#its one of my all time favorite characterization choices truly

[philtstone]

the running bit of shawn being an excellent shot but entering every single Very Dangerous Situation completely unarmed is so fun because it just contains so many multitudes within it. practical interpretation? has a criminal record & california gun laws are relatively strict. personality wise? silly little pacifist with no sense of self preservation. meta narratively? the main character and he knows it. archetypally? sets him apart from the cops. funniest interpretation? cosmic forces at play in the universe think shawn and his fraudulent psychic schtick are deeply funny. hes actually just too touched by god to ever need a weapon to survive; a spiritually unkillable guy.

[eparch]

Isgarren is an Idealist (and Mabon is a Cynic)

This was originally going to be part of a longer post I'm working on, but I decided it warranted being its own.

And yes I know the title sounds insane! But in the grand scheme of SotO's narrative, Isgarren is an idealist at heart wearing a cynic's armor, and Mabon is a cynic at heart wearing an idealist's mask.

And Isgarren is an idealist because you kind of have to be one to dedicate yourself to 10,000 years of protecting a world that doesn't even know you exist.

And one of the only things we know about him from before his ascension was that he tried to go help the mursaat fight Zhaitan anyway even after Sidony decided against helping them. Most of what he calls his mistakes were also born from his attempts to help others - taking in Eparch and ascending Waiting Sorrow being the biggest examples. And still he keeps helping others. Still, no matter how many times his attempts to better the world led to another "mistake", led to his own exile from his kin, led to the deaths of people he loved, Isgarren still kept doing it because he believed in doing good no matter what.

He figured out at some point that the Elder Dragons were vital to Tyria's magical ecosystem, so he turned his efforts to fight for the good of Tyria outward, especially once Eparch gave him reason to think all kryptis were threats. He wasn't going to step in with the Elder Dragon wars until it literally threatened the destruction of all Tyria not because he didn't care, but because he had faith in us.

Keep in mind that in the personal story, the Commander and Trahearne successfully united the world to fight Zhaitan. Isgarren had seen this before. He saw Sidony unite all the other elder races to fight Zhaitan, only for them to suddenly betray each other and leave the mursaat and Forgotten to die on their own. The Pact succeeded where the elder races failed. Why wouldn't he believe in the strength of mortals at that point?

Not to overuse and refer back to my favorite conversation in SotO too often, but Isgarren doesn't save farms not because he doesn't care, he doesn't save the farm because he knows the Commander will be there to have his back and do it while he takes care of the dragon minion.

Isgarren, for all his faults and his grumpy and bitter attitude, is an idealist.

Mabon called him naive for a reason. He even calls his own choices naive.

And speaking of Mabon...he's a cynic at heart.

This might seem contradictory to the way he is characterized as an optimistic and positive force among the Wizard's Court and for the Astral Ward (and he is), moreso than Isgarren being a hidden idealist under his sour armor, but consider that Mabon's entire character rides on his idea of atonement.

In his journal from shortly after his ascension, he doesn't remember what he was like before it. He just remembers that his own people are cruel and evil. He assumes Isgarren is avoiding him because he's afraid of him as a violent mursaat and never truly trusted him at all (when this could just as likely be because Isgarren is feeling guilty of the ascension wiping Mabon's memories, but that's just me speculating). He assumes that he must have been just like all other mursaat and he must have been a terrible person himself. So he must atone. And atone he does for 10,000 years.

Isgarren tells you, when you ask him about Mabon, that Mabon was not like other mursaat when they first met.

In SotO, Mabon's arc starts shortly before we meet him. Asthenes is attacking him mentally the whole time, but he puts on his outward mask of idealism and strength to save Dagda and Lyhr and to lead the Astral Ward while Isgarren is missing.

Knowing the Wizards, knowing the Commander, wouldn't we have found some way to save him too? If we knew? If we had realized? Isn't that what the Wizards and the Commander do? Wouldn't we have just made it possible to save Dagda, Lyhr, and Mabon?

Mabon didn't want to die, but he felt at that point "there is no other way this can end" and he outright asks us not to hesitate "when the hour arrives." He doesn't bother to ask for help with his own possession because he thinks he's beyond saving, and he needs to save the others first.

He also notably meddles with Tyrians more than Isgarren does. Many of the Astral Ward's recruits are his specifically. He travels to Tyria frequently to meet people and experience the world "on the ground", so to speak. Compare this to the historical mursaat modus of sitting back and manipulating an entire society unseen.

Even when it's someone Isgarren (and Uenno) recruits like Frode, it's not until Mabon involves himself that they heal and find their place in the Astral Ward.

That's not to say he didn't believe in mortals at all, just that as part of his trying to be a better person than he believed himself to be, he ended up taking it upon himself to help those he felt no one else would.

Finally, it's notable to me that both Isgarren and Mabon attempt to distance themselves from their races in some manner, and they both go about it in very different ways.

Isgarren made himself blue so he might be mistaken for a djinn at first glance but he still takes great pride in being a Seer. He wants to be seen as part of the rest of Tyria despite sitting above it, but will happily answer your questions about Seers.

Mabon hides his wings to be less threatening, but he's still very obviously a mursaat at first glance. He's still other from the rest of Tyria, but he distances himself from the other mursaat so much that he considers his own race extinct with Lazarus's death.

And somehow, it's so very fitting that these two found each other and created the Wizard's Court together.

[thetypedwriter]

Dark Heir Book Review

Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat Book Review 

Warning: *Spoiler Warning for both Dark Rise and Dark Heir*

Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat has been my most anticipated read. Not of the year, not of the month, just in general. More than any other sequel coming out, I could not wait for Dark Heir.

In preparation, I even reread Dark Rise to ensure that I had a full and complete understanding of every sentence and nuance put forth in Dark Heir. 

I was so incredibly excited for this book, especially as I found Dark Heir to be titillating and maybe the last book I read that truly took me by surprise and made me gasp out loud. 

I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed, because I think Dark Heir is good, but I also don’t think it’s perfect and having the astronomical expectations that I did have certainly didn’t help. 

Dark Heir picks up immediately after Dark Rise ends. Similarly to the first book, the gang is trying to stop the dark king from reaching his full power and face off against Sinclair, Simon’s father, in various moments with an array of tension and methodologies, all interwoven with intrapersonal moments of romance, friendship, and self-actualization. 

The biggest weakness of the first book was its middle. The beginning of Dark Rise starts off intriguing, with Will on the loose and an action-packed fight scene onboard a ship.

The ending of Dark Rise hits you like a bomb. The realization that Will is actually the dark king will never not be one of the greatest plot twists of all time. 

Other than the middle slog, though, Dark Rise was excellent. 

My biggest frustrations with Dark Heir are the treatment of the villain and the multiple POV’s. In Dark Rise, Simon is the big baddie. He’s calculating, manipulative, powerful, and charismatic. In Dark Heir, however, C.S. Pacat tells you that you’ve got it all wrong. 

It’s not Simon that is characterized by all those traits, but his father, Sinclair. All the attributes given to Simon in the first book are essentially just handed over to Sinclair with the attitude of making you feel stupid for thinking Simon was the villain in the first place…even though that’s what we were told in book one and Sinclair hadn’t even been mentioned previously. 

I find it frustrating when authors diminish an antagonist from one book to make another villain seem worse and more powerful later on.

Let Simon and Sinclair stand on their own, separate and distinct. Don’t minimize what happened in book one so that Sinclair seems more evil and important in the sequel. 

It didn’t work for me, and the fact that we don’t even see Sinclair is also a poor choice. For the villain to never even show up (other than possessing others) reduces his threatening presence overall and the tension I get as a reader decreases every time another page passes without Sinclair ever showing his face (it worked in Harry Potter only because another villain was there to fill the void). 

My second frustration is the amount of POV’s. In the first book, there were three POV’s: Will, Violet, and Katherine. In book two, we get Will, Violet, Cyprian, Elizabeth, James, and Visander.

It’s too many. Three is already pushing it and by increasing it from three to six, the overall arc for each character gets less spotlight and therefore less development. 

That being said, I like all the characters and loved seeing their POV’s. However, because there were just so many of them, I felt like it was quantity over quality.

Whereas I would have preferred the quality of less POV’s than the breadth of more, especially as several of them were with each other, as in the case of James, Will, and Cyprian and then Visander and Elizabeth. 

Will’s agony of being the dark king and trying to fight against himself, meanwhile seeking understanding and acceptance, is nothing short of brilliant. Will’s chapters were by far my favorite because they were so conflicted, in the most interesting of ways.

After Will, my favorite POV is Elizabeth’s. Her childlike way of speaking and understanding the disturbing world around her was always intriguing and poignant (and often hilarious). I liked that her POV offered a different view of what was going on compared to Will and his gang. However, her POV makes Visander’s obsolete. 

Violet’s POV could have been good, but she is imprisoned the whole time. I actually think the only reason is C.S. Pacat did that was because having Violet around the gang would have influenced the plot too much, so she just needed Violet locked away—cue Mrs. Duval with her controlling powers (which was never explained???). 

Violet’s chapters were boring, which is a shame because I really adore Violet. I would have loved to have seen the tension in Will’s chapters by having Violet close by the whole book and to see her relationship with Cyprian blossom and grow.

But no. Instead she’s locked up for 90% of the book before escaping just in time for the climax, interacting with virtually no one except some old journals. 

Cyprian’s POV was fine, but useless, as he was with Will 90% of the time. 

James’ POV was interesting, but not needed. I actually think a part of James’ allure is his mystery. What is he planning? How is feeling? What are his intentions?

A big part of my initial curiosity about James stemmed from those questions. In Dark Heir all that disappears. Because we get James’ POV, gone is the mystery about what James is planning, his true motivations, and his feelings. 

