#like come on this is supposed to be a Big Deal. aaaand what do we have now? another fucking bijuu bomb.

[orcelito]

Ok I'm thinking about kabuto backstory again and thinking about how unfair and fucked up it all is like

> be Danzo

> threaten local orphanage mother into returning to being a spy (by threatening the kids there)

> force them to send One Kid too because he "lost a man" while obtaining the intel he's threatening her to spy over (the kid is Kabuto, who volunteered bc he overheard them threatening the mother over this) (Danzo knows he overheard)

> train kabuto to be a spy while orphanage mother is off on her long spy job as well

> bait spy mom with the promise of keeping kabuto safe to keep her agreeing to work with you

> decide they both are too good at their jobs (????) Of being spies (that work for you?????)(they've been loyal this whole time????) So they're too dangerous and both need to die

> keep mom and kid away from each other as kid grows up

> literally DOCTOR FAKE PHOTOS of the kid growing up to make it seem like he looks totally different now???? So she won't recognize him?????

> give her the assassination assignment of killing the Real Kabuto (who she won't recognize) so they'll kill each other

> whoops, Kabuto survived and killed her instead, oh well at least Orochimaru's watching him now

I'm just like. How fucked up is it to threaten these people into working as spies for you "for the good of Konoha", and then decide that these people (who have given NO INDICATION of intending to betray Konoha) are too good at being spies and thus Too Dangerous and should be killed for it. But no he can't just kill them in a normal way. He had to manufacture an entire scenario so that they'd kill EACH OTHER while making the mom not recognize him (with the express purpose of breaking the kid's spirit) like BROOOOOO I know you ordered the whole Uchiha clan to be massacred (conducting genocide for the sake of 'peace') actually now that I think about it he ordered this of itachi. Ordered him to kill his own family. Of course Danzo would get off on making a mother and son kill each other "for the good of Konoha" he's almost fucking cartoon villain level of horrible past the point of logic EXCEPT there really are people this awful that have existed. Plenty of them. And they have also justified it as being "for the good of [nation]" like that's the Thing, he's a war hungry nationalist that has decided He Knows Best so he's going to fuck up SO many people's lives, up to and including his own damn citizens!!!! And this bitch thinks he deserves to be kage?!?!?! Fucking Hiruzen letting him run wild like this. He knew Danzo was stealing children and indoctrinating them into a murder cult (where, keep in mind, he purposefully raises kids in pairs so they view each other as family AND THEN ORDERS THEM TO KILL EACH OTHER)(AGAIN!!!! with the family killing, what is his PROBLEM) but Hiruzen just let it fucking happen. Spineless fucking piece of shit. He fucked Naruto up he fucked Orochimaru up he fucked up Royally with Danzo like come ONNNNNNNNNN

Rattling the bars of my cage rn at how awful Danzo is and how he was able to just. DO THIS???? I know the bitch is dead but he's not dead enough. Give me the glock.

[hikennosabo]

thinking about the trigun manga, ideally dark horse would retranslate it for the reprint/deluxe edition. i doubt they will, though.

i've mostly read the overhaul translation so i can't really comment on the entirety of DH's version, but from what i HAVE read, it's kinda clunky, and not always clear on who's talking or even what's being said. not to mention that they made the decision to leave japanese honorifics in the dialogue, which, while it makes sense for the culture of anime/manga fandom in the west at that time (great post on 00s-era fandom culture here), makes no sense for the text itself since in-universe the characters are not speaking japanese. aaaand of course that's not even mentioning outdated language regarding elendira, and stuff like calling the planet by the wrong name ('gunsmoke' is anime-only), failing to indicate wolfwood's accent, and other mistakes.

like i wouldn't outright call it a BAD translation by any means, but it could definitely use a second pass, polishing and updating it for the modern era of anime fandom. but i have my doubts they'll actually do that, for a few reasons.

for one thing, dark horse's website lists this information on the page for the deluxe edition:

justin burns is trigun's original translator from 20 years ago. i suppose it's possible that they hired him again, but this suggests to me that they're simply reusing his old translation for this reprint. which is definitely the cost-effective option, and the one DH is most likely to take, if only for that reason.

on the same page, the summary for the volume says this:

GUNSMOKE. IS. NOT. THE NAME OF THE PLANET!!!! i know this is potentially an easy fix, and not actually THAT big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. they might just be using 'gunsmoke' in the summary because it's what anime-onlys are familiar with. but it doesn't exactly instill faith in me, lol.

although there is ONE thing on that page that stands out to me, which is this:

i thought i was misremembering, but no, trigun's deluxe edition was originally slated for december of this year. sucks that we'll have to wait longer for the release, but maybe the delay indicates that some cleanup or revision is being done...? or it could mean nothing. lol. we won't know until it comes out.

