#it's gotten late again

[wordsandrobots]

My learned friend [fellow tumblr user] @billveusay has shared his initial reaction to Iron-Blooded Orphans, together with a follow-up note, graciously conceding the counter-argument on several of his criticisms in light of my inadvisedly-extensive writing on the subject.

However, he stood by two substantive points of criticism and I feel it incumbent on myself to respond to these as well. Begging the court's indulgence, I shall state my case in reverse order.

My learned friend offers that

"The classic "I push you out of the way to take the bullet myself" happens a bunch of times, and it always made me grit my teeth. If you have enough momentum to propel someone, you don't lose your inertia the instant you touch them, it takes effort to stop and stand in front of the attack. You wanted to be hit by that. And no one ever tries tackling the attacker instead of standing in front of them with arms stretched out. It's one of my personal pet peeves."

To which I can only say: yes. Yes, those people 'wanted' to be hit, in the sense of seeing it as the correct option to deal with the situation right in front of them, and yes, this happens repeatedly over the course of the show - because that's exactly the choice Mikazuki and Akihiro make at the end. To spend their lives in defence of others, even though they might theoretically have done something else, because self-sacrifice is how they conceptualise their existence. That is entirely the point.

I might further mention that I find this description of events a trifle disingenuous. Masahiro is trapped against an asteroid when he shoves Akihiro away. Ein intercepts incoming missiles (thrown weapons) to shield Gaelio. Biscuit throws Orga overboard while being chased down. Aston is operating under gravity when he shoves Takaki away and acts to restrain McGillis, a tactic Isurugi mirrors when he stops Gaelio for a brief while. Some effort is made to vary the circumstances even while the underlying choice remains consistent. We may also point to plenty of times where characters do not sacrifice themselves in defence of others, with Mikazuki very much favouring 'demolish the enemy first', Shino covering Ride when they go to help the Turbines, Derma saving Dante from the Dawn Horizon Corps, etc, etc.

And absolutely none of that matters because this is clearly a trope that annoys @billveusay personally and no possible objection can be raised against his opinion. There is cause to be annoyed when people wilfully misread a text or make up an imaginary version of a story to get angry at, but tastes will nonetheless vary. This repeated motif is, I believe, a deliberate part of the direction and underscores where things must inevitably end. Whether that works is up to the viewer to decide themselves. I can only expand upon what is present in the fiction and how I believe it is supposed to function.

*pauses for effect*

*grips lapels*

With that said...

"First off, one of my biggest critiques relates to the worldbuilding. It's great, but there's a very recurring dissonance between what we're shown and the supposed scale of events and powers in place. This is a story where the players are intercontinental, even interplanetary coalitions, all overseen by an organisation powerful enough to have supreme authority over all of humanity. And yet Tekkadan, who doesn't seem to have more than 100 members, can go toe to toe with them on a regular basis even in situations where Gjallarhorn 1) knows exactly where they are 2) Has enough time to gather as much troops as they need, like on Makanai's island or the Edmonton siege."

This is wrong.

Or, rather, it is not taking the story on the terms presented.

To somewhat quantify events, based on obsessively cataloguing the background characters shown over the course of the series, I estimate Tekkadan's Season 1 membership (extending from the CGS Third Group) to stand in the region of 130 people. This is discounting the Brewer recruits and those younger members who stay behind on Mars with Dexter, and otherwise counting every identifiable, unique character model. At a conservative estimate, Season 2 adds another 110 unique faces, although of course we've lost at least four named characters (Danji, Biscuit, Dios and Gatt) plus a significant number of extras by then - totalling fifty dead, to be exact, per the memorial. So let us say there are around 190 members in season 2, give or take.

Then, counting up the military operations we see the members of Tekkadan engage in, we have:

Defending the CGS base

Escaping Coral and McGillis' forces in order to leave Mars

Fighting the Turbines

Fighting the Brewers

Aiding the Dort workers

Escaping Carta and Gaelio's forces in Earth orbit

Fighting Carta's forces on Makanai's island

Killing Carta

The Battle of Edmonton

Fighting the Dawn Horizon Corps on Mars

Fighting the Darn Horizon Corps in space

The Arbrau/SAU War

The Battle of Chryse (Hashmal)

Rescuing the Turbines

Killing Jasley

Taking over Vingolf

Fighting the Arianrhod Fleet in Earth orbit

The last stand

I draw the court's attention (should I continue the bit? I'm quite liking imagining myself having inexplicably pulled a barrister's wig from my pocket ala the 4th Doctor in Stones of Blood - )

I draw the court's attention to the fact that the vast majority of the Season 1 engagements are not pitched battles. Excepting the opening and closing conflicts, Tekkadan are most often either skirmishing with groups of a similar size or punching through a thin defensive line in order to reach a particular destination. The exception to this - facing the Arianrhod Fleet in the Dort colonies - is explicitly called out as a hopeless situation, with Shino actively suggesting retreat, his previous attitude of wanting to tangle with Earth-sphere troops discarded.