Honestly, if the whole book had switched off between Will and Elizabeth that would have been perfect. If three was absolutely needed, then I would take Violet too, but otherwise? All the other POV’s were not needed and only took away from other storylines. 

I feel so strongly about this because I really like all the characters. I find them all complex, intriguing, highly motivated, and conflicted for a variety of reasons.

C.S. Pacat did such a great job creating them that I want to see their storylines through. What I don’t want are filler POV’s that don’t offer much in the way of plot. 

The last niggling frustration I’ll briefly mention before getting to the ending is the setting. In book one, we get huge (maybe too long) descriptions of the Hall of the Stewards and of London.

In book two, we get none of that. We get descriptions of the dark palace and some small villages in Italy and that's about it. For a huge epic fantasy, the world felt very small and very unimaginative. 

The highlights for the book were definitely the characters and their interactions. Those proved to be just as good as the first book, if not better.

The relationship between Will and James, between Will and Violet, Violet and Cyprian, Cyprian and James, Violet and Tom, Visander and Elizabeth—they are all chef’s kiss! 

Truly, each and every character has such intense and significant ties to all the other characters that it kept me devouring each page like a starved man. This is where C.S. Pacat really shines. 

The last thing I’ll mention to bring this review to a close is the ending. Did it have the bombshell explosive conclusion like Dark Rise?

No, no it did not. 

Was it still good?

Yes…for the most part. The culmination of all the characters meeting underneath the mountain in the dark palace was great. However, I wanted more. 

There were several moments where a huge revelation or climactic fight was about to happen when the castle just happened to shake, or an earthquake appeared, or chunks of rock fell from the ceiling.

It felt cheap and frustrating to get cut off from an important moment, especially as this happened not once, but several times near the end. 

Additionally, the twist of James wearing the collar in the final pages would have been so much more powerful and shocking if we hadn’t literally read in the chapter before that the collar clicked around his throat by Sloane/Sinclair. 

 It doesn’t make any sense. 

Why give away your biggest shock factor? I have no idea.

Even after writing this, I realize that James’ POV might have actively been a detriment to the book overall, but especially to the ending, which was nowhere near as crazy a plot twist as Dark Rise. 

In general, I still liked this book. I would consider it leagues better than other YA novels, especially in terms of characters and their relationships, but it’s not without its issues, even compared to its predecessor. 

Frustrations aside, I enjoyed Dark Heir. The plot was palatable enough—there’s a dark army slumbering beneath a mountain in a hidden away palace that cannot be woken up, but it’s the characters, their interactions, and their desires that I found truly appealing. 

Recommendation: Reread Dark Rise like I did to fully appreciate the brilliance of it, and then read Dark Heir. It won’t be as good, but that’s okay. You’ll still get the character moments you’ve been craving before it’ll leave you wanting more.

Let’s hope that the next book will fulfill any lingering needs we have and (dark) rise to the challenge. 

Score: 7/10

[darlin-djarin]

You’re very strange. Sid isn’t a poc, her voice actress is a white woman, and Saw has been portrayed as a negative character before TBB came out, yet y’all sit on this app and use TBB as a scapegoat for deeply rooted racism within Disney that’s been there for 50+ years. If you don’t like TBB bc of all the reasons you say, stop watching Disney shows as a whole. Mind you, one of the main characters of the show you fav so much (Mandalorian) had a GENUINE racist woman on there for two seasons, or let’s speak on Ahsoka which has a transphobic actress playing her. Let’s also remember how John Boyega and Moses Ingram were treated as well. TBB has its own problems, but it’s funny how y’all ignore real world racism with real people.

are you. fucking serious.

first of all, sid does count as a “poc” (the term poc barely exists outside of america and white dominated countries, but what i’m saying is that sid is not the equivalent to a white woman). no alien is white. just because someone’s actor is white doesn’t mean the character, especially since it’s an alien, is white. (not to mention that sid’s characterization is an antisemetic stereotype). hell, pedro pascal considers himself a white latino and din djarin is still a poc character. and yeah saw has been portrayed in a negative view but that’s because everyone else is seen as an angel and all pure and morally correct, while making saw a bad guy for doing things to the extreme, which is absolutely necessary when it’s for the greater good for the rebellion. just because i don’t like tbb doesn’t mean suddenly i can’t enjoy other shows. you sound so fucking stupid right now.

and hey, using the mandalorian against me isn’t gonna work 💀💀 i’ve made my fair share about how racist the show is as well, bringing up bo-katan and her racism (and extremism, but she gets to be celebrated and adored for it, while saw gerrera just gets more racism for it) and how the show uses and discards polynesian culture, which is what mandalorians are based on, to the directors liking. i’ve spoken up a MILLION times about the problems in a million different shows, even my favorites, because just bc i like something doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be criticized when something about it may be harmful to real life audiences getting represented (or not represented) that way.

i don’t know anything about ahsoka or her actress so i can’t speak on that, but if you look through my ahsoka posts, i haven’t been exactly praising the show either 💀 i’ve been giving it criticism as well, especially for it’s visuals and it’s choice in actors that were hired.

i don’t “ignore” real world racism, i obviously fucking care about it, since it affects me and so many other people in the world, but this is a star wars blog. i talk about star wars and it’s media and criticize it when i see something wrong with it and i state my opinions. fiction reflects reality, and vice versa, so even if the problems in this fictional show, tbb, aren’t “technically” real, it can still harm real people who watch that and see themselves represented in a bad way or in an inappropriate manner. being represented on screen is something so special and seeing all the racism that goes on in that show is truly fucking awful.

this is why i hate fucking talking about this show. because y’all bad batch supporters are SO quick to defend your show, y’all come into my inbox and talk shit. no one said you can’t enjoy some aspects. but you need to know how this show can harm people irl with the things that happen in it, reflecting upon reality.

[kiloskywalker]

I am now curious about what your favorite Tarlos scene is.

I knew you were going to ask me this question, and I was still not prepared. So you get a crazy rambling answer from the Flight Crew Lounge at the San Francisco Airport as I'm waiting to go back to DC. So be prepared.

There are literally so many moments that it's almost impossible to choose, I know everyone probably says this but I mean it. But if I had to narrow it down, I would definitely say a similar answer to you. My favorite scene is when Carlos finds TK on the couch looking at photo albums after his bad call and his subsequent choice to blow off his meeting. I read a really good fic from Carlos's perspective that was a coda to this episode (right after Carlos leaves the loft at the end) and kind of wrote about my thoughts in a comment, so this is it expanded. The fic is called "This Love We Carry" and its by @thevenstar, you can find it here, I highly recommend it.

I liked the episode from a Carlos characterization too. I'm gonna preface this by saying that I read a lot into characters and between the lines when it comes to dialogue and I'm sure that I interpreted certain moments and scenes differently than others, but that is the point of writing and discussion. Throughout the season its seemed as though he has an innate desire to help people in any way. We saw this too in 2x08 when he makes the risky choice to let the man with the bomb go, but we saw it a lot this season with his desire to help TK (and more importantly keep him safe). Carlos loves TK so much that he wants to keep him safe in as many ways as he can (honestly who can blame him!), and gets upset if he cannot do so and IMHO we saw this in three big instances that I can pull off the top of my head:

1x08 he's visibly upset and crying while visiting TK in the hospital after he was shot.

2x08 there's a close up shot of him holding TK after the EMS crew was rescued. The one where you can see TK's head kinda droop and it looks like he's passing out a bit, but Carlos has what I can describe as a kind of scared/empty look in his eyes. I interpreted it as being genuinely scared for what could have happened.

2x12 after the fire when he's trying to keep a straight face after the fire and eventually lets go, apologizing for not having a fire extinguisher in the bedroom

3x08 in several places: (a)-Carlos wishes he could make everything better (take away TK's pain) (b)-the reunion hug at the airport, most notably when Carlos says "I kept thinking, I'm the one that put him on the plane" *** (we'll come back to this later)

3x12 his first thought after hearing about Sadie being the baddie was to find TK, only to try and get to him but to also pass out as well *** (we'll come back to this as well)

3x13 the entire episode (see below lol)

I'm sure there's more but that's all that I can think about in my head right now. But anyway, we've established that Carlos has a desire to keep people (mostly TK) safe. And I think that to some extent, he harbors some guilt about the times that he has failed to do so namely: not having a fire extinguisher in their bedroom so they are trapped in a horrible situation where they almost die in their own home, putting him on a plane that then has a mechanical emergency and having to watch helplessly from the ground, not realizing soon enough that Sadie was in fact a crazy person who assaulted the both of them in there own home again (etc)... 3x13 was such a wake-up call for him. It was the first time that he truly had to deal with the consequences of TK's addiction, not to mention his other issues (I'm positive at this point TK's grief has morphed into a depression of some sort, its quite common). These issues are so much more different than what he's used to and cannot necessarily be solved by something as simple as keeping extra up-to-date fire extinguishers in every room. You can tell that Carlos sort of doesn't really know what to do, so he reverts to being the normal, loving, sweet, caring partner he's always been for TK. In fact, he says things like "I know I haven't been in the program, but if there's anything that you want to get off your chest..." And then there's the whole business with Cooper, TK's sponsor.

