ok with what is happening, and if he chose this path himself (this DEEPLY ties into galahads personal themes of freedom and destiny but lets not get into that).

uhhhh mariners revenge song came on and i kinda spaced out and forgot what iw as saying but basically in short: they love each other very much and all of the du lacs have a rlly weirdly close bond that i never really see get talked about which is sucks cus i like them a lot. bors lionel and lancelot were fucking raised as brothers bro. how is that never touched on. also this doesnt reach out to a lot of lancelots other cousins (ie bleobris or the other 50 i cant remember rn) cus all of them suck? and also none of them really truly seem to care for lancelot and instead use his name as a “hey guess who IM related to” instead. 

id also include hector but hector has no personally outside of existing (go king give us nothing!!!) but iashchor in the povest loves his brother very much which is very wonderful. i love iashchor. galahad doesnt show up much in it but he is tehre but iashchor in the few sections he appears is described as having a huge heart and is willing to drop everything to help his brother and his stupid boyfriend <3 luv iashchor. 

anwytatys yeah bro the du lacs love each other so fucking much and are willing to call each other out and do EVERYTHING for each other so i honestly think theyre the better family :-/ sorry orkneys. u guys just left gareth there. even he resorted to the du lacs. oh man speaking of that how fucking cute is that. gareth was like yeah i dont trust gawain or my brothers <3 lancelot can u please adopt me. and he did. god. thats a weird pattern tho lancelot can not stop adopting children and then getting the shit kicked out of him by them. what a man. lancelot has not one in his life won a fight against someone younger than 17. 

ok im done im done my head is hurting owrg8et49pu3owithgfwgb4f i hope this makes any sense at all 

[thewritewolf]

Nino’s Quest Chapter 6: Out of the Woods

The true struggle of DnD - getting the party together for a session. Not at all helped by magic terrorism attacks.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 (Final)

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3.  My ko-fi.

--- October 15th ---

Lord DM: Hey dudes, we still on for today? Since its been like two hours I’ll guess that was a no then

Adrien Regreste: sorry dude. Got roped into a last minute photoshoot :(

Marinoodles: same Wait no I mean- last minute bakery stuff Sorry to bail like this! D:

Alya’ll Beware: Don’t worry about it girl I was chasing that akuma that was running around It kept giving lb n cn the slip Got some good footage tho

Lord DM: Bummer dudes Guess thats one of the perks of living in paris We can try again next week, k?

--- October 18 ---

Direct Message From Alya

Alya: These akumas have been crazy, babe. Rain check on dates? At least until hawkbutt tires himself out

Nino: :( Can’t you take a break or two? You don’t have to be on the frontlines of EVERY akuma attack

Alya: …

Nino: [crying emojis, broken hearts, butterflies with red X’s over them]

Alya: alright, alright But just two, okay? People count on me for the latest news

Nino: totally, babe Just hope lb+cn won’t need rr+cara Cuz… you know That’d be rough

Alya: [eye rolling emoji] Yeah yeah I feel bad for them tho Their social life must be wack at this point

---October 22nd---

Lord DM: Hey, bro, we still meeting at your place or what? ??? Come on, dude! Not again! :(

Adrien Regreste: Sorry dude [sobbing emoji]

Alya’ll Beware: Akuma, babe. Can’t miss three in one week!

Lord DM: Yeah… guess so. Let’s just not miss the next sess, okay? I dont want this campaign to end

Alya’ll Beware: We’ve only missed two weeks so far. That’s not too bad We got pretty lucky with getting five in a row Esp considering how busy we usually are

Lord DM: Fair enough Next week sound good?

Alya’ll Beware: Should for me

---October 31st---

Lord DM: Im scared to ask but… DnD today?

Adrien Regreste: [thumbs up] I’ll be going on 4 hours of sleep But I can do it!

Marinoodles: Same here Lack of sleep and all

Alya’ll Beware: Yeah We good

Adrien Regreste: !!! Wait its actually happening Awesome! ...I should probably clean my room.

Marinoodles: XD Probably! :P

Adrien Regreste: :3

------------

An hour later and Nino had made the trip over to Adrien’s house, Alya and Marinette in tow. Their chatting had been less energetic than usual, no doubt because there wasn’t a single person among them who didn’t feel exhausted. A fact that wasn’t at all helped by the late hours that they were arriving at. It may have only been nineteen hundred hours, but when you’d only had a few hours of sleep each night for the past week, it made all the difference in the world.

Despite all that, they were determined. The very thought that they were willing to go through all this just to go further in his campaign was thrilling for Nino, and he didn’t want to let them down.

A wicked grin, looking out of place on him, stretched across his face. With the events he had planned for tonight’s session, he was sure they’d be awake in no time.

They entered Adrien’s room and saw the bounty of sugary treats and caffeine that their host had prepared. After some brief chit-chat, Nino got set up quickly and rolled right into the session. The longer he delayed the more likely it was that his players would fall asleep.

“The forest at last thins as you crest the top of a hill. From your vantage point, you can see the capital city on the horizon.” There were sighs of relief around the room.

“Finally! My character could definitely go for a proper bed after a week of roughing it,” Marinette said after taking a drink of pop.

“You’ll have to hurry, then. The sun is going to start sinking below the horizon. Unless you want to be stuck outside the city until morning, you’d better get moving.”

“My bard starts one last travel song as we rush over.” Adrien opened his phone, no doubt to a lyrics site and cleared his throat.

Alya quickly covered his mouth. “I do not have the time or patience to listen to another of your renditions of Take Me Home, Country Roads, Sunshine. Let’s just get to the city, alright?” Adrien’s eyes darted to Nino in a silent plea, but he simply shrugged.

“Sorry, dude. Babe has a point.”

Pouting, he closed his phone. Beside him, Marinette giggled and patted his back consolingly.

“You reach the city gates without any issue - no bandit or monster is stupid enough to get within stones throw of the capital, not with all the guards on patrol. They were a little suspicious to see you guys so late at night, but… two noble sigils, a bardic license, and my holy symbol put those dudes right at ease. There are still a few rooms open at the inn - how are you guys going to divvy up?”

A trio of blank stares looked back at him. He sighed.

“Each room costs money to rent. You don’t have a lot, so while you could get a private room for each of you, it’s probably better to room with someone else. So who is spending the night with who?”

“Dibs on the cleric!” Alya cried. She tapped her chin theatrically, “I guess that leaves you two together, right?”

“I- I guess so?” Adrien blinked, surprised at Alya’s sudden outburst. Marinette paled a little but nodded.

“Since you guys arrived so late, most of the rooms were already filled up and you had to make do with what you can get. When you finally find your rooms, they are across the inn from each other… and there is only one bed in each room.”

A slight blush, but neither Adrien nor Marinette were freaked out. Alya slumped in defeat - there wasn’t any roleplaying involved in sleeping after all. Unless they decided to do some method acting and have a sleepover.

“The four of us drift off to sleep, which was a totally great change of pace from the creepy woods that you’ve been sleeping in for a week now.” Nino punctuated his words with a yawn that proved contagious. “It was way late at night when suddenly… M, Adrien. Roll for perception.”

Adrien, naturally, rolled a one. Just when Nino was scared he’d accidentally killed them off, Marinette pulled through with a high roll. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“With your keen elven hearing, the creaking of the wooden floor boards was enough to jolt you from sleep. There is a glint of metal above you, and you feel a presence in the darkness. You have just a few seconds to react - what do you do?”

“I roll over!” Marinette blurts out, her eyes wide.

Nino nods. “Right, that puts you right on top of Adrien, who is now totally awake too. It was a good move, though - a knife plunges into the mattress, right where your neck had just been.”

All business now, Marinette asks, “What can I see?”

“Not much. Loose cloaks with hoods pulled up. Knives. Two people. The other person has stumbled back, probs spooked by your sudden movement.”

She taps her chin before her eyes widen again. “Wait, what about the others?! We have to go get them! Or at least get their help.” She shuffles through her character sheet. “Okay, um… I whisper to Adrien in Elvish ‘close your eyes’ and then I toss a flash flare thing at the guy.”

Nino rolls some saves - without the warnings, neither of them stood a chance. He looks up to see Marinette watching him with hopeful eyes. “You got ‘em, M. Now what?”

“I roll off the bed and try to take the guy’s knife.”

“You’ve got it and your turn ends there. The dudes are blinded, but it won’t be long before they’ve recovered. Adrien?”

“Can I cast a spell?”

“Not without your lyre, bro.”

“Fine, fine. I grab it off the bedside table.”

“And why do you think it’d be there?”

“...I’m a bard. Gotta be ready to play, first thing in the morning.” Adrien smirked.

Chuckling, Nino replied. “Alright, fair. What do you cast?”

Adrien stuck out a tongue as he thumbed through his spell list. His eyes lit up as he looked at Nino. “I cast summon monster one, and I summon the Good Boy.”

“Right,” Nino said as the others giggled. “So you’ve got your celestial dog next to you. I figure you want it to attack one of the dudes?”

To his surprise, Adrien shook his head. “No, I command him to go wake up the other two. Probably to go sit by their door and bark in a commanding angelic voice.”

The fight didn’t last long from there - the two of them probably would have been enough to deal with the assassins after they lost the element of surprise. But four against two made it a landslide victory.

“Even though you try your hardest, you weren’t able to catch either alive. One got stabbed and bled out and the other, well… hopefully the innkeeper will understand that it wasn’t your fault that the window got broken.”

“Do they have anything on them?” Alya crossed her arms. “I get the feeling someone is after us.”