Furthermore, when Tekkadan do meaningfully start attacking Gjallarhorn's main force (as opposed to the much less well-drilled Mars Branch), it is with explicit aid from a Gjallarhorn insider and against an inexperienced commanding officer. Carta Issue simply isn't ready to combat a hyper-pragmatic gang of child soldiers. The strong implication is that nobody on Earth expected this kind of attack and they are fatally overconfident in their ability to track and neutralise the threat. This, together with Tekkadan's pushing to extremes, leaves the defenders on the back-foot throughout.

To then proceed, as my learned friend does, to the Battle of Edmonton - "I vaguely seem to recall Gjallarhorn not being able to intervene for political reasons, but if the capital city of an intercontinental super nation can be locked into a week-long siege by twenty mobile workers, all focusing their attack on a single bridge, it does makes me raise questions" - I fear I must directly contradict his version of events. It is not that Tekkadan lock the city into a siege, but rather that the Gjallarhorn troops act to prevent their entry and Orga commits forces to repeatedly challenging their cordon, as a ruse to distract from preparations for breaking through elsewhere.

This is a very costly gamble. Multiple Tekkadan members are killed or wounded over the course of the three to four days it takes to lower the river sufficiently. Yet at the same time, the show goes out of its way to emphasise the circumstances that permit success.

It is established during the island arc that Gjallarhorn must negotiate with Earth's economic blocs in order to operate on their sovereign soil. Likewise, we are told that they are forbidden from interfering with the internal affairs of each nation, a restriction Iznario Fareed works to subvert by installing a puppet leader in Arbrau. On the ground, we find Gjallarhorn soldiers discussing their relative superiority over Tekkadan, but their orders are to hold position.

From Iznario's side, this makes a great deal of sense. All he has to do is keep Tekkadan at bay until the election concludes in his favour. Acting prior to this - by, say, moving mobile suits dangerously close to Edmonton - would be wasteful and visibly illegal.

Thanks to McGillis' support, Tekkadan are resupplied sufficiently for the task at hand and reach Arbrau's territory. They correctly gauge that a head-on attack at full strength would not succeed without undermining their efforts to bring Kudelia to negotiate on behalf of Chryse (this, remember, is the actual goal). They therefore make a show of playing by the rules and 'going mad', throwing their mobile workers at the same point over and over to lull their opponents into letting their guard down.

This is not, then, a situation where a mere hundred-odd children face the full might of an 'intercontinental super nation'. It is instead a carefully constructed, carefully constrained incursion created via the intersection of multiple different agendas. The precise logistical and luck-based elements here are vitally important, given later events.

If it may please the court, I shall now make a small segue to another item raised over the course of my learned friend's initial reaction, namely the matter of military technology.

"On a similar note, it's also weird that we only see mobile workers, mobile suits and spaceships used in battles. I mean... if they have spaceships, what happened to fighter jets? Bombers? Long range artillery? That one would have definitely been useful during the Edmonton siege, where they mainly faced mobile workers. Maybe they've been banned like the Dainslef, but even that made me raise question. It's just a big nail gun with explosives, it's efficient but doesn't seem toxic, radioactive or prone to collateral damage, so why would Gjallarhorn ban it for everyone if they can just make it illegal for anyone other than themselves to use them. I may have missed something."

To the last point, regarding the ban on Dáinsleif mass drivers, I can only suppose that the state of the Earth's moon in the post-disaster setting did not register on a first viewing.

In this, I will be generous and acknowledge the show does not draw explicit attention to the level of destruction resulting from past Dáinsleif use, although ancillary material very much does. One does raise one's eyebrow at the suggestion they are not "prone to collateral damage" given the devastation seen when they are deployed against a target on Mars, but that is by the by.

My next major quibble is focused on the question of warplanes. We do in fact have an explanation for why these are not deployed at Edmonton, provided by the pretext under which the Arbrau/SAU war starts in Season 2: the crash of an SAU reconnaissance jet owing to interference from an unshielded mobile suit reactor.

It is clear that, in the Post Disaster timeline, Ahab reactors pose a danger to the complex avionics of modern aircraft, in addition to being disruptive to civilian infrastructure. Why the jets could not be shielded in the manner of mobile suits themselves is not a question the show expends time on; it could be a matter of weight or relative complexity or any number of 'technobabble' explanations. What matters is that aircraft are written out as a viable means of combat where mobile suits are involved.

Gundam as a franchise has long indulged in made-up physics to explain how battles in space might operate under the fog of war. The concept of 'Minovsky particles' find their most recent expression in IBO's Ahab waves, which disrupt electronics, radio signals and related technologies such as radar. Tekkadan have to rely on simple, rip-cord-launched drones to facilitate laser communication on the battlefield, as well as keeping mobile command posts close to the action to maintain tactical oversight. To respond to another of my learned friend's notes, that is why Orga gets so close to Carta's forces: it is the only means for him to check in on what is happening mid-battle.

This is, of course, contrived. But so is the 'medieval' melee combat that gives IBO its particular flavour of action, the very notion of a power source capable of sustaining a giant mecha, and indeed a giant mecha itself. The show provides a framework for the events the writers wish to have transpire and we must, in good faith, follow as far as they lead.

