#it’s not really it’s just a fun character detail

[vulstare]

fanart for @qoldenskies's caged lungs fic 💥💥

it isn't based on any scene in particular, just my overall interpretation and visualization of things I felt. mostly bad things. but apparently human brains enjoy that. so let's go

I'm gonna ramble now, buckle up

Frankly that's the first personal piece I've drawn in months, and I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful that I was able to feel emotions and wanted to draw something again

I struggle a lot with empathy and understanding of other's feelings and displaying my own but. I hope people will feel something by looking at it, too

I've got inspired by the old tale that we used to read on literature lessons, altho I for the life of me can't remember the name of it, or anything else from the plot for that matter. There were a competition for retrieving the jug from the bottom of the river, where many men tried and failed, as they couldn't reach it. As you can already tell, it was a reflection of the jug that was hanged on a tree all along.

I liked the concept of something unreachable being seen as being very close to you :) hence the whole water situation

generally water is seen as a positive symbol in art but for me it's cold, slippery, you can't see shit in it, misleading and uncomfortable. go figure

and I really like how CL displays yellow as a color with negative connotation while it's classically being the The Most Happy Coded Color Ever.

while I'm at it I wanted to share a song I associate with caged lungs in particular

just let it die!

I would have liked to talk more about how awesome the fic is and how invested I'm in the plot and characters and how noticing details and parallels makes my brain go brrrr but I'm shy and not really eloquent with my words. I hope you will get the idea anyway. I love it <3

& textless version :0

If you spot any symbolism, it's probably there. or not. up to you really. that's how art works. have fun

[meamiki]

Happy Anniversary In Stars and Time!! Have some Friend Quest based drawings :D

(These have specific quote picks related to them! And there's also a long ramble on why I like those specific quotes below if interested)

(And by long, I mean roughly 2k+ words of proper ramble total, so be warned before clicking keep reading this link right here to the rb!!)

[briarlovesclara]

is this anything? (details/analysis under cut)

(closeups have more extensive ids)

Sam and Evan: need no explanation. Neither of them have confessed to each other but COME ON. whether or not you think they Should be together, there is no way at this point that danielle and brennan are unaware of what their characters are doing which is falling in love. on screen in front of us.

Sam and K: this is where it gets less obvious-- I can't remember exactly why but K in the last episode just felt so down bad to me. Even before last ep, I was starting to see a future where Evan and Sam got together and K was really fond of Sam "totally by proxy" (see K and Evan later).

Evan and Jammer: this one I struggle with if I'm being so honest, so I decided to make them struggle with it too. If you think either of them would ever know what was happening you'd be wrong in my personal opinion.

K and Evan: they're in love. I'm sorry. Not saying they're in a healthy or stable relationship but they are in fact in love. I'm part of the theory that Evan broke up with K and if you've seen his face this season he's dead in the water for them.

Jammer and Sam: he has no idea what's in his brain about Sam. I didn't put an arrow back because I don't know what she feels about him in my head so I didn't even want to make her confused.

Similarly, Jammer and K: I have no read on them. I can however see K being at least platonically into Jammer (they seemed a little too into the Weugan thing). But that's just a thought. A film thought.

That's it! This is all in good fun :) lmk your thoughts if you'd like!

[wttcsms]

thinking abt how often tiktok's favorite influencers just get replaced on the daily & also thinking abt a modern retelling of the myth of eros and pysche. thinking about how you're the new fave influencer it girl of the year. you're loved by millions, with so many people looking up to you. you're beautiful and kind and you're living the best life imaginable — on camera, that is. no one knows about your raging insecurities, the way you search for that one negative comment in a sea of thousands of positive ones. you cling to your bubbly, always positive, beautiful inside-and-out persona like a lifeline, and as far as everyone knows, it's 100% authentic. you play the role so well that this former housewife star turned mom-fluencer (who before you was the most influential and beloved influencer) gets a little bit jealous.

the higher you are, the harder you're going to fall. with nearly 9 million followers amassed, a good scandal can ruin your life. she doesn't just want a scandal, though. she wants to destroy you, not just the career you've built up. her son, character, is a tech genius who created the most popular dating app this generation has ever seen. designed to pair you with your "perfect match", the app deserves its name of cupid's arrow. the unique aspect of it? it's a total love is blind concept. the app is designed so that only after a week of consistent communication, only then will users be able to share private details such as numbers or addresses or even photos with each other. a relationship first built on mutual interest and actual conversation!!!!!

anyway, so, she convinces him to have his company reach out to you to do a promotion, offering you a massive check that you can't resist, just to try out the app and make a video on it.

despite your millions of followers, you still feel alone. when offered this sponsorship deal, you take it. not just bc of the money, but because you figure... why not meet your soulmate? maybe it's a sign that true love is only a dm away. you don't know that character is going to be your match. you don't know that he's going to strike up conversation with you and get to know you, and manipulate you into being vulnerable with him. you don't know that the more he talks to you, the more he falls for you, the more he realizes that he can't go through with the original plan, which was to get close enough to you to get dirt on you, and then expose you.

really interested in exploring modern dating here & catfishing but also how we constantly use social media but do we get any real social connections out of it? the idea of falling in love w someone thru a screen isn't anything new, but it's so fun to think about honestly.

[akuma-tenshi]

finished closing night!! boy do i have some thoughts. and now that i've gathered them, i'm about to make my autism your problem. spoilers below.

the first part of the event wasn't awful imo, it felt like character building and just helping establish the dynamic. i know some people weren't fond of it but given that i was never really that invested in hullabaloo before this and didn't know every little detail of these characters, it was nice to get some character establishment and figure out how they all are as people. i am also a fan of slowburn character-focused horror, so that may just be a personal taste thing lmao

bryce papenbrook does a good job as mike, even though there are definitely points where he sounds exactly like nagito (namely the scene where he's shouting at margaretha in the foyer). he has a very particular way of speaking / voicing characters that make it immediately clear it's him. however, i do think he fits mike well and he definitely lays off the nagito-ness in the second part.

the rest of the cast was excellent as well. while there was a Choice made with murro's voice (he sounds WAY younger than he's supposed to be, which is off-putting and takes me out every time he speaks), it's very clear everyone knows their characters well and they all do a good job keeping their mannerisms and vocalisations unique and fitting to each role. aside from some awkward lines (which i attribute more to stilted writing than to the va's themselves), the voice acting is absolutely a highlight.

margaretha's trauma with sergi is portrayed very well imo. bear in mind i have not suffered the same abuse as her, so i can't say how accurate or good it is, but it feels like it displays that it was a terrible thing while also being respectful and avoiding being exploitative. the added layer that everyone else (except joker) liked sergi and was unaware of the abuse adds a lot.

in general, i think mike and margaretha are incredibly well-written here. i think ne could've absolutely gone the route of popular fan interpretations and completely demonised margaretha while making mike a perfect angel, and they would've gotten a lot of praise for it. but they stuck to their guns and made them both very flawed yet understandable people, and that just makes everything feel that much more real, at least to me. they're such different people with opposing goals, and their friction really comes through. everyone else is very well done (shoutout to me a couple of hours ago calling joker cute for some godforsaken reason i can't remember) and i love all of their characterisations, but mike and margie really are the standouts here.

i do wish there was a bigger payoff for margaretha using euphoria so frequently. i know it's implied to have been involved in violetta's death, and i appreciate the connection to game 5, but i wish there was a little bit more there. it's not a huge gripe though, so i won't harp on it for long.

the pacing at the start of the second part had me extremely worried; things felt like they were dragging along and being padded out for the sake of being padded out, and i was not having fun with it. fortunately, this issue was remedied about halfway through, and once things got going, i started really enjoying myself. the pacing of the first half of part two is my biggest gripe with this story.

i was noticing a lot of similarities between hullabaloo and fool's gold: hunter forms of popular survivors being announced and used as a major part of marketing for an update to the idv story. with the aforementioned pacing issues, i was really worried that hullabaloo's reveal would shape up to be similar to fg's: a kinda cool cutscene and a lame chase sequence at the very end of a long, boring storyline. however, despite hullabaloo having a much smaller part in this story than fg did in aom, appearing only briefly in the fire at the very end, i still think it's a better incorporation of the character than what they did with norton. better to have it be quick and intimidating than just kinda tedious.

every death in this (aside from joker's) felt very purposeful and well-done. violetta's death was heartbreaking. the change in animation towards the end, followed by the single sound of her machinery giving out after the screen went black, was beautiful, and hey, at least she died happy. margaretha's death pulled at a very specific and very major love i have in storytelling, that being a character choosing to die free rather than live in captivity, and the payoff of all the underwater scenes where she swims towards sergi finally coming through when she chooses to sink away from him had me losing my mind. i genuinely did not expect mike's death to be a straight-up suicide; like i said, i'm not completely caught up on hullabaloo lore, so maybe other people saw this coming, but the fact that he truly could not live with the truth about hullabaloo is such a heartwrenching yet satisfying end to his character. like i said, joker's is the only death that doesn't totally stand out, but i like that they let you put the pieces together yourself.

the chase sequence with joker was unintimidating and a little lame, and honestly it felt somewhat forced, just a way to get his hunter form in there bc they realised "oh shit right this guy's like. a hunter isn't he." i do like that they gave him back his chainsaw though; very nice little callback to the betas.

the animation of the hullabaloo fire was absolutely gorgeous and the ending had me in shambles. for a while afterwards i felt similar to how i felt after finishing end roll: drained and flat but in a good way, like a ton of adrenaline had just released from my body after some intense event.

all in all, i really enjoyed it. i can't say if i like it more than aom, but that may be the frederick bias coming through, so i'm going to choose not to rank them and just say hey. banger event. well worth the hype even with its hiccups and flaws. i always say this, but idv has some genuinely talented people in its writers' room, and i can't wait to see what they come out with next.

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  @cuips-not-cute! cuips_not_cute has six fics in the Stranger Things fandom on AO3 and all of them are in the Steddie tag!

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @cuips-not-cute:

he could be brave

blood is an aphrodisiac

honeyed affection

blinking red light

cyclical

"cuips is a master of taking the reader on an emotional roller coaster ride. The amount of times I've laughed and cried at the same time reading his fics have been too numerous to count. Especially the depth of the sex scenes and the character beats and growth they portray are gorgeous to read - and also very titillating. I love Steve and Eddie in every one of cuips stories, adore the little mannerisms they are given and the way they interact with each other and other characters. Besides the inspiring prose cuips can pull off a plot like few other people I've found so far - since blinking red light is still ongoing, I'll just point to cyclical for that. I'm very thankful to cuips for writing and posting these stories and for being a very active part of this lovely fandom." -- anonymous

Below the cut, @cuips-not-cute answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

i don’t even know. i was happily in the ofmd fandom when i watched season 4 almost three years ago now (oh god) and then the characters… they got me. i fear they’ll never leave.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

god, so many. they’re all kinda the same flavor though so i’ll list out what i’m always filtering for to find a new fic: bottom/sub eddie, creature/monster eddie, post s4, canon compliant, soft dom steve, sex pollen, spit kink, rimming (perhaps my FAVORITE ever thing to read), switch eddie/switch steve… the list goes on.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

probably also rimming. there’s just something so romantic about eating ass. and i really love to stick with post s4 canon compliant aus, too, i don’t think i’ve written an actual for real au yet, though i do have an idea for one after brl.