[thedorkdionysia]

alright. I gotta rant about something.

so I'm sure you all probably know by now that David Tennant has made a return as the Doctor in Doctor Who after like 12 years since the end of his run and almost 10 years since the last time he was in the show at all. even if you don't watch the show, you probably know by now on account of how many people are losing their minds over it.

and apparently people are somehow thinking it's racist that this is happening. because Ncuti Gatwa, a black actor, was announced as the casting choice for the next major incarnation of the Doctor a few months before the centenary special Power of the Doctor aired, only for Tennant to show up at the end of POTD after 13 regenerated, leaving many people wondering where the new Doctor was, before we were only treated to a short teaser of the upcoming special that included the briefest glimpse of Ncuti at the end... aaaand then the announcement that the show would be on hiatus again for another 13 months until the 60th anniversary special in November 2023.

now, I understand that it's definitely a bad look for them to sort of bait and switch people like that, I was watching with friends and we were all expecting to see Ncuti after the special and then we were all losing it when we saw David instead. but there are people who are claiming that not just RTD, but also David Tennant himself, are doing this out of intentional, malicious racism against Ncuti and are basically just making things even worse than they were in the chibnall era (somehow).

but that honestly just... makes no fucking sense. literally what would be the reason for RTD and the BBC to cast a black man as the doctor, make a big deal out of it on social media, and then not put him in the show at all just because he's being maliciously racist? I think it would have pretty much the same effect for RTD to cast another white man to play the newest incarnation of the doctor, intentionally turning Ncuti down in the process, and then just rolling with him instead.

so even though I get why it could definitely be taken kind of racist, I don't think that it was intentionally done that way. but then you might be wondering, "well if it wasn't malicious, then why cast DT and announce HIM as the 14th doctor when it should have been Ncuti??" well, it's more complicated than any of how the people angrily ranting about it are explaining it, but I think this video explains it well:

basically the way this video explains it is this: RTD came back to the show at kind of a weird time. the last episode they had written, filmed, and planned to air was POTD, which wrapped production not long after RTD was announced to take the reins again in October 2021. also, coming up on the horizon not long after POTD was supposed to air was the 60th anniversary, which would obviously be a big deal for the show-- as the longest running sci-fi TV series in the world, every major anniversary is a huge milestone.

the only problem is that this kinda left RTD with a logistical nightmare. he didn't have a new doctor yet, and even if he were able to get one the day after taking over the show, there just wasn't enough time to write, film, edit, and air a whole season of the show before the 60th. and RTD wouldn't really want to introduce the new doctor during the anniversary either: the anniversary has brought back older doctors since the show's 10th anniversary, and no matter who he cast, they would most likely get overshadowed by the nostalgic figureheads alongside them even if their performance was absolutely top notch.

and there was also another problem: when RTD DID finally cast Ncuti as the new doctor, he was busy filming the new season of sex education as well as the Barbie movie with Margot Robbie. which left him with another conundrum: should he wait for the actor who really, REALLY won him over in his audition to be available for the show, or should he tell him that he did amazing but they need someone more readily available?

ultimately, RTD chose the former, and I think it was the right decision. but that still left a gap in the anniversary special that RTD had to fill before Ncuti would be able to commit to the show full time. so, in the interest of the nostalgia that comes with anniversary specials and the part of the doctor still needing someone to bridge the gap between Jodie and Ncuti, he turned to a fan favorite: David Tennant. and that's pretty much where we are today. Tennant isn't REPLACING Ncuti, and he's really not replacing Jodie either. he's a placeholder, a way to get things from point A to point B.

and people are saying that DT is overshadowing Ncuti just by... existing and being part of the show again, but the thing is, they are actively trying to give Ncuti the spotlight. RTD and the show's official social media accounts both announced Ncuti's casting a week BEFORE even mentioning the fact that David Tennant and Catherine Tate would be coming back for the 60th. RTD has made numerous posts about Ncuti and how absolutely thrilled they both are for this new upcoming era, and he's barely even mentioned DT since his original announcement. (not because of some kind of estrangement between the two, if that wasn't obvious: he's just acknowledging that this isn't David's era that we're about to see.) even David Tennant himself has spoken in interviews about how legitimately AMAZING Ncuti is as the doctor and now excited he is for him as well. at this point the only ones who are actually focusing more on David and less on Ncuti ARE THE ONES COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW RTD AND DAVID ARE TRYING TO OVERSHADOW NCUTI. (and also all the media outlets trying to bank on David's return to make money selling stories, which is a whole new post.)