“You’re immediately proven right when you find a note in the dead guy’s pocket that reads, ‘Information about the Necromancer cannot reach the king. Dispose of the adventurers before they get their audience.’”

The party exchanged looks.

“Spooky,” Adrien said flatly. The others nodded in agreement.

“Do I recognize the handwriting or anything?” Marinette leaned forward, the gears in her head turning. “Remember, I am a court brat.”

“Nope. Looks like it was written deliberately poorly. You don’t know if you’d recognize it normally.”

“Time for the king?” Adrien perked up.

“Yup, it’s time for-” Nino was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

Adrien gulped. “Um… hello?”

Nathalie stepped into the room and narrowed her eyes at the dice and character sheets. Belatedly Nino remembered that Adrien usually claimed they were working on a project or homework during these sessions. “It is late. Your friends need to leave.”

Without a choice in the matter, they packed up and had the door shut behind them.

-------------

Nino’s fears were confirmed later that night during a discord chat.

Adrien Regreste: Sorry guys. Looks like we won’t be able to play at my house again Not for a while at least. :(

Lord DM: Don’t worry about it bro Had to happen eventually

Marinoodles: I’m so sorry! :( I hope you didn’t get in trouble because of us

Adrien Regreste: Nothing more than usual They aren’t threatening to keep me locked up at home So, you know Better than usual

Alya’ll Beware: That’s something at least R they going to let u hang out again?

Adrien Regreste: *shrugs* Probably. Anyway… Sorry to be a bummer. Night, everybody!

Marinoodles: Sweet dreams!

Alya’ll Beware: Night, kiddos.

Lord DM: Don’t let the assassins bite! ;) [Three thumbs down, one angry emoji]

[fortunatelylori]

What prophecies do you think will play out on the show? What will be the outcome and which character will the prophecy be about?

Hey, nonnie!

Hmmm … very interesting question. And a multi-layered one. 

Of course the show will have to pay-off the prophecies it included from the books. Then there are prophecies that were not mentioned in the show but by the nature of revealing the endgame and by being ahead of the books, the show will either pay them off or at least give heavy hints for what they might be in the books. And then there are foreshadowing elements that aren’t really prophecies per se but serve a similar purpose in the narrative. 

So let’s get started. Warning: this will get long. 

Prophecies mentioned in the show

Azor Ahai

Melisandre: After the long summer, the darkness will fall heavy on the world. Stars will bleed. The cold breath of winter will freeze the seas and the Dead shall rise in the North. In the ancient books it’s written that a warrior shall draw a burning sword from the fire and that sword shall be Lightbringer. 

This is very much in play, having been mentioned as recently as season 7 and I believe that by the end of season 8 we will have a definitive answer as to who and what Azor Ahai is. 

I’ve talked about this before in this post. Here is an excerpt: 

I think it’s far more likely that Azor Ahai is not a hero. He’s a villain and the elemental opposite to the Night King.  R'hllor followers herald Azor Ahai’s second coming with such encouraging words as: “ he will bring an eternal summer” which sounds great if you worship fire but in reality an eternal summer is about as bad as an eternal winter. If the WWs unbalance the world by plunging it into night and winter, Azor Ahai is supposed not to bring balance back but to unbalance it in the opposite direction.

Considering the placement of Azor Ahai in complete opposition to the WW and the obsession with fire of the followers of R’hllor, I’d say that the best candidate for this position is one D*enerys Targareyen, which doesn’t sound surprising since many people theorize the same. The twist is that AA was never meant to be a hero but rather an antagonist. @trinuviel has a fantastic series regarding this topic and I would encourage you to read it. She goes into a lot more detail than I am able to provide.

One aspect of this prophecy that is not brought up in the show is Nissa Nissa: 

To fight the darkness, Azor Ahai needed to forge a hero’s sword. He labored for thirty days and thirty nights until it was done. However, when he went to temper it in water, the sword broke. He was not one to give up easily, so he started over.

The second time he took fifty days and fifty nights to make the sword, even better than the first. To temper it this time, he captured a lion and drove the sword into its heart, but once more the steel shattered.

The third time, with a heavy heart, for he knew beforehand what he must do to finish the blade, he worked for a hundred days and nights until it was finished. This time, he called for his wife, Nissa Nissa, and asked her to bare her breast. He drove his sword into her living heart, her soul combining with the steel of the sword, creating Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.

People have been speculating for years on who might be the Nissa Nissa in the story but because this isn’t mentioned in the show, I’m not really sure this will be paid off. However, considering Melisandre’s obsession with blood magic and human sacrifice, I think there’s a possibility that a candidate will arise. And in my opinion, that would probably be Mel herself. She foretold her own death in season 7 and because of the nature of her arc, the relation to fire, blood and magic I can see her as a willing human sacrifice for the glory of the prophesied hero. 

However, since I don’t think she is interpreting the prophecy of Azor Ahai correctly and that AA is probably not the person that will end the Long Night, I don’t think this human sacrifice in the form of Nissa Nissa 2.0 will have an effect or at least not the desired one. 

In the comments section of the post I linked above, @trinuviel brought forth the idea that the story of Nissa Nissa and Lightbringer is a metaphorical set of instructions on how to forge Valyrian steel. And I have to say that’s a very intriguing idea and one that sounds very plausible to me for several reasons: 

1. Valyrian steel swords are already magical swords and we know they are effective against the WWs. What could a burning sword do that these other swords can’t?

2. The Valyrians were known to practice blood magic and it’s theorized that’s where the source of most of their power came from, including their bond with dragons. 

3. GRRM has purposefully pointed to the mystery surrounding the forging of Valyrian steel in story several times. There must be a pretty big reason why he hasn’t revealed how these swords are forged. 

The Younger More Beautiful Queen

Maggy the Frog: Oh, yes! You’ll be queen … For a time. Then comes another. Younger. More beautiful. To cast you down and take all you hold dear. 

I believe the last time Cersei mentioned her encounter with Maggy the Frog was after Myrcella was killed. So this will be paid off in season 8.

I’ve made the argument in the past that Sansa is the younger, more beautiful queen that will cast Cersei down and take all that she holds dear: 

Sansa has been intimately involved in all of Cersei’s tragedies even though she is not directly responsible. She was the one that carried the poison that killed Jofferey, the war with her brother is the reason why Myrcella was sent to Dorne, Jofferey’s death leads to Tommen becoming king and eventually killing himself. And, by the end of this series, Sansa might end up as queen of the Seven Kingdoms effectively replacing Cersei.

It isn’t that Sansa is directly responsible for what happens to Cersei but that she ends up taking everything from her in a way that no one could have predicted unless you look back at the events. 

There is an aspect of this prophecy that isn’t mentioned but I think will be paid off as well: 

And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.

I honestly have no idea why they chose not to include this in the show since it’s part of the same conversation as the younger, more beautiful queen. They might bring it up in season 8 through another flash-back and I think that they should. Either way, I’m pretty sure we will find out who the valonqar is. 

I’ve made an argument for Jaime because I think it will be a fitting end to their story and because of what Cersei told Ned about her and Jaime back in season 1: 

Cersei: Jaime and I are more than brother and sister. We shared a womb. We came into this world together. We belong together. 

And by that logic … they will die together. Or at least one will be the end to the other. 

The Prince that was Promised

Melisandre: You should kneel before your brother. He’s the lord’s chosen. Born amidst salt and smoke. 

This is a dicey one because it’s only brought up by Mel as an interchangeable title for Azor Ahai. 

In the books, however, the PTWP is also brought up in relation to Rhaegar and his prophecy fulfilling quest. When D*ny visits the House of the Undying, she has a vision of her brother holding his infant son, Aegon, by Elia Martell and saying this: 

Rhaegar: Aegon. What better name for a king?

Elia: Will you make a song for him?

Rhaegar: He has a song. He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.

From what we know at this time, Rhaegar never brings up the Azor Ahai prophecy and we don’t know that much about the PTWP. But I tend to think these two aren’t related. 

I believe the PTWP is Jon. His is the only story that is linked to both fire and ice. He is the literal product of the song of ice and fire (the son of a Targareyen and a Stark) and his story is connected to both ice and fire through out. He fights against Ice in the form of the White Walkers and he encounters both the false Azor Ahai (Stannis) and now D*ny, who is the person associated the most with fire in the series. If the Dance of Dragons 2.0 and dark D*ny theories become canon, his song of ice and fire would be his titular role in both these great wars that are about to visit Westeros. He also has “salt and smoke” imagery associated with his death (and subsequent resurrection). 

So I tend to see the PTWP and AA as actually being ultimate adversaries. 

What I’m doubting at the moment is whether or not the show will bother differentiating between these two. I do think that by confirming Dark D*ny and the Dance of Dragons 2.0, they will essentially pay off this prophecy but I’m not sure they’ll signal the distinction. 

That’s about it on the show-included prophecies, I think.

Prophecies not mentioned in the show

The Last Hero

Legends of the north state the last hero and his companions went in search of the children of the forest during the Long Night, thousands of years ago. The only survivor of the company after attacks from giants, wights, and Others, the last hero eventually reached the children and gained their assistance. The Night’s Watch then formed and won the Battle for the Dawn. This ended the generation-long winter and sent the Others into retreat, possibly to the Land of Always Winter. The fate of the last hero is unknown

One could make an argument that this is not a prophecy but rather a story but because the Battle for the Dawn 2.0 is fast approaching, this story/prophecy will most likely be paid off in season 8. 

If anyone is destined to be the hero to save the world from the Long Night that character is Bran Stark and his story is linked to the legend of the Last Hero, who is also identified as Bran the Builder. This connection is not fully established yet but I believe the characters of the Last Hero and Bran the Builder to be one and the same. 