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

i don’t know if i can pick!! my ao3 bookmarks host my many all-time faves, but if you wanna go by the fic i’ve reread the most it’s probably the affliction of the feeling. it’s so fucking good.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

YES!!! i have never written omegaverse!!! which is crazy, ‘cause i like it a LOT. i have a post-s4 omegaverse au kicking around in my head currently, and i cannot wait to sink my teeth into all the messy biology and politics that come with the omegaverse.

What is your writing process like?

chaotic, in a word. usually, i’ll get a fic idea while i’m balls-deep in writing another fic so i’ll shove it to the side and let it simmer while i finish that first one, then i’ll spend a good long while planning it out in ridiculous detail, and THEN i’ll start actually drafting. i like to have a fully fleshed out outline and a couple chapters written and edited before i start posting, and once posting begins i tend to deviate quite a bit from my outline but it’s all good fun.

Do you have any writing quirks?

definitely. i don’t like pointing them out for fear of other folks seeing them in everything i do, but they’re there. one that i don’t mind so much is my absolute abuse of the word “little.” everything is “a little” of this, “a little” of that, but i try to cut my usage down significantly while i’m editing.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

i always TRY to keep a schedule but… yeah. it never works. i’m far too busy for one, but attempts are made. i’d like to one day write a fic in full before posting it, because i think it’d be a whole lot better if i let it sit for that long but lord, i sure do like getting ao3 comments on every chapter. they make the writing motivation go WAY up.

Which fic are you most proud of?

brl, definitely. that fucker is LONG and i’m barely halfway through it. i think i’ve done a lot of cool things with it and i’m going to do some more cool things and i’ve made a lot of really awesome friends in the process of writing it so it’s got some pretty insane sentimental value to me. it’s definitely going to be a fic i’ll miss writing once i finish it, but that’s what the epilogue series is for!!!

How did you get the idea for blinking red light?

from another fic!!! @racketghost is the author of one of my favorite things i’ve ever read, which is the good omens zach and miri au, closed set (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23320960/chapters/55862155 <- hyperlinked), wherein crowley has been lying about the existence of some angelic sex tapes to all of hell, and then he and aziraphale have to actually make the tapes. it’s awesome. it’s gorgeous. brl is one big giant love letter to this fic, because it means so fucking much to me and i think about it ALL the time. 

When writing honeyed affection, what was something you didn’t expect?

hmm, i don’t know? ha is, i think, a pretty easygoing fic with lots and lots of porn stuffed inside it, and that was all i intended it to be so i cannot think of anything i was surprised by!!

What inspired blood is an aphrodisiac?

i just wanted to write vampire eddie. it was july ‘22, kas theories were everywhere, i had to try it. these days i think i would change a LOT about it because my ideas and hcs surrounding the characters have evolved significantly, but i’ll write vampire eddie again and “fix” everything i no longer like about biaa.

What was your favorite part to write from he could be brave?

…the fisting. i genuinely think some of my best writing is in that scene, and while i feel the same way about this fic as i do biaa, the fisting scene will always hold a special place in my heart. i’m very, very excited to write the fisting chapter in brl because of this scene. fisting rules.

How do/did you feel writing cyclical?

i wrote cyclical during a very weird few months of my life, so writing it was sort of my way of dealing with all the insane shit going on around me, and i think it shows. in a good way, though, because cyclical is a timeloop fic so it needed to be a little angsty and insane. i’m stupidly proud of that fic. @ryeallytired actually BOUND it into a PHYSICAL BOOK and SENT IT TO ME and when i tell you that is the singular most precious object i own, i mean it.

What was the most difficult part of writing blinking red light?

PLOTTING THAT BITCH. GOD. i’m so happy to be actually WRITING it now, the planning was genuinely so brutal. my issue was that i was sticking too close to the plot of closed set (<3) which just… did not work for steddie. closed set’s premise centers around crowley lying about making sex tapes, yes, but he lied about them to PROTECT aziraphale, which is the messiest, kindest, riskiest fucking thing ever. and it’s awesome. in the early planning stages of brl, i was trying to put eddie in the crowley role of lying about having made sex tapes with steve, but it reallyyy didn’t work. there was an oc and i absolutely hated him, plus i didn’t like what that premise was doing to eddie’s character… ugh. it was a MESS. it took several rubber duck-ing conversations with my brilliant friend @lollaika and a rewatch of zach and miri to finally realize that it had to be STEVE who brings up the idea of sex tapes so that he could protect eddie, rather than eddie bringing it up to save his own hide (yikes).

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

oooh, lots. reallyyyy loved chapter 8 of cyclical with all of the pov shifts, that was super fun to write. i also really enjoyed writing the dry humping/sex tape convo in the first chapter of brl, and i’m stupidly excited to write chapters 12, 13, 15, and 17, because of specific scenes that will happen in each.

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

i do!! after brl is completed i’ll have to choose from two story ideas (because i cannot have two wips at once or i’ll get SO stressed), one being a semi-realistic steddie cowboy au based off my own experiences with growing up on a farm and featuring messy, earnest cowboys and not-fully-human eddie, and the other being the omegaverse au i want to write, which will have a very fun mix of vampire eddie, dubcon bitching, and accidental mating bites!!!

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

i cannot think of anything!! this was super fun :D

Thank you to our author, @cuips-not-cute, and our anonymous nominator! See more of cuips_not_cute's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[rebouks]

Do you have any recommendations for starting a story? Yours is so good and it really inspires me to try and make one of my own but idk where to start

Hmmm a tough question! I think we all just kinda start and learn as we go? It's the best way tbh.. if you look back at the beginning of most simblr stories they've usually come a long way! Here's a couple tips that I think might be handy tho...

Maybe we could start a thread and everyone could reblog this with their own tips?! 🤩

Decide if you want to build your own lots/sets or not. If you do you'll probs wanna start off with the main places you'll use that're full of personality, like a main characters house or place of work etc. you can always download some neat lots and edit them to your liking if you're not a builder, or maybe even download a whole save file!

Start a character page (or make an intro post for em if you can't be arsed with the technicalities) - not essential but useful for you and the readers to keep track of who's who and maybe state a few facts about them etc.

Start collecting some poses and ideally rename them so they're easy to find! I personally like to add smth like [PETS] or [KISSING] etc to mine (in s4s) in conjunction with twistedmexi's pose finder to make things easier to grab.

If you use reshade/gshade, taking the time to find or create a nice preset will save you a bunch of time editing.

For the love of god if you're gonna make a bunch of extras, try and dress them in maxis clothes/hair.. I'm so SICK of having to redress everyone every time I clear out a bunch of cc skjdksj 🙈 you can always give em an extra, fancy cc outfit for specific scenes on the day but yeah, do yourself a solid where possible to save time/pain in the future. Same goes for lots you don't use often, try and limit the cc you use!

Figure out if you're a planner or not! If you can't manage without a plan it's okay to take some time before starting to figure everything out and get a detailed outline going. If you're more of a pantser (like me!) you can always just get going with a rough idea in mind and see what happens!

If you're gonna go with the flow I'd still recommend creating at least a rough outline, you don't have to stick to it like glue but it'll probs help you stay on track and I wish I'd have done this in the beginning, esp if you're gonna have a plot heavy story.

Characters > plot.. (imo!) like.. you could have a super interesting plot in mind but if no one really knows or cares about your characters it's gonna have a limited impact/amount of interest. They don't even have to be likable lmao

Give your characters some flaws! It's fun and it makes them more relatable.

Start with a small cast - not a complete must but it'll be probably be easier for people to get to know your pixels if they're aren't a million of them right off the bat. You can always add more later.

Try not to shoehorn your characters into situations they wouldn't end up in just to further the plot.. a hard one to explain and mostly based on intuition but if a scene feels boring, out of place or forced, it probably is! aka.. be willing to kill your darlings. Maybe you've already established that your character is poor or smth but have this fun idea of a road trip montage or whatever.. like you can't just give them a car and the money to drive a million miles just cos you HAVE to see that scene y'know? Maybe they're gonna have to hitch hike, get the bus, or take out a loan? Probs a bad example but hopefully you get the idea! It can sometimes be more fun to force your characters into a different situation than you imagined anyway, like maybe they meet someone really neat on the bus and they join the trip, or maybe whoever they borrowed money from gets all pissy when they can't pay em back quick enough etc etc.

Let your characters guide you - sometimes characters talk to us! You could've had a whole storyline planned for them, or a romance of whatever, but when it comes down to it, it just doesn't feel right and that's okay! Let them lead you in a different direction now n' then.

Write for you! (ugh becca stfu with this shit) I know, I know but really.. if you're not having fun, what's the point? Don't write what you think other people want and learn to be okay with cutting ideas/scenes/characters/whatever! that you aren't excited about anymore. It should never feel like a chore to create, and if it starts to feel that way, take a break or change it up!

I feel like this is super rambly and I've missed a million obvious things but my brain is mashed potato rn lmao.. pls feel free to add your own tips in a reblog or a comment - everyone has a different take on things! I think it's really important just to start and see what feels natural tho 🤸‍♀️🧡

[amiableness]

Elina’s 4k celebration ; Positivity Picnic <3

First off, thank you so much for 4k! I can't wrap my head around the fact that so many of you decided to follow me, and I can't say thank you enough for being here. Since most, if not all of you, are following me to read fics, I thought it would be fitting to find ways to spread love to other fanfic writers.

Just as fanfics are free, so is your interaction—and it means more than you know. To show your support, choose a few food items to bring to our picnic:

If you participate, let me know here! Or you can tag me in something <3

🍰 - Leave a comment on a fic you’ve enjoyed. I challenge you to comment what you loved specifically about it, it’s nice feedback for writers!

🥗 - Reblog a fic with a quote that you loved and why you loved it or how it made you feel

🍝 - Send an ask (anon or not!) and ask a writer a question about one of their works

🥧 - Make a fic reblog account to reblog all your favorites fics. This keeps all your favorite fics organized and means so much to writers!

🍓- Make a masterlist of all your favorite works. I promise you that it makes an authors day when they’re included on one of these lists!

🍒 - Send an ask to a writer about one of their works. These are my favorite to receive because then you can freak out over something together!

🥖 - Get creative with your reblogs! Add memes and/or tell them how their writing made you feel. Reblogs with allll your thoughts about the work is a writers love language!

🍯- Make a mood board for a fic! I’ve seen people in others fandoms make these for their favorite works, so if this is something you’re into, share it!