by trying to make such a big moral dilemma out of David Tennant being back for no more than three episodes a year from now, people on the internet are basically becoming the exact type of person they're trying to be mad at: they're focusing more on the guy who's coming back temporarily to help things transition forward, and less on the fact that things are going to have such a bright future ahead with the new guy, we just have to actually get there first.

and like I said: I don't know if it was the best choice either, and from what I've seen, POTD was originally supposed to end by cutting off before we actually saw the end result of 13's regeneration, which I would have been okay with, but the point is that RTD was in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation and ultimately tried to do his best to give Ncuti the chance to shine without getting overpowered by the major event of the 60th anniversary in his first ever appearance on the show, and I think he's doing his best with that. and as far as the numbering issue, I'm not thrilled about tenthree/tenteen/retro-ten or whatever you want to call him being referred to as the "fourteenth doctor" either, but since the numbering system was pretty much meaningless after Moffat's whole "well actually eleven is actually thirteen because something something war doctor something something tentoo something something vanity" thing, and is now even more meaningless thanks to chibnall and the timeless child, I honestly wouldn't split too many hairs over it. most of the official announcements from the show's social media didn't even give Ncuti a number to begin with anyway, and the only primary source I found that actually called him "the fourteenth doctor" right after the announcement was a BBC news article that wasn't even written by someone affiliated with the show anyway, so the whole thing is probably a misunderstanding that's spiralled out of control anyway. either way, it's just a number, it's not like the doctor even refers to themselves by their number in the show anyway.

TL;DR: David Tennant is only playing the Doctor again temporarily to help transition the show into Ncuti's run to help relieve him from the onus of trying to carry the 60th anniversary as the main Doctor in his first appearance as the Doctor, and we should all be focusing less on him and more on what we have to look forward to from Ncuti.

[purplehairedwonder]

Chapter 1054: We’re Back, Baby

We made it through the hiatus! And we got a great chapter as a reward. 

Firstly, Greenbull isn’t just an Akainu fanboy; his ideology is actively worse than Akainu’s, who at least has some kind of justice guiding his actions. Greenbull is full on supporting the supposed superiority of the Celestial Dragons. (Hm, there are two D.s -- or enemies of the gods -- in Wano at the moment.)

Also, this panel was very cool.

No Kin’emon or Kiku among the Scabbards who stood up to Greenbull.

Momo coming in with the big windup followed by 

had me rolling XD

Still, love to see Momo coming in to fight for his people and try to prevent any of the pirates from having to step in and help. After all, they won’t be there forever so they have to show they can protect their closed borders.

Meanwhile...

If I had a nickel for every time a powerful figure showed up just outside Wano only to leave without doing anything, I’d have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

Seriously, wtf Shanks?

The way Shanks is looking at Luffy’s new poster, remembering the past, then telling Benn it’s time to go for One Piece seems to further hint that Shanks knew the true nature of the Gomu Gomu no Mi (I like the theory he intended to give it to Ace but Luffy ate it first, probably relating to the fruit having a will of its own) and that its awakening is tied to the One Piece. Now that Luffy has awakened it, Shanks is making his move. That final panel makes him look hella sus.

Very ominous.

Oh. And his offhand comment that Momo and Hiyori must be grown by now... Like, I get that he would have no reason to know about the whole time travel deal, but there was no way he was unaware of what happened to the Kozuki clan under Kaido, right? 

Right?

Whatever.

Aaaand on the third front of the chapter, we’re finally hearing about some of the bigger events out in the world.

I doubt Sabo killed Cobra. My guess is along what many have theorized: Sabo is being framed for Cobra’s death, and Vivi is with him. I hope this also means Vivi gets to reunite with the Straw Hats soon.

Glad to see Kuma -- or whatever is left of him -- was freed.

Revolutions in eight nations? That is significant.

And Sabo is getting all kinds of credit (which explains why Sabo’s picture appeared in the background of the last chapter). This is going to put an even bigger target on his back, and that actually makes me nervous for him; that boy better watch his back.

Anyway, great chapter.

[tedturneriscrazy]

Here we are with Hollow Mind! Part 3 of what I'm calling the Rebecca Rose trilogy!

(Hey, I carried the running gag all the way through!)

I'm sure this will just be another goofy episode filled with silly jokes for kids. :)

Oh, so that clip was the cold open! Well then

Damn, no bananas in the Demon Realm?

I told myself I probably wasn't gonna use screencaps, but goddamnit this wordplay is too good to pass up

Oh shit! Raine, Darius, and Eber! (I didn't think Eberwolf was in on this, guess I was wrong lol)

My previous theorizing was kinda right!

