#kinda implied that one but its supposed to be a bit of a throwback?

[evil-mop-eating-sponge]

Desert Duo PMV!

finish nothing for almost a year and then finish two things within a week of eachother i guess :P

This was mostly experimental in terms of editing and style :)

still frames below cut!

[theskyexists]

I think its hilarious that Andy Weir made the go-getter administrator who's supposed to organise saving the world Dutch. Stratt is not a Dutch name btw. So maybe German heritage or marriage. The blunt, direct, no nonsense, even unintentionally rude stereotype which is often correct in small ways is a funny little in-joke. I even think he got the speech pattern in English correct....

Wow powerful woman...

I will say this: he didn't find out how to make the astrophage release energy? He found out how they reproduce? So... Why did they say that? Are they just burning these lil dots?

How is the astrophage what it is. How is it not destroyed by pressure and such. And.

Why in the heck would they swerve around going from a CO2 rich planet back to the sun... Is that really more efficient than simply covering a planet in yourself and being a plant basically?

Ok so he did find out how the astrophage release energy, as in, move themselves with light.

What's the problem with the sun dimming if Eridians don't get any energy from the sun?/sunlight doesn't reach them?

Oh I actually felt so sad for Leclerc, when he cried.

And I love Stratt so much lol. Who was bright enough to put her in charge. She's the perfect 'war'-time leader. Completely selfless.

Oh. Im so sad for rocky. 46 years. Oh no...oh no.

Oh Stratt was being sexist... That's not realist. Will Weir refute her via Ryland? Yeah he did. Hah. That's cool.

Its weird that Rocky hasn't considered: if I am no longer in my workshop, then I won't be protected from radiation.

Did they not test the teams/teammates for psychological compatibility???? Oversight

I dont really get how they can catch astrophage without getting blasted apart by their insane speeds hopping from planet to sun and back.

"Life can be pretty picky about temperature ranges."

EXCEPT ASTROPHAGE? and all the other cells in the cold vacuum of space?? They just skipped over them. Hello??? What's their secret? Do they also smash neutrinos together or whatever?? I couldn't follow that physics bit

Aww. The team all liked him so much because he's so normal and easily upset by e.g. their approaching deaths.

I'm a bit worried that Weir is going to prove Stratts sexism right by having Shapiro and DeBois back out because she got pregnant or something. But that's really not in line with the vibe so maybe they just both get killed because of their entanglement... I still wouldn't like that. Honestly Stratt's throwback to 'two men one woman sex will make advanced astronauts revert to cavemen' seems like a deliberate callback to all those sci fi books that insist on the inherent murderous explosiveness of male sexuality.

'math is procedure [not thinking]' uh yeah it is biologically.

Weir shunting in a lil personal theory on intelligence being based on gravity. Interesting. But the reason why Rocky and protag are same intelligence is the same reason their civilisations are about as advanced: they wouldn't otherwise have met.

It's hilarious that Ryland is like: I miss my kids they looked up to me. EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD PROBABLY LOOKS UP TO YOU RIGHT NOW MY MAN

Yeah. At the last possible moment, astrophage exploded the place that Shapiro and DeBois were in. Damn. Ok but its kinda on Stratt TO BE HONEST. That she let prime crew role member and same secondary crew role member hang around the same place together at all. In a way.

This seems to imply that they left Shapiro and DuBois to do an experiment on ASTROPHAGE TOGETHER. what??? That they cause the explosion even.

Why let the science crew at an astrophage at all? WHY LET THEM AT IT TOGETHER??? HELLO????

honestly why was Stratt so lax about all primary personnel safety all along including herself?? Why was she on the airplane carrier that was doing experiments with bombs????

Ok but how the HELL did astrophage develop these abilities????

Also. Why. Uh. Why bother with a natural predator if you can just prick em. Aren't there lots of creatures that can prick other cells. Though probably not in nigh-vacuum...

How did they make a spaceship without electronics.... ...huh??? How does the robot work on the outside of Rocky's ship? ....what

Ok so they don't have procedures for testing astrophage. BUT ALSO WHY WERE BOTH ESSENTIAL CREW MEMBERS IN THE SAME ROLE TESTING EDGE CASES??? HELLO???? HOW WAS THAT ALLOWED??? HELLO???? STRATT????

Ok but she kept a tertiary science specialist then i guess she kept tertiary other specialists. But also. The narrative acts like she had no part and final responsibility in letting her specialists do dangerous ass stupid tests. Like there aren't a hundred other people they could have gotten to do TESTS AWAY FROM THE IMPORTANT CREW

Why would you wait for his answer. Just get the next in line out NOW.

In fact. Why the heck wouldn't they train up at least six understudies. Theatre shows even do that. This narrative development was the one I was reading towards and it turned out stupid.

Also. They got a biologist for tests, an engineer for maintenance, and a commander. Was the commander the navigator and maths guy? Or are all astronauts supposed to be able to do what Grace does? Complex space calculations? Like. Lucky he remained in form firstly and secondly that hes so gifted at physics????? He's a biologist right? But I guess also a physicist?

Stratt doesn't respect Grace? Even now? Then she is kind of an idiot after all. Like all very strong-minded people are ... Too convinced of herself. She relied on Grace for a huge part. And she doesn't respect him? Because she herself could never be a coward. That's idiotic. She cannot forgive cowardice because she herself finds it much easier than others to be ruthless.

I could accept this twist a little more if the leadup had made more sense. Stratt is murdering Grace for sure - but the narrative insult of her having been able to prevent that by explicitly training up additional crews instead of quietly training Grace PLUS doing a better job of keeping the prime crew from STUPID DANGEROUS EXPERIMENTS - and the actual insult of calling him a COWARD while doing it - that's like. That was their last interaction. Makes me feel vindictive. Hope she regrets it. She wouldn't regret sending him against his will. But the damn insult to somebody who she has worked closely with, who delivered extremely important discoveries, who did every single secondary administration.

Ok so. And important point of Grace for Rocky was that he had science equipment. But now Grace is like: eh. Rocky can make better equipment. Why didn't Rocky think of that lol

On the other hand Grace HAS proven to be kind of a reckless idiot again and again and again.

Right they've got electronics but not transistors. Right.

I feel like Weir should have spent a little more flashback on Grace bonding with his 'crew' and 'friends'.

Why the FUCK would you send out your beetles while on the trip. Send them out before you start on the risky way home. Why is Grace such an idiot.

Stratt goes to talk to Grace. I don't know I've soured on her. Not because of what she chose to do to Grace but the way she did it.

She doesn't even leave him in fucking peace

Ok so I don't like how Weir did this scene either. It didn't give Grace a moment of grace. And it didn't give Stratt the chance to say: well the good thing about you going is that you won't be here when everything is going to hell. Think about that.

Why are the taumoeba farms manually fed...? Didn't Grace want the option of going into coma...?

HE WENT BACK TO ROCKY AND HE WENT BACK TO SAVE ERID AND ROCKY COULD BARELY SPEAK OR BELIEVE IT GRACE CAME BACK WHEN ROCKY THOUGH ABSOLUTELY ALL HOPE WAS LOST

Taumoeba are like normal amoeba...ok. but then why is it the only thing that can eat astrophage

He did it. And Earth doesn't even know that he did it. That he did it alone. Or that he met aliens, and they worked together to do it. He probably didn't even write it down and put it on the beetle. None of it. (Because he's kind of an idiot). Like. He probably didn't even tell them about the aliens!!!! Come on!!!! Anyway he's teaching little aliens.... Lovely

[darkpoisonouslove]

Winx Club Season 7 Thoughts Part 2

 Part 1 can be found here.

7x14:

- Love how none of the other Winx’ animals were impressed with Bloom’s unicorn. And it got its butt handed to it as well. Poor Amarok, though.

- Why is Roxy the one training the animals and not Winx, who are literally bonded with them? I am so sick of them having these animals without being shown to take care of them or anything. Layla was tending to Squonk at first but she has abandoned that now as well. The rest never even bothered.

- Oh, of course, Bloom’s unicorn is even more special than the other fairy animals and has magic even though the rest don’t. Of course!

- Seriously? That’s the surprise? That’s more of a lesson or revelation than a surprise.

- They are the Guardians of the Ultimate Power? Weren’t Winx supposed to find the animal with the first color of the universe? What the hell happened to that? Please, tell me they didn’t just drop it.

- Oh, and they just got a new transformation without doing shit for it! They didn’t even try to work with their own fairy animals. But who cares? They get a transformation because they are just so special! And which commercial did the creators rip off for the Tynix transformation this time?

- Tynix is a bit... much. But the animals look kinda cool. I am just not sure why they become bigger in order to go into smaller worlds. How does that make sense?

- What do they even need from the mini worlds? The animal? The Ultimate Power? One leading to the other? Do the writers even know what they’re doing anymore?

- And what is Brafilius supposed to do when he can’t ride on Kalshara’s back and he can’t transform either?

- Beware the Dragon Council!

- Oh, so that’s what he’s supposed to do. Get a concussion!

- How is this not Pyros? This should have been Pyros. Not that I am thrilled about going there again but come on! It would have made so much sense and been a good throwback. Edit: It’s Pyros but it does not look like Pyros and everyone has confirmed that.