🥨 - Art of a scene or character from a fic! Same with mood boards, if you’re into it, it might be fun to share it with an author. I promise you that they’ll love it

Why we need interaction:

I’ve noticed so many fanfic writers feeling discouraged due to a lack of interaction with their works. At the same time, I’ve come across polls and anon asks where readers admit they don’t understand why interaction matters—or even find it annoying when writers ask for it. But here’s the thing: writers have every right to ask for interaction.

We spend hours working on every detail—perfecting lines, mapping out scenes, changing dialogue until it flows just right. It’s a lot of work and while we don’t get paid for it, those reblogs, comments, or asks? In an odd way, it’s almost like getting paid. The interaction is the reward for your hard work. And really, it means so much to know that someone took five minutes out of their day to share their thoughts after you’ve spent hours on a fic.

So, if you think interacting with fanfic is pointless or too much effort, maybe fanfiction isn’t for you.

The fanfic community is so much better with interaction. I’ve seen so many mutals leave over the years because of lack of interaction, so if you enjoy someone’s work, tell them. I know many of you have thought, “My comment or reblog won’t make a difference,” but you couldn’t be more wrong. It makes a huge impact.

Now that my rant is over, if you have any more ideas, let me know and I’ll add them! <3

[alexanderwales]

My web serial, Worth the Candle, has been adapted into a webcomic. This was thanks to my agent, who I have a great fondness for, since without him I would have to spend time trying to make connections and call people and do a bunch of work that I don't know how to do and am not good at.

I was offered the chance to write the webcomic, but declined, mostly because writing Worth the Candle had taken four years and was pretty draining, and was a story that I feel like I'm done with, minus some editorial stuff, answering fan questions, and the odd bit of promotion. So my level of involvement is that I get the pages as they come in, make some comments on them, and generally just give feedback which they are free to ignore.

So let's talk about some of the adaptational changes! You can read the first three issues on Webtoon here, or the first eight issues if you're willing to pay, and the books start here, but I'll assume that you haven't read either, and there won't be substantial spoilers because I'm talking about stuff from the very beginning. Actually, I guess there will be some spoilers, but later on, and I'll mark them, mostly having to do with some foreshadowing that the webcomic does which I didn't do.

(I licensed the rights to make the webcomic to WebToon and took my money upfront, they didn't ask me to write this post, I have not actually asked the artist/writer why they made these changes, it's just me guessing and commenting, for fun. Edit: My agent has informed me that I'm mistaken, I do get a cut. So apologies for the misinformation, and hooray for me, I guess I signed the contract ages ago and just forgot the details.)

Character Design

Here's how Juniper Smith is described in the books, ch 2:

I won’t belabor my physical description. My friend Greg had once said that I looked like someone had chosen ‘default’ for every option in the character creator, which I’d tried to laugh at but cut kind of deep. I wasn’t handsome, I wasn’t ugly, none of my features were very prominent, my eyes were blue, my hair was brown, average build, average height … After Greg had made his comment at one of our D&D games, my nickname had been ‘default’ for a while, at least until I stopped pretending to find it funny, and even after that my friends would use similar lines to trash talk me, saying that I was “the most generic man alive”, “a white bread with skim milk motherfucker”, or “the human equivalent of vanilla ice cream”. Not that I was any less of an asshole to them.

This is how he looks in the comic:

I would more or less give this full marks.

In terms of other aspects of character design, Juniper is here given a black shirt with a red symbol on it rather than the stock white t-shirt he's wearing in the opening chapters of the first book, probably in the interests of adding in some visual variety. On the page, it's perfectly fine that every person in the first 50k words is wearing basically the same stock outfit. In a visual medium, I do think that you need that pop. I do think it's interesting that Juniper is wearing the same clothes in the classroom as he is on the plane, implying that when he transmigrated his clothes ... came with him? I don't know.

The other major character of the first section is Amaryllis, who is a major character in the entire work. Here's her description in the book:

Standing by a workbench, among various car parts, tools, and cans of unidentified fluids, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

I’m not really sure what protocol is here, in terms of prose. I mean, I don’t want to sound like a creep, so maybe I should stay as generic as possible and tell you about her dark red hair pulled back in a braid, the glacial blue of her eyes, how starkly alert she looked as she peered over the parts in front of her, or her grease-smeared clothes. Save for her eyes, I wasn’t really focused on any of that. My mind was consumed by tracing her curves, the shape of her chest in her blood-stained t-shirt, the fullness of her lips and the delicate way she had them parted -- and yeah, it was pretty fucked up that the splatter of blood on her shirt wasn’t worth rating much of a mention. I was consumed with staring at her and thinking how gorgeous she was, until I noticed that she was having a powerful effect on me, at which point different parts of my mind were given over to marveling at the sensation of being so attracted to a girl, and others were still focused on her.

Imagine that someone spent a few years studying your likes and dislikes, running through video of your every private moment, somehow surreptitiously hooking up EKGs to measure your physiological responses without you knowing. Then imagine that they sat down with that data and the best photo manipulation artists in the world and made the absolute perfect picture to cause your heart rate to spike, a jolt to run up your spine, butterflies in your stomach, and a cold sweat on your palms. Then imagine that they did this again, over and over in slight variations, until they had a full 4K 60fps 3D movie to show you. That was what it was like watching her.

And here she is (as she's introduced) in the comic:

Aside from the change in clothes, which in the book are the same white t-shirt and blue jeans that everyone else is wearing, Amaryllis has a scar on her face, of unknown provenance. This was probably added for visual variety, but I do find scars to be very fetching, and in one of the early versions of Worth the Candle she did have one (patterned off a woman with an extremely attractive facial scar I had met, the kind of facial scar that looked like it was applied by a Hollywood makeup artist specifically to give a touch of the exotic and mysterious, except she was a just a Midwestern mom).

And of course Amaryllis was always going to be an adaptational challenge, because the books are told through Juniper's eyes, and she's The Most Beautiful Girl in the World to him, and conventionally attractive to everyone else. Juniper tries to be normal about this. But if you're in the visual medium, you have to show both how Juniper feels and how she actually looks, and attractiveness is just so incredibly personal. My wife and I get in these kinds of discussions a lot, where she'll think someone is good-looking and I'll say "him?" or vice versa.

I think the above panel in particular is a good middle ground, a glamour shot that snaps back to the reality of their first meeting:

(The void gun she's holding there is much different from the one described in the book, not something cobbled together from spare parts and void equipment, but this is another very minor change that I would assume is meant for communicating immediately that this is a lethal weapon, and there's probably not a place for explaining how and from what it was cobbled together, which is also under-explained in the book for reasons of pacing.)

Story

I've read the first nine episodes, and overall, it's hewing very closely. There are a few bits in particular that stand out to me in how they're handled.

Spoilers for later in the series follow, I guess.

These are the opening lines of the webcomic. This is much stronger foreshadowing than I used, and I like it. Part of Juniper's backstory is that he's been deeply depressed and self-destructive, and he's slow to open up about this with other characters or the reader. The "it" that he couldn't go through with is, then, suicide. In the books? This comes very very late. Juniper being depressed after Arthur's death is brought up after the first major arc, halfway through what's now Book 1, and gets more explicit as the books go on, eventually getting to Juniper talking about his attempted suicide with people and grappling with it like ... almost halfway through?

I don't know what the plans for the webcomic are, but my guess is that they're setting up for much, much later on in a way that I didn't. This was always a background element, something that informed Juniper's character, not so much the suicide attempt as the feeling that came after, this understanding that yes, he did want to live, a heady, energizing kind of "I guess I don't have the way out that I thought I did" sort of thing.

So I take it as a good sign that this is the opening line. It points toward them understanding where they're going.

One of the other major adaptational changes is that they signpost Arthur's death with a memorial on his desk:

When I was getting pages, this was one of the first moments where I was like "yes, this is a good change, visual storytelling to replace my walls of text, flows and offers indirect information". I am very happy with the adaptation thus far, and stuff like this is what I love about adaptation in general, the need to grapple with the strengths and weaknesses of the medium.

Content Rating

Worth the Candle gets grim and dark in places. It at least attempts to grapple with serious things. The webcomic is rated Young Adult, and I'm not sure how they're going to handle the later stuff, but I can talk about how they're handling the stuff now, and what I think it means overall.

First, there's a lot less swearing. Worth the Candle in its entirety uses the word "fuck" ~1200 times. Granted, this is over the course of 1.6 million words, so a fuck density of one every 1.3k words, and some of those are in the verb "soulfuck" rather used descriptively, as exclamations, etc. My personal feeling is that this doesn't matter basically at all. I don't think I notice when someone isn't swearing unless they're using corny substitutions or trying to get cute with it.

Second, the violence is toned down in that YA way, where they're still showing much of the same things, just not with the same level of visceral detail. When a Marvel comic has someone thrown into a wall, they're no blood or snapping of bones or mangling of bodies, at least if it's a comic at a certain rating (I have definitely read some edgy 90s comics that do go hard on the violence). I think, overall, that this isn't my preference, which might be obvious from the way that I try to write fight scenes and such. But I'm also sort of inured to this toning down of violence, since it's omnipresent.

Third, there's the sex stuff, and ... well, it hasn't come up in the webcomic yet. I think I laid out my reasoning for why I think sex scenes should be written/included in Why to Write a Sex Scene, but the brief version is that sometimes you're showing how characters relate to each other, what they think of each other, and the sex scene shouldn't always just be something that's skipped over and left to the reader's imagination, because things happen, there are moments of communication, it can and does develop a relationship in the moment rather than after the fact. Plus a little titillation is, in my opinion, usually good.

The great thing about writing webfic is that no one can stop you from just including three solid chapters of hardcore pornography in the middle of your story. I have never done that, but I could is the point, and I would only get complaints from people who have no power over me. That same freedom doesn't exist here, and ... yeah, it makes my heart sink a little bit.

Fourth, there's some of the more mature content stuff, the topics that might not be broached. I don't know how they're handling that, so I reserve judgment, but I think my opinion is probably going to be "well, you do what you have to do", and if my version of the story is superior because there are no brakes, then I can be smugly superior about that.

Conclusion

This is already a fairly long post, and there are a few other things that I could have remarked on, but I think this is all the most interesting stuff.

Alright, just one real quick: Arthur is adaptationally more attractive, though this is also how Juniper sees Arthur and I think by the standards of webcomics, this is actually sort of necessary. Most of the flashback cast is not described until much later on, and by then you kind of know and understand them from the things they've said, if you can keep track of them. Many of the flashbacks are nearly disembodied. But if you're showing Arthur early, then the first impression he's going to make is in his appearance, and that really anchors people.

So overall, I am happy with the adaptation. There are challenges ahead, and I'm thankful that I'm not the one who needs to tackle those challenges.

[lexosaurus]

From Goth to Ghost

Here is my second fic for @ecto-implosion! I was so excited to get @blonchie's art for this round. It is sooooo fun and silly and ah it made for such a great writing experience! Please do yourself a favor and CHECK IT OUT!