Take the Dort arc. Certainly we may concede that the workers' demonstration in front of the Dort Company headquarters pales next to the scale of a typical French protest. However, the context elided by that jocular comparison is two-fold. Number one, this is a subset of the workers' movement, a moderate faction trying to prevent a more radical, violent uprising. And number two, it is taking place aboard Dort 3, the colony we are told is given over to housing for Company executives and factory owners. We see from other characters' explorations that it is an oddly empty place, dominated by shopping centres. How much local support, therefore, could we reasonably expect to find there for protests originating amongst the factory workers aboard Dort 2 and the other colonies? Does my learned friend mean to imply that shipping hundreds of people across a gulf of space to stage this demonstration would be a trivial task?

No, what we see here is another targetted incursion, reliant in part on Savarin Canele's supposed access to the upper echelons of Company management. Sadly, here, the strategy is a bust and Gjallarhorn only allows things to proceed as far as they do in order to trap the wider movement. And it is this wider movement we see spurred to action, as many more people on the other colonies do indeed attempt to cross the void en mass and avenge Mr Navona's ill-fated negotiations.

Lest my learned friend suspect I missed his point about how the space battles appear more populated than those on the ground and his consequent inference of a technical limitation, I draw the court's attention to other depictions of protest in the show. These shots show large crowds and though they only appear briefly, they make evident a deliberate decision to foreground the relative smallness of the Dort union's foray. Perhaps to foreshadow that this is being permitted to occur rather than succeeding by force over the objections of their employers...?

The murder of this relatively tiny faction is portrayed as the spark igniting a wider uprising. There is indeed no uprising in progress until after Gjallarhorn commits premeditated slaughter. The workers are then met with the full force of the Arianrhod Fleet, which dwarfs their stolen, sabotaged militia, but the principle of some small incident resulting in wide-scale consequences is well-established within the series. At the start of Season 2, for example, we are told Tekkadan's push to get Kudelia to Edmonton has resulted in a global renaissance in mobile suit usage.

And here I fear I must once again take serious issue with my learned friend's interpretation of the setting he has most diligently spent 50 episodes watching. Because we are told - explicitly, outright and definitively told - that the Earth economic blocs do not possess active mobile suit forces until the Battle of Edmonton prompts them to reconsider their military readiness.

In any Gundam series, the mobile suit is the basic unit of military strength. This is the central conceit, a humanoid war machine superseding tanks and fighter planes as the single most effective means of combat. Clearly Iron-Blooded Orphans follows this pattern yet unlike its many predecessors, it does not present us with a setting in the throes of global war. This is ostensibly peacetime and moreover the aftermath of a conflict beyond comprehension. The mobile suits are a product of that Calamity and they per force outclass any other piece of hardware present.

But they are far from ubiquitous.

We see them in the outer-spheres, in the hands of pirates, smugglers and mafiosos. We see how effective they are as a means of space-based combat. We see too how they are used to sweep aside conventional armaments found in colonial holdings: Gjallarhorn's deployment of mobile suits is a death sentence for the CGS, until Gundam Barbatos is awakened.

Yet what are we to make of the Earth-sphere, guarded both by Gjallarhorn's elite and by 'just for show' fleets that have extensive resources and no practical experience? Simply that Earth itself was in large part rid of the machines that saved it from the mobile armours, and that an iron wall of well-trained, well-supplied Gjallarhorn forces has since surrounded it, deterring the wild usage of old super-weapons we find further out.

This, it appears, has bred complacency among the economic blocs and a strong reliance on Gjallarhorn, and it is the shock of seeing first-hand the 'effectiveness' of mobile suits that drives those nations to reactivate long-dormant stocks for their own defence. My learned friend dismisses the Abrau/SAU War as a conflict over meadows and shrubberies; I stand by the interpretation that what we witness is the tentative, ill-educated thrusts and parries of two nascent militaries relearning how to fight - all the while being manipulated by parties who see Tekkadan's hit-and-run tactics as a means of dragging out a minor border dispute for years to come.

These tactics are noted as making no sense on the ground! We know the immediate causes of the war are not organic but staged via Galan Mossa's covert activities. An endless series of quick, indecisive battles is arranged as a trap for McGillis and it succeeds, right up to the point the main body of Tekkadan arrives to rescue their hapless Earthen counterparts.

Why should we expect any sort of high-level strategic competence to be on display in the meantime? Why should we expect a grand-scale clash of nations when the show signals something else entirely?

The flip-side of this, if I may be permitted the colloquialism, is that mobile suit pilots from the outer-spheres often prove ferociously effective compared to their Earth-bound counterparts. I refer not only to Tekkadan but to the Turbines as well. The fight between Amida and Julieta alone demonstrates how a life spent doing battle with pirates and other lawless factions can surpass even the most naturally-talented and intensively-trained Earth-sphere recruit. The drive to fight for survival and what little has been scraped together in relatively impoverished circumstances is powerful, especially compared to soldiers who view their work in less desperate terms. Several times we encounter members of Gjallarhorn's lower ranks expressing workaday attitudes or acting out of concern for their own self-preservation, as is only reasonable for those operating in a largely peaceful sphere.