I definitely do not think Carlos is jealous. I mean, it felt like the writers tried to do that for a little bit during the time where Carlos first met Cooper (that whole scene was pretty funny actually), but I think everything changed on that end when Carlos woke up in the middle of the night to find TK in the living room on the phone with him, and then subsequently their "dinner" discussion (you framed it as not a fight--which I agree with). There definitely is a part of Carlos that's jealous, not because TK is hanging out with someone who's really handsome (Carlos doesn't care about that part there's a whole line about it: "You know he's straight right?" "Why does that matter?"), but rather he's jealous of the fact that there is someone who TK feels is actually able to help him who isn't his boyfriend who loves him more than anything else in the world and just wants to keep him safe (there's another line about that as well: "I just feel like he's getting parts of you that I'm not getting). Side note: this also leads into my favorite Tarlos lines (outside of TK's proposal):

Carlos: I just feel like he's getting parts of you that I'm not getting. TK: You don't want those parts. Carlos: I do! I want all of it. TK: You have all of me Carlos. Carlos: Do I? TK: Yes! UGH SO GOOD. Anyway, up to this point, 3x13 felt like an exploration of Carlos's inner anxiety telling him that TK finally realized that Carlos couldn't protect him and thus he found someone who could. You can actually see him come to that realization when he says "I'm not enough, you mean." when TK is telling him about how he needs people in his life who have been in the trenches with their own addictions who can help in ways that Carlos can't. TK, bless his heart, is trying to tell Carlos that there are definitely times when he won't be able to help in all the ways he can, and that Carlos has to trust that TK knows how to get help when he needs it.

Okay *phew*, we've spent all that time explaining the background now its time for me to (finally) answer the question originally asked: why is the scene above my favorite? Carlos sees TK in pain and he isn't truly getting the help that he talked about needing. He didn't go to his meeting, he didn't call his sponsor. He's just choosing to listen to his sad boi playlist (I assume) and let the depression consume him. Carlos has finally come to the realization that by calling Cooper himself (even after running a background check), he IS helping TK in the way that TK himself has said he needs it. I think that realization is beautiful in a way, he's recognizing that TK has chosen to get help and fight the battles he needs to fight because he wants to get better and Carlos calling Cooper reaffirms that he knows TK was making a choice and that he respects that choice and need to get better. I think after this scene, the boys were truly in the strongest place they could have been, especially after the tumultuous relationship they've had and the traumas they've been through. I'm sorry this turned into an essay. I honestly love Tarlos so much and can talk literal volumes about them as you can tell. Trust me.

[teddybeartoji]

you made me wanna rewatch (can't play) both of tlou games,,

i really loved the vibes of both games mainly, since you can only follow as the story unfolds - i have to admit that while your favorite is the second, mine was the first. i am weak to selfish people, i love selfishness, not necessarily as a default but more as a proof of pure individuality and i am obsessed with the ideas associated with individualism

so when joel made that choice against everything? against the entire world? against himself?? hell, even against ellie herself???? went a bit insane with that

i read the whole thing u just wrote, have to admit it has been a long while since i watched, so there's stuff i didn't get at first because i needed time to remember the names... anyways if i do go through and watch it i'll have to read your commentary again

side note but i love people that really like something and can talk about it in extended detail, i find it fascinating and there's always a new element i can learn

i also have to admit i didn't like abby because well.. an antagonist to the previous protagonists... and since i am the type to side with the protagonist no matter what.. (i actually some bojack analysis videos this afternoon and ig that's the only media for now that challenged that)

well anyways i do remember still siding with her, admiring how strong she was - and when she got close with lev?? say less good lord (i get attached to characters who are trans/have trans implications in media VERY quickly, esp when i watched tlou2 at a time where i was heavily struggling w gender (still am but repressing so it's not as bad))

overall the writing is truly impeccable, i love me some good characterization

i remember watching videos criticizing tlou2, especially its pacing - i think i agreed back then even though to me it wasn't a problem at all while i was watching. as a last info, i'll just say i havent gotten around to watch the series adaptation... i am very scared it'll disappoint and i just loved the games too much it doesn't feel necessary (even though i am the type to want to go through ALL of a media's content usually otherwise it stresses me out)

saw you were having some trouble sleeping, know that you are not alone 🥲 i feel like i'm going insane

~ ☀️

HIII SUNNYYY HIIIIII:333 I OFTEN WATCH GAMES TOO BTWW!!!!! i actually tend to always watch a playthrough as i play a game lmao,, like i'll watch it as far as i've played bc i love to see how somebody else solves the puzzles and the encounters and stuff!!!!!!!!!!

i do still really love the first one too don't get my wrong!!! i think it's fucking revolutionary like it's an incredible fucking game!!!!!!! the choice that joel makes... insane really. i absolutely love it. it does kill me just a little just knowing how much the choice he makes will bear down on ellie........

AHHH I KNOWW I KINDA JUST SPITBALLED i thought abt giving more context to some of the thoughts but i figured then it really would get a little bit too confusing with all the information lmao BUTTT I'M SO HAPPY YOU STILL DECIDED TO READ IT!!!!!! I MEANS SO MUCH ACTUALLY WAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! ILYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i definitely understand why people would be upset with abby, i think that's very very normal and i mean.. i was very upset too lmao but i've just seen so many ppl blatantly hating on her and for what she's done and i think that's the stupidest thing ever honestly. like even if you're mad and sad about joel... you should still be able to look at the whole thing from her perspective right??

like imagine if we never saw ellie's and joel's side; ofc the vaccine is one thing - joel took away even the mere POSSIBILITY of a vaccine and no matter how much ppl wanna bash on the idea of developing one, i think that hope really is something that dies last okay. i don't think the fireflies are wrong about believing in that. idk how much i personally would've been willing to do for the cause but yeah i really don't blame them. so when a mf comes in with the immune kid, only to then kill the ONE person who'd be able to make the vaccine and like a million other fireflies alongside with him..... yeah i mean that just makes him sound like a psycho doesn't it lmao

i think it is enough of a reason to go after him AND AGAIN I DO LOVE JOEL I'M BASHING HIM (lol) BUT I'M JUST TRYING TO LOOK AT THE WHOLE THING FROM BOTH SIDES YK? so i really do hate when ppl don't even TRY to see it from her angle...

TLOU2 IS SOOOOOO WELL-WRITTEENNNN!!!!!!!! like so fucking well!!!!!! it hurts so much and it just keeps punching you in the face but that doesn't make it bad yk? i feel like it's all very very realistic. it's fucked up, but that's just how the world is.

AND LEVV!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOOOOVEEE HIMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! genuinely love the fact that they have a lesbian and a trans character as the main characters (and abby with her physique bc that's just not smth you see all the time either)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and i absolutely fucking adored how they handled his storyline. with how abby handled it when the other seraphites called him by his deadname and all that. and when yara told the entire story and then the whole thing with the mom... ahh that really broke my heart he really is my son i love him sm:((((((

i would definitely disagree with the pacing thing actually!!!!! to me it really fit the way the story was progressing yk?? like obviously the start is slow bc ellie and dina are only getting into the city and they have nothing to worry abt other than the few infected as they're looting and tooting around. and then right after they do meet them it all starts getting faster and that too just felt very fitting. bc it was all chaotic!!!!!!!!!!!!! i felt like that kept me on my toes even more!!!!

mmm the show.... it had some cool moments. i did really like how they did the bloater scene buuuut overall it was a bit meh actually. i think for me it was too just bc i'm such a big fan of the games. like my hopes might've been too high. and i just hated that they changed so much; like the fact that they don't have spores in that??? that's such a cool detail so idk why they decided to leave it out. i do think that the actors were good though!!!!

but uh i won't be watching the second season. 1. they casted a bunch of zionists as the main ppl so yeah fuck that shit 2. they casted a little like 5'3 skinny actress as abby😐😐like be so fucking serious rn. i think her being jacked as shit is a very important part,, i think it's good to have that kind of a rep but ohh no they just casted the little twig. it's a hard no from me.

OMFG THIS TURNED INTO ANOTHER WORDVOMIT AGAIN HGSAFAGHSHAGSA DAMN ANYWAYY I HOPE I ANSWERED EVERYTHING I FEEL LIKE I'M ON A ROLL SO IT'S A BIT HARD TO ACTUALLY FOCUS LMAO BUT WAAHHH IT'S SO GOOD TO HAVE PPL TO TALK ABT TLOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MWAH MWAH MWAHH ILYY!!!!!!!

[junipersrambles]

Alright, so I just finished watching the season 5 finale of BSD and I have a lot of thoughts, most of them unprocessed but I'm going to try and summarize them anyways!

Its not shocking to me that there was a bit of a twist ending with everything being tied up quite nicely (for the most part, I'll get to the 'two hours later' thing in a bit). Kafka Asagiri has a habit of subverting expectations when concluding complex plots. Now is it a bit convenient that it ended the way it did? Perhaps, I would argue though that we were left with a lot to explore in the upcoming chapters/season of the show (assuming the manga follows the same plot beats when released in the upcoming months). Lots of great character moments and parallels occurred which I will likely write in future posts.

Do I think Fyodor is dead? I'm not entirely convinced, considering the circumstances though its the most likely conclusion. Not how I assumed it would play out, but it was an interesting conclusion to the mind games between him and Dazai that have been playing out since the prison arc started.

I'm curious to see why there was a lack of focus on Sigma. It probably has something to do with wherever the next arc is going. I would hope that he isn't dead as his arc feels like it hasn't been properly concluded. If he isn't dead its possible that he gained knowledge about whatever the next incoming disaster is. The best we can hope for is that he survived and we can learn about what Fyodor knew and what his ability truly is (if we are lucky).

I could gush forever about Nikolai and how he talks about Fyodor after the helicopter crash. It feels like an interesting conclusion to his story, one that seemed inevitable in my opinion. Though I am curious to see where his character is taken from here, I think it would be okay if this was his final appearance. I have a feeling that he may get a few more scenes processing his feelings about how his worldview may have been altered/shifted after the events of this episode. Only time will tell.