Thank you to @lexiepiper and @fridurwrites for betaing!

Characters: Sam, Danny, Tucker Tags/warnings: No Warnings, Halfa!Sam (temporarily) Summary: The last thing Sam expected to wake up to was her body frozen on her bed. But unfortunately, thanks to a certain jock's midnight ponderings and the interference of one wish-granting ghost, that was exactly how she started off her morning.

[read on ao3]

[part 2]

****

In a land far, far away, a figure sat on his bed staring wistfully out his window. The moon gazed back at him, bright and round as it was. A shining beacon of hope for all teen boys around the globe. A message that no matter what trials lay ahead, they could face anything.

This boy in particular didn't just hear that message, but he internalized it deep inside his very soul. He pondered it, he tossed and turned it in his head, folding it gently like a baker mixing fluffy, delicate cake batter. He tasted it, added a pinch of salt, some sugar, a little more flour, mixing—but not over-mixing—until the batter was just right.

It was a powerful feeling, these sorts of deep, poetic thoughts. When most of his day was spent replaying football plays in his brain, or thinking of nicknames for a certain, dweeby classmate of his, having moments where he could just be one with his deepest thoughts was almost meditative.

Not that he meditated, of course. Meditating was for hippies and girls, and he was neither of these things.

For he was strong, he was powerful, and he was truly the master of his own brain. This was why, as he pondered the essence of the Universe and all its inhabitants, he was so lost in thought that he nearly missed the shooting star jetting across the sky.

But, of course, he didn't miss that shooting star—which could have been an airplane, actually—because he could never miss such fine, delectable details about life such as that.

Well, it didn't really matter if that shooting star was moving far too slowly to be a shooting star after all. Perhaps it was a satellite?

This was a topic that a certain nerd would know. Not that this boy cared at all about that dweeb.

Most important, was addressing the reason for all his pondering in the first place. Which was the fact that the local ghost boy was, confusingly, very attractive.

Which made no sense. Phantom was dead. And also a boy. And this intelligent, strong, charismatic soul pondering out his window was a boy, too, and also very much alive.

Was it gay if he was dead?

Either way, it didn't make any sense for him to be attracted to that ghost. Even if they were both very amazing, handsome guys, and even if maybe it would be very cool to date a hero.

Well, as this charismatic and kind young teen stared out his window at the passing definitely-not-a-satellite shooting star and the full moon beside it, an idea suddenly popped into his head.

It was a great idea, really, following the storybooks.

And so, Dash opened his mouth and wished upon a shooting star, "I wish Phantom was a chick."

****

"So you have wished it, so it shall be."

****

Something was off.

That was the first thing Sam knew, even before she was fully conscious. She lay there in her half-asleep daze, trying to fight the looming dread of her morning alarm, and the only thing that her brain could think of was the ever-encroaching feeling in her chest and mind that something, somewhere, was off.

But her alarm hadn't gone off yet, so really, what was there to worry about? It was probably just the vestiges of her mother's voice from last night needling her brain. Sam couldn't even remember now what they'd been arguing about—probably about her wardrobe, again—but either way, it wasn't important.

So, she fell back asleep.

...

And shot up in her bed.

Wait, why did it feel like she was breathing ice?

That wasn't right.

She placed a hand on her chest, and something pushed back.

She froze. Her blood ran cold.

Literally.

She froze herself to her bed.

Sam stared down at her frost-covered legs, her blanket doing little more to keep her warm than acting as a decorative set piece. Her jaw unhinged in a manner that would have had her mom screaming at her to mind your manners, young lady—but her screams were silent, and each breath sent shards of microscopic ice from her lips.

Her room's temperature plummeted, surely, but Sam could hardly feel it. In fact, it felt better to her now that the air was cold.

And then, her brain caught up, too quickly, and began moving light-years beyond her body. Because holy shit, she'd seen this before, she'd heard of this before, from one person, from Danny.

This she felt in her chest was a core. A ghost core. And this frost was ghost powers, and her ice was ecto-ice, and everything about her screamed Danny's ghost powers.

She must have been dreaming. That was right, she was definitely dreaming. There was no way she was a ghost. She hadn't died! She'd gone to sleep last night healthy and happy—okay, she'd gotten in a fight with her mom. But still! Her mom was a total Karen, but she wouldn't have killed Sam in her sleep. She was crazy, but not that kind of crazy.

Before her brain could spiral too far, the cursed sound of her alarm snapped her back to reality. Except, her hands had frozen to her pajamas.

And she had no idea how to turn her powers off.

Great. So, not only was she dead, but she was also cursed to be the most obnoxiously annoying haunted-mansion ghost that Amity Park's ever known.

Perfect. It was just what every goth always dreamed.

How did Danny turn this thing off? His powers tended to flare when he was agitated, which meant she just had to calm down.

Okay.

Yeah.

She could totally calm down.

She sat there, head spinning, the alarm still blaring, and half expecting her mother to storm the gate that was her bedroom door and demand Sam get out of bed right this instant, but no, that wasn't helping.

So she closed her eyes and breathed.

Just breathed.

She thought of a warm day. Even if the goth inside her wanted shadows, she thought of the sun. A human sun, on a warm day, with a full-blue sky that turned into a warm, summer night. Peaceful, surrounded by nature, roasting vegetarian hot dogs around the campfire with her two geeky homebody friends who'd finally put down their technology to join her in this moment.

Her fingers wiggled, and it took Sam a moment to realize that the ecto-frost was gone. When she opened her eyes, her clothing and bedding were dry like the frost had never been there to begin with.

But before she could wonder if she'd gone crazy, she felt another pulse from that alien chill in her chest, and reality hit her like a truck all over again.

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

She shut off her alarm.

The world was finally, finally silent.

And Sam was afraid to move. Afraid that one wrong twitch would set off her new ghost powers again. Afraid that next time, her mother really was going to barrel through her door and gasp and faint because, "Oh, Sammykins! What happened to you?"

She looked at her hands, but human skin stared back at her.

Human skin. Not glowing, green-tinged ghost skin. Human skin.

She peeled back her comforter, but her legs didn't glow either. They were dressed in the same black and purple fleece pants she always wore to sleep. Not a ghost outfit, a human one.

What. The. Hell.

Without thinking, she grabbed her phone from her nightstand and swiped to the one name on her contact list she knew could help.

Or, she hoped.

The phone rang in her ear. One ring, two, then three. Sam's heart thudded in her ears. Wait, heart? Since when did she have a heart?

This idiot had better be awake.

Four rings, then five.

If she had a heart, then maybe she wasn't dead. Danny had a functioning heart, didn't he? Sam couldn't remember. His biology was so strange and inconsistent. Maybe he did, which meant that maybe Sam wasn't dead dead; maybe she was just a halfa!

But how?

On the sixth ring, he picked up. His voice was thick, full of unshed sleep as he mumbled in a scratchy, drawn-out voice, "Sam? Wha...?"

"Danny!" Sam could taste the relief on her lips. "Danny, I need your help. I don't—something—"

"Whoa." Danny's voice on the other end was low, and oddly alert.

But whatever issue he was having could hold off. "I don't know how to explain this! I just. You need to. Ugh, I don't know what's happening!"

"Wait," he said, almost distracted, as if he weren't actually talking to Sam.

No, her problems came first right now. "Danny, please!"

"Wait, wait, wait. Hang on, Sam, something—"

"I have a ghost core!"

"My core is missing!"

Silence echoed off the walls of the cell line between them. Sam's body was a cacophony of both wanting to breathe hard because that was what her body was used to, and also scoffing at the idea of breathing to calm down because breathing was pointless and she was a ghost, damnit! She could do better than that! Even though she wasn't a ghost. She was alive, she reminded herself. 

Even if absolutely none of this should be possible.

It was Danny who broke the silence first. "Wait, what?"

Sam needed no further prompting to let the words spill from her mouth. "I have a ghost core now! I just woke up like this and I have no idea how it happened!"

To Sam's surprise, Danny began to laugh.

Genuinely laugh.

"What the hell, Danny?" Sam hissed. Around her, the lights flickered.

"No, sorry, it's just that I'm glad that this mystery is already halfway solved. If you were anyone else, I don't know what I would have done."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm saying my core is gone, Sam! Not off, but like, gone. It's not in my chest anymore. I'm human. But you have a ghost core. So somehow it seems like my core moved into your body."

Sam jerked back in bed, leaning against her disheveled cushions and scoffing. "That's ridiculous."

Danny didn't miss a beat. "Yeah, but my entire life is ridiculous. That's kind of part of the deal."

"Okay, fair. But still, what the hell am I going to do? I don't know how to use this core! I'm going to get discovered by first period!"

"Sam." Danny laughed. "Be real. I've transformed in the middle of the street and no one's ever caught me."

Well, he did have a point.

"Seriously, you'll be fine. And besides, even if you do accidentally turn invisible in front of someone, everyone in this town knows that when people get ecto-contamination, they sometimes show weird ghostly side effects. It wouldn't be too hard to say, oh I don't know, you accidentally dropped a beaker of one of my parents' inventions on you and you're just having some side effects while it wears off!"

If Sam wasn't trying to reassure herself that everything would be okay, she might have been impressed at how easily Danny thought of that simple lie. Impressed, and also maybe a little concerned.

"You'll be fine! Just hang tight ‘til we can figure out what's going on, anyway."

"Sure," she said. She breathed, releasing the knot in her stomach as she did. "Okay, okay, I'm good now."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Okay, see you in a bit."

She clicked off before he could respond, and her phone slipped through intangible fingers, bouncing against her mattress and settling next to her leg. 

She had ghost powers.

Not just any ghost powers, but Danny's ghost powers.

Somehow.

Inexplicably.

Neither of them had a single clue why, but somehow, they'd managed to swap human-halfa statuses.

So, Sam had Danny's ghost powers. His Phantom powers. The powers he, an overpowered halfa, used to fight other ghosts. And now, Sam had them in the palm of her hand.

Literally.

And she had to act normal. 

Right. Yes. Yup, that was fine. This was all totally fine.

"Sammykins!" the nails-on-chalkboard sound of her mother's shrill voice called from the bannister. "Get up! You're going to be late for school!"

Sam could feel the ectoblast tingling at her fingertips. 

But no, this wasn't a dangerous creature. Okay, her mother was absolutely a dangerous creature, especially when given the power of the PTA on her side.

Sam shuddered. The PTA was everyone in town's worst nightmare.

But still, this was her mother, a human. A very annoying, preppy woman. Not a dangerous ghost. So, she squashed the tingling of the ectoplasm and jumped from her bed. "I know!"

Showering was odd. More than odd, actually, it was downright outrageous. 

The hot water licked her skin like fire. It was muggy, and the humidity, once relaxing, suffocated her. Her internal body temperature rose with each passing second, and where she used to cry a defensive, "Goths don't sweat, we simmer!" to those who would poke fun at her not-so-summer attire, now, that simmering felt more like actual boiling.