Bran is the Three Eyed Raven, he’s traveled to the Lands of Always Winter and reached the children of the forest. That’s enough evidence for me to assume that his role in season 8 and the defeat of the WWs will pay off the Legend of the Last Hero. Incidentally, Bran the Builder is mentioned in relation to our Bran by Maester Luwin in season 1. 

We might also get a pay off for how the Wall and Winterfell were actually built although I do think part of this story will remain a mystery that will most likely be tackled in the Long Night prequel. 

D*ny’s prophecies in the House of the Undying

… mother of dragons, daughter of death …

… mother of dragons, slayer of lies …

… mother of dragons, bride of fire …

Essentially, I believe all of these will be paid off by the Dark D*ny reveal.

three fires must you light… one for life and one for death and one to love… three mounts must you ride… one to bed and one to dread and one to love… three treasons will you know… once for blood and once for gold and once for love… 

I think it was a huge mistake for the show not to include the 3 treasons prophecy in D*ny’s storyline, particularly since they included Cersei’s Younger More Beautiful Queen one. Because the three treasons prophecy works on D*ny’s psyche much in the same way it does on Cersei’s. 

They both become increasingly paranoid and obsessed with these ominous predictions and are actively on the look-out for potential candidates. 

However I think the pol!jon reveal will resolve the 3rd treason aspect of the prophecy as well as this: 

A blue flower growing from a chink in a wall of ice, filling the air with sweetness.

A great stone beast takes wing from a smoking tower, breathing shadows.

Between the parentage reveal and Political Jon, her lover turned nephew, Jon Snow, will turn from the flower that fills the air with sweetness into the great stone beast that will oppose her.

There’s also a case to be made that the three treasons are actually treasons D*ny commits against other people, as @thelawyerthatwaspromised has detailed on her blog. And by going to war with Jon and potentially turning her back on the fight with the WWs, D*ny would essentially become a betrayer. 

So either way, I think we’ll have a much clearer picture of these prophecies by the end of the show. 

The dragon must have three heads

This is the continuation of the Rhaegar vision D*ny sees in the House of the Undying. 

Rhaegar: He has a song. He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire. There must be one more. The dragon has three heads.

We don’t know much of anything about what this means or how Rhaegar thought it would link to the PTWP prophecy. I wouldn’t have included it, to be honest, if it wasn’t for the Crypts of Winterfell teaser and the staging of Jon/Arya/Sansa as a play on the original three heads of the dragon Aegon/Visenya/Rhaenys. In a previous post I said this: 

The “Dragon must have 3 heads” is generally considered the reason why Rhaegar started his relationship with Lyanna and the main reason why Jon was even born. Details on this prophecy are foggy but the theory goes that at some point Rhaegar became convinced that his three children would be instrumental in saving the world and because Elia Martell was unable to bare another child after her two pregnancies, he went after teenage Lyanna Stark, thus looking to fulfill yet another prophecy: that of the Prince that was Promised whose song is the song of ice and fire.

In trying to fulfill it, Rhaegar named his children after the 3 original Targs that conquered Westeros: Elia gave him an Aegon and a Rhaenys so he went in search of his Visenya. Clearly he failed, because instead of a girl, he got a boy.

However, as GRRM points out through out his story, prophecies are tricky and the more you go out of your way to fulfill them, the more blunders you’re bound to commit. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some value to it but it will most likely come to pass in a way that you did not expect.

It makes you wonder just what the “3 heads of the dragon” might actually be about. Everyone tends to think that this prophecy is linked to the war with the WWs. However, by introducing Sansa into the mix, it changes things a bit …

What if the “Dragon must have 3 heads” prophecy isn’t related to the War of the Dawn at all but rather to the Dance of Dragons 2.0? Because in that war, Sansa would truly be instrumental: by making Jon a Stark, because of her political expertise and her strategic connections all over Westeros. So instead of creating the ultimate Targ team to face off against the apocalypse, Rhaegar not only brought down his father’s dynasty and his own in Robert’s rebellion but also created the circumstances by which, years later, his son would face off against the last scion of House Targareyen and bring about the demise of all living dragons.

While this could simply remain something that will be inferred by the way season 8 plays out, I think there’s a case to be made that we will actually get more insight here via flash-backs of Rhaegar/Lyanna. 

I think it’s also possible that through these flashbacks we will find out more about the situation surrounding the abduction of Lyanna, more insight into the year they spent in the Tower of Joy and even perhaps the name that Rhaegar whispered as he lay dying on the Trident. 

The Lannister gold prophecy

The wealth of the westerlands was matched, in ancient times, with the hunger of the Freehold of Valyria for precious metals, yet there seems no evidence that the dragonlords ever made contact with the lords of the Rock, Casterly or Lannister. Septon Barth speculated on the matter, referring to a Valyrian text that has since been lost, suggesting that the Freehold’s sorcerers foretold that the gold of Casterly Rock would destroy them.

This is a very obscure prophecy and I haven’t seen many people discuss it. The few that I have seen talk about this link it to the Lannister’s long lost Valyrian steel sword, Brightroar. The Valyrians, fearing this prophecy Septon Barth mentions, always refused to sell the Lannisters a sword but they managed to get their hands on one by other means: 

Brightroar came into the possession of the Lannister kings in the century before the Doom of Valyria, and it is said that the weight of gold they paid for it would have been enough to raise an army.

So people speculate that it was the purchasing of this sword that lead up to the Doom of Valyria. However, I don’t really see this as a possibility because GRRM never really plays prophecies this straight. 

However, one thing we do know is going to happen in season 8 is that Cersei will be acquiring the Golden Company, whose banner is simple golden cloth. She will also be paying for it with what can be described as Lannister gold. 

Also since the show didn’t include the Young Griff story line, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the GC is leaded by Jon Connington, one of Rhaegar’s best buddies and also the guy who was in love with him. 

So if let’s say the GC would decide to join Jon’s forces against D*ny during the Dance of Dragons, a case can be made that Lannister Gold did in fact bring about the ultimate doom of Valyria, by killing off its last real member and putting an end to the dragons. 

Then there are a few prophecies that I believe have already been paid off. 

The mummer’s dragon

A cloth dragon sways on poles amidst a cheering crowd.

By essentially removing the Young Griff from the story line completely, I think the show has revealed that this young man is not Aegon Targareyen but a pretender whose lie, and life, D*ny will slay in the books. 

The girl in grey prophecy

I have seen your sister in my fires, fleeing from this marriage they have made for her. Coming here, to you. A girl in grey on a dying horse, I have seen it plain as day. It has not happened yet, but it will.

I think everyone in the Jonsa fandom can agree that the girl in grey is in effect Sansa Stark and she will flee her marriage to Harry Hardyng and join Jon at the wall. 

The show had Sansa fleeing her marriage to Ramsay and reaching the wall where she was reunited with a recently resurrected Jon. She was also wearing grey which is I think the show’s way of linking back to this prophecy in the books. 

The Ghost of High Heart prophecies

In case anyone is not familiar with who the Ghost of High Heart is, she’s a dwarfish, albino woman who was reputed to be a woods witch in the Riverlands. Arya and the brotherhood without banners camp overnight at High Heart, to meet with the ghost to hear her tell the future, and to learn the whereabouts of Beric.

She accurately predicts a few things that have happened in both books and show. In addition, there are also these: 

I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung

In the books, this is Euron hiring a Faceless Man (and potentially paying for his services with a dragon egg) to kill his brother, Balon Greyjoy, the King of the Iron Islands. In the show Euron does the deed himself, on a bridge that swayed and swung. 

I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow.

This is generally believed to be about Sansa because of the poisoned hairnet she wears in her hair that eventually kills Jofferey. I’d argue that by ordering the death of Littlefinger in Winterfell (a castle in the North where there’s a lot of snow), the show has paid off the later part of this prophecy. 

She also says this directly to Arya: 

I see you. I see you, wolf child. Blood child. I thought it was the lord who smelled of death … You are cruel to come to my hill, cruel. I gorged on grief at Summerhall, I need none of yours. Begone from here, dark heart. Begone!

This could be nothing but the woman noticing Arya’s increasing violence and tendency towards killing but because she mentions Summerhall it’s speculated that she is referring to a future and particularly bloody event Arya will participate in. Assuming that, I would say the show has already paid that off when Arya killed off all the Freys in an act of mass murder. 

This is a bit dubious, though, because of the fact that Lady Stoneheart has been cut from the show. It’s likely that it will be LS that kills off the Freys in the books and the show simply gave that particular plot point to Arya. 

That doesn’t eliminate the possibility that the Ghost of High Heart is potentially referring to a future Summerhall-like event Arya will be involved in and if that is the case I fully expect the show to include it.  

And finally we have what are essentially sayings that are mentioned frequently in the show but because of their implications they act like prophecy in the sense that they foreshadow future events but not in a clear cut way. 

The Long Night

Melisandre: For the night is dark and full of terrors. 

This is pretty self-explanatory. We’ve been told that when the WWs first came 8000 years ago, they brought a night and a winter that lasted a generation. So the WWs are back at it and are going to bring darkness and terror. 

We should start preparing ourselves for at least 3 episodes of almost exclusive night time scenes. This is also supported by the actors saying that they had about 40 days worth of night time shootings which is an incredibly long time for that sort of thing. 

When a Targeryen is born, the Gods flip a coin

This is obviously a saying that came about in reference to the Targeryens being or going mad more often than not. 