Bram gets his body back!! He is probably one of my favorite characters if not for his interactions with Aya alone, then definitely for his characterization (and the way I know the real Bram Stoker would be rolling in his grave). No idea where he'll go from here, but all the moments with him were nice and its my hope that he can at least be a fun father type figure for Aya in the future.

Its nice to see Dazai and Chuuya interact (as always). Was it a bit convenient that Chuuya was pretending to be a vampire? Yes of course, though it provides a reasonable explanation as to why Dazai isn't dead, so I suppose it works. Glad they aren't dead, their arcs don't feel complete yet. I don't have much else to say about their time in the episode unfortunately.

All of the scenes with Fukuzawa and Fukuchi were excellent and I am very glad that they took up the most time in the episode. The emotional resonance in their scenes is palpable and I'm really glad that they had time to talk things out while in Poe's book. Those moments had too many literary quotes and references to count, but I really appreciated that their motivations were laid bare for the audience. I think the final scene between the two of them will stick with me for a long time. If you have yet to see the episode this moment alone makes it worth watching in my opinion.

I don't think that there is a complicated answer as to why Akutagawa appears to be human and alive again in the 'two hours later' segment. The simplest answer likely has to do with aspects of Bram's powers that have yet to be explained. If this is not the case I'm sure there's another convenient explanation.

I always think that its an interesting choice when a studio releases the conclusion of an arc or season of a show before the story line has concluded in the manga, that being said the final part of Twilight Goodbye makes me nervous for a couple of reasons.

One, kind of wild that it progresses to a big super-powered fight only a few hours after the conclusion of the last arc. Not that BSD hasn't done something similar before, but this seems like a bit of a rush for the timeline. I will hold my extended worries on this for now. It reminds me of the Bad Apple story line and how quickly all of that plays out. Perhaps this will proceed similarly? Though with how many characters are in focus right now we can't be entirely sure.

Two, this mystery character seems quite powerful and is seen wielding the "space-time sword" that Fukuchi had previously been using. I can't help but notice that this mysterious figure also looks a lot like Fukuchi. Same scars on the face, same hair. I am not saying it is him, but I think that him being the 'final?' enemy of this story line would interfere with a lot of the meaning infused into the end of the current arc. I sincerely hope that its not him, but I would be interested to see where everything goes if it Fukuchi.

Lastly, I do truly hope that this is the intended direction of the story moving forward for Asagiri's sake. I don't think Studio Bones would conclude or move on with a story without more of the manga being written. They tend to be more patient than other studios when it comes to waiting for enough material for new seasons. That being said, season four and five did not necessarily need to be produced separately and back to back. Then again, I am not that familiar with the inner workings of the Anime industry. In conclusion, I just hope that this is genuinely what the author intended and that whatever is made moving forward carries the spirit of BSD as it has been portrayed so far.

[ninareviewsfilms]

The Fantabulous Comeback of Harley Quinn

“Behind every great man is a badass broad!”

Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn follows the iconic antiheroine: Harley Quinn, as she navigates life after finally leaving her abusive and dependent ex, Joker. Unlike her previous fetishized depiction in Suicide Squad, Harley is no longer hyper-sexualized through the male gaze. Instead, the sequel consists of a female-fronted team, of all ages, races, and sexual orientations. Thus, the film is shown through both a female and queer gaze. It intentionally and unapologetically subverts the male gaze, but in an authentic way by focusing on the relationship between the five female characters. From cinematography to characterization, Birds of Prey quite literally said “fuck you” to Suicide Squad and completely reconstructed the gaze, surpassing its predecessor in every way possible.

Perhaps the most circulated image of Harley Quinn, is Margot Robbie stripping her clothes in Suicide Squad in an overtly sexual manner, shamelessly catering to the male gaze. It is interesting to note how only Harley had an undressing scene as her male counterparts stared in desire. Her body is constantly objectified by the camera through closeups of her bare body, almost never focusing on the face.

In Birds of Prey, a similar scene of undressing occurs, except this time, the cinematography does not objectify the female victim. The villain of the film, Black Mask, forces a man to undress a woman in public, with spectators all over. Instead of the camera closing in and panning on the undressed body, the cinematography focuses on the horrified face of the woman, and those around her. It reveals the villain’s nature without the expense of sexualizing the female victim. It doesn’t glorify rape culture like most, if not all, scenes of assaults on women do. Instead, the film accentuates the sheer pain and horror women feel when being sexually harassed or assaulted. And with that, a message to all male directors: it’s really not that difficult to show violence against women without sexualizing them.

In Suicide Squad, Harley was only seen through the views of others, but in Birds of Prey, she narrates her own story, displaying her independence and fun personality without being sexualized, or de-sexualized. The spectrum of women in superhero films is often either innocent and cute or overly sexualized and mischievous. Character development is non-existent. God forbid women are allowed to be complex and flawed. Relentlessly, Birds of Prey addresses this and seeks to set a new spectrum for women to exist outside of male desires. This is also seen in the characterization of men. The men, including the villains, are not all displayed in a “macho” or “manly” style. Instead of the sexualization of their ab muscles, we see their reserved personalities. Men actually show emotions (one even cries) in this film! They don’t have to be unemotional or bold, they can be calculating and resourceful – something apparently only women can be.

Moving on to the most obvious difference – Harley Quinn’s fantabulous ‘I-need-no-man’ makeover. Previously, Harley’s appearance in Suicide Squad is truly voyeuristic-scopophilia come to life, fetishized beyond belief. Thankfully she now sports colorful, and playful, outfits that put comfort above all. Yes, it is still revealing but it is evidently a creative choice made by Harley herself, reflecting her explosive personality. Instead of wearing lingerie to sexily fight (sorry boys), she can now comfortably kill in t-shirts and pants.

Finally, slipping in my favorite scene when Harley offers a hair tie to Black Canary mid-fight, I thought to myself: “this is it... this is what it is to be a woman.” As a woman, this is the ultimate form of solidarity. A small but powerful act that I’m sure all women have experienced. Truly, this is a film made by women, about women, for women.

Birds of Prey flips the switch from Suicide Squad, and introduces a new Harley Quinn: no longer Joker’s property, she becomes fiery, vibrant, and most importantly, an individual woman. Yes, she still has faults, and sure, she has brutally tortured and killed many, but it is precisely this freedom of flaws that breaks stereotypes and solidifies Birds of Prey as a superior woman’s film.   

[felikatze]

finally finished gilgamesh (the korean webcomic, not the actual sumerian epic of gilgamesh) and like ohhh i get it, tink is haunting the narrative

jrgrjgbgkg sobbing. because this is EXACTLY what zius says in tek which means zius' ideology is directly based on tink. and now zius passes on tink's words to the second special class fjhg

can you TELL tink was my favorite character in this. rip king i miss you but at least you get to be the catalyst for all of tek ✌️

also WOW on context. "oh hey that's legia from gilgamesh" legia is in ONE CHAPTER of gilgamesh. IN THE LAST ONE.

long messy assortment of gilgamesh thoughts under the cut 👍 when i say long and messy and all over the place i mean it btw.

i have no fucking clue what went on with the ending of the main story

the paneling in fights was kinda wild and i couldnt tell what actually killed tink even once i reread the chapter which maybe cheapened his death a bit. like DID waron stab him? I DONT KNOW! I CANT TELL! did he just get done in by two malto goons to protect tludia? fuck if i know. can someone explain

the gilgamesh cast actually ended up growing on me by the end i was ready to scream when it teased hadar dying like three times at the end

and i also like how tludia was characterized later on and her picking up all these habits from ram and listening to a his stories only to later succeed him is aaaaa

foreshadowing 👍

the explanation for ram and tludia's Whole Deal is. wack though. "yeah ram exists because of a programming error basically. also last thursday-ism is real." why does it matter that ram tells tludia the world history if the history is fake??? why did tludia's curse flare up BEFORE hinsher got unthawed if hinsher being alive is the catalyst for it?

i GUESS it fits in with the worldbuilding of restrictions and rules as avenues of power. all power comes at a cost in this world and i think it's GREAT worldbuilding and powerscaling but using it to handwave plot beats kinda blows

on that note the worldbuilding around demons is kind of. yikes. i get they're going for a "forever war" thing but. really had to specify that they're all black huh. is this why tek never shows them onscreen? is hwandaeng embarrassed about this now.

it's not as bad as it could be what with the "both sides suck" approach but damn daljan really fucked up by essentially demoting tink for being anti-racist and not explaining that he'd like tink to teach new knights to be less racist. bcuz all tink is gonna walk away with is "knights are racist". daljan. my man.

i keep talking abt tink (love that bitch!) but i do truly love how fucked the concept of Honor got with him. and ruthless ram is in the later part of the comic. tludia criticizes him by asking if tink had any choice. ram says it was his honor and choice to die. but. tink was blackmailed into working for the malto in the first place. he didnt ever have a choice. choosing to die was his only choice. ESPECIALLY HOW WITH TLUDIA'S BACKSTORY WITH KANDENTIA!! it's paralleled with how kandentia criticzes tludia for stealing, but tludia says it's a priviledge to be so rightous!! not everyone can afford honor! are you gonna tell a starving child to stop stealing because its illegal? are you gonna tell a man being blackmailed into criminality to choose the "right" thing?

honor as a priviledge is a fantastic concept to explore

also on that note. ram. looking back on it he Never really gives people a choice. like obviously, his "negotiation" with the fake mushia. once the peaceful option fails, he just starts threatening her. oh, and how his cowardice is repeated - the people he's leaving aren't ever given a choice either, are they? and from the beginning of the plot, too. what choice does tludia have but to trust him when he's the only one who could possibly cure her fatal curse disease????