Her hand shot out and yanked the lever to the cold setting. Almost immediately, the water went from trying to slow-roast her alive, to gently kissing her skin.

She sighed, both relief and horror filling her at once.

Relief because wow, this cold shower was seriously amazing. 

And horror because to her recollection, the only people on Earth who enjoyed icy cold showers were male social media influencers who posted about waking up at five in the morning for the daily rise and grind.

If ghost powers turned her into a rise and grinder, Sam was going to kill herself.

Miraculously, she managed to get through the morning without her mother noticing anything. Well, probably because Sam and her mother rarely if ever interacted face-to-face in the morning. If they did, all Pam could manage was a comment about how Sam's outfit wasn't ladylike, while Sam could only respond with a scowl in her mother's direction. So, for both of their sanities, they found it best to interact as little as possible before they had their morning coffees.

Intangibility only caused her to drop her spider backpack once before she was able to sling the straps over her shoulders. It really was such a pesky thing, and she almost regretted all the times when she'd made fun of Danny's sudden clumsiness post-accident.

Almost.

But not quite.

Because what were best friends for if not to make fun of each other?

"Bye, Mom!" she yelled to the empty air and then stepped through the threshold of the door.

Or, tried.

She hadn't meant to literally step through the threshold. As in, begin sinking through the floor.

Heart pounding, she swung her hands out and caught the side of the doorframe. Using a mix of adrenaline and physical training, she pulled her body back up. Her legs returned to the world of tangibility, and she sat on the floor, breathing rapidly. 

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. 

What the hell was that?

She'd just stepped through the floor. She'd just stepped through the floor.

"Sam!" yelled out a voice from the street.

She'd never been so thankful to see the obnoxious yellow of Tucker's sweater before.

She opened her mouth, but the words caught in her throat, and her vision began swimming. Had Danny told him? Or was Tucker blissfully unaware? How was Sam going to explain all this?

Thankfully, Sam was saved.

"Need some help?" Tucker asked. "Danny texted!"

Normally, she would have felt insulted that anyone dare ask if she needed help up. But this time? Screw it.

"Yeah, actually."

"Are you leaving?" Sam's mother called from the bathroom upstairs where Sam knew she was layering her face under a mountain of anti-ageing products. 

"Yup! Going now!" Sam answered. "Tucker's here!"

"Tell him not to walk on the lawn! I just got it trimmed!"

Sam rolled her eyes, turning back to the sound of Tucker’s footsteps traversing up their flawlessly power-washed walkway. 

"Here." He held out his arm. "Don't worry, no one's looking."

Once convinced she wasn't going to start sinking to the other side of the planet again, Sam gingerly stood and tested her feet against the floor.

Her brain was happy to report that the floor was, in fact, solid.

Thank goodness.

She made quick work of shutting the door behind her, darting off her property, and, most importantly, getting away from her mother's prying eyes.

Once they were safely on the other side of the tall, privacy hedges, she whipped around to face Tucker and said, "I don't know what the hell Danny told you, but I'm kind of freaking out right now."

"So is he," Tucker said. "He said he'd meet us at school, by the way. He's poking around in his basement for any leads and then is gonna get a ride from Jazz. But I'll be honest, I thought y'all were pulling my leg ‘til I saw you going through the floor."

"Yeah, this is legit." Sam stuck her palm out and let the cold crystals surface on her skin, gathering them until they formed a sheet of ice on her palm. She saw Tucker's eyes widen and heard a sharp inhale with her newly acquired acute hearing, but otherwise, he didn't say anything until she tipped her palm over and let the ice fracture on the ground.

"What the hell?" Tucker breathed.

"Right?" Sam groaned. "I don't know what I'm going to do! I only barely have a lid on these powers right now."

"You'll be fine. Danny was, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, but Danny's core was a lot weaker back then. I've got it at full power right now, and I have zero idea where the brakes are in this thing."

Tucker didn't seem fazed, his stride overly bouncy and dare Sam say joyful for the situation at hand. "Yeah, but you're way more athletic and into the whole occult thing than Danny is anyway. You're a goth! I'm sure you'll figure it out. And if it makes you feel better, Danny's transformed in broad daylight loads of times and nobody's noticed."

"Yeah, he mentioned that over the phone too."

"Right? You'll be fine."

"Thanks, Tuck," Sam said, then faltered, her body flickering out of visibility for a split second before she rounded on Tucker, mouth gaping. "Wait, were you, Tucker Foley, trying to make me feel better? Me, the ultra recyclo vegetarian? Doesn't that go against your meat code of ethics or something?"

"Yeah, I know, right? What has the world come to where I'm out here consoling you? Tragic times and all."

Sam slugged his arm playfully.

"Don't tell Danny or he'll never let me live it down," Tucker added.

Sam snorted, adjusting her purple spider backpack straps and bounding forward. They walked in a comfortable silence for half a minute before Tucker broke her tranquility to talk about some game he was playing (badly, Sam mentally thought). He narrated his great epic about how much he'd grinded until he found some hack—a hack that Sam knew he didn't actually find but probably read about on Reddit—and at that point Sam was forced to interject because if Tucker had just played the game's tutorial properly or not skipped over all the cutscenes, he would have known a far easier way to level up than grinding those low-level monsters he'd been fighting and—ugh, Tucker could be so infuriating sometimes.

"See, I know you're mad at me right now because your eyes are literally glowing."

"I'm not mad at you!" Sam argued, pinching the bridge of her nose like she'd seen Danny do dozens of times to calm his eyes down. It didn't feel like it was doing much for her, though. "I just can't believe you're seriously so inept that you're resorting to digging for hacks on Reddit instead of just playing the game properly! See, this is why you suck at gaming. I don't play video games nearly as much as you but I always kick your ass because I try."

"And I don't?" Tucker said, affronted.

"No! You just look for cheats!"

"Because I'm working smarter, not harder!"

"And that's why you never get any better!" 

They rounded the corner, and the school campus began peeking into view. 

"Oh shit, hang on. I need to make my eyes stop glowing." Sam turned around to face the window of a closed store. Her reflection was faint, but even then she could see her eyes glowing fiercely. "Shit. How do I turn this off?"

"Don't be such a hothead."

Sam stamped her foot. "I'm not a hothead!"

"Oh damn, what am I walking into?" said a voice that had never filled Sam with so much relief as it did now.

A hand touched her shoulder, and Sam peered through her bangs to see the bright blue eyes of Danny Fenton. She took a deep breath from her gut just like she'd always practiced in her weekly yoga classes and felt the power recede into her body. 

"Hey, Danny," she said sheepishly.

"You looked like you were about to punch Tucker through the window."

"I did want to punch Tucker through the window."

"What did that poor window ever do to you?" Tucker quipped.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Yeah, it's the window I was arguing with. You were just the projectile, for sure."

"Seems like you got pretty good control over these powers, though," Danny said, eyeing her up and down.

Sam imagined he was expecting to find her in his typical state: covered in some amount of blood, ectoplasm, and dirt. Fortunately, she'd managed to make it to school unscathed.

"Oh no, you totally missed the part where she literally ate shit going through her door," Tucker cackled, wiping an invisible tear from his eye. "It was amazing. You should have been there. I've never seen our girl look so uncoordinated in her life."

Sam didn't even try to suppress the glow from her eyes as she rounded back on their very annoying friend and glared. "Another word and I will throw you through this window!"

"Yeah, yeah, sure you will!"

Danny stuck his hand out and flicked Tucker's cheek. "So, we going to class or what? Bell's about to ring and if I get one more tardy this week, Lancer said I'll owe him a Saturday detention."

Sam steeled herself, looking across the street at her biggest adversary this year: the school. "Fine, let's go." 

****

Somehow, Sam prevailed through homeroom without falling through her chair. Although, her new ghost core had certainly threatened to send her ass not just through her chair, but into the goddamn floor multiple times.

She had also managed to weather their English written check-in on the assigned book they were reading. Or, the book that some of them had been reading. Sam, of course, was one of the people who had legitimately read it. Persepolis was an easy read, after all, with it being a graphic novel and all. And besides, Sam could never call herself a feminist if she neglected to read the stories of women from other parts of the world.

On the other hand, Sam was pretty sure that both Danny and Tucker had thoroughly failed the open response question, even with her giving a verbal synopsis of the book before class had started. 

"Wait, who's Ebi?" Tucker had asked.

Sam wanted to throttle him. "He's Marji's father!"

"Who's Marji?" Danny asked.

"The main character, Danny. "

Yeah, they'd definitely failed the check-in.

But since the class had finished early, they had the rest of the period to chat. Or, in Sam's case, sit there trying to stay visible and in her chair.

"You have too much energy," Danny explained, looking thoroughly too unconcerned for their current predicament as he doodled spirals in the margins of his notebook. "You just need to burn it off."

"How the hell am I supposed to do that?" Sam asked. "We're in fucking school!"

"You can do it after school."

"Wow, gee, you're so helpful. I'm so glad you told me this at the beginning of the school day instead of, you know, texting me or something before school!"

"I forgot," Danny said, waving his hand as if to shoo her away.

"You're useless is what you are."

And he truly was. For as long as Danny had ghost powers, Sam realized that he didn't actually understand them to a shocking degree. Well, he was a boy after all, and boys could be a bit dense. Then again, there was a bit dense and then there was Danny, who seemed like such an airhead at times, that Sam was concerned that all those ghost fights had knocked all his brains from his skull.

"You'll figure it out," is what Danny said.

Sam did not win the fight to resist throwing her pencil at him.

Mr. Lancer, who seemed to have a knack for turning his head to see the exact moment when a student was breaking a rule, tilted his head in an expression that plainly read: are you fucking serious?

"Sorry!" Sam called. "Danny was being annoying!"

"When isn't Fentwerp being annoying?" Dash snickered.

Danny glared at Dash. "I'll stop being annoying if you take this pencil and shove it up your—"

"Boys!" Lancer's voice boomed through the classroom. "It's too early for this. Stop."

Dash grumbled something under his breath but otherwise turned back to his conversation with Kwan.

"And Ms. Manson," Lancer added, his expression rotating to its previous exasperation, "please don't throw pencils in my classroom."

"Fine, sorry," Sam said without conviction.

Apparently, though, that was enough for Mr. Lancer, who seemed content to return his attention down to the stack of papers and the red pen in his fingers.

"You are annoying me, you know," Sam told Danny. "Seriously, you haven't given me one bit of useful advice this entire day."

"Yeah, well, I don't know. I'm not a god, you know." Then he paused his doodling, chuckling to himself. "I'm not Clockwork."

"Clockwork, oh gracious god of time!" Tucker raised his hands up to the ceiling. "If you can hear us, please do grace us with your presence so Miss Sammykins can not eat shit on the floor! Even if from a purely objective standpoint that would be incredibly funny!"

"No it would not be!" Sam hissed.