Oh, so that rewind thing wasn't just part of the promo

Going to repair Luz's cape? Makes sense

The whole exchange with Luz and King over the walkie talkies is precious

AAAAA KING'S TAKING SPANISH LESSONS 😭❤

Hmm, we're seeing the effects of Belos' propaganda in action here

Eda makes very salient points

"It seems obvious but no one will listen" too fuckin real

I'm not exactly sure how Luz thinks Hunter is supposed to help in this endeavor

Speaking of Hunter, how does he not recognize Raine's glasses?

LMAOOOO LUZ

Well, I was wrong about them sending someone else in...oh well

Aaaand he steps on the vial as he says that

Yeah, that was about the reaction I expected

Wow, that whole spiel doesn't sound cultish at all

Never found out what happened to the previous one, huh? I'm sure that won't come up later

"Why does Darius look so sad here?" Ohhhh noooooo

And there's baby Belos (Philip)?

Yeah, the "so she can ruin someone else's day" is supposed to be a jab, but the fact he didn't just include her in the "enemies" is interesting

Also, Hunter, honey, I don't think whatever that is is gonna help you

Well that thing is terrifying

Oh, so that hallway with paintings was a façade

Yikes, the way his hand trembles when the palisman crumbles to dust...you just know he's thinking about Flapjack

I think I said this way back when that first clip of Separate Tides was released, but for as intense as this show gets, it's nice to know that it's still funny

Getting dragged down to the subconscious? No big deal, then

*sigh* Okay, that was actually rather sweet

Luz be all like "I knew you were a big softie"

I mean, in all likelihood, guilt is simply something Belos simply doesn't feel

Luz is old hat at the whole "invading memories" business

Eda in Serious Business mode is intense

All that and he tosses up the brb sign lmao

(Still, state of the art defense system, indeed)

Darius was all for bouncing until he heard his surrogate son was also lost in the sauce

Even Raine doesn't know what the hell Hooty is, and they presumably know him

Oh, so Belos totally did go the street preacher route

"Nine hues" seems significant

Ah, there's the scam

Gee that guy sounds familiar

Yeah, I figured Hunter wouldn't be so easily convinced

Holy shit, those are the ruins at the Knee! Belos did that! Fuck

It's that whole Eric Andre shooting meme, except not played for laughs

Ah, talking about the soul, he is a Puritan Christian!

First branding glove?

"They're...still alive..." "Then we still have work to do." Jesus fuck

Ah, cognitive dissonance/denial is a hell of a drug

One more memory, this one with the portal door

Oh shit, the Collector!

"Nine bright hues" there it is again

Also, Collector giving me Dimentio vibes

Also Kid Buu, based on the way he craves destruction and is bored

Either way, bratty kid with nonetheless incredible knowledge/power, but no corporeal form

Oh, this is the aftermath of Eclipse Lake

Wow, ungrateful bastard

Fuuuuuuuuck

This is how we find out, then

God, Luz is so kindhearted...One of the things I love about her

Jesus Christ how horrifying

Oh fuck, that's where the palismen went?! This just keeps getting more and more fucked up

Never trust small children /s

NOOOOOOPPEE I do NOT like Belos saying Luz's name like that!

So Belos is a fucked up Hohenheim, got it

"You looked the most like him" STOP

The "it's gonna be okay" talk...woof, that hits particularly hard for me for some reason

Witch hunter, huh? All those comparisons were spot on, then

Oh shit, the next reveal!

Now it's Luz's turn to be broken...

Uuuuuuughggghhhhhhh

"I'll handle this!" Goddamnit show, don't make me laugh now

(Also thanks for doing so)

KING SAME THO

Raine might not know what Hooty is, but they do know he's a sucker for romancd

Aw, no, the last of the titan blood

"I had to change it when Philip was run out of too many towns" I bet you did you crusty evil fuck

"Can't reason with crazy" YOU'RE ONE TO TALK

Oh hey our boy is back! Using Luz's name, no less!

And another narrow escape! So many of those this season

Oh, no, here comes the panic attack

She saw some shit, Eda. We all did

Ho-lee shitballs, that was a lot!

Everyone who's into the lore aspect of this show feasted well with this episode. For my part, this finally actually made me feel genuinely sympathetic toward Hunter. Has to be rough knowing you were basically grown as spare parts, and that your father figure is willing, even eager, to kill you after you found out too much.

As for Luz, to find out the guy you helped amd were tricked by in the past was the big bad all along...and the extent of what he's done...Fucking hell.

They really are coming out swinging for this season, I must say! With each episode I get angrier at Disney for cutting it short, because there's so much! Well, I suppose all we can do is enjoy what we get.