How many of them have ever been anything less than the most powerful player in any given situation? The Regulatory Bureau's intelligence network sabotages rebellions against the economic status quo and those uprisings that do flare to life are enacted using mobile suits retrofitted for construction work or local security, with weapons otherwise meant for mundane maintenance. Dangerous, certainly. How could a mobile suit be anything less? But Gjallarhorn's level of organisation and brute scale surely insulates most of its members from fights that are not tipped hugely in their favour. We see exactly this at the Dort colonies and Orlis Stenja's attitude at the very start of the show extends the warped perspective of a tilted deck even to the less-secure outer-sphere branches.

Yet coincidence presents Gjallarhorn with an unprecedented challenge. The Alaya-Vijnana permits easy, even instinctual mobile suit operation and the Gundam frames are considerably more potent than the average Graze. Without specific training or prior experience, Mikazuki is able to turn the tide against three-to-one odds, then best a veteran pilot in single combat. He and Akihiro go on to exercise their innate and in-built advantages over and over again. My learned friend expresses incredulity that a bare handful of combatants could match Gjallarhorn's numeric superiority. I contest that the show tells us, repeatedly, that via appropriate motivation, augmentation, and a thorough disregard for the consequences, they can do exactly this.

All the factors I have so far brought to your attention coalesce in the final act of the story. I shall not dwell on Rustal Elion's principle victory over McGillis' coup d’etat within Gjallarhorn. We are, I trust, by now familiar with how Tekkadan's luck runs out. How they are overwhelmed by numbers beyond even their capacity to subdue and by supposedly outlawed weapons of mass destruction. Let us turn instead, as my learned friend does, to Tekkadan's last stand, where ground forces surround their base.

"It's present all the way through the final battle. The Arianrhod troops wait a few days so it looks like they gave Tekkadan the chance to surrender, fine. But once the hostilities begin, it shouldn't take all of these mobile suits so long to destroy their base. They're surrounded in an open field, they only have five mobile suits to defend them, and they're good, but I have trouble believing that they can hold off all of the enemy suits at the same time. Not a single one is able to go around one of them and destroy the base?"

Once again, he is - through no fault of his own, I am sure - presenting events in a misleading light. The Arianrhod and Mars Branch Grazes are not there to give Tekkadan a chance to surrender but to contain them and subsequently goad them into lashing out, so Lord Elion may claim just provocation for ultimate force. This is - once again - something we are told in no uncertain terms.

Similarly, the purpose of the battle rapidly becomes evident in how the Grazes are deployed: they are sent after Tekkadan's mobile suits, which have proved so ferocious over the course of the preceding 49 episodes. Specially equipped units close in on them with shields and spears, attempting (in some cases effectively) to neutralise them, specifically.

Then the trap is sprung.

*slams hand down on the desk*

With most of Tekkadan's remaining forces beaten into retreat and their two biggest guns firmly exposed, a Dáinsleif barrage from orbit finishes matters in a single decisive blow. Thereafter, with the pilots of Barbatos and Gusion as the only evident survivors, Gjallarhorn's ground forces re-engage, their mopping-up exercise turning into a massacre when the Gundams power on to the very last drop of blood, yet succeeding in its main objective.

Far from being a case of missed opportunities to end things sooner, this is a calculated response to the unnaturally formidable assets of a defeated enemy who must nevertheless be publicly seen to die as the aggressor. Equal parts PR theatre and inexorable execution.

I must own at this juncture to a certain coyness thus far when it comes to my learned friend's central point of contention with the text of Iron-Blooded Orphans, the matter of scale. Much of what I have said may be considered by-the-by in terms of the accusation that the story is stating a larger scale than it is showing. It is my hope that I have sufficiently demonstrated the series' attention to explaining why the conflicts it depicts unfold on the terms they do, with the placement of appropriate constraints. However, I shall conclude by tackling head-on the impression my learned friend apparently formed of the protagonists' place in the setting.

I ask the court to consider the statement "Tekkadan has allegedly grown much bigger and is now a major global player". Who, actually, makes this claim? Certainly it is not those against whom our protagonists range their comparatively meagre influence. Elion's attitude is entirely dismissive, his focus squarely on McGillis as the opponent to be bested. Is it the government of Arbrau, who retain the services of Tekkadan's Earth Branch as military advisors? Perhaps, to an extent, yet we see on the ground that Tekkadan is belittled and dismissed by recruits who resent receiving a military education from young teenagers. Is it Teiwaz's leader, who makes Tekkadan a subsidiary to his Jupiter-based conglomerate? Certainly he sees great potential in them and gains by association with them, as administrator of Chryse's half-metal mines. Yet those around him view them only as upstarts, unworthy of a place at the table.

Is it McGillis Fareed, who sees in Tekkadan the means of reshaping the future? Well. We have seen, have we not, how far McGillis' assessments of reality can be trusted.