and in the end tludia's final actual choice is "life forever or die." like. what choice is that even

at least tludia's desire to keep living no matter what is a long established thing so it makes sense for her to do that

wow the story really has like 2 suicides. first ram and then muitin in the bonus stories. hot diggity

kinda mad hadar's sister plotline didn't really get resolved. where'd she go. i get that hadar's resolution to the plotline is that he gives up on looking for her and starts living for himself, since she never wanted him to find her anyway - but it still stings a little

she probably became a knight. she's not legia's sidekick, is she?? they look a little similar. maybe without the lipstick...

also fucking WILD to have tek things recontextualized

like oh these bozos are fron letoon. where stella lived and died. okay!

or going from "i dont care abt tamin" to "TINK'S BROTHER??????"

morbidly hilarious that he ended up becoming solbas' sidekick then. is that why she cares so much about rescuing him in tek? not just a simply need for his two braincells (as she has none), but guilt as well?

didn't tamin have tink's weapons in tek too. oh my gosh i'm going to cry

other stuff!!

tanshirin got so much more fucked up now seeing her in gilgamesh. "tyr's sister. cool 👍" to "hahah. girl what." good on her for becoming a knight though. seeing her with hinsher's hammer in gilgamesh was surreal

also in tek when zius explains the reason the east and west hate each other so much now realizing he was talking about hadar, tink, and hwashran specifically. i hope hadar shows up in tek at some point. just having the guy who Caused The War, Somewhat there would be hilarious. the smug smirk that launched a thousand ships. (hadar is a riot)

speaking of hinsher!!!! her story is the one that made me sob most (only time i cried at this comic was "gnojes the blacksmith" from the side stories). it's just. auhvrhhr. the human equivalent of hachiko. and at the end of the side story where hinsher steps into the workshop and is greeted by those bearing his name i aurghgfhf

it's really well handled how hinsher reacts to the situation. she's devestated, obviously. that moment when she sees ram and sees he's unchanged and asks him how long it's been but of course he's IMMORTAL but she doesn't know that so she thinks it's been no time at all but it was 500 years i'm. i'm fine

and just like everythinggggg and how she eventually copes by imagining gnojes managed to be happy without her. maybe he found someone else. the conflict of longing and desolation at hearing the name of gnojes continues, but then - he never had any children. he never married. he waited for her.

and how hinsher just. she regrets leaving gnojes. she regrets being trapped. she doesn't regret trying to save strangers. because that is her knight's honor. and she does it again, protecting tludia and nephren in the final arc,,,, don't talk to me

AND THEN THE SIDE STORY SHOWS. GNOJES NEVER GAVE UP LOOKING FOR HER. BUT HE FOUND HAPPINESS AGAIN, TOO. in his work. with the children he adopted. he died of old age surrounded by people he loved, who loved him too. but he never stopped missing her. and she'll never stop grieving him

the tragedy is just fucking DELICIOUS okay

do also love how the side stories show that ram is an unreliable narrator. it's really neat to see characters picked up and fleshed out without his viewpoint. like the fuckin plot twist that it was depression era ram who killed suldin and not tisalle. but ram only heard "suldin was killed by his apprentice" and didn't remember doing it, so he assumed tisalle did it. and then killed tisalle for it. fucked up 👍

what more was i saying

waron is way more fucked up than i thought but zius describes her as "predictably unpredictable" so she's just always been like this. how the fuck did the knights reign her in again. kandentia probably kicked her ass and now she just wants to brawl with zius now that her main target is dead. she's fantastic and i love her. she knows EXACTLY what she wants.

the general theme of self sacrifice and making yourself the villain to help others both with ram's actions and the demon knight backstory and waron's short story on how she hates knights kinda makes me think she also does this to establish that not all knights are just? after all, honor is individual, and not all honor will be "good", with waron as a prime example

did she ask nagyunn how he'd kill her just to figure out if he'd be fun to fight

that is. all my thoughts on gilgamesh i can remember at the moment. this post is long and messy but such is customary for me 👍

once again i think gilgamesh is hampered by the early chapters trying to hard to be comedic. once it settles on a tone and as the art improves i started enjoying it way more but with how frontloaded the flashbacks are (even if they pay off in full later!) i definetly wouldn't have been nearly as invested if it weren't for me reading tek first. tek just has a better plot hook with a character with a set goal and a plan to achieve it, whereas the beginning of gilgamesh kinda meanders as the crew sets out to unlock ram's memories, which doesn't really end up significantly changing ram, even. the beginning is too largely incidental to me so tink n the malto as concrete antagonists to outwit and overcome def helped that.

but also the ending feels just. messy. here is god to give us exposition. everything you did was useless. ram's pivot into ending the world suddenly, even if it's to draw out god(?), feels much too abrupt. yes he had the report about tludia and hinsher being somehow connected, and i did find it odd she could understand hadar without using sign language, but that foreshadowing really wasn't enough to even conceive what his plan was, especially since his talk with the fake mushia leaves out the dialogue where he actually gets her to agree. and then it also cuts out the final words tludia gives to ram before he jumps off the cliff.

to be fair tek ALSO does this a lot but it p much is always dialogue that would've been boring and is brought up only when relevant, with the general sense of "i guess they could've talked about this at that point." (main way tek blows it is with jiroon, imo - like, put the scene with nagyunn encouraging her before her death, maybe? so we're not just invested in her in-post? flashbacks work with tink because he already had plenty of build up before dying, and additional context just expands on what we already knew about him. i digress.)

and then the malto mooks who attack tludia and co are literally unnamed and faceless. it would've already been better if pavrin was the one to betray mushia. it was. just some fucking guy! okay!

tldr abt the ending: i dont really get it ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ the midpoint of the comic feels best to me writing wise. overall i enjoyed it though, even if i still like tek more.

dang, now i should totally reread tek for a fourth time, just so i can pick up on every detail gilgamesh expands on or recontextualizes.

like some of these r just for fun (like why daljan is so important to kandentia, since both of them are rather minor characters in tek), and others r kinda bonkers (the dragon has lost some of his mystique now that nephren exists to me)

[chaoxfix]

I think what really draws me to archie more is that, im not quite sure how to put this, the stories and how theyre treated aren't clean cut. The characters make tons of mistakes, missteps and back track because they messed up so a lot of the situations have a sort of weight to it that i think idw doesnt quite nail (no disrespect to idw of course. Its just that ppl get really weird when its criticized)

Also how the characters were drawn in archie, lotsa times with ugly expressions could really sell a moment in a fight or emotional moment.

yeah!!! thats part of what i mean by earnest stories, they have actual consequences and thats not something you often see in sonic media of any sort. it was until extremely recently that any past games mattered to new ones. meanwhile archie's stories come back around and around again, with characters and histories that matter.

and i definitely agree about the mistakes. the mistakes are some of the most compelling moments. not every mistake was treated as a mistake (and sometimes its REALLY funny if youre like 'wait.... but wouldnt that cause X???' but the writers instead are like 'MOVING RIGHT ALONG' and you just kind of have to say lol and continue going too). but the mistakes that DO hold weight are soooo fucking interesting. characters' choices matter, they are allowed to fuck up and that fuck-up is allowed to follow them for a While. and i just think thats neat. its realistic, things dont just get wrapped up in a nice bow all the time, sometimes things haunt the characters for years to come.

i also do like a lot of the art. my favorite archie artist legit might be jon gray. SAY WHAT YOU WILL ABOUT 132 BUT I REMAIN A JON GRAY STAN...!

i will say that i am not an idw hater, and idw DOES also have some storylines that have weight to them... though admittedly i like them in somewhat different ways to archie. for example, the mr tinker storyline seems to be trying to paint sonic as fucking up, too, for trusting eggman/mr tinker and releasing him, and i do like that storyline quite a bit. but at the same time im not quite as sold on it the way i was with a similar archie story, of eggman losing his grasp on reality after sonic soundly defeats him, and sonic showing him mercy but still being conflicted about it. i just preferred that archie characterization, because it seemed like sonic had trouble articulating *why* he felt so wrong about it, compared to idw sonic who seems like he knows exactly how to articulate all of his moral leanings. i prefer archie sonic because "im just living by my own feelings" truly seems to match him, he just does whatever he feels is right in the moment and he doesnt always know why, and sometimes it IS the wrong move. and i love that.

[robotlesbianjavert]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks...

oh it's been forever since i got a top characters ask - this has probably changed a lot since i last considered a definitive top ten. and actually this has tormented me a lot. had to kill a lot of darlings. oof. not actually definitive this could probably change a lot.

10) it's a really good thing i never got into Supernatural when the fandom was in its heyday i think there would be something wrong with me if i did. anyways november 5th unlatched something in me and i do think that Castiel is real and alive and gay out there in the universe in a way that precious few characters can lay claim to. everyone please respect him.

9) Battleborn is a dead game and a dead fandom which i grieve all the time, not least because it meant one of the greatest yuris of all time was lost from knowledge. anyways i love Galilea for largely gay reasons - tall woman in armor sword and shield, intense relationship of deep friendship and betrayal with Ambra, being a knight templar cursed by eldritch powers. i miss her. we truly lost something great. being so trapped between duty and love that it rips you apart for the rest of your existence. insane.

8) when Locus from Red vs Blue was first introduced like i kneeeeewwww they were gonna do something with him and also he had a sexy voice (tragically the voice actor turned out to be a dick.) and my knowing paid off. i love it when a character tries to abdicate their autonomy in order to escape their crimes but ultimately can't it's soooooo juicy.

7) Beast Wars has so many insanely good characters who are all my favourites and it is so so so hard to ever choose among them. but Blackarachnia claws her way to the top. funny enough it's a point where i think the show failed with her character that pushed her to the top - a large part of her characterization is trying to win and protect her autonomy/individuality, and "proving grounds" is such a triumphant climax of that. but she's also stuck in a toy commercial and needed a new design to sell so "crossing the rubicon" had to happen. it's something about how she had to be literally knocked out for the writers to make that upgrade happen that's both infuriating, but also speaks to how strong she is as a character.