- So she made a fire eater? How did she “forge[d] a creature”? Wtf.

- Oh, damn! I forgot that getting Tynix didn’t mean that we were getting rid of Butterflix. *sigh* I was so ready to move on.

- At this point Kalshara should know that Brafilius doesn’t have that much and even using everything he has is just not going to be enough. She is failing them both by being so stubborn when it comes to their strategy.

- How did Brafilius made more of those creatures?

- The quips aren’t smart or creative. Winx just sound like overconfident idiots.

- Shiny really do be over here eating precious stones? And that is actually helping them win? Wow, okay.

- So what? The dragons die without the fire? Why did Kalshara tell them what she did so that they can find a way to fix everything?

- They’re really gonna fall for the “Do you have any other choice but to trust me thing?”

7x15:

- Why is this episode named “The Magic Stones”? How many more stones? What is up with this season and all the goddamn stones?

- The fairy animals really seem to be defeating the fire eater things that have the flames. They can just... use that in some way to release the fires back. Edit: Those are different creatures from the one Kalshara sent after the fire.

- So they actually redid the footage from season 3 and kept the original transformation BUT then they added something we have never seen and Bloom was wearing an outfit from season 4? What the hell? Also, Maia literally gave Bloom a necklace with the essence of Pyros to strengthen her powers implying that the essence of Pyros is very similar if not the same as the essence of the Dragon Fire. But now they decided that using the Dragon Fire would be too convenient because they wouldn’t get to show their Tynix powers. Great fucking logic!

- So that’s why they have Tynix warping time. So that they can just leave a battle whenever and just pop right back in a couple of seconds to not worry about losing. Bloom could have just gone on her own and left Winx behind to handle Kalshara but that would have been a too advanced strategy.

- Lucky that Shiny isn’t eating the whole mini world. But how did they get there when they were just fighting Brafilius? Of course, the time warping bullshit they pulled.

- So that’s why the animals got bigger - so that Winx can ride them. They have wings and could have been flying just fine.

- Their bonded animals being proud is what means that Winx have strength inside? What the hell?

- Why is there a song even though they should be rushing and can you see me skipping it? Because that is exactly what I’m doing.

- The vampire of fire? Wow, okay.

- They are gonna restore a volcano with techno magic? Makes perfect sense. And why are they surprised that the Tynix powers are working? They’re supposed to be working!

- The “vampire” looks like a dragon. That eats fire energy and then shoots back fire.

- Why does Squonk look like a completely different animal? (Yes, I noticed just now.)

- Really? Combining their powers is how they solved this? And the rest of Winx didn’t even join her? Bloom and Elas did all on their own? *eternal sigh*

- They asked for a spa day as payment? I am straight up not having a good time with this season.

7x16:

- They took Riven out of the show only to have Nex take his place as the competitive asshole of the group? Really? That was the big plan?

- The dolphins are so precious and perfect! They knocked both Sky and Nex off their surfs. XD And Layla rubbed their noses in it. That was actually nice (yes, I am going to be petty like that).

- They made that crab more menacing than the main villains of the season. And you’re telling me that Stella sensed the crab but did not notice the turtles burying her alive?

- Brandon getting hit with wild magic by those flowers he wanted to pick would have been way more interesting. And why are all the animals being assholes on purpose? That is not how animals would usually behave in the presence of people even if they are used to the tourists in Paradise Bay.

- Love how Helia is dissing Earth.

- Did I mention that I hate the fact that all the fairy animals can talk now?

- Oh, you mean that there’s gonna be an episode in this episode? And they are actually right where the danger is? Because that is not convenient at all. It’s like the writers don’t even want to send them to more places on Earth even if it actually exists and they don’t have to make stuff up.

- How convenient that the threat only showed up now that they have their Tynix.

- If you really feel so happy, Flora, then why don’t you stay there? Maybe that will bring you back to your old self when you weren’t being a bitch to an animal for no reason.

- Those monsters look like upgraded ants. Plant-mites? You mean termites but for leaves?

- Their spells are now tied to their home planets? Is it because they’re going to the mini worlds? So they’re bringing something from their own worlds?

- Wait. WAIT, WAIT, WAIT! Stella just called Brandon her fiance? FIANCE?!?!?!?!?! UM, YES??????????? THANK YOU FOR ACTUALLY CONFIRMING THAT THEY’RE ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Oh, this time they have to fight the tiny creatures of the world because they thought they’re enemies? This is getting mildly interesting!

- Oh, come on! They have wings! Falling shouldn’t be a problem when they can fly!

- Please, just let Bloom get caught by the weeds! Flora got caught but Bloom is legit riding over the weeds???

7x17:

- The leaf creature is called Chloe?

- Winx really didn’t catch on to the fact that the creatures attacked them after Stella mentioned that Brandon gave her those flowers?

- Flora, in order for everyone to know Winx wouldn’t harm nature, everyone needs to know about Winx. And I doubt the creatures in the mini worlds care about who you are. They obviously don’t know you! I don’t know how to tell you this but popularity has gotten to your head.

- You’re telling me that picking just one flower destroys the whole balance? Do they forget that Tritanus spread pollution in Paradise Bay back in season 5? If what they’re saying is true, the whole bay should have died back then! Also, are you seriously telling me that the people we have seen go to Paradise Bay have never ever picked a flower? This is bullshit!

- Another mini world in this mini arc (though, that implies that there is plot)?

- Weee, water slides! Not like this is an important mission that has a bearing on the fate of an entire ecosystem!

- Wait, those are the real colors of nature? Can’t that help them figure out which is the first color of the universe so that they can find the animal with it more easily?

- I thought that they were in a hurry to save the Bay but they have wasted so much time and oh, that’s right! It doesn’t matter because time is what the writers want it to be in the mini worlds!

- These episodes are endless when they keep wasting so much time!

- Gems of light? Did I miss something? Are the seeds for the gems? I don’t care enough to go back and check.

- They really thought that it was gonna be that easy? And the writers really thought that a black globe is a good enough obstacle? And do they really only have one spell available each in the Tynix transformation?

- Tell me Bloom is gonna fly right into another globe blocking her way! (Of course, she won’t. If anyone will be fucking up like that, they’re gonna make it be Stella.)

- Oh, you mean that they actually got caught? All of them? But where the hell is Layla’s morphix? That could have helped. But what the hell? The fairy animals are now making bubbles of their own? AND it is because Squonk gets stronger due to Layla being the fairy of waves? Then why is she not stronger? This is ridiculous.

- Oh, the plants needed water? Huh, who would’ve thought, right? Not like Flora is the fairy of nature or anything!

- So... how did picking the flowers hurt the mini world when they actually needed to plant some seeds?

- Why did Stella go crazy on Brandon about the flowers when she could have just explained to him what happened?

7x18:

- Why are they... what are they... thinking with this competition against lemurs? What the hell?

- Aren’t raccoons supposed to be vicious little beasts and not the lemurs? Wtf.

- You know, Brafilius is annoying as hell but Kalshara is actually pissing me off more because there is much more that she can do and she just... doesn’t? Like, do you wanna get defeated? Also, no wonder your brother needs rest when you don’t since he’s the one doing everything. And did she just call him jellyfish? Because they’re soft and just drift around and don’t have brains? Wow, that’s so nice of you.

- The lemurs talk?????????????? Wtf?!

- Love how Kalshara doesn’t even bother remembering their group name. To her they’re just fairies like all other fairies. That is actually kinda funny.

- How did they not see Kalshara and Brafilius? It wasn’t like they were hiding!

- They are making... the bananas fight... Instead of, like, feeding the bananas to the lemurs and making them fight? They looked pretty vicious and that would have been a better strategy.

- Okay, how can they tell the trees are contaminated?! They just tried the spell on the fruits, not the trees themselves? And now they’re going in the past for bananas? Really?

- A giant lemur falling in love with Stella? EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! Why are they doing this to me? This season just got an awful lot worse and that is saying something.

- Wow, use bananas to lure the thing that eats bananas. What a complex plan. Why did it take them so long to figure it out?

- Okay, that dress from leaves is actually much better than some of Stella’s designs have been but doesn’t she notice that the lemur is preparing her for a wedding? Like, literally dressing her as a bride? And here I thought that this couldn’t get worse (Lmao @ Stella keeping her manners while being kidnapped by a gigantic lovesick lemur, though.)

- Oh, my god, the wedding march. That wouldn’t be composed for about a couple thousand years more! (Yes, I am focusing on logical failures because this is too much of a disaster.)

- It’s trying to kiss her... I really need Winx to show up at this point!... Good. But I won’t thank anyone for this because the creators should have never made this happen.

- Oh, come on! It followed them into the present and they’re having Brandon vs giant lemur and having Brandon losing?

- Finally the end to that. But will the giant lemur remain in the present? At least they got the goddamn bananas! Good because I am going bananas over here!

7x19:

- These guards look familiar... Oppositus? Yes, that is. They have the symbol of the planet on them.

- Isn’t there a better way to find the animal with the first color than just teleporting around and leaning on luck? Like, idk, research?

- Well done to what? The animals are still as chaotic as ever and seem to have gone back to being prickly to each other. Aaaaand, they’re fucking up the party.