No. Tekkadan's reputation might have expanded and their actions, inspired imitation, but in their own right, they remain small-fry, quickly crushed between the gears of larger powers. They are big on Mars and make strides to being big in the Jupiter-sphere. But these are backwaters. In the places that matter, 'Tekkadan' is nothing more than an unexpected irritant. Their aspirations to be sovereigns of Mars are handed to them by a man who holds a fantastical view of the world. Hard reality has vastly different ideas about what they are capable of.

Iron-Blooded Orphans is a tale told through narrow perspectives and the places where those perspectives cannot widen fast enough to save characters from their mistakes. Most of the action we follow is 'small' in the sense of being limited. One ship in Teiwaz's transport fleet. One group of pirates. An engagement with a single squad of Gjallarhorn troops, rashly deployed out of wounded pride. A narrow, targetted, diversionary attack on a single approach to a city.

In all cases, these are mere slivers of a wider picture, of a wider system, and it is the weight of that system pressing in that forecloses on a happy ending. Yes, Naze' harem is the only part of the Turbines organisation we see regularly. This is because he engages with Orga in a personal capacity, spurred by affection and a desire to help. Yet it remains the case that the Turbines are a big enough deal inside Teiwaz to have garnered pre-existing enmity from other factions who grow to fear Naze will acquire outsized influence via Tekkadan. Yes, Gjallarhorn is a massive organisation, easily dominant in any military confrontation where its size is fully brought to bear. Yet we very rarely see it operating in that way, our attention held instead by smaller factions and local deployments. It is when those caveats are removed that those we follow must beware. And yes, Kudelia is part of a broader push for Martian independence. Yet she is precisely that: one part, no matter how much certain elements try to make her their figurehead. She cannot make everything better on her own and struggles with the monumental scale of her undertaking.

My learned friend is an astute observer of Gundam anime. He has his tastes and his insights and I am grateful to him for sharing them with us. Yet in this case, I must sadly conclude that he has brought mistaken assumptions to bear. He has seen that Tekkadan are involved in events with far-reaching outcomes and assigned them the role of a global player - indeed, much as McGillis does. But Tekkadan are never that. They are a group of suicidally reckless orphans with nowhere else to go, who fight tenaciously for what they have and for the promise of more tomorrow, who achieve truly impressive victories, hitting well above their weight-class against complacent foes who routinely underestimate them. But those victories are the outcome of numerous variables and cannot be replicated with certainty. When the chances run out, when the gloves come off, when there is no friendly politician or masked benefactor to offer them material aid...

They lose.

Because they are a small part in big events, and not even in the sense of a being single unit within a larger push towards a greater goal. They are ultimately alone in their aims. Abandoned. Forsaken. And their implacability, their undoubted strength, is outmatched by those who do genuinely move at scale.

This is not inconsistency.

It is a thesis statement.

Thank you. The defence rests.

-----

Well that was fun. And I hope the performance takes the barbs out of arguing against someone on the internet.

@billveusay, dropping the act, the thing I am dancing around is that your criticism in regards to scale struck me as a bad-faith reading. I don't mean that as an accusation against your intentions; however I do sincerely think the show explains a lot of what you picked out and that it's likely you either missed or misread that.

Most of the conflict in IBO is *extremely small scale* for a mecha anime, especially one in the Gundam stable. My go-to line about this is 'IBO is not a story about how war is hell; it's a story about how the peace is as well.' The stakes are not the fate of the world, but of bits inside it. Gjallarhorn is performing police action and state-sanctioned violence left, right and centre but only the Arbrau/SAU War and the coup really 'count' as large-scale warfare and even then, they're both in-universe damn squibs because of the factors at play.

That's weird for the genre and for Gundam, which - as your comparison to 00 highlights - usually entangles our heroes directly in global-scale action. Making them a historical footnote isn't how this stuff usually works! But that's what the show is doing and reading against that is technical bad faith. The objections you raise are imagining tactics for achieving goals that differ somewhat from those Tekkadan's opponents are stated as pursuing, and make claims that certain things could not happen when the show says they very much can.

I'm sympathetic to being disappointed the scale of the Tubrines isn't shown much on screen, but even there, it is present in the sense of getting to see how big their fleet is and, ultimately, the rest of the organisation doesn't actually matter to the story. Naze is their weak link and more importantly, the person whose actions actually matter to Tekkadan's rise and fall. So that's where the attention stays, even though it would have been great if we could have seen him interact with crews who aren't his wives (thank heavens for Urdr Hunt giving us that!). There is ultimately only so much you can fit into even 50 episodes.

And I can't - won't - argue against your opinion of how well something does or doesn't work. If you didn't find it convincing that the Alaya-Vijnana, the Gundam frame's power, Tekkadan's greater drive, Gjallarhorn being infested with arrogant numpties, and so on combine to allow five mobile suits to hold off a greater force, then that's just what it is. All I'm really saying is that I don't think you've credited the show with doing the legwork it does, in the way it does, for the end it was working towards.

And that, sadly, activates my annoying pedant mode, here played by Horace Rumpole.