However, at this point in the story, we have only two Targeryens left so the duality of a coin flip becomes foreshadowing for Jon and D*ny as foils. 

I wish you good fortunes in the wars to come

This has only been uttered in show by adversaries, first in the Stannis/Mance conversation prior to Mance being burned alive and then in the Ned/Arthur Dane flashback. The third instance is in the Jon/D*ny good-bye scene. I don’t know about anyone else but this indicated to me … Dance of Dragons 2.0. 

Sansa’s red comet prediction

The morning of King Joffrey’s name day dawned bright and windy, with the long tail of the great comet visible through the high scuttling clouds. Sansa was watching it from her tower window when Ser Arys Oakheart arrived to escort her down to the tourney grounds. “What do you think it means?” she asked him.

“Glory to your betrothed,” Ser Arys answered at once. “See how it flames across the sky today on His Grace’s name day, as if the gods themselves had raised a banner in his honor. The smallfolk have named it King Joffrey’s Comet.”

Doubtless that was what they told Joffrey; Sansa was not so sure. “I’ve heard servants calling it the Dragon’s Tail.”

“King Joffrey sits where Aegon the Dragon once sat, in the castle built by his son,” Ser Arys said. “He is the dragon’s heir - and crimson is the color of House Lannister, another sign. This comet is sent to herald Joffrey’s ascent to the throne, I have no doubt. It means that he will triumph over his enemies.”

Yeah, Jofferey wasn’t and he didn’t. If only there was a guy in this story who was the dragon’s heir and whose birth name the show incidentally spoiled as being Aegon. Glory to that guy! And to his queen! 

Suffice it to say I think we will get the pay off from this scene in the form of Jonsa. 

Just a small addendum before I finish: A Song of Ice and Fire is littered with prophecies, prophetic dreams, cryptic messages that can be interpreted to signal future events, etc. I probably missed a lot of them. So if there’s something you want to add here please do. 

Thanks for the ask, nonnie!

[the-desolated-quill]

Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2018

Congratulations dear reader. You survived 2018. And you know what that means. It’s time for another best of/worst of list. Welcome to Quill’s Swill 2018. A giant septic tank for the various shit the entertainment industry produced over the course of the year. The films, games, TV shows and various other media that got on my bad side. As always please bear in mind that this is only my subjective opinion (if you happen to like any of the things on this list, good for you. I’m glad someone did) and that obviously I haven’t seen everything 2018 has to offer for one reason or another. In other words, sorry that Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald isn’t on here. I’m sure it is as terrible as some have been suggesting. I just never got around to watching it.

Okay everyone. Grab your breathing masks and put on your rubber gloves. Let’s dive into this shit pile.

Hold The Sunset

The news that John Cleese would be returning to the world of BBC sitcoms was incredibly exciting, being a massive Fawlty Towers fan and all. Unfortunately Hold The Sunset was not quite what I had in mind. It’s one of those rare breed of situation comedies that chooses to offer no actual comedy. It’s not a sitcom. It’s a sit. Like Scrubs or The Big Bang Theory.

An elderly couple plan to elope abroad only for Alison Steadman’s son to barge in, having left his wife, and forcing them to put their plans on hold. Hence the title ‘Hold The Sunset.’ It’s like a cross between As Time Goes By and Sorry, but if all the humour and relatability were surgically removed by a deadpan mortician. The characters are weak, the plots are thin on the ground and the humour (hat little of it there is) feel incredibly dated. The middle aged mummy’s boy is something that hasn’t been funny since the 90s. It’s an utter waste of great talent and what hurts even more is that this tripe is actually getting a second series. I can only assume the people watching this are comatose. Either that or there’s an epidemic of people in Britain who have lost the remote.

Avengers: Infinity War

Yes this is one of the worst movies of 2018 and no I don’t regret saying that one little bit. Avengers: Infinity War was fucking terrible. Period. There were too many plots and characters going on, which made the film hard to follow (and what staggers me is that the so called ‘professional’ critics have condemned movies for having too many characters and plots before. Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice and even Deadpool 2. But because this is an MCU movie, it gets a free pass. Fuck off). The characterisation was weak due to sheer number of characters they try to juggle, resulting in characters coming off as one dimensional caricatures of themselves and scenes where characters such as Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Star-Lord sound completely interchangeable. The villain, Thanos, is a stupidly and poorly written villain, but that’s hardly surprising considering what a shit job Marvel have done building him up over the course of these 20+ movies. And let’s not forget that pisstake ending. A bunch of prominent Marvel characters die and it’s all very, very sad... except all these characters just so happen to have sequels planned, which makes this ending fucking pointless and have less impact than a feather on a bouncy castle.

I don’t know which is more shocking. That Marvel and Disney think their audience are that stupid and gullible, or that their audience are actually validating their view. Fuck you Disney.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

I’ve always wanted a Harry Potter RPG, where you could customise your character, choose your house and actually live a full school life at Hogwarts. This year, Warner Bros and Jam City gave us just that.

That was a mistake.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the mobile gaming market right now. The gameplay is boring and involving where you just tap images on a screen until a progress bar fills up. Wizard duels are little more than rock-paper-scissors challenges that require no kind of skill. Bonding with friends and caring for magical creatures just consist of pathetically simple pop quizzes and yet more boring tapping. Oh and of course you only get a certain amount of energy to complete these tedious tasks. If you run out of energy, you wait for it to fill up... or pay up for the privilege. So determined are they to extract your hard earned cash from your wallet, there’s actually a bit where Devil’s Snare strangles your eleven year old avatar and the game effectively tries to guilt trip you into paying micro-transactions to save them. It’s sleazy, gross and manipulative. Honestly, you’re better off just playing Candy Crush.

Agony

When the developers of this game said they wanted to give the player a trip through Hell, they had no idea how true that statement really was. Agony is dreadful on a number of levels. The design for Hell itself, while visually interesting at times, is often not very practical and gets quite dull and repetitive after a while. The stealth mechanics are a joke and the AI of your demonic enemies are pitiful. All of this alone would have been enough to put this game on the list, but then we also have the casual misogyny. Agony is a gorefest trying desperately to shock the player. We see men and woman get tortured, but it’s the women that often get the extreme end. The violence inflicted on them is often sexual in nature and the game seems to go out of its way to degrade and dehumanise women at every turn. The orgasmic cries of ‘pull it out’ quickly become a staple of the game’s experience as we see naked women raped, tortured and murdered, all for the purposes of ‘entertainment.’

I would call Agony sexist, but honestly that would be giving it too much credit. Agony is like a little child trying desperately to be all dark and edgy in a pathetic attempt to impress everyone around him, and we should treat it as such. Go to your room Agony. No ice cream for you.

Peter Rabbit

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Beatrix Potter rotating in her grave.

Yes we have yet another live action/CGI hybrid, but instead of something innocuous like the Smurfs or Alvin and the Chipmunks, Sony instead decides to adapt Peter Rabbit, with James Corden in the title role.

It’s about as bad as you’d expect.

Their attempts to modernise the story are painful to say the least with pop culture references, inappropriate adult humour and twerking rabbits. Plus rather than the gentle, but slightly mischievous character we got in the source material, here Peter is a sociopathic delinquent who seems to revel in making the farmer’s life a living hell. He’s unlikable and unwatchable as far as I’m concerned and the film doesn’t in anyway earn the emotional moments it tries so desperately to sell to the audience. And the worst part is it’s getting a sequel.

Wait. Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of Beatrix Potter tearing out of the ground, ready to kill whatever idiot came up with this shit.

Fallout 76

I was excited for Fallout 76. A MMORPG where players band together to rebuild society after a nuclear apocalypse. Could have been great. Pity it wasn’t.

Fallout 76 is a dreadful game. Not only is it a buggy, glitchy mess that requires a constant online connection to play, which could result in you losing hours of progress if your WiFi went down, it’s also unbelievably tedious, and that’s because there’s nothing to do in the game. There’s no other characters to interact with, the various robots and computers you come across are really little more than quest givers, there’s no actual plot so to speak, and because of the sheer size of the world and the number of players allowed on a server, the chances of you actually meeting any actual players is remote. And let’s not forget all the behind the scenes drama. Bethesda falsely advertising Fallout themed canvas bags and players getting shitty nylon ones. Bethesda accidentally releasing the account information of various players trying to get a refund for said bag. Bethesda failing to program the year 2019 into the game code, meaning that the game’s nukes don’t work.

Maybe there’s a chance that Bethesda could pull a No Man’s Sky and fix everything over the coming years with various patches and DLCs, but the damage has already been done. It’s incredibly disappointing. The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to have be fucking incredible to win everyone back.

Mama Mia!: Here We Go Again

I can’t stand jukebox musicals anyway, but Mamma Mia was always one of the worst. Its boring, meandering story with its one note, obnoxious cast of characters screeching out ABBA songs like they’re at some drunken karaoke session at some poor sod’s hen party has always grated on my nerves. So imagine my delight when they announced we were getting a sequel. Ever wondered how Meryl Streep met her three lovers and founded her hotel? No? Well tough shit, we’re going to tell you anyway.

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is basically just Mamma Mia again. The actors still can’t sing, the characters are still annoying and story is still boring and meandering, completely at the mercy of the chosen songs rather than the filmmakers using the songs to compliment the story (you know? Like proper musicals do?).

How can I resist you? Very easily as it turns out. Gimme, gimme, gimme a fucking gun so I can end my misery.