- Okay, but to be fair, Critty told them not to touch and what did that woman do? She started petting her! Yeah, you had this coming, hon!

- Love how Marion and Oritel handled the situation, though! Real talent at dispersing the tension right there. I was looking forward to seeing them ever since the synopsis from last episode. At least they haven’t fucked up the two of them... yet.

- “[The fairy animals] aren’t used to formal settings” Then why did you bring them in a formal setting?????????????????????????????????

- Aren’t you on Oppositus? There opposites exist in harmony all the time! What is so weird about that?

- The creature of the rainbow mantle? Didn’t they have that in season 5 and the Winx had to save it from the Trix? Now they have to save it again? Also, don’t tell me that’s the one with the first color.

- Man, Butterflix is so fucking useless. How many battles have they won with it? Like, two? This is episode 19!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- They already know that this is Kalshara’s doing!!!!!!!!!!! And wasn’t the collar supposed to not have worked?????????????????

- Chaos in the rainbow? Awesome! I mean, we already know it because this season (and the previous... three (more or less)) have been a fucking disaster but it’s good that Rainbow is giving some meta on itself!

- Musa, you look like you’re gonna faint! How can you handle this?

- Poor kitty! Stop torturing the cat! Why did none of the others join them so that they could pull them out after they’re done in case they’re too weak? But the two of them harmonizing to keep out the disharmony from outside was actually a pretty cool idea! This season hasn’t failed completely yet.

- Can I ask why the royal family of Oppositus even had the collar made? Seems like a colossally dumb choice!

- Finally they found someone to ask... And they have a riddle now! Goodie!

7x20:

- I still can’t guess which animal is the one that is “close to fairy power” and it’s driving me insane! Obviously, it isn’t any of their bonded animals (we even know it’s not Squonk and Amarok). My first guess was actually Kalshara but a) she was a person that changed magically and b) she can turn in many animals so that is just not it. My other guess was Kiko but that seems highly unlikely because he literally hasn’t been important since, like, season 3 when Bloom stopped actually spending time with him. So... I have no idea which one they’re talking about.

- Lmaoooo, another animal cock-blocking (sort of). XD And it is Sky and Bloom. XDDD Good! And Bloom is calling him out on it! Even better! And she left to go after Elas! I am dying of laughter.

- Wait, that seal was Kalshara? And they were none the wiser? ...Okay.

- Oh, no! Not the kid thing! How did the stones make them kids? What is this? Avengers: Endgame? Instead of taking Winx through time the Stones took time through Winx? And why do they still have the same hair? We know Bloom had much shorter hair when she was little!

- And they know that they are children? But lmao, little Bloom yelling after the others to listen to her as they scatter is what her “leadership” should have looked like. XD

- The Specialists really can’t recognize their girlfriends even though a) they literally look the exact same way and b) this has already happened to Brandon before!

- Omg, Butterflix worked! I was actually hoping that it would because Sky’s realization that he fucked up is priceless!

- Well, of course the animals recognized them! They can probably catch their scent or something. But wow, Winx are having the upper hand even when they’re children.

- Skipping the clownery during the song.

- DId Sky just call the little Winx “pests”?

- Well, that was fast. Both Kalshara getting defeated and Sky and Elas becoming best buds. And of course, Elas can also restore Winx as they were before.

- Lmao, Roxy is right that Winx shouldn’t be left to their own devices.

7x21:

- Don’t tell me they’re hosting a dog show. A fairy animal show. *sigh* But it is surprisingly on topic since the season is all about the fairy animals.

- What is Brafilius’ guilt that his sister scared the other dog? Why should he get hit over the head? Come on!

- Why does Kalshara need to get into Alfea? She just needs to find a way to get the fairy animals.

- You know they have nothing to do in an episode when they show the full Butterflix transformation.

- And now there’s pixie clownery because they literally don’t have anything to put in this episode. Cherie sure seems to have it all under control. (Did they even say why the weather has gone crazy? I skipped, like, half of this episode already.)

- They are really saying that they can’t handle a blizzard? Not like they have fought Stormy for five seasons! Not like they’re supposed to be more powerful than the pixies. At least they said why the weather is acting up.

- This is definitely not the weirdest place you have been, Stella. At least Amentia’s kingdom and Havram top it.

- Why are there so many different kinds of animals in this mini world? Oh. OH! I actually love this idea! Different species of animals looking after the different seasons according to the sun of whichever season is up! That is awesome! I am less so a fan of the fact that they had to ask why the animals are fighting when it was obvious that the wild magic was influencing them!

- Love how they still haven’t realized how to recognize which animal is Kalshara. But why are they surprised that the “digmole” said Faragonda’s name? They know she used to take care of a digmole!

7x22:

- Wait! Flashback of footage that we haven’t actually seen? Are you calling this vague memories?

- Yeah, no shit that Alfea has the most fairy magic in the whole universe!

- Omg, the statue is actually going to be important! The same statue that Faragonda didn’t bother explaining even though Bloom made a remark about it. And she even found it in the hall of fairy animals (or whatever). And it was right there the whole time?????? God, I hate this!

- Okay, the green animals in the diamond mini world? So obviously stolen from Pokemon. And the floating cutlery is screaming Beauty and the Beast. It even moves in the same way.

- Why is it surprising that they eat diamonds? Shiny eats diamonds as well!

- Why do we care about the diamonds?

- Oh, because the ultimate power is a diamond... that the king and queen would rather die for than give away. Amazing!

- Okay, an orchard of diamonds. We get it! It’s not that impressive! It looks like a normal orchard but it is all shiny! Moving on!

- Wtf how is Flora’s magic working on these! Diamonds are not living nature. I am tired of this episode.

- Oh, did you expect the Ultimate Power to be easy to control instead of volatile?

- So now Flora’s magic isn’t working because the plants are only half natural and the diamonds are resistant to magic? They seemed to be very magic absorbing and malleable a few seconds ago!

- It just popped into Kalshara’s hands. And Faragonda isn’t going to do anything to stop her. She’s just gonna wait for Winx. She is just about as useful and smart as she was when she was young in this season which was not much.

- Ooh, Brafilius is actually standing up to Kalshara! I like that! Tbh I have a feeling that he can stir more chaos because of how incompetent he is. He will do something wrong and it will backfire so hard that it will blow up in all their faces.

- How DID the Trix get here? What, they found their bonded FAIRY animals in the Legendarium and the connection pulled them out? Wtf? Also, why did the audio disappear on the last few lines. I didn’t hear what they said! Love how even the writers realized that they can’t pull off a good finale with just Brafilius and Kalshara, though, and were like “Yep, time to bring back the Trix!”

7x23:

- Secret of Alfea? What secret?

- Oh, Kalshara knows about them? But most powerful witches of the universe? I know the Ancestral Witches were destroyed but still. And look! My theory about how they got out was spot-on! It was just too damn easy... and dumb!

- The ultimate power is supposed to be... ultimate, you know! If Brafilius has it, they shouldn’t be able to defeat him. But nah.

- We already know that the animals can find them wherever. It was established earlier.

- Stella, it’s not you that’s ruining the moment. It’s the shaking cave threatening to collapse on you that’s ruining it!

- Why are Flora’s powers working when no one’s powers wanted to work before that, even her own?

- Hey, wait a second! Tynix was supposed to warp time so that while they’re in the mini worlds barely any time passes in the normal world. But now time seems to be moving with the same speed at both places! Because it is convenient for the plot!

- If an animal is bonded to you, you should be able to tell that what you’re holding is an impostor! Because the impostor is not bonded to you! That was literally so fucking dumb!

- IT CAN ALWAYS GET WORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- “Did you miss us?” “Oh, yes. But after today, we’ll get to miss you forever!” Oh, damn! That was a glorious comeback! I am glad the Trix are back especially after this dumpster fire of a season and with this smarter behavior. But that’s because it wasn’t them failing all season long.

- Lmao, of course, Darcy’s animal is fighting Critty! Love how the Trix’ animals are 3-4 times the size of the Winx’.

- You’re not telling me Alfea’s power comes from the fairy animals? But wait! Alfea mini world? That might be interesting!

- It’s the world of butterflies? I should have known! So Butterflix can only be won on the territory of Alfea?

- If I were the Trix, I would just attack the magical source of Alfea and be done with it! See what Winx would do then!

- Come on, Bloom! Brafilius literally had the face of a dog all along! It shouldn’t be so hard to grasp that!

- Darcy was just about to destroy all of Alfea singlehandedly! And it was so cool and so intense! I was getting really hyped... and then Stella kinda stabilized things for enough time to let them get away. Dammit! It would have been cool to see them more in danger.

- Golden butterfly? I was gonna say that that would be a great chance for it to be Roxy’s bonded animal. Or even more perfect - Daphne’s! But they said that it lived long ago... Oh, so not that long ago. Faragonda was a teen back then so Daphne could have been born at the time (since she also didn’t age for about 20 years and is older than she looks). The butterfly could still be her bonded animal (but it most probably won’t be.)

7x24:

- Why do you care about the barrier? The problem is in the mini world at the heart of Alfea!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- DAPHNE!!!!!!!!!!!! WELCOME BACK!

- Can Roxy do anything about the Trix’ animals? She is the fairy of all animals, after all. She should be able to communicate with them at the very least. Not that she could talk sense into them but still.