Danny glanced up. "He's not gonna come for this, you know. He wouldn't even show up when Vlad had kidnapped me in his basement that one time."

Sam and Tucker rounded on him, simultaneously crying, "He did what?"

Once again, Danny looked far too unconcerned. "Oh yeah, he was trying to get my mid-morph DNA. Did I not tell you about that? The loser was using it for his stupid clone project. Seriously, he's such a creep."

"Oh, so that's how Danielle got stabilized? Vlad stole your mid-morph DNA after he kidnapped you?" Tucker asked.

"Yup."

Sam realized her mouth was gaping like a fish, and she forced her jaw back together. "Your life is so fucked up, you know that?"

Danny just continued doodling in his notebook. "Yeah, well, now you have my core so...good luck!"

If luck was what she needed, then she was about to cast every Wiccan spell she knew to get it. 

Fortunately, she managed to stay mostly intact through the rest of the period. Though, her legs did flicker in and out of visibility a few times. They were under her desk, so no one could see. But for good measure, she stole Tucker's jacket to cover her lap like a blanket, much to his protest.

A blunt "you'll live" was just about all the sympathy that he'd gotten from Sam.

As the day droned on, Sam began to get used to the core in her chest. It was a constant cold presence that seemed to send chill gusts anytime it was looking to cause mayhem in the form of intangibility or invisibility. And once she recognized the feeling of that cool energy balling up, she began learning how to brace herself for when it striked.

Of course, she wasn't successful in stopping all the cool gusts of energy. She was a novice, after all. But she was very proud of herself that she'd managed to begin teaching herself the first steps.

And also, very annoyed because that meant Danny's nails-on-chalkboard advice of "you'll figure it out" actually had some merit to it.

Not that she'd ever admit that to him. He and his advice could eat rocks for all she cared.

Point was, she had actually begun to get a grasp on whatever the hell was going on with her body. In the half hour before the lunch bell, she'd even started to hone her new abilities enough to make tiny ecto-ice crystals in the palm of her hand under her desk. She was at least partially certain that she could make these crystals on a bigger scale given the opportunity, but for some reason, she didn't think her teachers or the school administration would appreciate a seemingly-human student erecting giant crystals of unmeltable ice in the middle of their classrooms.

Though, their reactions would be very funny.

When the lunch bell rang, Sam was—for the first time—the first person out of the room, darting through the halls as if she'd personally been victimized by that biology class. Which, given the amount of worksheets that teacher loved to hand out, wasn't actually too far off from the truth.

Regardless, Sam was already halfway down the hall before she remembered to sling her spider backpack over both shoulders. She was the first to claim refuge in the trio's normally near-empty table, and given her boys seemed to be really taking their time today, to refrain from squirming in her seat like a toddler, she hid one hand in her lap and willed an ice crystal to her fist. This time, she was testing to see if she could make a simple shape with it. A flat disc, she decided. 

The crystal that formed wasn't exactly the smooth, flat disc she'd been envisioning. It was a bit rough, and it wasn't that thin either. But it wasn't like the round, perl-like ecto-ice that she'd willed to existence on a previous attempt. This one was different, and different meant that she was improving.

"You surviving?" a voice called over her shoulder.

She startled, getting so consumed by the ecto-ice, that she forgot that she'd been waiting for her friends to arrive. 

"Barely, but I'm doing it," she responded to Tucker, who'd practically fallen into his normal lunch seat.

"Well, that makes one of us. I thought Mr. Falluca was actually trying to murder us with the amount of homework he assigned."

"Tuck, he gave time in class to do it."

"And I clearly didn't work on it during class. That's what I have you for!" He leaned forward and pressed his fingers into a prayer. "I have you here to lend me your answers!"

Sam frowned. "And what are you offering in return?"

"A free hug?"

"Yeah, I don't think so"

"I know, I was just messing with you." Tucker grinned. "How about the bio homework?"

Sam tapped her chin, pretending to think about it. "Well, well, well, Mr. Foley. You've got yourself a deal." She stuck her hand out, and Tucker was quick to grasp her palm and shake her one hand with his two in an exaggerated motion. 

"Thanks, Sam! You're the best."

"Well," Sam said, taking her hand back. "Don't thank me yet. You still have to do the bio homework. Knowing that class, that could be a whole thing."

"It's fine. Bio homework is usually fast for me."

"We're talking about Bio?" Danny asked, placing his lunch tray down and taking his seat across the table.

Sam looked over, brightening. "Oh hey, Danny! Yeah, we are. Unfortunately."

Danny suddenly looked like he wanted to throw up. "Ugh, hate that class."

"Don't we all?" Tucker lamented

"I don't even know what we're learning right now," Danny said

"I don't think anyone knows," Tucker said.

"And you're doing my homework for me?" Sam asked as Tucker shoveled a bite of food into his mouth.

He chewed for a moment as if to be polite, and then decided to abandon that idea and talk with a full mouth instead. "Don't worry, I'll figure it out. I always do!"

"Gross," Sam scoffed. "I don't need to see your gory, spit-covered meat disaster."

"The school's gory, spit-covered meat disaster, actually." Tucker gestured to his lunch tray. 

"That doesn't make it any better."

"Guys," Danny interrupted, his face contorting into that exasperated expression it always did when she and Tucker started fighting about food. "Seriously? If you two get into this, Sam's eyes are gonna turn green again."

Sam squeezed the edges of the ecto-ice in her palms, anticipation clawing at her skin. "Actually, I've made some progress with it."

Danny perked up. "With figuring out how to switch things back to normal?"

"No. Better! I've starting figuring out how these powers work." Sam presented her palm to the two boys, the misshapen ice-disc proudly on display.

It took Sam a moment too late to realize that she probably looked like a toddler presenting their scribbled drawing to their parents that could be either a human or a cat depending on which angle the parent was looking at the scribbles from.

And she could see in their faces that this was exactly how Tucker and Danny were taking it. From Danny, a police nod at her lump of ice, and from Tucker, a squint through his glasses and a look that said, "huh?"

"The ice," Sam explained. "I've started to figure out how to shape and size it."

"Oh, that makes a lot more sense," Danny said, clearly relieved.

"Yeah, I thought all that ectoenergy managed to loosen a few screws, if you know what I'm saying." Tucker circled his pointer finger around the size of his head in the universal crazy gesture. "But, uh, congrats?"

"That awesome, Sam! Jeez, you're picking this up fast. It took me weeks before I figured out how to not turn the entire room into a blizzard whenever I turned the powers on."

"If it makes you feel better, I'm just copying you." Sam shrugged, placing the ice on the table. She stabbed her lettuce with her fork and held it in the air for a moment, amusement seeping into her at Danny who scooped the ice up like a dog being given a new squeaky toy for its birthday. 

He turned it around in his fingers, inspecting every scratch in the ice. "Hey, this is actually pretty good. It takes a while to get the hang of it. You really have to be specific on how you picture the item. Well, at first anyway. Over time, it gets a lot easier. But when I was first starting out, I had to clear my brain out before I made anything."

"Clearing your brain out? That shouldn't be too hard for you. There's nothing there to begin with."

Danny shot Tucker a glare. "Very funny."

"Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all night."

Sam ignored him. "I just need to practice." She shivered, and intangibility threatened to send her crashing to the ground. It took all her might to stave it off. "And, I need to burn this energy off. Hey, can you show me how right after school? Since we have no idea how long we'll be switched like this and all."

"Yeah, sure," Danny said.

Sam straightened, and began eating her salad with newfound vigor. She was going to burn the energy off regardless, but having someone there to coach her and help her control it would be immensely helpful.

All she had to do was make it through the rest of her school day.

****

part 2 >

[ultravioart]

How could they pull from Scottish punks and end up at that final result? Not even a pseudo kilt silhouette like how Kiriko has a pseudo Miko Shrine Maiden garments silhouette? Hazard should have had pushed shapes (sell the turtle aspect more, add more spikes) and more body mods (funky prosthesis or punk body mods, the lizard/snake man punks are free inspo).

For a punk 'freak' hero that uses bright graffiti, his design is much too plain and 'safe' imo, not colorful enough. I much prefer that cartoon icon we saw in Venture's trial because he does look really punk with a metal jaw and green hair, possibly cool yellow shades too?

When I first saw Hazard's official design I honestly thought it was a Rein skin. I just hope future skins for Hazard are more punky. JunkerQueen and Zarya both have rather punk-y skins, and Lucio has a concept art based skin, so I am hoping for something more "out there" and fun for Hazard.

Punk is not, and has not, ever been 'conventionally attractive and palatable' and with Hazard's backstory, him being intentionally 'outlandish' would have only reinforced his outlook and story.

Like, people don't love Rein because he's eye candy, they like the hero fantasy of a big knight, being a shield, that he fights for others bravely. People don't love Doomfist because he's eye candy, they love him because his mechanics are hard to perfect but rewarding to land, and his sophisticated antagonist plotline is super engaging, and the hero fantasy of a big powerful genius with a giant fist is badass!

But Hazard? He's eye candy, sure. Got some piercings, but so does JunkerQueen. Plain black leather jacket and pants... okay but Young Cass and Ashe in general do that too. Hell, a young Tracer(in the comics she had a very punk hairstyle) was way more punk than Haz was as a teen. I don't understand why they didn't PUSH his punk design further, when we have characters like Roadhog and JunkerQueen on the roster already. Hazard is very conventional for an overwatch design, he looks like he could be a side character in a gang instead of a main hero... Boomslang(viper Phreaks member) atleast has interesting shapes on her design! The Junkers are scrappy and DIY-low end tech (scrap guns, explosives, knives) survivalists, so imo the Phreaks could have been like a Sombra-version of Junkers, cyberpunk but WAY WAAAAY more out there with wild body mods and DIY high end tech (plasma weapons, energy swords, multiple arms, etc). I did peep a retractable energy sword from Hazard in the cinematic but why not just build a nonretractable sword into his base design instead? He already has a gun arm (like Orisa).

I really do think the metal jaw would have made Hazard instantly recognizable, but man, atleast keep the toxic green spiky hair!!! Haz is brunette, so why choose blonde as the 'punk' color when his body shape is already so similar to Reinhardt? Doomfist already has a "one arm is a weapon" so that's not Hazard's iconic detail, Mauga is already shirtless so that's out as an iconic detail, and the crystal spikes aren't nearly present enough in his design to make it out like that is his iconic 'thing' imo. Meanwhile, look at JunkerQueen: she is somehow MORE punk than Hazard who is intentionally being punk. And even then, I think people forget JunkerQueen has mag tornado powers in her gauntlet. Many Overwatch 2 heroes struggle with visually telling the players what a hero is/does via the design. And don't even get me started on Venture's nonsensical jacket design lol. Juno and Hazard feel like the designs where 'simplified' from concept art so that making skins for them would be easier. Juno looked better with the armor pieces, and Hazard would look better with green hair and a metal jaw.