Next week is the King episode which...uh oh...That one's gonna be a gut punch, too, isn't it? Fuck.

[nyacat39]

So I get bored at work a lot, and normally when I have someone to talk to I can filter ideas and shit to them so I can refine the ideas I have for fanfics or stories in general and keep them relatively sane….

But for the past year that hasn’t happened so I have crossover fic ideas where you would never even think of the potential crossovers or settings. I have yet to start writing these ideas (yet) but I’m gonna share them here and if I ever do write these stories I might post the first chapters here and then the links to the AO3 and FanFiction.Net for the rest of them.

The first one is a Miraculous Ladybug Kingdom Hearts crossover. Okay normal thought process, the miraculous holders being keyblade wielders or like Sora going to this world or something right? Nope fuck that, Vanitas after basically dying in KH3 gets reborn there as Miranette’s twin brother and shit changes. We are entering crack treated seriously territory with this story, as well as Vanitas redemption. I have been rewatching the Miraculous Ladybug series to take notes on what would change in each episode or if some of them would even happen at all with Vanitas being there!

Big events that may definitely happen: Vanitas blowing up at Chloe. Adrian having a friend in this dark boy from Fencing Club(?). “He was a skaterboi” Vanitas. Miranette being less stalker like and getting a bit of a chill pill. Vanitas: “Sis come on, we know I’m supposed to be the evil and less responsible twin here. You’re making me look like the good one here!” Mom: “Don’t think you’re not in trouble as well young man.” Vanitas “And all is back to normal.” And still more.

Likelihood of this story being made: Already planning out the first chapter that dives into the twins childhood before the series starts. Might take a bit though. But this is one I’ve been thinking about the most and longest.

The next one is an idea of possible one shots/short stories of a crossover between Batman and Devil May Cry. Normally people think “Dante meets DC hero’s/villains”….. NOPE Complete AU where the twins and their mom were attacked by demons way earlier, Yamato was used to get them to safety by sending them to another world (whoops) Eva still dies but Dante and Vergil are adopted by a not yet Batman Bruce Wayne. Twins are four when they get into his care and don’t entirely remember much of their home.

Ideas include: little snippets of a vaguely normal life with Bruce learning to parent much earlier on, and Alfred learning much quicker on how to deal with the twin terrors. Vergil “So am I to expect a father at my violin recital? Or the Batman and whatever criminal he’s fighting that night?” Bruce “I’ll try to make it.” Dante “Ooh that’s code for Batman bro. Harsh.” Entertaining the idea of the twin demon Robins that seem to only part time due to life and stuff. Can you all not see the potential familial fun/chaos of all the Robins and Dante and Vergil just acting like brothers and getting on each other’s nerves?

Potential of this being made: Kinda? Like I tried writing it a while back but I haven’t touched it in a while. Working title is Sons of the Dark Knight.

Next idea is one I’m still refining and working on. It’s basically a Bleach, Overlord crossover and I’ve been on this idea for about two weeks now. Basically it’s a story that has two different variants but I’m leaning more towards one of them then the other for convenience, but I’ll get to the main points of it first. How many here have played Bleach Brave Souls? Well for those that haven’t there’s like alternative forms for some characters for like different events and stuff, but the one I’m focusing mostly with is Spirit Society designs. Mostly 4 in specific and well I was planning out an OC that makes NPCS for Nazarik based on them (cuz if you ask me Spirit Society matches the kinda them of Inhuman NPCs of Nazarik) but sadly she kinda dies leaving them alone.

Still planning out moments and stuff so it’s a little to jumbled up together at the moment with nothing to planned out. However like I said I’m still working on it mentally and will definitely have a bit more focus for it eventually.

Possibility of being made: Maybe…. Just maybe…

Aaaand those are the big fanfics I’ve been thinking about for a year now. Should I write them? Do one of you guys wanna try writing them (I’m okay if you do just send me a link and I’d love to read it) either way just thought I’d share what my mess of a mind can be like.

[lo-55]

Playing With Fire

While playing a perfectly innocent video game you get thrown into a dangerous world on the brink of incineration! At least you’re surrounded by a bunch of hot people. If nothing else you can shower them with copious, well earned affection. 

You come awake with a start. 

Everything is just a little off kilter. Like your eyes aren’t focused or you're wearing someone else's glasses. It takes you a few long minutes to realize that you’re staring down at a piece of paper. 

It’s listed one through eight, with a check box next to each number. 

At the top you see ‘Company Preference List’, and beneath that is your name scrawled in your own handwriting. But, when did you write it? And what was the list? You look up to find yourself in a library, surrounded by a bunch of other people all dressed in orange uniforms. You look down and find yourself in the same one. You recognize it as the Fire Force boiler suits. 