- For all his snobbery in the beginning of the season, Wizgiz isn’t doing all that well.

- Well, you’d hope that your husband will come help you out when the universe is threatened! Though, you’d think that there would be a whole army of Specialists sent to Alfea considering the high stakes of the situation.

- What defenses? The other fairies are the defenses and they still have their magic so it doesn’t seem to be that bad. At least until they can fix it.

- How did Faragonda get so much better at magic when it seems like there hasn’t passed that much time since Mavilla still hasn’t cast the memory wipe spell? And why couldn’t the animals introduce themselves? They can talk now! Or have the writers forgotten?!

- Daphne has new spells even if she doesn’t have a new transformation. Honestly, she has already been more useful than Winx were the whole season.

- Icy, you know very well who has the other stones! It is obvious! Even more so by the fact that Winx aren’t there to fight you! I knew that the Trix would notice the Stone and Brafilius would spill the beans, though! They couldn’t miss the opportunity to fuck shit up in the past as well.

- Lmaoooo @ Griselda passing out at the thought of Faragonda being the Headmistress of Alfea! XDDD She’s gonna have a fun time living through the future. But ooh, imagine the Trix going back in time and telling Faragonda about her future in order to fuck it up! That would be cool!

- Faragonda really is an idiot of a klutz in the past (and in this season - in the present too (without the klutz part... I think)).

- Is this a different mini world? Shouldn’t there be only one mini world in Alfea?

- Bug bunnies? Do I have to say that I heard Bugs bunnies at first?

- So the golden butterfly is sucking out the energy around for her metamorphosis.

- Why are Winx surprised the Trix were in the mini world when they already fought them in Alfea’s mini world?

- If I were Icy, I would fuck up the butterfly but we can’t have that!

- Why did they spoil the cliffhanger in the synopsis for the next episode? Not that we didn’t know that Bloom wasn’t going to get impaled on the ice but still.

7x25:

- This scene reminds me of a Kim Possible episode. Except, Kim saved herself.

- Oh, so now Elas’ power evolved even more? Of course, it did! They need to be upgraded constantly because no one bother to improve through practice anymore.

- How did that attack not send Icy into oblivion?

- Oh! A Tynix spell that isn’t tied to one of their home worlds! Go, Tecna!

- Hatched? Does a cocoon hatch? I honestly don’t know when it comes to English. But the butterfly isn’t really that beautiful. It looks like something a child cut out from a sheet of paper. Golden paper but still paper.

- Wasn’t the butterfly supposed to work in their favor? How come its actions were what threw Brafilius back in the hands of the Trix?

- “Are we lost in some other when?” XDDD  But how tf did they get back without using the memory stones? Goddammit! At least keep the bare minimum of consistency!!!

- They won’t escape us, he says as if they didn’t just get defeated by the “they” that do no need escape because they have the power advantage.

- Don’t the other fairies learn History of Magic? They should know about the Trix and what their powers are at the very least so they don’t act so stupid against Darcy.

- Stormy’s Occula is the only one from the Trix’ animals whose name I can even hear!

- Daphne is beating Icy! But damn, she got defeated when Icy got help from her animal. See? This is why Daphne needed to have an animal bonded to her!

- Why is Faragonda sending Grsielda on roundup duty instead of using her in the battle? Griselda is one of her strongest fighters!

- I thought it would be Kalshara that snagged Brafilius away but nope! He just can’t shake the Trix and their animals!

- Oh, so Roxy can sense that that is the dgmole that is connected to Faragonda but Faragonda herself couldn’t? And she acts like she has never heard of an aura? Man, they really brought her down this season, didn’t they?

- Really? A party now? Man, there really isn’t much plot in this season, is there?

- Well, seeing Daphne and Thoren together is actually kinda cute. We don’t get to really see any of the married couples. Which is stupid because they legit act the same way that Winx and their boyfriends do. Like, Daphne and Thoren are literally doing the same things!

- Don’t tell me Stella is jealous because Brandon is dancing with Shiny. But aww @ Kiko and Tecna’s bunny eating so much stuff together. XD I like the idea of the two bunnies being friends and it kinda relates to Bloom and Tecna’s friendship (that we haven’t really seen since season 5 and we haven’t had a good scene since season 3).

- I knew Kalshara wasn’t coming for a fight. She couldn’t beat them alone even if she tried. Especially when Daphne is also with them.

- Oh, wow! The Trix are fighting something that isn’t Winx? And their animals having their backs is actually pretty cute, too!

- Don’t tell me that they actually believe Kalshara wants to save Brafilius. I mean, if it’s true, that would be the best twist they’ve had all season but I somehow can’t imagine it.

7x26:

- “Can we trust you?” What do you think that she’ll say? No? There is literally not a case in which she’s gonna say “no” which means that you can’t take her answer for an honest one. Wtf?! Please, tell me that they’ll be mindful at the very least and ready to be double crossed.

- Why, of course, Icy’s animal would be called Frostbite. I should have guessed.

- See? Brafilius is actually the smarter sibling! He knows better than to get mixed up with wild magic.

- I knew that they were gonna show the whole Butterflix transformation. For the last time. It still doesn’t mean that I’m watching it.

- Winx act like they haven’t seen the way Kalshara treats Brafilius. But it was still kinda cute how relieved he was to see her.

- Stella is right. The Trix have not looked worse... yet. But wasn’t Brafilius with Kalshara. How did the Trix get him back again?

- Cat!Darcy vs cat!Kalshara is actually kinda cool. And the Trix did turn into shapeshifting witches! But does Kalshara only have the handful of forms we have already seen? Can’t she transform in anything else?

- One last hug? Don’t tell me Winx will merge with their animals as well! But damn, this talk about Winx standing no chance is getting depressing.

- Don’t tell me that the animals will merge with each other to form the damn swan!!!!!!!!

- “rulers of nature”? Wow, really? The power has totally gone to your head and you need to calm down!

- What are they gonna do with the stones? Oh, trap Trix out of time? That’s actually... pretty smart... and intense.

- Man, I feel bad about the Trix. But what about Brafilius and Kalshara?

- Kalshara really thought that she was gonna get away with the ultimate power? But why do the wild magic animals care about manners and Brafilius? Oh, well, it’s cute that he actually has someone to like and accept him. It was actually Kalshara’s idea to even make him turn into a half animal. He didn’t want that. He just wanted her to love him.

- The goodbye of the fairy animals was actually pretty emotional! If the season had been done better, this could have been such a tearjerker! If they’d actually bothered to show how the animals bonded both with each other and with Winx but that really wasn’t driven home.

- Oh, no! Why did they bring back the band again?! We really didn’t need that.

Well, this season was annoying as hell at times but it actually had some really cool concepts... that, of course, failed upon execution. I kinda liked it better than season 6, though, and I am not even sure why. Maybe because I had less expectations and they were topped more often than my expectations were for season 6. Really, the Legendarium was a great concept that they just completely and utterly failed to utilize while there wasn’t that much potential with the fairy animals but from time to time, the writers really came up with some great idea. Brafilius’ “arc” had a surprisingly touching end and so did that of the fairy animals. I don’t think Winx learned shit this season and they were completely useless - but hey, not much more can be said about them in season 6 either so... What I’m saying is that this season wasn’t as bad as the posts I have seen floating around the fandom had made me believe it would be. Though, don’t get me wrong, there were a couple of moments that I wish I could erase forever.

[bigskydreaming]

Hypothetically speaking, if someone were working on a Beacon Bay AU one shot where a bunch of dolphin shifters and shark shifters go to the same beachside school, would Brett work better as the former or the latter? I can see either working for him, and put off deciding because he’s just a supporting role but he has to mack on Mason now, so I kinda gotta know in order to know what kind of insults jokes to write Liam making.

I mean. Allegedly. No wait, hypothetically. THE ALLEGED AUTHOR WHOMST IS NOT ME AND PROMISING NOTHING HYPOTHETICALLY MEANS.

Is what I meant to say. Theoretically.

Anywho, the other dolphin shifters are Scott, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, Liam, Corey and Nathan (the lacrosse player Malia hooks up with in Season 6.) The shark shifters are Danny, Jackson, Tracy, Josh, the twins and Hayden. Lydia’s a siren who hangs out with the sharks mostly, and Kira and her mom are a kind of trickster spirit tied to the ocean because ocean kitsune aren’t actually a thing, and Malia’s a Proteus style shapeshifter that can turn into any sea creature, because in this Corinne was just a modern guise of Circe’s. Peter’s a dolphin shifter as well, and the one who turned all the dolphin shifters, before backstory plot had Scott rally the others behind him and eventually drive Peter out of town. Mason’s a druid in training, specifically focused on ocean magic, as he and Deaton are of a sect of druids who guard lore bequeathed to their order by Manannan mac Lir, the Irish sea god, a thousand years ago.

All shifter types have specific innate magic, which is why Peter was turning teens - dolphin magic is empathy and storm summoning. They can sense emotions and also project them, and in a pod, they can summon storms/manipulate the weather in specific ways via music. A solitary dolphin shifter singing on their own could maybe whip up a wind or stir up some fog, but you need a whole group to actually get a decent storm brewing....but the local dolphins were all surfers and skaters before being lured and turned by Peter, so no one’s really all that surprised to see them hanging out on the beach at night, camped out by bonfires and playing their guitars and being wild and loud. 