The Cloverfield Paradox

A lot of people were unhappy about the direction Cloverfield was going. They wanted a continuation of the found footage, kaiju movie from 2008, not an anthology series. I was personally all in favour. Partially because I thought the first Cloverfield was a tad overrated, but mostly because I thought it would be a great opportunity for more experimental film projects and could be a great launchpad for new writers and filmmakers. 10 Cloverfield Lane was a great start. Then The Cloverfield Paradox happened.

The Cloverfield Paradox is basically JJ Abrams trying to have his cake and eat it too. Maintaining the anthology format whilst connecting everything together in a ‘shared universe’ (yes, yet another shared universe). The result was a cliched, poorly edited and idiotic mess of a film that actually took away from the previous two films rather than added to them. Everyone hated it and, as a result, 2018′s Overlord, which was totes going to be part of the Cloververse, was made its own standalone film and Abrams double pinky promised to make a true sequel to the original Cloverfield. A complete and total disaster. No wonder it was a straight-to-Netflix film.

The Handmaid’s Tale - Season 2

This is probably going to be the most controversial entry on the list, but please hear me out because I’m not the only one who has a problem with this season.

I was reluctant to watch The Handmaid’s Tale simply because of how gruesome the original book was, but I forced myself to watch the first season and I thought it was pretty good. It remained faithful to the source material for the most part and included some nice additions that helped to expand the story and mythos. If it was just a one off mini-series, everything would have been fine. But then they made the same mistake as The Man In The High Castle and Under The Dome did where they commissioned another season and attempted to tell a story that goes beyond the book.

There’s a reason why the original story ended where it did. The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t meant to be an empowering story about women sticking it to the patriarchy. It’s a cautionary tale about how fragile our civil rights truly are and how easily they can be taken away from us. It’s designed to shock, not to satisfy. So seeing a handmaid blow herself up in a suicide bombing feels very incongruous and just a little bit silly. It would be like doing a TV adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 where the first season followed the source material and then the second season turned Winston Smith into this heroic freedom fighter trying to overthrow Big Brother. It would represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the book was about in the first place.

And then of course there’s the increased level of violence in Season 2, which many have complained about. In Season 1 and the original source material, the violence was justified. In Season 2, the motivation behind the violence has gone from ‘how can we effectively demonstrate how easily a fascist patriarchy can happen in the West?’ to ‘what brutal act can we inflict upon Ofglen to shock the audience this week?’ It’s purely for shock and nothing more. And with the showrunner (who I feel I should mention is a man) announcing that he has planned ten seasons of this, it seems that The Handmaid’s Tale is going to go even further with this depravity until it effectively becomes the equivalent of a Saw film.

The Handmaid’s Tale exists as a way of shining light on and critiquing misogyny in its most extreme form. Season 2 however demonstrates that there is a serious risk of it becoming the very thing it’s criticising in the first place.

The Predator

I love the Predator franchise, but The Predator is the worst.

People thought that this would be good because director Shane Black had actually starred in the first Predator movie back in 1987. Instead we got this bloated, confusing, obnoxious and insulting mess of a film that seems to go out of its way to ruin everything that makes Predator so good. There’s no tension. No suspense. No intrigue. Just a bunch of gore, explosions and shitty one liners from annoying and lifeless characters. They essentially took this big alien game hunter from outer space and turned him into a generic monster from a bad summer blockbuster. It no longer hunts for sport. It wants to take over the world and splice our DNA with theirs. But don’t worry, a rogue Predator doesn’t want to kill humans (even though he himself kills a bunch of humans), so he gives us a Predator Iron Man suit to set up a sequel that will probably never happen because this movie was a box office bomb and it fucking SUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKEEEEEDDDD!!!

This film also has a very nasty streak towards those with disabilities. There’s a lot of jokes at the expense of a character with Tourette’s and it has an extremely ignorant and patronising view of autism, portraying the main character’s kid as being a super genius who can decipher the Predator language and even going so far as to say that he represents ‘the next stage of human evolution.’ Presumably the Predators want social communication difficulties because apparently it helps them hunt somehow.

What with Disney acquiring 20th Century Fox, the future of both the Alien and Predator franchises were very much in question. This film needed to be a success in order to make a case for Disney to keep making more of them. It wasn’t. Congratulations Shane Black. You might have just killed off this franchise for good. Thanks arsehole! :D

So those were my least favourite stories from 2018. Join me on Wednesday where we shall discuss something more positive. Yes, it’s awards season. Who shall win the coveted Quill Seal Of Approval? Watch this space...

Or don’t. It’s up to you. I don’t want to force you or anything. It’s a free country.

[gobbochune]

What fantasy stories do you enjoy? And what makes something fantasy vs not fantasy? Not to argue, I'm just curious how you define it

Never be afraid to ask me about my personal nitpicky definitions for media, i love this shit! 

the reason it took me so long to piece together my feelings about this show is because, like i said, its tied up with the uncanny valley of my personal tastes. There is no one obvious decision that is bad, but rather it consistently presents a character or theme I might enjoy and ruins it for me. The characters are somehow simultaneously over explained and unrelatable. The world is too realistic but also so cartoonishly dark you cant take it seriously. everything that happens is predictable, and yet i still manage to be disappointed by the execution. it is so out of synch with the bare minimum of what i’m willing to tolerate that its almost impressive. Usually when i hate something i’ll consume everything i can from the franchise so i can properly illustrate my complaints (or in the hopes that it will redeem itself) but game of thrones was so contentious to me specifically that i couldnt even be in the room if it was on. The only other show that has ever offended me that badly was scandal, which coincidentally is also a shock value political drama. 

Its not enough to say “Game of Thrones shouldnt count as fantasy because XYZ” because I have examples of the same things being done in different fantasy books without contending with their classification. I don’t even like some of these books, and yet I still got a clear taste of the world and characters in a more tactful way then game of thrones does anything. 

But my initial interest in Game of Thrones (and subsequent disappointment when it doesnt live up to my expectations) can be boiled down to one complaint:

The Tone

When I think of the perfect fantasy adventure that exemplifies what I lowkey want from any fantasy world my mind inevitably drifts to the presentation of The Last Unicorn. What this surreal not-quite-a-kids movie from the 80s lacks in vague writing and a pretty lackluster 3rd act it makes up for with its almost oppressive tone of loneliness, searching, loss, and wonder. 

The film opens with a song about a world that wastes away waiting for just one glimpse of a unicorn before everything succumbs to the cynicism and apathy. The lyrics express how it feels to slowly lose your sense of wonder as nature crumbles, seasons change, and time passes. But at the end of each verse, as if to represent a silver lining, there is a reminder that there is just one unicorn left. She’s old and broken and you might never see her, but she’s a reminder that magic lives somewhere out there. And for that, you feel alive. 

That feeling of carrying on with the bittersweet hope of seeing a unicorn follows throughout the movie. Every single character the unicorn comes across has had their hope destroyed, but those who kept believing are able to see her and join her on her quest. It presents optimism and faith as an unquestioned truth, but a truth that weighs on your soul as you grow up. 

Like game of thrones the world of the last unicorn is cruel and unfair. In such a world hope is a heavy burden, and those who wait for unicorns instead of moving on with their lives destroy themselves waiting. Its so sad and unfair that when they finally meet her they fall to pieces. 

The last unicorn journeys is to find others like herself, other spots of light in the darkness that have been stolen away by the cruelty of men. It is this sacrifice of her own innocence that saves the other unicorns, and though she can return to the forest happy there are unicorns in the world again she’ll never truly go home again. Her home was defined by the eternal and immortal hope she represents, and with that gone, it will never be the same.

The Last Unicorn is haunting and oppressive and bittersweet, and it never has to explain its themes to anyone. 

We never learn what happened to Molly Grue in the years she waited to meet the unicorn. She doesnt get a monologue where she explains in masochistic detail every terrible thing she saw and did to make her so ashamed to stand before the unicorn now. If you’re young like I was when I watched this scene, you might have no idea why Molly is angry at all. The answer comes with age and experience, not through the writer describing the disgusting abuse she faced from her husband and his men. This scene is darker and sadder than anything that happens in Game of Thrones because of its sincerity, not its content. We can listen to Cersei talk about how the period-appropriate misogyny made her sad as a kid but she never allows herself to be as vulnerable as Molly Grue in this scene. By comparison we know Molly a lot less than we know Cersei, but Molly manages to instantly have my sympathy in one scene while I still dont give a fuck about Cersei after six seasons. 

This refusal to explain itself is present in the lore as well. Rules are not drawn up and given context but instead referenced with such certainty that you believe and remember them. 

Why must one never run from an immortal? Because it will only attract their attention. 

This rule of the universe is brought up once but I think about what it could mean all the time. What if it means that immortals are so powerful that your only hope to avoid their notice? That their nature as an eternal truth makes running away pointless? Perhaps theres something about immortals being so ancient that they can only see you if you’re moving quickly. It is such an alien and vague statement thrown out so casually that it makes you feel confused and out of place in a strange environment you dont understand. 

Like, I dont know, you’re on an adventure through a fantasy land or something. 

While its cool that I know the scientific properties of fire that keeps burning until its all gone, if I understand that fire as a threat its mere presence in the story already spoils its effect. Its a fire that keeps burning. Big Whoop. I guess those ships are gone now but what exactly did that add to my experience? The dragons are neat but they’re a type of lizard that is capable of preforming magic. Once you know what that magic is theres nothing all too mysterious or dangerous about them. They’re just large aggressive carnivores. Of course its a stupid idea to let them run rampant through a city. Anything shocking that happens because of the dragons isn’t a reminder that this world is a strange world filled with unpredictable consequences, but that these big fire-breating animals are being managed by idiots. 