You touch your cheek slowly. Then poke the corner of your eyes. You’re not wearing your VR visor. And you’re not holding handles either. Are you hallucinating? You were playing the game, in the middle of some side quest. Did the game reset? This looked like a scene from the start of the game. It followed the beginning of the series, but through the eyes of a random side character researching Haijima on their own. There was some kind of revenge plot and a lot of stuff about their big sister, but you hadn’t gotten to the full reveal of the tragic back story yet. They interacted with the main characters plenty, but mostly they spent their time in their own squad, the fourth. 

You were halfway through the game, and now you were back at the start?

You look around for something to tell you what’s going on. You try to poke the menu button, but you’re not holding controllers. So all you really end up doing is poking the air between your hands with your thumbs. You’re starting to panic, when something shiny catches your attention. 

When did you get that ring? 

Plain silver on your forefinger. You poke it and gasp when the world shifts minutely. 

A flicker of fire, a figure dark against the light. It warps in and out of your vision in a split second. 

Right. Tragic back story. 

The ring was from their (your?) older sister. Now disappeared a-la-infernal fire. You were like the reverse Shinra. 

Wait. 

Shinra. 

Your head snapped around quickly from one person to the other. Most of them were boring background characters. No, no, no. Boring. Lame. Basically grey blobs. 

Were you going crazy and you couldn’t even enjoy it?! 

“Uh, hey? Are you okay?” 

Your head snaps sideways to find bright red eyes peering at you in concern. 

Red eyes. Black hair. 

You stare hard at him until the corners of his mouth start to twitch and curl upwards. 

“H-hey. Why are you staring at me?” 

Abruptly you reach over and cup his cheeks. His face is hot beneath your hands. You can touch him. You can feel the heat of his skin. He’s blushing something fierce. 

“You are… adorable,” you declare. 

He turns bright red and squeaks at you until you finally let him go. 

“What?!” 

“Did I stutter?” you prop your chin in your hand and look him over. Yep. Definitely cute. You just wanna squeeze him. But, you should probably do other things first. Like figure out what exactly is going on. 

Not that you can come outta the gate with ‘hey I was playing a video game and now I’m stuck in it, also I thought you weren’t real? What gives yo?’ 

Even you aren’t that impulsive. 

Actually, in real live you’re not very impulsive at all. That was what made games so fun, especially open world ones where you could do basically whatever you wanted. IRL you were more withdrawn than anything, even when you wanted to be social. 

Now… You could be whoever you wanted, right? 

Did you even have to follow the plot? Could you put a preference for another company and go there? Or would you still end up in the forth? And what about your abilities? In the game you’d had a choice at the beginning between a second gen ability and two third gen powers. You’d ended up picking at random, since they all seemed cool and you hadn’t been very far into the anime yet at the time. 

How would you even use those powers here, assuming that you could? 

“Sorry, I was spacing out,” you finally said, “What were you saying?” 

“Oh uh,” Shinra looked away, his grin still pulling at his face. “I was just asking if you were okay. You were looking at the form for so long, but whenever you talked about joining a company before you always said you would go to the fourth. Not that we talk a lot, so I wouldn’t know if you wanted to go to the fifth or the sixth or the seventh or-” 

“Babe, you’re rambling,” you cut in, starting to smile yourself. Even though you’re beyond confused something about Shinra puts you at ease. Everything about him seems so… warm. And yeah, the smile could be off putting. If it wasn’t so damn adorable. 

“O-oh!” aaaand he was blushing again. 

You look down at the paper, your brows furrowing. What are you even supposed to say to this? 

“I dunno,” you said at last, “I guess I was reconsidering. There’s a lot of companies, and a lot of options out there. I might end up going a totally different path if it’s not too late… What about you?” 

“Me? Well I didn’t really have a particular preference, but I heard that they’re trying to send more people to the eighth this year. Since its such a new company, and so small.” 

“Mmmm. That’s true. Maybe I’ll go there,” you muse. It would put you smack in the middle of all the action, and you could see the sweet Iris, and the too-hot-to-be-fair Maki. You could stay with adorable Shinra and the well meaning dumbass that was Arthur. Not to mention the two guys in charge. If you could get Obi to bench press you- 

Nope! Bad! Focus on the task at hand. No thirsting over captains right now! 

“I was thinking the same thing,” Shinra admitted, looking down at his own paper. 

“Yeah? I guess such a small company would make it easy for you to stand out and come a hero, right?” 

Shinra looked startled. You offered him a sweet smile and turned back to your paper and picked up your pen. 

You marked your preferences. 