The rules of ‘the shape you take reflects the person you are’ still apply here, and dolphins are characterized by being playful, mischievous or chaos-loving, as well as naturally social. Shifters don’t need to bite or claw someone to change them, specifically - its about bringing a human to death’s door, the threshold between life and death ie the place where greatest transformations have the potential to occur....and then the shifter’s magic either finds a match in the shape of the human’s spirit, in which case they pull them back across the threshold, now a shifter themselves....or if the spirit doesn’t match their shifter type, the human like...dies. 

So basically to change them, Peter kinda...lured them out into the waves, siren style (except dolphin shifters are NOT sirens, thank you very much, says Lydia, who is very tired of having to remind people, sirens are a type of Fae, and dolphin shifters are just the result of a bunch of pirates pissing off the Greek god of wine, madness and revels a few thousand years ago, which apparently was supposed to be a punishment, but somehow just ended up making a bunch of mystical shapeshifting party animals....whatever, Dionysus was never particularly known for thinking things through. In his defense, he was probably drunk at the time).

Anyway, so to change them, Peter lured them out into the waves at night via empathy manipulations, yes the grossness is very much implied, but all backstory only, and then dragged them down under the water until they were drowning, at which point sharing breath either changes them or doesn’t work and they drown. Course, it doesn’t have to be a gross thing, for instance after becoming the pod’s Triton (the dolphin equivalent of an Alpha, the central focus point of their magic and the only one who can actually turn people) Scott turned Liam to save his life....Liam was a surfer who got caught in an undertow and dragged far enough down that by the time Scott got to him, he wouldn’t have been able to get him to the surface in time, so he tried giving him underwater CPR instead basically, and it worked, dolphin Liam.

Anyway, one can imagine a ton of different ways Peter would be game to exploit a bunch of impressionable teenagers with the power to manipulate moods and emotions just by being near someone, but they weren’t having it and backed Scott in challenging Peter until he peaced outta town. (Derek and Cora exist here, but they’re...elsewhere, as are the Argents, because plot reasons).

Problem with kicking the only dude who actually knows how to properly use their magic the hell out of Dodge though, is the dolphins only sorta kinda know how to use their magic. They kinda mostly got the whole storm singing thing down, and they can feel emotions just fine, but when it comes to the reverse, well, they haven’t quite figured out where the off switch on that is yet. So they kinda just each have this aura about them that can’t help but spread their emotions to whomever comes in range, like...contagious emotions. Which is a big part of the reason why they’re so loud and obnoxious and like, party animals (this pod, at least) - because they figure if they can’t stop being Mother Magic’s little emotion factories, they’d rather be pumping out dopamine among their surroundings, instead of like...magic depression hour. 

(Oh yeah, basically supernatural creatures have their own idea of a third kinda primal nature figure, like there’s Mother Nature and Father Sky, and in supernatural cultures, they also refer a lot to Mother Magic, who is basically like, the idea of the source point of everything supernatural in the world).

Being self-taught does have some upsides though, as some of them have figured out their own unique tricks that they probably wouldn’t have, if they’d been taught ‘properly’ by older shifters who are limited by their own ideas of what is or isn’t possible. For instance, they’ve never heard of any other dolphins who are able to pull off Corey’s trick of projecting an aura of some combination of emotions that basically lets him go virtually unnoticed, like...everyone in his vicinity is emotionally cued to just overlook him entirely, when he gets himself in the right mindset to project the effect he’s going for here. Its not true invisibility, he still shows up on camera and everything, its more like....they don’t register seeing him, even as their eyes pass by him.

Then you got the shark shifters on the other hand, who are a lot more serious...they’re not bloodthirsty like a lot of people would tend to assume, but rather their nature is that of guardians and lore keepers. Which prompts a lot of confusion as to how Jackson made the cut, and Danny just sighs and says see, obviously there’s more to him than meets the eye, which is actually just his way of covering for the fact that he doesn’t have a clue either. But shark shifters are largely born shifters, because they have strict laws among their own kind about turning humans, like....a large wolf attacks a human and bites them and they later die? Its noteworthy, but not like, as noteworthy as shark attacks, given the actual scarcity of the latter, so shark shifters are like....yeah, no biting the humans. Jackson and Hayden are actually the only bitten shifters in the local clan....Jackson was bitten by a rogue shifter years ago (luckily with shark shifters, if the Change takes, it takes hold quickly enough to like....start healing the damage from the bite before they bleed out, lmao). 

Hayden was turned in her old town by a clan whose leader was not a Good Guy, and her sister was like NOPE, and got her the hell out of town and kept driving until they found a shark clan with a good reputation. The Beacon Bay clan has been around for decades and are well established (the Mahealanis are the clan leaders, and Danny’s in line to be in charge next). But yeah, other than Jackson, the others are all born into local shark shifter families - like Josh and Tracy, or else they’re like the twins, who were born into another clan that was killed by hunters, and then the Beacon Bay clan took them in. So the same thing could work for Brett and Lori, because it wouldn’t work for them to be born dolphin shifters even from out of town, since that wouldn’t fit with the local dolphins all being self-taught in their magic....if I make them dolphin shifters too, they’d be turned ones as well.

Shark magic is in the blood...born shifters have ancestral memories of previous shifters in their bloodline, and because of the ‘shape of your spirit is what matters’ rule of thumb, bloodlines in this case is kinda symbolic....so even bitten sharks like Jackson and Hayden have blood memories from the previous generations of Beacon Bay sharks by virtue of the fact that they are clan now and see themselves that way, so as far as the magic is concerned, it counts. But at the same time, they also still have trace connections to the bloodlines of the shifters who bit and turned them, so they each for example occasionally get a flash of something from a different clan’s history...just like the twins still get flashes of their old clan’s blood memories.

And this is why they’re the lorekeepers of the various shifter types, because just like sharks are ancient as fuck, compared to other animals, shark shifters are said to be the oldest of the shifter types except for the crocodiles. So some of the oldest shark clans have memories going all the way back to the earliest eras of human history. This happens to include Danny’s clan, of course, and in fact his great great great grandfather was what’s known among shifters as a throwback - basically a shifter whose specific spirit DNA/coding/whatever/lol combines with the blueprint for their animal side in such a way that like.....the shape they take is that of a much earlier prototype of their shifter species, further back the evolutionary chain. So Danny’s great great great grandfather’s shifted form was basically less great white and more...megalodon, lol. Not quite that extreme, but close enough that his descendants are still catching the tail end of that prestige wave, almost a hundred years later. But basically that goes hand in hand with the fact that their clan’s lineage traces all the way back to the earliest shark shifters, the ones said to remember when gods still walked the earth themselves. 

And then sharks�� other magic, besides the blood memories (cuz all shifter types have two, like the dolphins have their empathy and their storm-singing; there’s a more passive type and an active type)....so the active type of shark magic ties into their nature as guardians. Just like sharks can smell blood in the water from miles away, shark shifters can ‘feel’ not blood in the water per se, its more like they can ‘smell’ violence from similar lengths. Like, they just have a sense for it, and can hone in on it, track it....and in the presence of spilled blood, they get a boost across the board...their strength, speed, healing, etc, all ramp up and give them a heightened edge in fighting whatever’s the source of the violence...at least until the blood stops spilling, either because they’ve successfully fought off whatever attacked someone and someone’s gotten the bleeding to stop, or because like....they died. LOL. 

The catch-22 of shark blood magic is that its geared towards making them better able to guard and protect those within their territories, but people familiar with their shifter type and how their magic works know that their best chance of beating a shark shifter running to the rescue is to like.....kill the person they’re coming to protect, shut off the spigot, so to speak. Part of why the shark clans like Danny’s have become a lot more insular and reclusive in recent decades is because hunters started to get savvy about baiting traps for shark shifters....use someone as bait to lure a shark shifter close, and then soon as they’re within range of the hunters’ ambush or whatever, kill the victim and the shark shifter’s been lured out and yet now is no more powerful or formidable than any other average shifter. Which is still plenty badass, but nothing that hunters who can take down werewolves and weretigers and the like, like...can’t handle.

Anyway, that’s me rambling on.

Oh yeah, and Theo exists but probably won’t be in this one shot because like....its mostly done and he’s not here, so I mean. Yeah. Probably not gonna surprise me with a sneak appearance. If I manage to finish this and ever get around to doing a second one in the same universe, that’s where he would show up. I know what he is though, like, the Dread Doctors don’t exist here, but something/someone kinda like them does, and Theo’s the result of one of their experiments. There’s an Inuit spirit called an akhlut, who can turn into an orca in the ocean and a wolf on land....to be clear, he is NOT that, nor is it even clear in-universe whether they exist or not, but basically like....someone was trying to engineer a shifter based on that legend, via a combination of science and magic. And that’s how you get a Theo here. Anyway, he’d end up in Beacon Bay searching for an artifact that’s legendary among the shifter clans in the way Excalibur is legendary to us....no one can seem to say for sure if it even exists or not, let alone does what its rumored to do, but the stories are endless....something called Circe’s Diadem, said to belong to the enchantress herself, and imbued with the power to change the shape of a person’s spirit.