[avoicebehindthestars]

On Rob's Good Omens sweaters...

Bluesky has some photos of Rob Wilkins wearing these two holiday sweaters:

At the first glance you go "awww, how perfect, I need those sweaters!" but then you're like "hold on a second!"

For the sake of this meta, I'm going to assume the designs are deliberate, and not just idk cheap fakes ordered from temu lol.

Let's start with stating the obvious. The red sweater has the characters' roles reversed - Crawly is sheltering Aziraphale. It's not a "book thing" either - there, Aziraphale held his own wings above himself. This is a minor detail, but Crawly's stance is also different than in the show - his legs are apart, in a position indicating strength, confidence, and protection. Meanwhile, the blue sweater has what looks like angel!Crowley sheltering a black-haired fallen angel. My first thought was that is could be Satan and this might be a hint that we're going to see Crowley's fall after all. But now I think different.

Regarding the red sweater in particular, my thoughts immediately wandered towards the multiple Edens theory and the two Crowleys theory. Just to quickly recap: discrepancies in the details on the walls of Eden have been spotted, and at one point someone from the crew mentioned that there were "many Edens" in existence (possibly testing grounds before the real one? Or several different enclosures for the first breeding pairs? We never found out). As for Crowley - many people have noticed differences in his looks throughout season 2. Most notably, his sideburns have differing length and it shifts within the same scene, e.g. the sideburns are long in the pub, but short when he leaves the pub; they are short during the "exactlys" argument, but long when Crowley snatches his sunglasses while storming out of the bookshop. Bildad the Shuhite also has two different hairstyle (one is shorter, more evenly cut and carefully combed, whereas the other is longer and a bit more "windswept"). There's also the matter of different camera filters, which is a commonly used technique to show different worlds (think Supernatural, and I think also some MCU films?), and the disappearing props.

So, taking the sweaters into consideration, could the world of Good Omens be comprised of multiple realities? The novel is one. Season 1 is another. Season 2 shows TWO (!), which are almost identical. Who knows, perhaps the Crowley with the short sideburns managed to sway Aziraphale in the Final Fifteen, or even changed his mind and hopped on the lift at the last moment? What if, presented on the sweaters are two more? On, in which it was Crawly offering shelfter to Aziraphale, and another one in which it was Aziraphale who fell (and his hair blackened in the process). Perhaps there are versions of this (sorry, couldn't resist!) in which they both fell, neither did, or they were an established couple by season 1?

It this were to prove true in the movie, it will have some pros, of course. Firstly, it would legitimise virtually all headcanons you might have (I was a little upset when s2 finale made it clear they weren't secretly a couple before). It would also boost creativity for all the reverse!Omens fic writers. And, of course, it would explain many things fans have noticed, especially about s2.

However, other than that, I don't think I like it that much. Above all, I simply dislike multiverse - I find them often too convenient narratively, while also needlessly convoluted. But aside from that, I wouldn't be happy to see that particular take in the movie. If we were getting out 6 episodes, it would be fun to watch particular scenes and increasingly go "huh?" as we spot consecutive discrepancies and minor details that don't work. And by the time it was revealed it would feel really rewarding that you have spotted the details, even if you failed to work it all out. Within mere 90 minutes… it just doesn't feel like enough time to drop enough hints, or, alternatively, the movie would be oversaturated with them. Finally, it would mean less screentime for the mercilessly truncated Aziracrow reconcilliation arc (which I am still grieving over), as instead we would receive glimpses of different universes, while still navigating the complex Second Coming plotline. Also, what would be the endgame? All the Aziraphales and Crowleys combining their forces to beat heaven and hell/the new christ/god herself? That's a bit too Marvel if you ask me, and with all my reservations about the movie, I rather trust Narrativia to offer us something much more original.

[vethbrenatto]

Curious what your thoughts are on critical role season 3/campaign 3 continuing to bring back previously main characters from 1&2?

Idk I’m having a hard time with this campaign and the way the party seems to have badly analysis paralysis and it seems so dragged out with the characters not wanting to make decisions.

So when I see that they keep bringing pre established characters in for the story instead of focusing on things NOW, I’m a bit exasperated lol. I’m glad they’re having fun and it does make for some good moments! But I’m just feeling bleh overall atm

i actually stopped watching c3 somewhere in the 90s so i can't really comment-

what i can say is that this is not a storytelling device i particularly enjoy; it particularly bugged me early in c3 with the intervention of vex and keyleth and even pike (my girl, my love, my light) as these sort of god-like deus ex machina figures. i have a lot of old posts detailing why i didn't like it then, but a lot of it is sort of a stakes thing, right? vox machina and m9 have saved and saved the world... what the fuck is bells hells even qualified for in comparison? why not just let the professionals handle it (story, that's why)?

and then we get this sort of culmination that i've heard about recently where the cast has been swapping between parties and conceptually that's really cool, even if it doesn't appeal to me.

what it comes down to is that this is matt's vision for the world- an interconnecting web of events and people. in my ideal version, the world is an expansive place and these are 3 equally important but unconnected stories. set in the same place but never directly connecting- just some little overlap to remind you it's all in the same place (i.e. the allura cameo in the m9 campaign). but, quite simply, that isn't what matt or the cast want.

i am interested to see if this will be the last campaign for the main cast, or the last exandria campaign overall because the plot does seem so dramatic and "it all connects/comes together" that i have no clue where they could go from here.

c3 overall was hard for me to connect to since the mid campaign (i also think watching CR live is probably my least favorite way of consuming it- i do think the content works better on a binge) but maybe ill catch up at some point.

TLDR; i am not currently watching but agree that the return of past characters doesn't appeal to me specifically, though i know the fandom and the cast probably have the opposite opinion about the returns.

[anthurak]

So with Ghostfuckers providing a fair bit of detail on how our four main characters came together and the formation of I.M.P. proper, I thought it would be fun to dive into the potential timeline of Helluva Boss again. Because at this point, I think we can actually glean quite a bit of information from what the show has stated or hinted at.

First off, the confirmed ‘hard dates and times’ we can look at to establish a broad, overall timeframe for the show:

We have Spring Broken taking place (shockingly) during Spring Break, putting it in March.

We have The Harvest Moon Festival coinciding with the actual Harvest Moon (not some Hellish equivalent, but the proper Earth moon), putting the episode on/around September 17th.

Then we have Unhappy Campers which actually notes a specific date with a poster showing that Millie’s big show takes place on July 17.

Finally we have Apology Tour taking place specifically on Halloween, aka October 31.

And now Ghostfuckers has Millie mentioning that it’s been ‘over a month’ since Blitzo and Stolas broke up, meaning either The Full Moon or Apology Tour, which puts us pretty squarely in early December as the current time of the show.

This means we are looking at a total of one year and nine-ish months between Spring Broken and Ghostfuckers.

Which in turn, given the indeterminate amount of time between the first three episodes, I’d say likely puts us at just shy of two years since the start of the show proper with Murder Family, and DEFINITELY a little over two years since Blitzo’s first night with Stolas, getting the Grimoire and the start of I.M.P.

Something that is actually further corroborated by Blitzo’s comment in The Full Moon about Stolas letting them keep the book for ‘another year’, implying that episode likely took place near around the ‘anniversary’ of Blitzo getting the Grimoire from Stolas. And I think we can all appreciate the dramatic irony/angst of Stolitz imploding almost two years to the day as their first night together.

So with a proper timeframe for the show as a whole established, what other interesting things can we glean?

Well for one, I think a couple of seemingly innocuous lines in Western Energy can actually tell us a fair bit about LOONA. Which funny enough, kind of confirms the official creator statement that she is 22, but also makes it a bit more… nuanced.

You see, Blitzo mentions in Western Energy that it’s taken him five years to get an appointment for Loona’s hellbies shot. Now obviously, we can assume that Blitzo started trying to get this appointment not too long after adopting Loona.

Combined with what we know about Loona being less than a month from turning 18 when Blitzo adopted her, this not only confirms that it’s been about five years since Loona was adopted, but also means that Western Energy actually takes place not too long before or after Loona’s birthday. Given that the next episode is Unhappy Campers, probably in the April/May/June range. And also that Loona is actually 23 at this point.

And what’s really funny about this in regards to the official statement of Loona being 22 is that, if anyone else remembers, we actually GOT that statement sometime between the releases of Ozzie’s and The Circus. Which WOULD be a point in the show when Loona IS 22.

Even though Loona would definitely be 21 at the actual start of the series, then turned 22 likely sometime between Spring Broken and C.H.E.R.U.B.S. then turned 23 sometime around Western Energy.

Admittedly I’m not sure how any of this might be actually relevant or otherwise significant aside from simply having a good idea when Loona’s birthday is, but I think it’s a fun detail nonetheless.

Now speaking of characters with confirmed ages that the fandom has become way too fixated on, let’s talk about Octavia.

Obviously, given that we are way over a year since Loo Loo Land, Octavia is DEFINITELY NOT 17 anymore. Heck, given that we’re clearly close to two years since that episode, Octavia could easily be 19 at this point. Remember that unlike Loona, Octaiva being 17 was mentioned officially before she even appeared in the show, meaning that we really HAVE to assume that she is 17 in Loo Loo Land. Other than that, the only mention we have of Octavia being 17 is in The Circus, which really only means that the present-day portion of that episode (along with Ozzie’s and Queen Bee, given that they specifically take place the night before) takes place less than a year after Loo Loo Land. Like if those episodes take place in early-mid October and Octavia’s birthday is in November, then she would be 19 at this point.*

And while we’re on the topic of Ozzie’s, Queen Bee and The Circus, ANOTHER notable detail that might be easy to forget is that Ozzie’s happens to take place on Moxxie’s and Millie’s one-year wedding anniversary. Which gets particularly interesting given what we now know from Ghostfuckers.

We know, or at least can infer, from Millie’s narration (“that year I spent getting to know your ragtag team”) that Millie joined up with Blitzo, Moxxie and Loona about a year before they formed I.M.P. Which in turn also coincided with Blitzo’s and Stolas’s reunion, given that Blitzo is shown to have the Grimoire in the flashback of the four moving into their new offices.

What makes this interesting is the fact that Moxxie and Millie seem to have been ALREADY married when Blitzo got the Grimoire and set up I.M.P. Which given, again, that Ozzie’s specifically takes place on the M&M’s one-year wedding anniversary, I think REALLY narrows down the timing of a number of events.

Like given that Ozzie’s takes place AFTER both The Harvest Moon Festival and Truthseekers, we have to assume that Moxxie’s and Millie’s wedding likewise probably happened after September.

And we know from The Full Moon taking place shortly before Halloween and the previously-discussed lines from Blitzo implying that it’s not too far off from the ‘anniversary’ of him getting the Grimoire from Stolas, that Blitzo’s and Stolas’s first night together probably happened in-or-around October.

So… putting all of these together, I think we can in fact narrow down Moxxie’s and Millie’s wedding, Bitzo’s and Stolas’s first night together AND the start of I.M.P. all to October.