It doesn’t matter where the Harpy came from or what exactly happened to Molly Grue. The harpy is terrifying despite having no special powers and Molly’s arc begins and finishes within a minute and 16 seconds and it manages to be more believable and tragic than anything that happens in Game of Thrones. And while the idea of a dry political drama within a fictional universe is a cool idea, its just not one I have any interest in and I’m tired of people insisting i need to watch it. 

[tumblunni]

MORE UPDATES ON THINGS WHAT HAPPEN

The half week milestone of the hospital house thingie time! I think the term they use for it is "a residential stay"? Cos like its not a hospital its a shared housing block thats just full of doctors. I get to sleep in a real bed and there's a nice community room and board game nights and stuff. But its still really scary how intense the supervision can be! Like they have a window to look into your room once per hour every hour constantly. And they have to go through your undies and catalog them as part of the possessions check. I was not warned about that and it was mega embarassing trying to explain a binder to a bunch of old lady doctors! Oh and i had yo do a urine test today which was possibly the most fuckin embarassing thing in the actual universe. And you're not even allowed to take your own pills! They keep them locked in a big ominous wall of lockers and you have to come into the office and swallow the pill while theyre watching. I guess maybe because some people might be faking their illness and selling their pills on the black market or whatever? But that literally doesnt happen with antidepressants, they have no 'high' or even any effect at all on non-sick people. So it just makes no sense to me and its real embarassing cos like i said i suck at taking pills with plain water and without a straw. The ones i take are real damn chunky things the size of my thumbnail! I think i'l get better at not (literally) choking under pressure over time, tho. Hopefully.

Anyway that's all the bad out of the way! Now the good and the neutral and the just miscellaneous!

Its still nervewracking having to shower in a shared house but they have a cool walk-in shower and ive never tried one of those so it was vaguely interesting. And im allowed to take my showers early at 6am to minimize the chance of anyone else trying to use the door, lol. My biggest fear is having some staff member walk in on me when im naked like back in that homeless hostel. Oh or that time in the homeless hostel where the teenage boys filled the entire bathroom with inflated condoms wall to wall. Like wow so much damn effort to prank the stupid nervous bunni who probably would have been embarassed by literally anything else. Man this place is bringing so many memories of that homeless hostel but at least this time its a place specifically for sick people and they know i'm anxious doing shared cooking and board games and whatever so they dont make fun of me for it. But in a lot of ways that hostel had more freedoms too.. *shrug*

Anyway! A good! I get to have cooking lesson!! I know literally nothing about cooking and now i get to know several thing!! This nice doctor called Josie taught me how to make an omelette and i tasted ham for the first time! That is just how limited my life experiences are, lol. Oh and they want me to say that she's a 'mental health worker' not a doctor, but its all real confusing?? Like they have the staff that look after you and then the only ones we're supposed to call doctors are the ones who actually have the authority to prescribe pills and diagnosies. But like if youre in a hospital you'd call them all doctors, not just the actual surgeon? Or i guess theyre kinda like nursing home staff?? But they cant be support workers cos support workers are specific government assigned inspector type guys like Richard who only meet with you once a week.and i have to remember to not call him a social worker either cos social workers only work with family and custody related stuff. I dunno?? Basically the medical industry has a lot of names that dont really describe what the actual thing is, lol. Anyway the ham omelette was great and now im gonna try and remember so i can try and make it myself next time! HAM ACCOMPLISHED

Also i played bingo with a few other patients and it was fun but funny that i lost 6 times in a row when there were only 3 of us. I got a consolation prize of a pack of neon highlighter pens so hell yeah!!

I'm getting booked in to try some additional classes starting next week on monday and tuesday morning. The computer programming one was sadly unavailable, but i managed tp snag a place in "confidence building group therapy" and "basic how to use power tools". I wasnt really all that interested in that one but i thought it would be a useful skill even if its less fun. And maybe you get to actyally make something to take home at the end? A lil shelf to help organize this awkward lil room better, maybe?

And an unexpected bonus of being semi-hospitalized is that i get a free bus pass! And cos im here cos of my social anxiety theyre gonna help me get outside more and actually use this thing to the fullest! The first thing we did was the trip to actually get the bus pass itself. It was like "bus, take my money to take me to the place where i can never give you money again!" XD Ive been really stupidly nervous about going on tne bus in my old neighbourhood cos MAN it was really isolated there and everything just amplified my mental illness. An almost two hour bus ride to get to ANY SHOPS AT ALL, with only one bus for the whole town so it was always crowded and full of screaming kids and gossipy everyones. Social anxiety: maximum level proud mode!

So yeah i feel BIG ACCONPLISHED! I was able to take this bus for the first time with a doctor coming with me. Power Grandpa The Strong. His actual name is Paul and he has awesome sleeve tattoos of like anchors and dragons and sports teams and stuff! And he likes thrift stores and wearing silly hats too! Its like he's powerful enough to wrestle away everyone's anxieties! I was able to be a bit reckless too and i went out wearing my fave shirt thats like trans pride coloured plaid. A POWERFUL SHIRT IS REQUIRED FOR THIS QUEST! so we went to the office to register this bus pass and i panicked a bit cos apparantky we brought the wrong form and i wrote my name in the wrong box and then my passport photo looked terrible and aaa! But it all worked out and i was kinda freaking out for nothing. And he took me for a lil tour of the place and showed me this cool shop that does spray paint tye dye t shirts with spiderman on them?? Why does this incredibly specific shop exist and how have i never heard of it before?? There was also a new harry potter shop next to the disney shop, and the old used book store i used to visit as a kid was still there, complete with rickety spiral staircase and ominous basement trap door. I'm still not brave enough to go down there, but apparantly its just the history books section so meh. Then we actually went to a fancy coffee shop and i had this brain freeze mango ice frappucchino thing! Im trying all the new foods!!

And i was TOO HIGH ON DECADENCE and made a RECKLESS CHOICE! i blame power gramp's amazing tattoos, they were totally whispering to me that i shoukd screw the rules and ride off into the sunset on a metaphorical harley davidsen of mental health

So i was like Hey Paul I Am Totally Fine Getting Home On My Own, and it was like i was floating off in the distance somewhere begging my body to not speaketh these words. But it ended up working out okay! The excitement of it all and the sense of accomplishmebt from getting there all okay allowed me to mostly not freak out as i spent the day in town and looked at some shops and stuff. Basic Living Skills: Completed! I chilled out in the library (tho i dont have a card yet, alas!) and visited like five comic and anime stores, and got lost but found a Pizza Hut and that was SO NOSTALGIC FOR MY CHILDHOOD and it didnt taste quite as good as i remembered but the waiter guy was super nice and had a similar shirt and it was All Good! Oh and i gave all my money to a homeless person and that's why i'm broke now. And i bought a plastic slug! I just saw it from across the room and was like OH NO I AM BEING MAGNETISED TOWARDS IT OH NO IT HAS ALREADY BEEN BOUGHT. I need to think of a name for this new friend!!

So yeh i got home okay and i felt really acconplished and that was the furthest trip away that i've taken in ages! Man my mental illness makes me feel pathetic, but it also brings ridiculously big joys from the smallest of silly acconplishys!

Oh and thank you so much to the people who sent me emails! It really helped so much to keep me from giving up during the first few days before i made a bit of progress and felt like i could really do this, yknow? Especially big thanks tp the friend who sent me that mysterious super happy song that they found on a mystery disc in a german market?? Im still not sure whether its in greek or hasidic jewish but it sounds AMAZING and i hope someday i can figure out the band so i can hear their other singles!

Ok this is bunni out! BIG HUGS FOR THE EVERYONE AAAA

[chittaphoneo]

idontwannabeyouanymore // johnten

Type: Oneshot, song fic (idontwannabeyouanymore by billie eilish)

Genre: ANGST

Word Count: 1.8k

Pairing: Johnny x Ten (JohnTen/ Tenny)

Warnings: unhealthy eating habits, lots of swearing and self hate

don’t be that way

fall apart twice a day

Water falls from his fingertips, small droplets pooling under his jaw as well. He looks at the mirror, empty eyes and sunken cheeks staring back at him. The manager shouts “twenty minutes” down the hallway, reminding everyone, including him, that the photo shoot was going to start soon. 

There are soft knocks on the door. 

“Hey Ten, you need to get on the chair soon.” He lets out a grunt as some sort of acknowledgement, heavy hands reaching out for the doorknob, slowly. He was greeted with the sight of his annoyingly tall friend, and makeup artist, Johnny. He looked down at him and smiled, a look of worry swimming around in his eyes. 

“Are you okay? You don’t look too well.” Ten gives Johnny the brightest smile he could manage because, well, that’s what he deserved after all they’ve been through together. 

“I’m fine Johnny. We should hurry up, we have less than twenty minutes to get ready.”

“You know I could do it in less than that. I need to know if you’re okay.” 

“You’ll do better in twenty minutes that in ten, now let’s go.” He grabs Johnny’s hand, Ten’s small hand fitting perfectly in his bigger ones. He manages to catch up to Ten’s pace, hand still wrapped around his.

The smaller seats himself in his chair, vanity lights almost blinding if he hadn’t been forced to sit in front of them for the better part of the decade. The way his eyes burn have become some sort of sick source of comfort, actually.

Johnny gently grabs his chin, moving his head upwards to face his as he smoothly applies foundation. His hands skillfully travel across his face, applying some bold eye makeup and a subtle lip as well, adding some glitter for some sort of holographic effect. 

When Ten looks in the mirror again, his unhealthy pale glow was gone, replaced with some rosy blush instead. His eye bags, acquired from years of restless nights, have seemed to have completely vanished. His brown eyes pop out, complemented by the blues and greens of the eye shadow. 