[artsymeeshee]

Second-guessing

[seawing-vibes]

I'm home, with moonlight on the river, saying my goodbyes

I'm home, there's moonlight on the river, everybody dies

I can’t stop myself from adding one (1!) “Read more” so heres the og sketch so you can see Noct’s face <3

[pink-n-greennneerg-n-knip]

cookie art dump :3

[terracottakore]

etho my beloved

[shepscapades]

shep. i finished xisuma's s8. i am plagued with so many thoughts /silly

Oh my gognfjgmgimfggfmgnmfdnffgh it’s. It’s so much. I have so much to say and so many thoughts they make me so crazy. They make me so crazy THEY MAKE ME SO CRAZY IS THIS THING ON CAN ANYONE HEAR ME

[morelikesin]

🐶 Y'know, I fall in love with you all over again when we go on dates like this, Max.

🐰 You're getting a pass for that awful pun because you're the prettiest thing this side a' the world, Sam.

🐶 What can I say? I'm as corny as Kansas in August.

🐰 And as normal as blueberry pie.

[buddyhollyscurls]

just wondering, is there ever an instance of Loid getting Jealous of Yor? cause if not there def should be.

like i want her going out at night for a mission and when he sees her leaving she like oh I have to "meet a coworker" and he's like oh. okay. but inside his mind he like it's nearly midnight why would she see her coworker now? but he tries not to think about it bc like they don't talk about their jobs or personal life but he also can't help wondering if this coworker is a Male.

or he sees her wearing her Assassin Dress and he's like oh damn she looks hot but she has to tell him point blank she has a date to cover up her job and man is just Speechless bc WHAT DO U MEAN SHE HAS A DATE???? and he even tho he's trying to tell himself their relationship is just one of convenience he doesn't like the idea of her going out on a date

[ganondoodle]

i wish i could say i have been working on projects but the truth is i have just been playing stardew valley again every second of free time i have bc it seems to be the only thing that keeps my mind from destroying itself atm

[snuuyfanged]

underground hug

Summary: Sunny ends up having a nightmare regarding Mammon - panicking in the middle of the night, she goes to Eugene for reassurance that the Archangel won't be making a come back.

-

wanted to put this up before the 1.8 update drops, i had the idea weeks before the showcase date was even announced and thought it'd be funny to write up before the 7th lol

[gayofthefae]

They've said they want their show rewatchable. As someone who wasn't like SUPER invested in the ships/show before, the most rewatchable thing they can do is Mike's queerness.

I would not have rewatched it until season 5 came out. Maybe once before then if I got bored, but definitely not as much as I have without it. And the plots for Will have been too supernatural focused (also a good rewatch point after season 5 comes out, I'm sure) to be worth rewatching for his queer personal plot for two seasons before we even really get to it too much.

But Mike? Everything Mike does is impacted by his queerness. Will? Obviously. El? Most DEFINITELY. The Supernatural? You mean the thing that only ever affects Will and El? Yup.

Do you know my first thought, as someone not yet obsessed, when it started to become more clear that Mike was queer? "Oh, that's more interesting"

The average person isn't gonna drop the show because their ship broke up amicably. But they are going to if they get bored.

Mike having been queer the entire time, who cares if planned, as long as it isn't contradicted by anything prior (which is not possible because queerness is not disprovable) just gives a whole new view to everything he's ever done, making it less straightforward than you thought it was, changing your original view of the events, making you want to rewatch just to see how each moment is impact.

Making it more INTERESTING.

It's simple, honestly. Speaking as someone who passively thought the couples were cute and generally wanted the characters to be happy but wasn't deeply attached or fixating on any part of the show, Mike being queer is just more interesting than him being straight. That's all the people really want.

They've already gotten lots more residuals from this. And I'm sure they know that at least half of it isn't just because of the vol 2 lore drop. And it isn't because of what we think is gonna happen for Will in season 5 either, why watch seasons where it also hasn't happened yet. It's because of something else, much like the lore, that affects every facet of an entire plotline from the first episode. Not even the lore actually does that, it's just interesting to know, but that one's easier to connect back in your memory, but isn't as deeply rooted that you need to think through every singular behavior of the mind flayer. But with Mike, we know it affects it, but we immediately had to know how.

I probably would have rewatched it once by now. Maybe one more time a year from now to prepare for the season 5 release, but maybe not. I didn't do my rewatch before season 4's release, so I might not have. But instead, because of Mike and Mike only, I'm currently on my third watch since 2022. Maybe fourth, I'm not sure. Not just because of a ship I wanna see again because they're cute. Because I'm LEARNING something new every time I see his face on my screen. Not because I ship it, not even because I personally want it to be true for any character's sake.

But because Mike being queer is just. more. interesting.

[o-sunny-day]

we are so back

@forgettable-au R E A D I T.