6) Denji & Power from Chainsaw Man, do not separate them. i'm actually incapable of separating them. i have a lot of beloved characters from csm - makima, aki, kobeni, asa, yuko, it's probably easier to name the ones i don't like - but denji and power as both individual characters and as a relationship in the story is so important to me. denji was a character i actively didn't think i would love as much until the narrative gut punched me so hard with the full breadth of his story and development. power i always knew i would love, and it paid off i was so pleased with her and chapter 90 was pure euphoria for me. i need to see them together again so much.

5) Eleanor from The Haunting of Hill House, SPECIFICALLY the novel not the tv show, the tv show is nothing to me. she's anxiety incarnate she's trying too hard she's a uhaul lesbian she's a jealous paranoid waif of a woman but this house loves and accepts and wants her so she'll let it have her. there are a lot of parts of eleanor that are painfully familiar and no one will ever understand her like me. certainly not mike flanagan.

4) Community is one of my favourite tv shows, and in a similar way to beast wars there's so many characters that i love love love. but Shirley is actually a very easy choice. a choice with a lot of hang-ups as shirley is easily the most mistreated and least developed of the main long-term cast and every day i imagine myself shaking dan harmon violently saying hey if you were so proud of have half a room of female writers maybe you should have a) kept going with that and b) make less of them right. there's so much ground that could have been covered with her anger issues and past alcoholism, her crossed paths with jeff as kids, finding herself outside of being a wife and a mother, and they just struggled to really do right by her. but also she's so cute the way she says "i'm so sorryyyyy" in competitive ecology. kills me all the time.

3) i have written 18 spinaraki fics with more in my wips and i think it's fair to say that Spinner from Boku no Hero Academia is an all time forever favourite character for me, just barely edging out over shigaraki. obviously spinner is a gay little evil henchman so that clinches it. but also it's just like - seeing him go from a nothing character that could have easily have been written out, to being given his own plotline and character arc about trying to find meaning and purpose and ultimately finding it in caring SO HARD about one weird guy. and he's so moe. i believe in him.

2) jose from cybersix but i can't talk about it.

anyways i'm actually really at killing my darlings so really quick a couple of runner ups based on long-term history vs faves with a recency bias.

Runner-Ups Based on Intense & Passionate History

mr lahey from trailer park boys; enrico from stravaganza; bulk & skull from power rangers; jason voorhees from friday the 13th; redcloak from order of the stick; gob from arrested development; soundwave from transformers (franchise-wide); harvey dent from batman: the animated series; hardison & sophie from leverage; rabbit from winnie the pooh; cobra commander from gi joe; hyde from jekyll and hyde; griffin from the invisible man; bosola from duchess of malfi; masquerade & gus from bakugan; claptrap from borderlands; hook-handed man from a series of unfortunate events; kaiba from yu-gi-oh; rorschach & laurie from watchmen; stephanie and reverend putty from moral orel; demidevimon & impmon from digimon; quickstrike, inferno, dinobot, and rattrap from beast wars; chang & abed from community; cybersix from cybersix; shigaraki and honestly all of the lov & mla in bnha; six & makoto from bnha: vigilantes.

Runner Ups Based on Recency Bias

jessica from cannibal farm; mimi from psycho goreman; oj from nope; barbara howard from abbott elementary; evelyn & joy from eeaao; kinsey from the strangers: prey at night; misty, taissa, and shauna from yellowjackets; eva from monster; akagi from kimeno jihen; dimple from mp100; uma from disney's descendant (a movie series i have not watched. but i like her sooo much.)

okay with all that off my chest, my most number one favourite character of all time ever.

1 ) Meowth from Pokemon he's my best friend.

[birbycakes]

and when it comes to my Elden Ring self insert... well. I love Elden Ring's story and atmosphere but the CC is. Well it's just okay. I do like her hair tho. and Edit to say it's not like I DISLIKE the Elden Ring CC it's just. okay. It's fine! It does the job. But there's nothing about it to write home about.

And then we have Dirzafay, my BG3 MC. She is saved by the fact I have stuffed her full of mods LOL but if I was just working with the vanilla stuff she'd be my least favorite I can't lie u_u AND edit to add that while I dislike the preset faces and lack of body customization for BG3, they ATE with the hairstyles even if I prefer using modded ones. If I couldn't have modded hair it wouldn't be a big deal because the hair is just That Good. A lot of games with CC are def trying to step it up on the hair game and I appreciate it, though I won't say it's perfect yet. But the effort was much needed considering how Bad older games CC hairstyles are...

I think what I like most about BG3 and the Tav character (Durge as well but they are diff in this aspect mostly) is that the RP options you're given really... let you bond with them? IDK, it's really easy to make them feel like YOUR character while making them really enjoyable to play as. You're given a lot to make up so they don't become too defined of a character- like... I guess an example would be like Hawke from DA2? No matter how much you customize them they are still Hawke. But Tav is more like your DAO Warden, they are your character (or self insert) and they can be whoever you want them to be. (and an edit aside to say even your warden has more set in stone BG than Tav but Tav still feels just as likeable and customized to me) And it's even like that with Durge! Because of the whole mind wipe, you get to give them their new identity. Even if it's choosing to be the dark urge this time, it was at least a choice this time instead of forced upon them.

BUT this was about CC. And sadly the vanilla BG3 CC, though you are able to make characters who look good, they aren't really all that unique unless you REALLY dress them up, otherwise they could easily just be an NPC so without mods, it's pretty lame. In fact worse than an NPC cuz some NPCs have unique faces LOL I guess my point is that Tav's high points aren't really in the appearance customization (for vanilla) but rather their personality.

AND. One more edit to say... I know it's not really the goal of Elden Ring or Dragon's Dogma since they aren't CRPGs, but it's one thing to just. have a character you can customize. It's another to be able to mold their personality and morality and all that. So I'll always prefer CRPGs. But the lack of dialogue and characterization also allows you a lot of space to make up whatever you want about your Tarnished or Arisen so it's got its good points as well. But I think BG3 was able to accomplish that just as well, I think it truly masterfully worked with a blank slate type character without making them boring.

[lightwise]

While I ended up liking a lot of the finale, I totally agree this was a huge issue throughout the whole show.

This is the first Star Wars show or project actually that never managed to make me truly care about the majority of the characters. I think Qimir is really interesting, I like Sol a lot, and I care some about Osha. That’s it. And even then, as you say, the majority of what they do and feel is for plot’s sake, not coming out of an organic characterization.

Where Star Wars shines is when it makes you feel something about the characters on the screen. They could have literally less than five minutes of screen time or be completely new characters who only exist in one show—Tala and Haja from Kenobi come to mind—and completely grip my heart and mind and make me cry when they die. They feel REAL, in all their complexities and foibles and failings. I remember when the sequels first came out, and I saw Rey and BB-8 on marketing materials, and I was like, oh that’s cool that a girl will be the main Jedi protagonist, and that droid looks super cute, but I don’t think I’m going to like them as much as I do the original characters. Five minutes into the movie and BB-8 is rolling around chirping everywhere and Rey is scrabbling through a downed shipyard and I was like 🤩🤩🤩. Granted, they’re not my favorites in the franchise, but they snuck their way into my heart.

The Acolyte, due to lack of upfront world building, some occasionally iffy dialogue and pacing choices, and investing less in many of its characters knowing they would get killed off sooner rather than later, really fumbled on this. And I see the potential and the plot is really interesting, but like almost every other show that’s been made so far, I wish all of it held up under the microscope.

Probably the biggest problem with The Acolyte is what really bit it in the ass in the finale--its main characters did things because of the plot, not because they were organically built up or made sense. I could mostly overlook it in previous episodes because it felt like there was still more time to reveal the characters' motivations, but now that we're at the end, there's just so little throughline for either of the twins' characterizations. Mae makes the most sense, you get why she was so angry, she always wanted Osha to stay with her, of course she'd drop everything when Osha was alive, but then suddenly she's just completely okay with Qimir erasing her memories of Osha? Of giving up that relationship that drove her the entire time--and Qimir says this was permanent, I doubt Mae had reason to think otherwise--in half a second flat, not just physically separating her from Osha, but erasing her entire relationship with her?? And Osha makes even less sense, we all joke that about how hot Manny Jacinto is and how he ~seduced her to the dark side, but honestly her motivations just seemed utterly gone in the previous episode, she's 100% ready to drop everything she believed in and go with him just because? And up to this point she's barely shown any interest in her connection to Mae, it's all "tell not show" that Osha cared about her, we're told that it was her biggest wound, we're told that she felt that connection, but we don't really see it until suddenly she's running away with Mae because apparently all along she felt that pull towards her? Intellectually, there are reasons given in the show, but I didn't feel any of them, it was more "Osha behaves this way because the plot needs her to behave this way." It's the same reason Sol can't say, "It really looked like your mother was going to kill you when she started Force-dissolving you, so I reacted without realizing what she was doing." because if he's allowed to explain, then the plot falls apart. The plot demands that he half-ass his explanation rather than because that felt natural to Sol's character. Things happen because the characters need to get from point A to point B, so point C can happen, rather than because the characters felt like they would actually do that. And it's worse because these are your main characters, the entire plot of the show is set around them.