Eighth, seventh, fourth, second, fifth, sixth, third, first. 

“The eighth and the seventh?” Shinra asked, peaking over at your sheet. 

You shot him a grin. “They both sound like fun to me. Hey, Shinra?” 

“Yeah?” 

Your grin grows wider. “Let’s both do our best, and save lots of people okay?” 

Shinra’s smile is small, but true. 

“Okay.” 

You bump your fist to his to seal the deal. 

~ 

It had taken you a couple of tries to find your dorm room. 

Your body seemed like it knew what it was doing, even if your mind didn’t. You had to explain away your frazzled state to the woman in charge of your wing, a nun who’s name you couldn’t recall to save your life, as nerves. She had looked dubious, but hadn’t questioned you when she pointed you to your room. 

Probably thinks I’m hung over, you thought as you stepped inside. If I didn’t know better I’d think I was drunk enough to hallucinate. But it’s all way too real. Just what happened? One second I was playing the game, and then my phone went off, and then it was all dark. After that I was in the library. 

 It was making your head hurt thinking about it. 

You poked around the room. If you remembered right you’d had a roommate, but she’d already been assigned her company a week early. Her dad was some top brass in the military, so off to the second company she went, 

You made sure the door was locked before you started riffling through your things. 

Books, papers, clothes. Personal items. 

You had a collection of antique keys for some reason, and a blanket shaped like a tortilla that was warmer than most space heaters. There was an old lighter with a hawk engraved on it in one drawer. When you touched it you got the sudden smell of pipe tobacco and a man laughing far in the back of your mind before it was gone. Just like when you touched the ring earlier. 

Memories that weren’t yours. You had stepped into someone else's life. 

When you looked in the mirror you found the face that your had designed for your character staring back at you. There was a thin ring of white in your eyes, cutting through their color and marking you as a pyrokinetic. 

Shit. Each of those abilities had a different eye. Which one was the circle? There was a circle, a pointy cross, and teardrop because the designer was some edgelord. Which power does this mean I have? Wings? Magnet sand? Or the spear torch thingy? 

You wished this could have been more like Fate/Grand Order. Then you would just have to keep track of your teams abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Not your own. 

Fuck. 

You spend a long time in your room, packing up all of your belongings. None of them really belong to you. They belong to your character, and they’re only familiar in the sense that you’ve thrown them over your shoulder when you were looking for something specific before. Only now if you throw them they won’t puff back to where they were before eventually. You’ll actually have to put this stuff away. 

Damn it, you’ve never liked packing. 

Still, you carefully rolled your new found clothes into baggage burritos. They were pretty plain, all in all. Oh well. You could make adjustments later if you really wanted to. Was it a game mechanic you haven't unlocked? Full customization? You could pick gender and hair, and the eyes depended on your pyrokinesis. Maybe at some point you got to change clothes too. 

You’d figure it out. 

You hoped. 

Your head was still reeling the with the idea of what was going on, but for now, with nothing else you really could do, you decided to go with it. 

Once you had everything all packed up you left your room to do some exploring. You tried to keep track of where you were going in the big fire station/training academy, but before long you were hopelessly lost. 

You stumbled upon a training room, where a familiar boy with a dorky pony tail was slashing a glowing blue sword through a training dummy. The poor dummy fell to the floor in pieces. 

You watched him for a few minutes before he noticed you. 

“Oh,” he said, “It’s you.” 

Which was… pretty lame, if you’re being honest. 

What, did you one pop his delusional bubble? 

“Yep,” you popped your ‘p’, “It’s a-me.” Mario. “What did that guy ever do to you? Try to challenge the great Knight King Arthur on a troll bridge?” you meant it to be a joke, but Arthur actually lit up. 

“Hardly! This was merely training. A Knight King must always be ready to defend his people!” 

“Of course,” you nodded along, playing with him. “And soon you’ll be embarking on a great quest to your new company, right? Do you know which one?” 

“I didn’t bother with those silly preference sheets. Let whichever company requires a knight most vie for my presence.” 

You were honestly impressed Arthur even knew the word ��vie’. Wasn’t he kind of a loon? 

“Mhmm, mhmm, I see,” you nodded seriously. “Then in case, I might see you in my own company.” 

You wanted to ask him to spar, if only to see Excalibur in action more, but you still weren’t sure what your power was or how to use it. So you ended up bowing out. 

It took you another hour to find your way  back to your room. 

Whoops. 

You don’t really sleep. You lay down and try to wake up, and hope that come morning you’ll be back in your living room with a vr stapped to your head and this whole thing will have been a (not so terrible) dream. 

Keep Dreaming. 