I did not get the notification for this…So i just innocently opened up Tumblr and saw forgettable pages that I did not recognize on my main feed….. and I had to pull one of these for a solid 20 seconds

I LOVE(D) THIS SO GODAMN MUCH- I HAVE THEORIES, I HAVE QUESTIONS, I GOT ANSWERS?????? But first lemme get the visuals out of the way…

me wen…me when san….sans….and…and papy- papyrus

We’ve seen it before, but im appreciating it now- I LOVE GETTING INTO THE MIND OF FLOWEY it seems like the surface segments are from the perspective of Flowey, and past ones are from Wingdings’? as in, theyre the only ones we get internal dialogue from?

I love hearing both of their thought processes either way.I love seeing their theory minds being put to work like- im going to sound like them when Deltarunes chapters come out- over analyzing everything and wondering how I can approach certain characters in different ways. Flowey is so me last page update when he learns about the River Person cause thats my live reaction if/when I find something new out about Undertale like WAIT WHAT????

I thought I knew everything-

But Floweys right- it doesnt seem too hard to get into Sans n Papyrus’ house/get them to invite you over. Their house seems like the type to just be “hang out headquarters” where Alphys or Undyne or anyone vaguely related to them would just waltz right in not even knocking and theyd go “sup” “HI!”

Flowey teasing Papyrus about battle body stuff is so stupid wholesome i could die and also hes so correct, it is cool when he does it. >:(

And Flowey you sneaky bitch- with that dark secret line, Im SCARED WHERE THIS IS GONNA HEAD but also omg so excited. So theyre gonna go down to the True Lab…I wonder if getting there will be the adventure, what happens while theyre there, or trying to get out

I also wonder how/if the chapters title has anything to do with Floweys contributions, cause I remember it being said that from now on itll switch back and forth from present to the past in the same chapters. The Scientific Method… Like trial and error, so ofc Wingdings trying to figure out what the hell is going on with the tapes from the future, but also Floweys trial and error in seeing what makes Papyrus tick? perhaps? Just a theory on that one…

I love the dialogue more each time idk how ya do it sunsestart, everything about it is so!!!!!!!! and so!!!!!!!!!!! I am absolutely jumping for joy at more updates, and despite art school making it slow down a tad, its ALWAYS worth the wait, and never worth risking physical or mental health!

speaking of art holy shit is it gorgeous- the backpack looks amazing in every shot how. how do draw backpack???

Theres so many THOUGHTS not as much on any specific bits, but just…RHEHDHEHFHFHF The Papyrus Is Gaster theory was something I didn’t care all too much for as it sounded interesting but not worth my time in investigating too much. THAT WAS UNTIL THIS COMIC, NOW I DECLARE IT CANON!!! SURPRISE!!!! IVE BEEN TOBY FOX ALL ALONG!!!!! YOU GUYS FIGURED IT OUT

I love the subtley new style. also. papyrus looks so darn silly- i mean he always did but even sillier now

[ialwaysknewyouwerepunk]

it's 20 degrees btw

[osamusriceballs]

Kinktober Day 13 <3

Bokuto x edging

Warnings: NSFW, fem reader

Words: ~1,6 k

Kinktober Masterlist II -> Next day

"You like that? Oh, I can feel you clench, you really like that."

A grin sports his lips as he dives into your pussy again, his tongue relentlessly licking along your folds and teasing your clit. His arms confidently grab your thighs and press you further down on his face, the sudden movement almost causing you to fall over as your hands nearly slip off the bed frame.

"Kou- slow down-" you whine, trying to sit up slightly, but his hands keep a firm grip on your legs and prevent you from moving away from his face. "Close already?" he rasps, attaching his lips on you again the second he finishes speaking. His tongue finds your entrance, ever so slightly pushing inside while his nose nudges your clit. The slurping sounds mix with his groans, your walls clenching every time he rubs against your clit a little harder. You know there is no stopping him once he has started eating you out- he could literally do it for hours, as he has proved to you in the past already. You feel the tension in your body, your high approaching way too fast under his thorough ministrations. He notices how you tense, his golden eyes observing you carefully when you clench repeatedly, and he slows his movements down, just enough for you to take a few steady breaths. "You taste so good, always so sweet for me."

Your hands clench around the wood, your body almost overwhelmed when he presses his tongue flatly on your core, it feels like a sweet torture to know that he won't make you cum just now, yet it still feels so good- but you can feel him slow down gradually until he's just sweetly kissing along your folds. His hand moves to your ass and squeezes the flesh before he slightly lifts you off him, his hot breath now only faintly meeting your clenching core.

You lift your body just enough for him to slide out from underneath you, and he wastes no time to turn your body towards him and to press his lips against yours. The salty taste of yourself meets your tongue, only spurring you on in kissing him even further and allowing him to explore your mouth. He groans, the kiss getting messier with every passing second, and his passion and lust are driving you crazy at this point. He slightly pulls back to look at you, his eyes sparkling with excitement as he leans down to kiss just below your ear. "You were close, right? I could feel it." The kisses turn into small bites, one of his hands now resting between your bare shoulder blades to hold you close. "Hmm, so close, Kou. Only you can make me feel so good." You grab his hair and let your head fall back while you enjoy the way he's kissing down to your chest, making sure to suck a small mark just belllow your collarbones. "I'll make you feel even better. Come here, baby."