And if you can change the shape of your spirit (or someone else’s) to whatever you want, then you can also by extension guarantee the specific type of shifter they could be transformed into as well.

Anyway, I have this other later idea for a bunch of factions, Theo included, all converging on Beacon Bay because someone’s been going around whispering in various ears that Circe’s Diadem is hidden in the town somewhere.

Whether or not this has anything to do with Circe’s daughter living in that town....or how many people (such as Theo) actually know that’s who she is...well, who can say.

And yeah, Malia’s met her before, and she’s Not A Fan. She knows who Corinne really is too (Circe has a sizable reputation as Corinne, her latest in a long line of guises/personas, but while she’s well known among the supernatural world as an infamous and feared mercenary and assassin, very very few know that she is in fact Circe herself....who was rumored to have died, been killed, vanished, etc, three thousand years ago, according to an endless array of legends, with pretty much every supernatural culture having their own idea of what happened to her. Circe is about as famous as it gets in the supernatural world, but she’s specifically revered/feared by the various shifter clans, most of whom believe that she had something to do with the creation of the very first shifters. Some stories say she’s the daughter of Mother Magic herself, others say she’s a goddess, still others insist she was nothing more than a very gifted con artist with a penchant for taking credit for other peoples’ work. Even Malia doesn’t know for sure. She and Mommy Dearest don’t really talk much. And every time Corinne does show up, she seems to have some kind of agenda in mind for Malia, which Malia’s like yeah no, I object, and Corinne’s like, you haven’t even heard what it is, and Malia’s like yeah I don’t need to, oh hey, have you met my girlfriend, Kira? Its such a small world, apparently you know her mom?

And then Noshiko’s like, hello...Corinne, is it, these days? 

And Circe is like....oh. Hello. Noshiko. 

And Noshiko just smiles, this beautiful, serene, dangerous smile: It’s been awhile, hasn’t it.

Circe: I suppose it has. About six hundred years, give or take a decade, I think?

Noshiko: And yet I remember it like it was yesterday.

*awkward silence*

Circe: Well, I really must be going Malia, sweetheart, we’ll catch up some other time, toodles, gotta jet, murder waits on no woman, after all. Ta, darling!

So, that’s a thing. Corinne and Noshiko definitely have beef.

But Malia only knows who her mother really is because of Noshiko, who refuses to tell her or Kira any more than that, because as Noshiko puts it, she doesn’t really come off all that great in the story either, and would prefer to just wield the threat of it as a blunt instrument to keep Corinne at bay, rather than like...actually unpack it. If at all possible.

And as Peter was run out of town before Malia found out the truth of her biological parentage, she’s not actually sure whether Peter knew who she really was and just never said anything, or even if Peter actually knew who Corinne really was when he was with her. Given his obsession with the occult and ancient legends, its entirely possible Peter did know though, or even sought her out specifically because he’d deduced she was really Circe. From things he mentioned in passing now and then, Scott and his pod are fairly certain that Peter was looking for Circe’s Diadem too, and has been for a very long time. But again, whether that’s a hint towards him knowing who Corinne was, or against....they have no idea. 

Deaton’s theory, when pressed, because he really doesn’t like to speculate, lmao, but he was concerned they were only considering one angle at the exclusion of all others....so he mentioned an old story passed down from the earliest days of his own sect of druids, about an ancient sea witch who might have been another one of Circe’s many names/personas....and the story said three times a man came to the sea witch in a different guise, first a lover, then a friend, then a foe, and each time he tried to steal her magic (though what precisely this means, the story didn’t say). And after the third time, the sea witch hid most of her magic in her crown, and gave it to her most loyal servant, who she then turned into an albatross and commanded to take it far away and hide it until she came for it. So taking into account that story, its possible Circe herself doesn’t actually know for sure where her Diadem is, and for whatever reason, she stored the majority of her magic in it long, long ago...and she’s been hunting for it ever since. So maybe, they speculate, it wasn’t even Peter that sought Corinne out, but rather she who sought him out, because she’d heard of his search and thought he might be on the right track.

But yeah. So Malia has no idea if Peter knew who he was sleeping with at the time, or if he even knows now, and is Theo working for Corinne, for Peter, for someone else entirely, or is he an independent agent, is Circe’s Diadem even in Beacon Bay at all, is it even real or just the longest con ever, and if so, what does she stand to gain from it? Mysteries abound!

The sea keeps its secrets well, and so does Beacon Bay.

Dun dun dun.

fshalsfhlafjal god Im such a melodramatic shit why am i so fucking amused by myself science side of tumblr i need answers but be gentle im delicate

[abundantchewtoys]

HS Epi: Meat p11 reaction

Is the resolution of the Masterpiece really going to fall in between pages about Jane & Jake's fake date?

Maybe not. Maybe we'll see something from John's perspective first, inside the house juju. Giving himself the retcon powers. Coming to terms about some things. But I suspect he won't be able to contact anyone. At least, it would surprise (and entice!) me if someone contacted him while he's hidden away so remotely in there... Speaking of contact, how did John intend to have read anything inside the juju without his glasses or contacts? You can only spend so much time squinting.

I also wonder what they'll do when they're let out. I mean, they haven't become any better at fighting, and LE has. John won't zap his friends, Vriska and Davepetasprite^2 away to confer in a more secure location, right? Assuming he still has his retcon powers by the end of his stay in the house juju.

---

"That’s that, you think. Your glasses are broken forever, and you totally fucked up and underestimated young Lord English. Rose should have known better than to trust this to you alone." Well, I guess having a mental breakdown is one way to pass the time. I'd rather he had some sort of breakthrough instead, though. As for the glasses... Maybe a non-final death will restore them? Or by ascending to his Ultimate Self god tier. Whatever that'd do to his personality...

"Rose, Rose... your smart, amazing friend Rose, you can almost hear her voice now.

> Listen closer, jackass." ... Ah, so Reload Rose and the others can still talk. Their jails neighbour each other after all - they represent the four blocks of the house - but I didn't think it'd be enough for them to confer. Though, I rather think they're limited in what they can do in here, right? Unless... Unless by being in the house juju, they can influence some things inside the plot, still put some things in place so some time loops are fulfilled and stuff is prepared for bringing down LE!

Pretty sure they're barred, narratively, from performing a jail break, though. :P

Ya know, I've talked about the sentiments behind the narrative prompts before, and I just now realized that the kind of intruisive, inflammable language they use are a throwback to Homestuck's narration, since now that we have this POV-type story, the language there in is more shaped towards the person in question.

"You’ve only realized right now that your cell has walls, because it’s awfully bright in here. It’s so white that nothing in the cell is casting a shadow. Looking around, you realize there is no apparent source to all this bright light, making it hard to tell where the floor ends and the walls begin." Oh, I figured it was dark for him, but yeah, the house is white. Maybe the jail cell looks to each as what their idea of being imprisoned in a house-shaped object should be like, and proportions of the space go to match that? Hence why John can't yet tell the floor from the walls, he's got only an inkling of an idea. :P

"JOHN: yeah, i’m here. ROSE: Oh, thank goodness. Everyone’s accounted for then." Hah, John spaced out while the others reconnected. Nice. I'm interested to see what ideas Rose will bring to the table.

So it all comes back to four kids, standing idly in separate rooms, huh. :P

"Are you okay? JOHN: what? ROSE: Are you OKAY?" Okay, either the walls muffle the sound of John is like "this situation does not warrant the use of the word 'okay', rose. 'okay' is definitely not how i would describe us being right now."

"JOHN: i think so. i can barely hear you though.

You can hear a thud from Rose’s corner, like someone slumping against the wall in relief. Well, that’s what you’re doing at least." That's pretty much all she needed to hear right now.

"DAVE: this is kinda dorky to say out loud but i dont DAVE: feel... time" ... They're cut off from all their aspects now, are they? That'd just make them ordinary people. :/ Or maybe it's in reference to time outside of the juju passing way faster, relatively.

"DAVE: thats not just me right you guys feel it too DAVE: or dont JADE: yeah JADE: i mean theres obviously space inside this box but i cant do ANYTHING JADE: its like im blind" ... Okay, so I'm left to wonder. Would the egg sword and Jade's First Guardian powers still be usable? I'm assuming Dave had it out, so even if their sylladexes are inaccessible they might be able to do something.

"The noise outside the juju grows. Something sharp and metallic splinters above and rains down on the top of the chest." That isn't something to do with the pirate party finding the chest in the dreambubbles... So then, what? Did the B2 kids do something with the chest after exiling (excorcising? ... INcorcising?) Caliborn into Lil Cal?

Blaperile has a good point. Do all the soul splices inside Lil Cal experience this in the same way? ... Do all the soul splices in LORD ENGLISH experience this in the same way?? In the sense that the mobster is just a prison they can't escape or influence?

"ROSE: What did my future self say it was we had to do? JOHN: erm... she never rea—" Oh this is going to be so embarrassing.

"The metallic noises rain down harder, drowning out Rose’s attempt at being loud." ... It's that the noises are metallic, otherwise I was almost beginning to think it was more like the white noise. And that would have made me think of the Scratch. That would sure be something though, if the B2 kids initiated a Scratch of Caliborn's session. Actually, what if that was how Alternate Calliope's timeline came to be...