[vyeoh]

this is your chance: wax poetic about an Empires or DSMP character of your choice to a fan who is new to both. Explain why I should love them. I need guidance in this new and meme-populated land.

okok this is a lot of pressure haha. Spoilers for EmpiresSMP and DreamSMP below, obviously. I wrote a lot so prepare yourself, anon

I watch a lot of empires POVs but the ones I most anticipate every week are Scott and Sausage.

c!Scott (I'll call him Smajor for the sake of simplicity) starts off the series chilling, not really getting involved with the rest of the server, and staying aggressively neutral. After all, he's an elf. He has lived far longer than most of the other rulers already, and will most likely outlive them for many years. So, the best thing is to stick to his mountains and not get invested in the dealings of mortal affairs, maybe sometimes causing problems on purpose and dipping because what's life without a little spice right.

But then, this demon comes to the server, Xornoth. He's going around causing havoc and wants to send the world into an eternal winter, but he doesn't bother the kingdom of Rivendell much so Smajor stays tentatively cautious but ultimately unbothered. But then, the puzzle pieces start falling together. The first thing that the audience noticed was was Xornoth sounded like Smajor, but we mostly thought that this was just due to cc!Scott voicing both of them and there was nothing more to it. However, then, the people the demon starts possessing start chanting in elvish. The demon hates mortals, and the elves are conveniently one of the two confirmed not fully mortal races in Empires.

This culminates when Smajor stumbles across a cave that contains the backstory of the patron god of Rivendell, Aeor. Basically, there's two opposing forces, Aeor and Exor, and both have a champion. In a previous life, those champions were two brothers, where Aeor eventually prevailed and banished Exor. In this life though, the champions are - you guessed it - Smajor, and the demon Xornoth.

So now Smajor is like. Well fuck. It's my literal god-given destiny to be responsible for defeating this demon who is technically my brother, and if I fail the server gets plunged into an eternal winter. And I have no fucking clue what is happening because I've just been here on this mountain actively trying to stay out of the issues outside my kingdom. We watch him panic and teeter on the verge of spiraling for an entire episode, and when the followers of Xornoth go to the End to kill the dragon, releasing Xornoth's full powers, he fails to stop him. Smajor is a character who was used to being the smart one, the prepared one, the one who has the least deaths on the server. But he's also a character who runs away from his problems and ignores them. Before and during the dragon fight, we hear the desperation in his voice, as he's thrown into a situation he is wholly unprepared for, and it's bigger than him going to the Cod Empire to kill their king, or assisting in other people's plans to kill the codfather. He can't run from this. cc!Scott plays this scene so well as well, as I've said before, one of the best parts of Scott's acting is how he's never super dramatic, but he's so effective in the little things like inflection to make you feel, viscerally, the panic and dread.

So after the dragon fight, Smajor realizes, I can't do this on my own. I've tried and failed. So he gets allies. We watch him, someone who has so strongly been an isolationist, learn the benefits of allies and watch him learn to trust others and watch him learn how to get that trust in return.

My favorite thing about Smajor's characterization is that he's an incompetent protagonist, but not in the way of the "plucky young adventurer". He's capable skill-wise, and fairly jaded and very pessimistic. However, his issue is that up until recently, he did not care about the rest of the server at all, and by the time he learned to, it was way too late.

Also, in 3rd Life, cc!Scott and cc!Jimmy were canonically married and they reference it sometimes in Empires. Like, Scott goes over to the Cod Empire every so often both in and out of character to kill and/or flirt with Jimmy, the ruler of the Cod Empire, which may develop as a secondary plot into the future who knows. So ty Scott for giving the gays what they want o7

Now onto Sausage: his is a story of Icarus, his hubris and ambition being his downfall. He's one of the two followers of Xornoth, who promised him endless power in exchange for his servitude. He started the series being eccentric, but not outright unhinged, but slowly gets more and more extreme as the series progresses, as he gets brought more and more to Xornoth's side.

One of the best parts of Sausage's character, in my opinion, is how his gradual corruption affects the people around him. Initially, he got into a conflict with the Cod Empire and was allied with two other people in the Witherrose alliance. They were allies, but also close friends. The fandom liked to joke that the three had sibling energy, and I'm pretty sure the ccs played to that even more lol.

It was painful to watch the other two members, Gem and fWhip, watch Sausage get corrupted right in front of them, and see them desperately clinging on to this old idea of Sausage in their head because if they faced the truth, it would mean that their friend was gone. Eventually, they do finally cut him out of the alliance, leading him to fully commit to the side of the demon. Sausage felt very clearly betrayed by this, and declared the remaining two Witherrose alliance members to be enemies.

He gets more and more possessed, and we even see the other Empires, his enemies even, slowly realize that something is very wrong with the ruler of Mythland. He starts doing more and more evil things, like killing people more, making sacrifices to the demon, and eventually helping to kill the dragon to free Xornoth. So things are good for Sausage, for a bit. He won, and is more powerful than ever. Then he finds out: he's going to die. Xornoth's possession is slowly killing his soul, and eventually, his body going to be fully taken over and he himself is going to be trapped in the spirit realm. So how do you react to this? Over the next few episodes, we watch Sausage struggle between "the demon is literally killing me" and "the demon has given me so much, and I love it", all while Xornoth takes over more and more of him. We hear him exclaim that "don't worry!! I'm still about 15% there!" while trying to downplay every time Xornoth completely takes over his body. We watch him willingly oppose anyone who is trying to end the thing that is killing him.

My favorite thing about Sausage is that he is undoubtedly evil and proud of it, but he's also undoubtedly human. If you like to watch evil characters go absolutely feral, he's the guy for you. He makes the deal with Xornoth in the beginning, knowing and fully embracing the evilness of the demon, but at the same time he knows what he's doing is detrimental to both himself and everyone around him, but he's gotten in way too deep at this point, and to be fair the demon has held up its end fo the bargain, right?

Also, I would be damned if I don't talk about cc!Sausage's editing. Every one of his videos is like a movie. The way he does camera angles and uses music is so skillful- every lore scene feels like something out of a high fantasy action saga (think: LotR). Every big lore event I always wait in anticipation for Sausage's ep because his editing truly takes lore to another level.

I'm just generally very excited to see where this series goes. Empires is such a good mix of talented builders and good lore. Part of the reason why the series is so immersive for me, beyond any other lore smp, is that they have the settings to back it up. There is a certain charm to the DreamSMP's objectively terrible builds (with a few exceptions) but in Empires, the settings help sell the plot so much.

Another part of why I love EmpiresSMP is how much the ccs are involved with the fan community. I'm sure you've seen the memes about Scott being on tumblr, and Sausage regularly goes through the EmpiresSMP fanart tag on Twitter and likes art, even ones not related to Mythland. Most of the ccs, in fact, have brought up tumblr content on stream at some point or another. Like, several ccs have said that they read tumblr lore theories and hcs and stuff and sometimes take inspiration from them. Fun fact: Rivendell's church was inspired by my pinned drawing; confirmed by Scott Smajor himself. It's just such a good cycle of ccs and fans being excited about each other.

As for DreamSMP, I'm gonna be honest here, the only person I really am invested in in Technoblade. I started watching when he joined the server, and he's the only person whose lore I keep up to date with.

Techno's fun to watch because he's like the Deadpool of DreamSMP. Virtually unkillable, very skilled and scary, but consistently cracks jokes and breaks the 4th wall during plot. His POV is just fun. Like, he does wild plans and gives speeches and some of the stuff that happens to him should be called deus ex machine if it wasn't for the fact that Technoblade is the one who's doing it, and all the stuff is grounded in the fact that cc!Techno is just that good at the game.

However, the fact that he rarely takes anything seriously makes the few times Techno is 100% serious so much more impactful. His whole character has a basis in being perceived as inhuman and being treated as such, and therefore in return trying to hide his humanity. So, when he shows that humanity, whether that's fear, anger, or genuine love for his friends, it really makes you go "oh shit."

Techno's often said not to have character development, but I'd argue that while he remains steadfast in his moral code, he develops leaps and bounds as a person. Like, at the beginning, he's brought onto the server to help Wilbur and Tommy overthrow a government; them knowing he's 1) an anarchist and 2) very very powerful. His character was more of a plot device at that point and was treated as such in the canon. Wilbur and Tommy straight-up lie to him about their plans to establish another government after they overthrow the current one, while he was led on to believe that they were abolishing all governments in the area. But he isn't a plot device. He's a person, as much as he only shows the terrifying, blood god side of himself.

After the establishment of New Lmanburg (the new government its a long story), his friend Phil joins. And for the first time, we see him be fully human with someone and we see someone treat him like a human. Like, we saw glimpses before, with Wilbur and Tommy in Pogtopia, but Phil is the first person we noticeably see he trusts 100%. Then Doomsday happens, and Techno essentially retires to the tundra. During this time, we see Techno learn to be more human, first with Ranboo, then Niki when he establishes the Syndicate. In fact, the two of them, along with Phil, canonically throw him a birthday party, which is a far cry from his treatment in Pogtopia.

Techno's development is one of a god learning to be human, and I just think he <3

[blackidyll]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💖

thank you for the ask, anon! this was super hard to narrow down even though i got to choose five fics ahhhh okay here they are (i tried to pick from different fandoms; also sorry in advance for the absolute word-spew that follows):

1) Freefall (Craig!James Bond films; 00Q, post-Spectre fic with 00Q stranded on a desert island)

this was such a difficult choice (i like a lot of my 00Q aus/canon divergence fics) but i keep coming back to Freefall - for the unique desert setting, the layers to the story (surviving the wilderness, the Spectre subplot, the mystery of Bond's return to MI6, the 00Q relationship) and getting to write such wonderful dynamics between Q and so many other characters (Swann, Tanner, Moneypenny). This fic also challenged me as a writer - it was my longest chaptered fic at the time, and i had to juggle the flashback scenes together with the current storyline. i truly feel i grew a lot as a writer creating this story, so in that sense this really was a milestone fic for me!