Bokuto releases his grip around your body and grabs your hips to turn you around, which you willingly do. He presses your back against his bare front and keeps your legs spread with his hands, effectively exposing your cunt to the chilly air. You know exactly what he's planing to do, but you still find yourself arching your chest when he kneads your tits a few times, his thumbs brushing against your nipples ever so expertly, eliciting small moans from you, before his hands move down between your legs. His fingers quickly find your pussy, rubbing ever so softly along the folds and smearing the wetness along your folds. You gasp when two fingers slowly enter your hole, pumping at a steady and slow pace as he works them carefully into you. Your hips slightly buck into his hands, eager to have his palm rub against your clit and he immediately complies and presses his palm against you the second his fingers are buried knuckles deep inside of you. "That's it, baby, just take what you need," he proudly groans as he watches how his fingers disappear inside of your cunt, taking him so well.

He brings you close again with his steady pace, so deliciously close, yet still not enough. A needy whimper escapes your lips when he picks up his pace, his fingers curling gently inside of you to meet your sweet spot. He almost completely pulls his fingers out before he pushes them inside again, making sure you never feel empty when his fingers keep on fucking you. You feel the coil inside of you ready to snap, your body so, so ready to let go. Your head falls back against his shoulder, your mouth agape- but then he pulls them out for good this time.

"Not yet, baby." He brings his dirty hand up to your tit and squeezes it, smearing your arousal on your body. You're sensitive at this point, your pussy clenching repeatedly in need of more, in the need of your sweet release. "You're gonna cum on my cock tonight," he announces, his voice full of excitement as he has made his decision. "Please, Kou- fuck me then," you whine and wiggle your hips, and he kisses your shoulder one last time before he grabs your hips and presses your back down until your ass sticks out in the air.

You gasp for air when you feel the tip of his cock running along your slit, giving your clit, just enough friction to take your breath away whenever he rubs it a bit harder against you.

"Oh, baby, wanna put it in so bad, can I? Can I make you feel good?" He groans when he spreads your cheeks to look at your glistening cunt- almost like an invitation for him to keep going. "Do it, Kou, please put it in. Want your cock, need you so bad," your whole body is aching for him at this point, your pussy throbbing with need and making it impossible to think. A groan leaves his lips when he finally pushes his cock inside, slow and steady, but still determined and strong-willed. He always stretches you so well with his girth, the feeling so welcome and just what you need and you only manage to whine into the bed sheets as he keeps on filling you up. A groan leaves his lips when he bottoms out, and he stills for a few moments, his chest heaving heavily when he takes a few breaths. "Please, please, move-" you whine, feeling like you're going crazy with every second that he's making you wait any longer, and he finally does. His hips move hard against yours, moans leaving your lips at every particular deep thrust, but your body moves on autopilot, meeting each and every of his thrusts, which makes him dig his fingers deeper into your hips. You can't even speak at this point, your body getting closer to your high so fast after being edged for a few times already, yet you don't care, only encouraging him to move faster and deeper to get closer to your high.

His pace is punishing and fast at this point, the sound of skin clapping against skin filling the room, along with your moans and his groans. "Feels so good, feels so good-" you gasp, your body almost burning at this point, so close to stumbling over the edge.

"That's it, come with me, let go for me-" a desperation coats his voice that makes it impossible for you to stay sane any longer, and you find yourself cumming hard on his cock when he brings one hand to rub on your clit, giving you just enough pleasure to lose control. Your back arches further, allowing his cock to slide in even deeper while you moan his name, your walls clenching around him, making it almost impossible for him to move when your walls grip him like a vice.

"So good, baby, so good, keep cumming for me-" a groan gets stuck in his throat and he stops his movements when he's cumming too, your walls fluttering around him while he coats them white. He's calling your name, always so vocal when he's reaching his high, and fucks into you until he whines of overstimulation, but his hands never release their tight grip on your hips.

He slowly pulls out after a few moments, making sure to be soft and gentle, giving your ass a last squeeze before he lets himself fall to the bed dramatically. His hands make a grabby motion towards your body and you weakly comply and lay down on him with your head on his chest, basically feeling his strong and fast heartbeat under your hand. His arms wrap around you immediately, the warmth of his body so welcoming and cozy. "Was that okay?" he is quick to ask, while his arms soothingly rub your back.

"Always so good to me, Kou," you weakly whisper when manages to pull a blanket over the two of you, and he happily hums and presses a kiss to your head. "Wanna spoil you, baby. Wanna give you everything." He entangles his legs with yours, not leaving an inch of space between the two of you, yet still making sure you comfortably lay on top of him. "Get some rest, baby, I'll take care of you when you wake up." You tilt your head and look at him, his smile so bright that it rivals the sun. You weakly whisper something against his chest, and his smile widens when he understands and responds.

"I love you too, baby."

[theangrypomeranian]

I miss Zekina 😭

[emilyskinners]

in conclusion by audrey gillispie // jenny humphrey in gossip girl