He feels a smile tug on his lips, standing up from his chair and giving Johnny a small thank you before heading out. Walking out the door, he felt like he was living his fantasy.

Pretty

__

Was I made from a broken mold?

The first time Johnny found Ten during one of his quests to become pretty, was when he had taken it too far. There were signs during the first week, Johnny looking at Ten weirdly when he’d stumble from walking on a flat surface, or when he’d find it hard to stay focused during a conversation or task but Ten wrote it off as fatigue from the continuous photo shoots they had for Ralph Lauren.

After the second week, they finally gave him a day off so Johnny decided to pay him a visit. His apartment in Gangnam was secluded from the bustling city. The lot the building was on surrounded by trees, a bamboo forest somewhere in the mix as well. Ten sometimes contemplated if the leaves would feel like a cushion in case he ever fell, from his apartment, on the top floor.

It was a long elevator trip up and Johnny always joked about how it was so high up, the food he brings would already get cold. The scent of fried chicken wafted through the hallway as he waited outside the door. No one was answering.

Now his food was really going to get cold. He turned the doorknob, the door opening up to a dark apartment inside. The blinds were closed and the lights were off, even the light in the kitchen, which Ten always left on because ‘kitchens always freaked me out’ were turned off. 

He slowly ascended up the steps, opening up the blinds by the staircase in the process. He left the fried chicken in the kitchen. Johnny opened the doors to all the bedrooms but still couldn’t find Ten, that was when he heard some sounds in the bathroom. 

The first thing that came into his mind was that maybe he was just really constipated, but then he heard something crash, then silence. Johnny quickly rushed inside, seeing Ten on the floor with his shirt off, his ribs looking as if it was about to break through his skin. 

There was a small gash on his forehead, gushing out blood at a steady pace. He lifted the shorter male up bridal style, terrifyingly easy, and set him down on the bed. He knew Ten kept a first aid kit in the guest bedroom so he went to get it. 

When he gained consciousness, Johnny’s back was facing him, hunched over with one hand underneath his chin, soft snores were coming out of his mouth. He tried to get up as quietly as he could but his rustling woke Johnny up, the latter quickly looking at Ten with a relieved expression.

“Thank fucking god. You fucking scared me you little fucking angel.” He never could curse at Ten. He let out a weak laugh at Johnny’s words. 

“I’m not an angel. Angels are supposed to look beautiful, immaculate.” So maybe he was a little delirious from his lack of food or any liquids aside from water.

Johnny’s eyes visibly soften at his friends words, his hands automatically finding their way to Ten’s cheeks, his cheekbones were very prominent but it looked unhealthy, like a skeleton. His smaller hands found solace around Johnny’s wrists, leaning into his touch. Ten always preferred physical attention.

“What’s this all about?” He remained silent, a lump rapidly growing inside his throat. 

“When was the last time you ate a proper meal?” Silence again. He couldn’t remember.

Johnny had always been fatherly, so it wasn’t surprising when he showered Ten with attention for the next days, incessantly offering to spoon feed Ten three meals a day, with two snacks between each meal. 

Everything felt like concrete in Ten’s stomach for the first two days, the need to throw up growing even more apparent with each bite, but as time progressed, the need to see Johnny’s smile every time he finishes his meal grew stronger. 

He showered the younger man in attention, holding him in his arms whenever he could, making him feel loved, accepted, beautiful. It was hard to wrap his mind around it at first. Ten wasn’t sure who to believe, Johnny, or the man in the mirror (a/n: that’s ten okaY i dont want any scary shit on my blog) that told him he was broken, disgusting, unlovable. But Johnny stayed and the man left. 

Soon, he started looking froward to whatever delicious meal Johnny came up with (although he still suspects most of these are take-out) Soon, there was an offer for a campaign with Miss Selfridge, so he accepted. 

The second incident came soon after. 

__

Told a tight dress is what makes you a whore

The campaign drew mixed reactions from the public, apparently it was 2018 but people were still repulsed at the idea of a man in a dress, especially an asian man. His manager, heck, even Johnny always told him that he should never read the comments on his photos. But he couldn’t help it. 

Repulsive.

That’s what people were saying. 

Unnatural.

It felt like a punch below the belt.

Fat.

The man in the mirror was right.

He cooped himself up in his apartment again. The large, stone cold penthouse felt so empty without Johnny’s presence. Who was he, anyway, to take up Johnny’s time. He had a life outside of him. He didn’t deserve Johnny. 

He doesn’t remember the last time he checked his phone, so he wasn’t expecting Johnny inside his house, in the middle of the night, cooking a meal.

“What are you doing here? It’s” he looks at the clock in the living room, “3:28 a.m” He ignored the grumbling in his stomach.

“I know about the comments, I’ve asked them to take it down already. Ten, whatever spiral you’re falling into, you know I’m always here right?” Johnny walks out from behind the counter, a white apron tied around his waist. Ten avoids eye contact, his eyes trained on his bony feet, somehow they still look so chubby. 

There’s a hand holding his and his chin was being lifted up. “People were worried when you weren’t coming in for work. Miss Selfridge loves you, you know.”

“Johnny, you’re eggs are burning.” He says, to avoid the question, something he’s learned to do a lot in these past years. The older’s eyes widen, suddenly rushing back to the eggs that were already half burnt. He quickly turns off the stove, placing the eggs on a two plates and putting them on the table. 

He just stared at the plates in front of him, the eggs were beside some peanut butter sandwiches. He felt like throwing up, no matter how good peanut butter sounded. He needed to lose weight, he was a model, he had to be beautiful. 

“Stop thinking so loud.” Johnny held his hand, stared at him for a second. He was taken up the stairs and into his bathroom. The man in the mirror staring back at him.

“Tell the mirror what it hasn't heard before.” Johnny says. Ten cocks his head to the side, confused at what Johnny was telling him to do. Johnny just looks at him and he thinks he gets it but his voice stops short, unable to escape his mouth.

“You're special” Johnny says. "You're beautiful, amazing, talented, extraordinary. You give yourself way too little credit for how much you've accomplished. Never listen to the shit people have been teling you. They're not worth worrying your beautiful mind over. You're so amazing, going through all of this, surviving through all of this. Remember that I'm always here and" I love you just stops short from escaping "Never stop loving yourself, even if it gets too hard you need to try because I need you to."

It felt like a warm embrace, Johnny's words. Things felt different. Somehow Johnny’s presence made everything feel different. Tears were falling out of his eyes like waterfalls. 

Two arms engulfed him, a hand was stroking his hair and another was rubbing soothing circles in his back. He was still crying and tried to pull away, not wanting to get Johnny wet but he wouldn’t let him. He let him cry. 

When Ten’s sobs died down to soft sniffles, Johnny pulled away, grabbing his hand and placing him in bed. Johnny lay down beside him, arms wrapping around him once again. He’s grown to find comfort in Johnny’s arms, it felt like a safe place where all his worries and fears couldn’t reach him. 

“If I love you, loving yourself, was a promise, would you break it, if you’re honest?” 

Ten knows he wouldn’t be able to keep it. Knows he’s already broken it. But right here, in the moment, with Johnny’s arms wrapped tight around him, the smell of comfort, of Johnny, surrounding him, 

“I promise I’ll try”

And for Johnny, that’s good enough. It’s good enough for now because he knows, he knows he’ll be there to help Ten through everything. To love him during the times he can’t love himself and love him enough until he can. 

a/n: ahhhh i have a paper due in less than a day and im writing this instead,, rip me. dont forget to reblog if you enjoyed !! 

masterlist

[suteshiro]

(1) Do You Sleep With Your Closet Doors Open Or Closed?

Open, kinda? My closet is built into a wall and one of the sides has like, shelves I use often so it’s just open for accesibility

(2) Do You Have Freckles?

Nope! I got nerfed, honestly. I’d look lovely with freckles

(3) Can You Whistle?

Hahaha nope,

(4) Last Song You Listened To.

Night of Fire bc im listening to an eurobeat mix while working on a school assignment skjfvnskjfv last song I Willingly listened to is The Hearse by matt maeson which fucking slaps

(5) What Is Your Favourite Colour?

Probably purple!

(6) Relationship Status.

Single

(7) What Is The Temperature Right Now?

18 celsius/64 fahrenheit. pretty average but for some reason im cold

(8) Did You Wake Up Cranky?

Nope! I woke up feeling wonderfully actually

(9) How Many Followers?

404. Very nice number

(10) Zodiac Sign.

I’m a scorpio and a dragon :3

(11) What Is Your Eye Colour?

Brown!

(12) Take A Vitamin Daily?

I do not, though I used to and might start again, who’s to say

(13) Do You Sing In The Shower?

Not rlly. I shower listening to music and I have a lot of trouble singing along to things im hearing for some reason skfnvskfjb

(14) What Books Are You Reading?

I’m too embarrassed to say publicly which one im reading now skjvnskfjb i kinda wanna read some cute cheesy romance in the nearby future

(15) Grab The Book Nearest To You, Turn To Page 64, Give Me Line 14.

I grabbed the first lotr book and gottt

“Ah,” said Ted, “ you hear them, if you listen. But if I wanted to listen to old lady tales and childish legends, I’d stay home”

(Translated a bit roughly bc my physical books are mostly in spanish

(16) Favourite Anime?

You cant ask me thatt skjfvnklabmksfjb It might be Violet Evergarden? It’s the only anime that’s really made me cry

(17) Last Person You Cried In Front Of?