2) A Myriad of Possibilities (Yuri on Ice!!!; Victuuri, canon-divergence with Yuuri temporarily coaching Minami while he considers his options after the Sochi GPF).

i can ramble a lot about the story (i love all the coach!Yuuri content out there, and I adore Yuuri and Minami's growing friendship in the anime, and i love the significance of Yuuri's friends and family in his journey, and of course the Victuuri relationship, and most of all i love Yuuri's personal growth and how he handled grief and failure - basically, i wrote this fic expanding on a lot of things i love in the anime) but more personally, i associate this story with one of healing. i was going through a lot in real life when i wrote this fic (health related things), and... Yuuri and Victor both go through a lot in the story as well. it was cathartic to make Yuuri and Victor experience such lows in their respective lives - and then give them all the opportunities and hope and support to climb their way back up. when i was in pain and feeling scared i'd pour a lot of those emotions into this fic - and getting all the wonderful feedback from my readers meant so much to me during that time. i have a lot of feelings about this story on its own merit, but also for its personal significance to me.

3) drown with these perfect lines (The World Ends With You; Joshua/Neku, post-original DS game focusing on the emotional aftermath of the Long Game)

i think anyone who has heard me rambling about TWEWY knows my favourite character is Joshua, and hence it's no surprise that one of my favourite fics focuses on him and giving him the resolution he needs after the events of the original DS game. i find Joshua an absolutely fascinating character, and so much of my love for him went into this fic - i think it took me over two years to slowly piece together how things would unfold, the realization and choices that Joshua would make, and constantly rereading the game script to make sure i stayed true to his characterization. i've yet to meet Joshua in Neo TWEWY so i'm not sure how his "canon" future self would match up to the Joshua that exists in my head... but this fic definitely encompasses all my love and hopes for him, and i doubt the sequel would change that. also please read the companion fic a revelation in the light of day because this story needs Neku's version to truly have maximum impact

4) Daybreak (Kimetsu no Yaiba; GiyuuTan, canon ficlet)

i love my hurt/comfort but there's already so much hurt in the canon storyline that i went all in with the comfort in this fic. it's rare for me to wrap up a fic in less than 2K words, and i wrote this based on the most beautiful GiyuuTan fanart (linked to in the fic). i just - Giyuu and Tanjirou deserve all the softness in the world, and i was glad to give them such a moment here.

5) Rallying Point (Mob Psycho 100; gen fic, post-REIGEN manga, Reigen gets kidnapped goes missing and the Spirits and Such crew go looking for him)

i just -- i am having a blast with this fic. i love the entire MP100 cast and although it's super challenging writing in so many povs, it's also a ton of fun using different voices and writing styles because the way each of them think is so unique. i really enjoy getting to play with language here, because the characters lend themselves to such wordplay. like how "Reigen is a jack of all trades, and master of none. except that is not quite true, is it? he's master to at least one, the way Mob calls out shishou forever and always." i didn't look at my fic to rewrite that - it was one of those lines that popped in my head and it's such a Reigen thing to say and notice... this is one of my wips that i'm working hard to try to start writing again - i just need to find the time and energy to do so!

[annie-mit-ie]

Glimpses: Part 5 (Kathryn Hahn x Fem!Reader)

Part 1 / previous chapter <<< >>> next chapter

Summary: Just a random Morning.

Word Count: 1.5k

A/N: I’m sorry this is rather short once again, but the middle of the week is usually my busiest time with uni and work and all. @zafirosreverie​ keeps saying that you guys are most likely happy about every single word posted, so I hope nobody actually minds if some chapters turn out to be a little shorter than others. Besides that: Enjoy! Hope everyone is having a great day!

_____________________________________________________________________________

It’s been four days since you’ve left the hotel. That’s four days in which you haven’t heard from Kathryn. It drives you crazy and gets to you more than you want to admit. You’ve talked to Alex about it and the both of you agreed that she must be very busy right now because there is no reason for her to ghost you. Or is there? 

You have to listen to Alex more. She always preaches how worrying doesn’t make any sense. “Worrying only means that you suffer twice, Sweetheart.“, she says and sometimes you feel like that’s the smartest thing someone has ever told you.

It’s time to pace up and down in your room, again. Your phone has become you biggest enemy and you know it’s childish, you really know, but you just wanted all of this to mean something  to her, too, and the realization setting in that it doesn't just doesn’t sit right with you. Looking at the clock on the wall, you realize it’s just past 11 and your mom should be back from her shopping spree any minute. You stayed home, even though you had your day off today. But considering your current worries, you just didn't feel like leaving the house.

The problem about all of this is that your dear Kathryn Hahn doesn’t have social media, which is why you have no clue what’s happening in her life right now, at all. But then again, there is not much happening lately, anyway, so how much could there be to tell you? Wandavision just aired and she had lots of press to do, which is now finally calming down again. Good for her.

Your life is boring, too. In between university and work, you’ve got time for an occasional movie night with Alex over Facetime here and there, but other than that everything is going kinda slow right now. On second thought, though, how boring can life be when you literally just met your favorite actress? Ironic, that you’ve met her before you’ve met Alex. Online friendships are wild.

A noise right outside of your window grabs your attention and you move your blinds to check on it. It’s a beautiful summer day, the sky is blue, the bluest kind and the clouds up there are so tiny and fluffy, it reminds you of little pieces of cotton candy. You keep your blinds closed all day in summer since it gets pretty hot in LA and, coming from upstate, you don’t enjoy that as much as the locals. Looking straight down in front of your house, you see your mom, who is just arriving home, about to unpack groceries from the back of her car. Tossing your phone onto your bed, you run downstairs to lend her a helping hand. 

Your mom, a sweet lady with dark hair and loving eyes, is very thankful as you appear at the front door and plants a short kiss on your temple before handing her bags to you. “Thank you, dear.“ You smile. It has always been just your mom and you and the relationship you guys were having is great. Even though you don’t agree on everything, life with her is easy and you feel at peace knowing she is around. In a way, your mom is your best friend, too.

When you came out to her, just a while back, she wasn’t shocked or anything, no, quite the opposite actually. After you told her all about it, it felt like she was loving you just a tad bit more for truly being you. She actually supports you in everything you do. Thinking about that, you squint your eyes trying not to cry, since it is still making you very emotional.

You place the bags on the counter and help her sort through them to put the groceries away. “Thank you so much, Y/N.“

She walks past you and shortly places her hand on your forearm as she puts her bag down on a kitchen chair.

Your home is more than big enough for the both of you. The ground floor is pretty much an open space with a beautiful white marble-colored kitchen that leads into a living room that is characterized by a large mint green couch, a little darker than the mint green color that fills the walls. There is a small electronic fire place in the corner and a rather big tv is hanging on the wall. Scanning the place, your heart fills with warmth as you remember the endless hours you have spent with your mom sitting on that very couch, watching classics after classics. Movies really are your kind of thing.

Your mom sees the way you look at the space. “It’s time for another movie night soon, isn’t it, Hon?“ You nod eagerly and wrap her in a big hug.

“Yes Mom! Let’s watch something on Friday, I would love that! Your choice of movie!“ You're beaming.

Lately, with all the work and school stuff you have going on and the time you spend online, you feel like you are losing touch with your mom a little, even though you try to eat dinner with her every single night.

Looking at your mom, you can tell how happy it makes her that you're actively making time for her. She looks at you a little too long, though. You can tell she is trying to read you by the way her eyebrow is raised, just a little, and the fact that she is holding on to the kitchen counter with one hand has her knuckles turn a little too white. Neither of you says anything as if she is waiting for you to come forward. You don’t. She sighs.

“Are you alright, Honey?“ You mom lets go of the counter and faces you directly.

For a moment, you think about if you should tell her. But tell her what? About how you have met Kathryn and, essentially, spent a night with her? You can’t. After all, Kathryn is still a stranger and she would be so mad if she knew. But at the same time your mom and you share anything and everything, so you might very well just go for it.

You consider your options, but the fact that Kathryn hasn’t contacted you yet holds you back. If it was a one time thing, she really doesn’t need to know and worry about it all. You don’t want her to worry. You opt for the option not to spill and shoot her a forced smile “It’s fine, Mom. I’m just tired and missing Alex. That’s all. As always.“

She nods and you can tell that she doesn’t fully believe you by the look she has on her face. Her eyes give away so much, you got this from her. Hiding things from other people really isn’t your best trait. But then again, you don’t want it to be. Honesty is very important to you, always has been, which is why your friendship with Alex works so well, because she is an open book ready for you to read at any given moment.

You remember the time and the fact that Alex is probably on her way to bed right now. She didn’t have the best day and you want to talk to her, just for a few minutes, before she drifts off to sleep. You tell your mom and, of course, she completely understands and tells you to just be back downstairs in an hour latest to have lunch with her. Planting a short kiss on her cheek, you grab a drink from the counter and make your way upstairs, already trying to remember where you put your phone.

It’s easier to find than you expect. When you open the door, the room is still set in darkness, the sun just barely finding its way through the blinds, but the phone, lit up by a notification that’s just coming in, illuminates the space around your bed.

Thinking it must be Alex, who is shooting her daily after-work-update your way, you jump onto your bed, kicking down half of the pillows and blankets on it in the process. You catch your favorite one, a light colored fall blanket with orange pumpkins on it, right before it touches the floor. Thank God, you think, as you pile it under your chin to use it as a pillow while you reach for your phone.

Alex had indeed texted you, but not just now. The notification lighting up your phone consisted of a picture. A platter with nicely decorated breakfast on it is looking at you, a pool (on what looks like a roof top) in the background. The caption is short, nothing special, but to you it means the world. 

„This made me think of you. xx K.“