"JOHN: NOW I CAN’T HEAR YOU! JADE: TRY USING LESS WORDS

The length of the silence coming from Rose’s corner communicates just how difficult a task that is for her." Pfffffffff. Incoming character development for Rose: being concise.

"JADE: WHAT????? JOHN: I KNOW IT’S ALL A BIT ABSTRACT, BUT... JADE: NO, I JUST CAN’T HEAR YOU! DAVE: JOHN YOU SUCK AT YELLING JOHN: UGH!" Pfffff, I thought John would be better at yelling coherently, being Karkat's counterpole. ... Blaperile points out the similarity with Karkat sucking at whispering. XD

"Now you understand defeating young Lord English was never supposed to happen. Not the way Adult Rose was implying it would. You surmise the other four teens remaining outside the juju were the ones meant to be tasked with his defeat." It just sucks that John has to come to these admittedly wrong decisions by himself and couldn't have been given more information to work with.

"And judging from the cacophony still emanating from beyond the walls of this house and its confining chest, they are taking the task seriously." Okay, so the B2 kids' fight is still going on. Still unsure what the metal sounds could be about though. Aside from Dirk hacking at the chest with his unbreakable katana.

"But what does this mean for the four of you?" John, don't lose hope, you said it yourself, you'll be unloaded... some time.

"You try to picture what’s going on in the battle outside, but it’s not easy.

> Use your imagination." Of course, the house juju's powers run on imagination! :P No, wait, he's just going to give us his idea of the proceedings of the rest of the Masterpiece. Sadly, he doesn't have any clay at hand. :P

"The coolness of the action in your mind’s eye is belied by the actual sound effects booming all around you, which you can only describe as vaguely stupid." Welp, guess the bar of wedgies is still being cleared only marginally.

"There’s a lot of hysterical screaming, which, if you’re not mistaken, is coming exclusively from the male combatants. ... Well, Dirk IS living and breathing anime. :P

"Almost as if an outrageous bubble of pure Hope were enveloping the stage, is how you would describe it if you didn’t mind sounding ridiculous." Hah, John still doesn't believe in the application of Hope.

"Then you hear... it can’t be. Horses?? No, not simple horses of flesh and bone. These horses are metal, if we’re to believe they’re horses at all." Oh! Right, Arquiusprite summoned those Metalhoofs. Well, that's what I picture they were, Caliborn represented them with metal horse figures... But perhaps he even created robo-centaur butlers and the like. *shivers*

"You figure no one will ever truly know what’s happening out there. You doubt anyone would even be able to handle how incredible the raw, unfiltered account of this teen brawl actually was, so it’s probably for the best." Welp, and we were doing so well just now. :P Eh, it seems the battle unfolded pretty much exactly as foretold, only with some of the more stupid details removed, curtousy of Caliborn's impatience with stupidity. Which in this case might not have been entirely bad. :P

"you overhear Dave from one of the rooms below you, raising his voice to speak to either you or someone else." Right, they are not all on the same level, since it's a house-shaped prison. Uh, but wasn't Dave supposed to be in the part of the house with the extra window? It's been too long, I probably misremember. Oh, wait, yeah, they went through the fourth wall via one of the bottom panes, and it stood for Dave. Never mind.

"Once more you ruefully reflect on these teen versions of your friends, and all the questions they must have for you. For each other. What would you even say to them?" The responsibilities of an adult, John never expected they'd be this hard. He must be growing more appreciative of what his Dad went through with him without even knowing it.

"You’re not even sure you could handle it, if you were Teen John. You’d have too many follow-up questions, which Adult John is in no way prepared to answer." Still, I wouldn't mind a little one-on-one between Johns. A John-on-John, I suppose. In a serious way, nothing from the animes.

"Would you tell them about Terezi..." Oooh, does he suddenly get an idea, thinking of Terezi? Can't say I think they can do anything to contact her from inside here. Hmm, but earlier, Blaperile thought about what the B2 kids could do with the juju chest, whether they might try to get the others out. That's assuming Caliborn didn't captchalogue the thing, though. Still, it would be something if they could defy what's been foretold and unload the house early, maybe load it with a real surprise for LE.

"For some reason her name feels like nails in your heart. Makes sense, you guess, cause there’s a lot of sharp letters in it. She had sharp teeth too, and sharp elbows. Sharp words." Ahhhh, so we get to see what black romance feels like to John. Looking pretty sharp, apparently. Still, her sharp intellect could've come in handy here. It's a good thing chances are good they'll meet again, I'm sure post-victory Terezi has an important role to play yet.

"Terezi Pyrope was a sharp girl, and maybe what these sharp feelings are trying to tell you is you miss her more than you realized." Well, John has already acknowledged his feelings about Roxy, guess it's time for the other side of the two-headed coin now.

"She wouldn’t have let you neglect relationships with certain friends for so long that you missed whole chapters of their lives. She wouldn’t have put up with you moping around with the salamanders for so long. She would have kicked your ass for being such a loser about everything. She would have poked you in the forehead and called you insufferably lame and told you to pick up the damn phone. You would have called her a weirdo and pretended you hated it, and maybe you would even have believed you hated it. But now, sitting here in this little white cubicle, contemplating your regrets, you don’t think you’d have hated it much at all.

Would you tell the teens that?" Oooh. Very good point, actually. Even if John really only knows that version of Terezi from talking to her on two separate days separate by three years, she had a real impact on him. Granted, they also kept contact on WhatsApp as well in Universe C, but during the session was when their interactions bloomed. It'd probably be a stretch for Meat to end with John retconning the post-victory timeline to include Terezi on Earth, with him, right? After they defeat Lord English first, of course. Oh, right, she was there for two years before leaving... somehow. I kind of forgot. Still, five years would've made a difference in where John ended up by the start of the epilogues.

"JOHN: am i... depressed??" ... Well. Well, as far as growing self-awareness goes, this might be a very big development! Yes, it does seem that John has become listless on Earth C. Mostly it seemed to have to do with the absence of his Dad. But maybe he'll have other ideas about that, like his misfortune in matters romantic.

"as it turns out, you are really fucking depressed. You’re just a giant, wet meat sack of self-involved misery, and all that big, wet, meaty ooze drips out your mouth every time you open it. All the time and space in the world isn’t making it better. It’s something you should have been doing for yourself, instead of waiting around for things to get better." Wow, John. I suppose things will get a little harder for him, now that he's realized this about himself, but I hope he'll find a way soon out of this mess. And so, that's what he's been doing on Earth C, just waiting for things to get better. And no-one picked up on it, not even the other people close to him that bordered on depression before? Like Jade? He really alienated himself...

"Well, screw waiting! It’s boring as hell! You are JOHN EGBERT, after all, immortal CREATOR OF WORLDS, the one and only man ever to completely transcend the partitions of CANON ITSELF. You’ve got these powers, remember?" Well THAT's a sudden surge of RESOLVE if I've ever seen one!

"You hold up your hands and form a rectangle with your fingers and reach outside yourself, outside canon, to the place your retcon powers come from. You focus. You strain. You contemplate with all your might a place you can zap to, any place but here." There's no place like home, there's no place like home! :p Kind of wondering if he'll succeed though. He might be cut off from his powers. But if not, canon is his oyster.

"You wait. And wait. And wait and...

Nothing happens.

You slump back down against the wall" Welp! He tried.

"JOHN: THE ONLY WAY OUT OF HERE... JOHN: IS FOR US TO WAIT FOR SOMEONE TO LET US OUT. JOHN: SORRY GUYS. ROSE: OH." Anyone up for a game of "I see I see what you can't see"?

"JOHN: ALSO... JOHN: I THINK I MIGHT HAVE DEPRESSION?" Well, at least they won't have a lack of stuff to be talking, sorry, yelling about. Rose might be partially delighted to pick at the brains of an adult John, in fact.

[danijimenezv]

Who We Used to Be

Prompt/Summary: Based on “Two Ghosts” by Harry Styles

Pairings: Tony x female!reader

Warnings: angst, bittersweet moments, implied smut

Word Count: 2260

A/N: I wrote it for Bella’s Cool Times Summer Jamz Mix Writing Challenge ( @whothehellisbella ). This takes place at the end of Captain America: Civil War. I didn’t exactly include the lyrics of the song, but I did make sure that it fits the plot :)

It had been a while since he had thought about her. Until that Friday afternoon, Tony Stark actually hadn’t thought about her for years, not really.

Tony had been working at the New Avengers for days, trying to come up with something to help Rhodes. To say he was going out of his mind was an understatement, especially after the events with Steve and the Winter Soldier. That’s why he found himself wandering around Fire Island beach, after hours of driving. He didn’t even know why exactly he had ended up there, he had just driven mindlessly.

The sand underneath his feet and the calm environment of the beach helped him think, and he found himself mulling over everything that had been happening lately, not only with Steve and the rest of the Avengers, but also with Pepper. Tony and Pepper were giving each other some time, being Iron Man finally taking its toll on her. He was so deep in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice the person approaching him. It took him a few seconds to finally register the face that was in front of him.