I think I cried in front of my mom at some point recently while pretending i wasnt crying

(18) Do You Collect Anything?

Notebooks skfnskfsnb I just think they’re neat

(19) What Did You Have For Lunch?

havent Lunched yet, dont scold me

(20) Do You Dance In The Car?

I’m rarely in cars and they’re usually not mine

(21) Favourite Animal?

Coatimundis pretty...... and adorable

(22) Do You Watch The Olympics?

Nope

(23) What Time Do You Usually Go To Bed?

I try to go to bed a bit before midnight but im needy and like talking to my friends so its usually around 2am

(24) Are You Wearing Makeup Right Now?

Nope! I p much never do that

(25) Do You Prefer To Swim In A Pool Or The Ocean?

Both have their pros! I think I tend towards pools bc as a rule they dont rlly have like, annoying consequences

(26) Favourite Tumblr Blog?

@yournewapartment​​ keeps popping up in my dash with good advice and nice stuff and i appreciate it

(27) Bottled Water Or Tap Water?

Bottled waterr the tap water in my building is weird and doesnt seem very safe to drink and by now i hate the taste skjvfnkjn

(28) What Makes You Happy?

My friends, comedy shows, reading good fanfiction, writing fanfiction, drawing my characters, reading about others’ characters, giving gifts, the smell of roses, fairy pokemon, butterflies-

I like being happy

(29) Post A Gif Of What You’re Currently Feeling Right Now.

Im not really a Keeps Gifs That Convey Emotions kinda guy

(30) Do You Study Better With Or Without Music?

Depends a lot skjvfnskfjvn my brain keeps switching

(31) Dogs Or Cats?

Very hard questions,,, I think I tend towards dogs bc they’re like me. Big. Excitable. Needy.

(32) If You Were A Crayon What Colour Would You Be?

Purble.,......

(33) PlayStation Or Xbox.

PlayStation

(34) Would You Swim In The Lake Or Ocean?

I have been in the ocean before and idk how much i liked it but sure id do it again. A lake sounds fun!!

(35) Do You Believe In Magic?

I practice it!

(36) What Colour Shirt Are You Wearing?

Red

(37) Can You Curl Your Tongue?

I’m not sure what exactly this is asking

(38) Do You Save Money Or Spend It?

I like saving money skjfnvksjv I rarely think of things to spend it on

(39) Is There Anything Pink Within 10 Feet Of You?

Ye! There’s a bag I use to keep my chargers in it when im outside. it has flower pictures. very pretty

(40) Do You Have Any Obsessions Right Now?

Love Live,,,,, and now my character Curiosity bc @zuramaru​​ is an angel and running a campaign he’s in and we played yesterday and holy shit theres a lot going on

(41) Have You Ever Caught A Butterfly?

Oh yes!! this one time I was in a place absolutely full of butterflies and I caught one between my cupped hands and it stayed there when I opened them and it was a wonderful experience

(42) Are You Easily Influenced By Other People?

Ya,, I do the fawning thing so I tend to agree with other people by default, lest we have any kind of conflict

(43) Do You Have Strange Dreams?

Oh yes, most of the dreams I remember are. bizarre

(44) Do You Like Going On Airplanes?

Yeah!!! Only done it twice but it was a blast

(45) Name One Movie That Made You Cry.

Inside Out fucking got to me

(46) Peanuts Or Sunflower Seeds?

Peanuts,,, I don’t like sunflower seeds. I mean they’re tasty but. Too much effort for too little reward

(47) If I Handed You A Concert Ticket Right Now, Who Would You Want The Performer To Be?

Uuuuh, FOB probably

(48) Are You A Picky Eater?

Not really, but also yes? I have a few things I absolutely refuse to put in my mouth

(49) Are You A Heavy Sleeper?

Perhaps? I’m not very hard to wake up but I can sleep through a lot of stuff

(50) Do You Fear Thunder / Lightning?

Nah I fucking love it

(51) Do You Like To Read / Write?

Yes!! I think I would actually like to become a writer. Not sure tho

(52) Do You Like Your Music Loud?

Yea but only when I’m really into it. Like, usually I’m listening to stuff and the volume tends to low but then there’s this One song and I turn it up all the way until it’s over

(53) Would You Rather Carve Pumpkins Or Wrap Presents?

Wrap presents, I’ve never carved pumpkins before skjfvnskjfv seems like a hassle and I’d feel bad for not making it look nice

(54) Put Your Music On Shuffle, What Is The First Song That Came Up?

Haven’t you noticed (I’m a star) from Steven Universe

(55) What Season Are You In Right Now? (Weather)

Winterr

(56)What Are You Craving Right Now?

Choclet........

(57) Post A Screenshot Of Your Tumblr Feed.

Here you go!

(58) What Is Your Gender?

Solarian!

(59) Coffee Or Tea?

I’m a tea guy!

(60) Do You Have Any Homework Right Now? If So, What Is It About?

I’m helping translate an entire thing about the way emails work, its a bit of a hassle skjfvnsf

(61) What Is Your Sexuality?

Uuuuh I’ve been questioning but im mlm and also into nb people

(62) Do You Make Your Bed In The Morning?

Yeah! Makes me feel accomplished and sexy

(63) Favourite Pokemon?

SYLVEON SYLVEON SYLVEON

(64) Favourite Social Media?

Absolutely Tumblr. Unless you count Discord as a social media

(65) What’s Your Opinion On Instagram Stories?

I don’t use. Instagram. But sure they’re neat

(66) Do You Get Homesick?

A little. Usually when I travel I’m either at a place I hate or at a place where I don’t have commodities I do have at home skjfnskjfb so I miss my room

(67) Are You A Virgin?

Yup

(68) What Shampoo And Conditioner Are You Using Right Now?

Uuuh I’m using a Head & Shoulders shampoo I believe? WIth no conditioner bc my hair is real short now and conditioner tends to feel weird

(69) If You Were Far From Home And Needed To Sleep For The Night, Would You Choose To Rent A Crappy Motel Room For $60 Or Sleep In Your Car For Free?

Well you see I would choose the crappy motel but 60 bucks seems a bit unattainable so sure, let’s stay in my car

(70) Are Both Of Your Blood Parents Still In Your Life?

Nope, father is Dead

(71)  Whats The Next Movie You Want To See In Theaters?

I’m not interested in anything, honestly

(73) What Is Your Favourite Quote Right Now?

“If I could make days last forever, if words could make wishes come true, I’d save every day like a treasure and then, again, I would spend them with you”

(74) What Eye Colour Do You Find Sexiest?

There’s this like. Really nice honey color

(75) Did You Like Swinging As A Child? Do You Still Get Excited When You See A Swing Set?

I loved swinging! I still do but I’m. Self conscious about my weight and scared of breaking something

(76) What Was The Last Thing You Ate?

Some pastries for breakfast

(77) What Games Do You Have On Your Phone?

20B wives, My sweet angel is a real angel, BitLife, Buriedbornes, Cardinal Quest 2, Crazy 8, Egg Inc, FarmVille 2, Fire Emblem Heroes, Gardenscapes, Get bigger! Mola, Homescapes, Human Resource Machine, Kept Man Life, Love Live, Mermaid Evolution, My Little Star VIP, Piano Tiles 2, Plague Inc, Pocket City, Pokémon GO, Puzzledom, SmithStory, Soul Knight, Tap Knight, Tower Breaker

To be clear quite a few of these stay there completely untouched

(78) Would You Give A Homeless Person CPR If They Were Dying? Why Or Why Not?

What kind of question is this???

I mean I don’t know CPR but if I could yeah???

(79) Been On The Computer For 5 Hours Straight?

… listen,

right now ive only been on my computer for like an hour or two but yeah ive done that,

(80) Stalked Someone On A Social Network?

I don’t think so?

(81) Do You Like Meeting New People?

Yyyyes and no. I’m a bit awkward but I like people

(82) Do You Wear Rings? If You Do, Take A Picture Of Them.

Oh!! I wear this really pretty crown shaped ring but idk where I left it

(83) Do You Sleep With Your Bedroom Door Open Or Closed?

Closed closed closed I haaate when my bedroom door is open

(84) What Are Three Things You Did Today?

Talk with friends, make some tea, read? I haven’t done a lot today skvnskjvn

(85) What Do You Wear To Bed?

Comfy shirt and sweatpants

(86) List All Of Your Different Beauty Products You Have Right Now.

What’s a beauty?

(87) Are You A Day Or Night Person?

uuuh both? hard to answer??

(88) List All Of Your Video Games On Your Phone, Console Etc.

Well, we’ve already clarified what I have on my phone skjfnskjfb

THe only games I know I have on console are Mortal Kombat Armageddon, Devil May Cry 3 special edition, and Okami. Oh! And God of War. I think at least the first and second. Were there more than two?

(89) Tell Me About A Dream That You Had And When It Happened.

Nah

(90) Favourite Soda Drink?

I don’t like fizzy drinks, they make my throat hurt

But Fanta is nice

(91) What Sounds Are Your Favourite?

Melodic voices singing, the rain, absentminded humming, small clicking noises...

(92) Do You Wear Jeans Or Sweats More?

Jeans! I have very few but I’ve grown fond of them. Used to wear yoga pants pretty exclusively before

(93) How Do You Look Right Now?

Gorgeous, of course

Skjvnskfjvn I’m still wearing the clothes I used to sleep

(94) Name Something That Relaxes You.

Ghibli movies

(95) What Tattoo Do You Want?

A star map on my back!

(96) Favourite YouTuber?

Right now I think that’s John Wolfe. But I like quite a few