Millie’s and Moxxie’s wedding, and by extension the events of Ozzie’s, Queen Bee and the present-day sections of The Circus, probably happens at the start of/early October.

Then just a few weeks, or even days, later, Blitzo tries to swipe the Grimoire and has his first night with Stolas. Heck, you want a fun theory/headcanon? What if Moxxie and Millie getting married actually spurred Blitzo into accelerating his ideas/plans for a human-assassination business and going after the Grimoire? Because he wanted to have a better business/life for Moxxie and Millie?

Which then puts the ‘moving in’ flashback from Ghostfuckers and the proper start of I.M.P. in late/end of October. I mean, given that Murder Family and a number of other episodes have released on Halloween, and given the apparent in-universe significance of the date for demons we learned about in Apology Tour, it would be rather appropriate for the Immediate Murder Professionals to have opened for business on Halloween.

And one other notable detail about Millie joining Blitzo's crew specifically a year before the proper start of I.M.P., meaning three years before the current time of the show, is that this gives us about a two year window (really more like a year and a half given Western Energy) wherein Blitzo recruited Moxxie.

Now, will any of this be actually relevant or important to the story going forward? I mean, probably not much. I imagine it's mostly just the hard-dates I mentioned at the start which establish an overall timeframe for the show that are really worth keeping in mind.

I will say that Octavia being old enough to inherit her father’s position and power does feel like a chekhov’s gun that could become important in whatever ‘Goetia Trial’ it’s looking like we’ll see in the next episode or two.

But mostly, this is just some fun analysis and ramblings.

--

*Which of course perfectly lines up with how much Octavia has been emphasized by characters and narrative alike to not be a CHILD anymore. Like as of Western Energy, she’s apparently considered fully capable, at least by law, of inheriting all of Stolas’s position, power and holdings should he die, which was the entire reason Andrealphus wanted Stella to call off her hit. Which would line up perfectly with Octavia having turned 18 sometime between then and The Circus.

[epickiya722]

Thank you Kiya for being The Number 1 Defender of Izuku and Yuuji...😆😁😄🎖

Every time I read your posts about them, I'm so happy and proudly reblog and even show your metas to anyone who like to badmouth Izuku and Yuuji.

What I love about your metas about them are they're all based on canon. Yes, you also loce made headcanons about your favorite characters but when you defend them against those haters, all your analysis are based on canon material that most people don't really paid attention, too...🥇🏅💐

From that anon before, yes, I've read them in twitter, and got so mad, like why you have to hate Izuku and Katsuki that much?! Thanks for your posts, Kiya...💐🌻

Anon, I am sending so many hugs to you right now! You're too sweet! 😭💜

Yuji and Izuku are my boys, my faves, I just adore them, you know?

This past year or so, I just find myself wanting to ramble whether it do be meta posts or fun little headcanons and I'm glad to see you enjoy them!

Honestly, while sometimes I feel like I maybe reading a little much into the mangas (or anything), I like going back and taking in each detail bit by bit. From what I have seen, sometimes those little details do matter.

(Right now, I have two posts about the last volume covers for JJK and MHA because I have thoughts and I feel like I must say these things before they stay in my head rotating over and over.)

It's really just I have my favorite characters and I hate it when I see people hate on them for reasons that don't really make sense at all!

Like, hate them if you want, alright. Not everyone will like that character. I have characters I don't feel a lot of hype for.

However, when I see people hate on Izuku and Yuji, it's like they post anything just to be "right" about their hatred. Like "I hate this character and I'm right because of this reason." You don't hate to be right about how you feel. Your opinion of a character isn't a fact! It's based on feelings!

You don't have to throw anything to be like "my opinion is a fact".

No, your opinion is BASED on a fact.

When I have my meta rambles, they're my opinions, they're my theories. But I don't just have them and think I'm right. I have them because of what I interpret from canon and then the gears in my head get to turning.

I honestly feel like it's just the "Let's hate on New Gen MCs" trend. Which is weird to me because these some of these new MCs are no different and just as great as their predecessors.

Maybe it's just me, I don't know, but when people say they hate Izuku or Yuji I'm just like "huh".

I'm still trying to process how anybody can find Yuji or Izuku "boring" or "have no development". HUH?! I don't know if they just see that sunshine personality and they're stuck on that "nice characters are boring" mentality. Maybe it's that.

Like, they're both nice and compassionate, but they can also have their moments when they're not. Neither of them is as "pure, naive and innocent" as some people try to portray them as and when people do that, sometimes it is to say "see they're not that badass, not like my GOAT who would body their enemies".

Watching the Izuku vs Muscular fight, I thought Izuku killed that man. Yuji literally has put fear into the curse that embodies the fear of humans... HOW DO YOU MAKE FEAR FEAR YOU?!

Really, it's gotten to the point that even characters that aren't my favorites (or my number one faves) will get hate and that hate make no sense that it makes me go "am... am I reading a different manga?" Yeah, Katsuki is definitely an example. Like, I get it and as I said, hate him if you want. Not everyone will like him.

But if you actually read the manga and watched the anime from start to finish and say "Katsuki doesn't have development", I don't trust you. Yeah, he's an ass and all that but even he is aware. I have seen people defend WORSE characters and hate him..

Could be just me, but I don't know what's fun about being a hater. And I mean, someone is constantly hates and hates and post about it endlessly.

I have things I hate, too and yeah, I will express it. But to do it every single second that you're known to be a hater is wild. And then calling it being "critical"? No, criticism can be helpful. You're not helpful if you just say you hate this thing and then make up something.

That's enough rambling! 😆

Again, Anon, thank you so much!! And I hope you have a lovely day! 💜

[tamilhobbit]

Honestly, fully agree. I just rewatched the main PotC trilogy and then On Stranger Tides, and there really is such a drop in quality. The original trilogy is wonderful. Its cinematography alone is excellent, and oh, that music.

- Each of the films has a beautifully gothic, atmospheric opening. Lingering shots on details like the teacups full of rain, on the expression on the boy's face as he looks up at the noose. Honestly the beginning of At World's End, with the chilling double whammy of child execution and That Song, is in my opinion one of the best openings out there.

- Just. Gorgeous lighting and composition, by and large.

- Like Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean has a lot of night combat scenes that are well lit. You can actually see what's going on.

- The combat is so well choreographed. I often find combat scenes boring after a few watches unless they're really well done, and the combat in these films is always so fun to watch. Elizabeth and Will's wedding is top-tier, but most of the combat is excellent. It got a lot more chaotic and boring in Stranger Tides.

- The chemistry. One of the reasons the other films suffer is that Jack is less compelling as a standalone protagonist - they keep giving us these young lover couples to root for, as a clear stand-in for Will and Elizabeth, but it misses the point. The trilogy worked because of the main trio: Jack, Will and Elizabeth. They all bounced off each other so well. Will and Elizabeth were more than just dewy-eyed lovers, like Philip and Syrena. They were complex characters with arcs of their own, and a complicated relationship with Jack that clearly went both ways.

Barbossa is also great but the magic was in the main trio. The films are less interesting and compelling when it's just Jack, Barbossa, Gibbs and a bunch of new characters.

- Minor details, like the excessive amount of sugar we see Cutler Beckett consuming and serving. Given the cost of sugar at the time - and no, I am not talking about money - it tells us a lot about his character and what he represents.

- That fucking music. Hans Zimmer, you genius. Those swelling themes are magical.

That said, it is frustrating how Elizabeth is constantly under threat of SA. In the first film it was to establish the pirates as an actual threat so we'd root for the good guys, but like. In that whole silly Singapore sequence there was no reason for the leering dude to make her remove more of her clothes and walk around like that. It could have been skipped.

(Also as an actual Singaporean I trust I do not need to say how much I hate that whole part, lmao. For one thing, the time period is most likely before the British showed up in Singapore in 1819. Before that we were a Malay kingdom and, at this point, subject to the Johor sultanate. Not a Chinese pirate city. We weren't even called Singapore yet; we were still Singapura.)

Just in general, those films definitely have a racism problem. 😫

Comments on Pirates of the Caribbean

So, I rewatch the first one after years bc I was sick by the Johnny Depp bullshit and through his presence would ruin the movie for me, thankfully, it didn't.

- Why don't they make blockbusters like this anymore? The scale of the production, everything feels so real, so damn good. They only used CGI when they needed it.

-Now I noticed that Elizabeth, Will and Jack have "friendship" matching scars, as all the three of them have a long cut on the palm of their hand.

-When Barbossa is about to cut Elizabeth, thinking her blood is the one they needed, instead of cutting her throat (something that was expected of him) he just cut her hand and when even Elizabeth looked confused at him, he says "waste not"

At first I thought that he was being nice, like there's no need to kill her, and this being a Disney movie really makes me think that. But now I get it, he wasn't being nice, he was being a nightmare as he only didn't kill her bc he was planning on SA her as soon as the curse was off. That's dark.

And it's weirdly nice to see how their relationship goes from this nightmare, to Barbossa not only actually respecting and acknowledge Elizabeth as one of them, but also with Elizabeth asking him to marry her with Will. It's like they became buddies at the end, almost lol

-People often praise only Johnny Depp for the success of the trilogy, and yes, he was good I got to admit but he wasn't the sole reason of the movies success. The proof of that is that after Worlds End, the movies went down in quality and will not pretend that the writing and production didn't go down either but the thing is that the characters also were not near as charming, charismatic and just as good as Elizabeth, Will, Barbossa, Davy Jones the crew guys...Jack Sparrow is good but he needs good company to truly shine. And the chemistry they all had towards each other plays a big part in the trilogy success. Jack Sparrow is amazing, but only when he isn't the protagonist.

Edit 1: I've saw the second and third ones again today and damn Hans Zimmer was inspired, the Davy Jones theme is the Best villain theme song (sorry Darth Vader)

At world's end, who also is the Will and Elizabeth theme(with some minor changes) is so good. It's not only good, it's a masterpiece. One of my fav original movie songs ever.

-Elizabeth arc is so well done. From damsel in distress, to pirate, to pirate queen. And it was natural, didn't feel forced at all. Even when she was damsel in distress, she wasn't helpless. In the first movie, after the ship battle, she launched herself at Barbossa , to punch in bc she thought Will was gone. She was always fierce.

And now in the second and third movie when she already knew how to fight...she became a menace.

-And Elizabeth lost her dad, her friend and the love of her life in like, just a few days. Damn. And all of the men she kissed, died lol. Jack, Norrington, Sao Feng and Will, and they all die right after kissing her. I bet she has some sort of "black widow" reputation among the sailors

-Jack really cared for both Elizabeth and Will, and we can see it in the scene when he told Elizabeth that her father was gone and when Davy Jones killed Will. And it makes sense cuz Jack was important in their journey from day one, and he saw their growth from naive young adults to pirates.

-Without a doubt, one of the best trilogies we have.