She looked exactly how he remembered, even if it had been more than a decade since they last saw each other. Her hair flowed freely in the wind, giving off the vibe of freedom, and her eyes sparkled as she too recognized him. She was still as beautiful in his eyes as ever; the only difference being the small crinkles by her eyes, and the way they seemed to hold a new world of knowledge and experience. Tony’s heart picked up its pace as he continued to gawk at her, and both stood in absolute silence for some minutes, studying each other with their stares. Finally, the woman broke into a friendly smile.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here again, Stark.”

“Y/N.” he sighed, “It’s been a while.”

“Indeed.”

“How have you been? I haven’t heard much about you these past years.”

“Can’t say the same about you, Iron Man.” she pointed out, laughing softly, “I’ve heard plenty of you. Every time I turn around, there you are, in the news, in some paper, or in a kid’s costume.”

Tony smirked, “Don’t pretend you don’t love seeing me so much.”

“Guess you’ll never know.” her face was a mask, and Tony was unable to know if she really did or didn’t at all, “I’ve been relatively good.”

“Still working as a doctor?”

“Forensics, yeah.”

“Kinda CSI, huh?” Tony chuckled under his breath slightly, but squirmed uncomfortably as her steely gaze seemed to look right through him, bore into his very core. As their eyes locked, Tony felt a wave of feelings washing over him, teleporting him back to the day they had first met, back to when he was barely 18.

“How bad is it?” her voice brought him out of the flashback.

“Bad? No one said anything about-”

“You can lie to anyone else, Tony, but not to me.”

She was right. Tony was used to keeping everyone at a certain distance, but Y/N practically knew him from the very start, and they had been together for years. There was no way he could hide anything from her, no matter how much he tried or how long it had been. Y/N frowned, one of her hands reaching up to cup and caress his cheek, but she suddenly became aware of what she was doing and retreated her hand slowly.

“Sorry, I know it’s been a while. I don’t want to overstep my boundaries.”

Tony simply dismissed the situation with a nod. He was oddly silent, uncharacteristic of him. Y/N had never seen him like that, not in the eight years they were together. He was different from the Tony she once knew; he had seen and experienced far too many things for her to even start to comprehend what changed him. Still, that didn’t stop her from trying to reach out to him, to be there for him, not baring how in despair he looked.

“Come on, I’ll take you to get a drink. You seem like you need one.”

“I don’t want to be anywhere public.” he scratched the back of his neck.

“My place sounds fine for you?” she asked, and Tony could see the sincere concern in her shining eyes, something that, still after more than a decade, still disarmed him completely, “I’ve got booze and it’s not out in the public.”

“I’d be worried about your life decisions if it were.” he joked.

They drove for about half an hour, just two people joking and reminiscing about the past. No one would have suspected they hadn’t seen each other in years; probably because, deep down, they never stopped thinking about the other. Once in her house, they settled down fairly quickly, as if being together was an old routine they remembered well. Tony got out two glasses from one of the kitchen cabinets, while Y/N gathered a bottle of whiskey and a bucket of ice. For the following hours, all they did was exactly the same they did in the car, remember moments they lived together and the best of those years. Some memories were happy, some were sad, and some were absolutely ridiculous, but each and every one of them reminded him of a time where everything was much simpler than the problems he was now facing at the moment with the Avengers. Tony honestly couldn’t point out the exact moment he had last felt as carefree and on ease, nothing comparing to how she was making him feel in that moment.

“Come on, gulp it down. I dare you.” Tony smirked, making Y/N gasp in offense.

“You think I can’t hold my drink?”

“Sweetheart, this is the third glass of whiskey you’ve had in the past two hours. I think you can’t handle any more, much less in one gulp.”

“Watch me.” she did as she was dared, not looking unfazed in the slightest, which surprised him deeply, “See, Stark? I told you I could.”

“I just have one more question.”

“Which is?”

“How did you manage to get whiskey on your nose?”

A deep, scarlet color adorned her cheeks, but as Tony laughed at her expression, he leaned forward to clean it for her. That was the mistake, or maybe that was exactly what he needed to do. Before he could stop to think about it, he just let go of his inhibitions and followed his instinct. He crashed his lips against her in a matter of seconds, and he was relieved as she returned the gesture with as much fervor as him. The kiss was full of desperation, lust and unspoken promises, and it filled both of their veins with adrenaline. They continued kissing, their limbs ending up tangled together as their tongues messily danced together, their mouths practically clashing together as the two of them chased their own desires.

“Bedroom?” he asked in a strained voice, barely separating from her.

She panted heavily, “Down the hall, last door on the right.”

Tony woke up in the middle of the night, stretching a bit and feeling the other side of the bed cold and empty. He reached out for his discarded boxers and his pants and put them on, somehow knowing, or more like hoping, that Y/N was wearing his shirt, just like the old times. He wandered around the halls for a few minutes, before he heard soft humming coming from the kitchen, and made his way there. Easily enough, he found the woman, hunched slightly as she searched for something in the fridge.

“Want anything, Tony?” she asked casually, startling him, as she retrieved a bottle of water.

“I’m fine.” he brushed off and took a seat at the table.

“Suit yourself.” she shut the fridge door closed.

Even without the house lights or the white light from the refrigerator, the moon was intense enough to light them. The moonlight made her silhouette stand out even more, and Tony couldn’t help but admire her beauty. He wanted to say something, but what? He felt a huge lump in his throat and his tongue tied in an impossible knot, making him unable to even utter a single word. Still, even if he didn’t feel as physically incapable to talk as he was feeling right then, he didn’t know what to tell her. ‘Thanks for tonight, I’ve gotta go’? He couldn’t be a jerk to her, not after everything they had lived together. Tony yearned with all his heart it could be as simple as he used. He wished he could tell her he still loved her as much as he used to, and that they could be together again. A happy, fairy-tale ending. However, no matter how much Tony tried, the same thoughts about her fluttered around in his mind. Y/N was a throwback, a beautiful one at that, but still a throwback to a time when he was young, unburdened and definitely not scared of love and loss. She was all he had back then, and he would always love her. But the heart-shattering, ground-rumbling love he once felt for the woman in front of her, that was gone, turning her simply into a beautiful memory, meant for him to remember some of the best time of his life by her side.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Y/N interrupted his line of thoughts.

“I don’t think you do, sweetheart.” he chuckled, trying to hide the bitterness with his wit.

“You’re thinking the same thing I am.” she stated, and somehow, he knew she was telling the truth, “It’s not what you expected.”

“Y/N, I-”

“I’m under no pretense here, Tone.” she sat down in front of him, taking his calloused hands in her soft ones, “ I know last night was a one-time thing only. I know how it is. After all, everything has changed.”

“Why do I feel so broken, then?”

“Because, deep down, you and I both wanted it to be just how we remembered.”

“I thought you were the one for me all along.” Tony continued stubbornly, “Meeting again after some years wasn’t supposed to work like that.”

“Oh, Tony. My Tony.” Y/N chuckled, “Not everything is like in the movies, no matter how much we want it to be. Don’t think of us as a failure. Think of us as a beautiful experience. Now, you can put that small bother in the back of your mind to rest. Maybe it’s just not meant to be. We can finally leave it in peace, in the past, and move on to whatever life has in store for us.”

“I felt like I used you, and I definitely don’t want you to feel or even think that.” he shook his head vehemently.

“In a way, we used one other. We were both trying to relive the past, trying to feel again how that was like.” she shrugged, “Please, Tony, I knew the existence of this possibility, of things ending this way. I knew what I was getting into, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

“You were too important for me.” he kissed her forehead, “You still are. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that sooner.”

“Not your fault. We were young, just experiencing life.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have given up on us. What if-?”

“You and I...” she whispered, caressing his cheek lovingly as she stared softly at his warm brown eyes; the same eyes she had fallen in love with back all those years, and the same eyes she would always love no matter what, “You and I will always be unfinished business, just a torrent of ‘what if’s that never came to be. It’s too late now, but I don’t regret a thing. I love you, Tony.” she clarified, “Always have, and probably always will. You’ll always hold a special place in my heart… but I’m no longer in love with you. We’ve grown apart into two very different people, and we still have a lot to figure out on our own.”

“I’m sorry.” Tony held back a sob, “I’m sorry for what we could’ve been.”

“Me too.” she sighed sadly and, in a bold move, leaned towards him and placed her lips on his, in a last, cherishing kiss, “But do me a favor.”

“For you, anything.”

“Try to be happy once again.” she practically begged him, “That’s all I want for you. I don’t know how bad things are within the Avengers, but I’m asking you this because I care about you, Anthony Edward Stark, not Iron Man, not the infamous Tony Stark.”

“I never deserved you.” he let out a breathy laugh, standing up and pulling her to him as well, his strong arms snaking around her waist almost immediately, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“On the contrary, you always did.” she snuggled further in his embrace, trying to remember every little detail, from the way his arms held her tight with strength but still delicacy as if she was his whole world, to the way he smelled like the home she used to know, “That’s why I’m still here, and I’ll always be.”

“In my heart is a memory, and there you’ll always be.” he quoted, remembering one of her favorites, which, in turn, made her grin breath-takingly.

Their love story was over, but Tony Stark could brag he had the most epic and spectacular love story to ever tell with the one and only Y/N Y/L/N.

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