~    ~

[oxnardsart]

New Boxer Beat Chapter’s out!  boxer-beats.com

    Boxer Beats was almost at the finale, again. Foxie and Lesbuni sat together, despite the larger crowd and tight seating, Lesbuni always made sure there was room for Foxie and her guard. However, the bunny could tell Foxie wasn’t feeling her best.     “I’m sorry about the other day... are you still upset?”     Foxie watched the show, looking empty. “It’s not a big deal. There’s just a lot going on right now.”     Lesbuni hugged her arms around her girlfriend, “Well I’m here to make it better!”     After a few more fights, it was Foxie’s turn.     “Are you... dressing up for this match too?” Lesbuni wondered, “I-It’s fine, whatever you want to do...”     Foxie smiled, she was glad to see Lesbuni knew not to control her, and to try accepting her instead! Like anyone else, Foxie just wanted to be herself. Or, in this case, someone else. ...But it still counts as being herself! Right?     Foxie got dressed into her Anomaly outfit, and already she felt so much happier!     The hamster announcered, “Laaaaaadies and women, girls too - welcome to one of the last fights of the nights!” The gals in the audience cheered in excitement.     “And all you guys out there...” The men in the audience looked up, Oxnard smiled and casually said or asked, “Sup?” The guys mumbled in response, also casually.     “And to all my not-guy and not-girl pals in the audience...”     “Are you just going to group us all in one category?” A chameleon under the booth yelled out in response.     “Nope!” Oxnard huffed, “I’m going to read out each type I have listed here and give everyone a semi-interesting starter. And then when I’m done, I’ll listen to whoever tells me that I forgot to include someone.”     “Anomaly, you can start the fight while I read all these.” Oxnard waved his wrist at him to start.

    “Good luck, Anomaly.” Don Badge waved from the audience, his big red nose pointing in the air, and a great big smile shining underneath. “You’re Don’s favorite.”     “Awww...” Anomaly sighed, he loved having fans! “Why don’t you come see me after the show sometime, little buddy?” Anomaly winked in Don’s direction.     “Um. Hey!” From the other side of the audience, Lesbuni growled.     “What? I know you don’t wanna see me after the show... but I’ll show you inside of me after~” The audience got a good laugh out of that, it sounded dirty! But that was Anomaly saying he’d be back to Foxie after... right?     “Don wants. To see you. Always,” the badger rang back.     “You stop that!” Lesbuni yelled, “I’ll come over there and beat you so bad, I’ll wind up in jail too!”     “Hey guys, come on, there’s enough split personality here for everybody’s body.” Anomaly awkwardly grinned, “I’m supposed to be the one fighting up here, not the audience!”     “Oxnard’s taking too long!” A chameleon in the audience spoke up again.     “The audience isn’t being patient!” Oxnard yelled back.     “Don’s hitting on my girlfriend!” Lesbuni cried and started climbing over seats.     “Don has. The fox hots.”     It was chaos. Everyone was fighting, and Anomaly was still without a fight of their own on stage! But finally, the lights dimmed and focused on the entrance, where a chubby, round figure stood unwillingly.     “WELP. THEY FOUND ME. GUESS I GOTTA FIGHT.”     It was Anger Mouse!     It looked like the mouse didn’t want to fight, the Do-Gooder following him kept patting his back, nudging him up on stage, “You can quit the fight if you don’t want to do it.”     “WHO SAID I DON’T WANNA FIGHT?” Anger Mouse yelled up in response.     “Then why were you hidin-”     “I WASN’T HIDING. LET’S FIGHT, ANATOMY.” The fat purple rat hopped into the boxing ring.     Anatomy, er, Anomaly, raised an eyebrow. Did this mouse really want to fight?     “ALRIGHT. IT’S BOXING TIME.” Anger Mouse announced, “WE’RE DOING DODGEBALL.”     Suddenly, a bunch of bouncing rubber balls fell from the ceiling, most bounced out of the ring right after landing in there.     “GAH! GOSH DARN IT. Stupid balls.” Anger Mouse complained. “YUP, WELL, y’know the rules, don’t ya?” He whispered to Anomaly, looking sincere, “You just gotta hit me with balls to win the match. COUGH COUGH. AHEM. SO LET’S FIGHT, WITH OUR BALLS.”     The audience all stopped fighting, they wanted to watch this!     Anomaly picked up a dodgeball, “Um, is the referee going to come out and tell us to start? Or... do we just start?”     Oxnard announced over the speakers, “Aro’s in the bathroom. Just fight!”     Somewhere out there, Aro the referee was quite embarrassed, hearing the speakers from the announcer echo into the restroom. No one needed to know that!     Anomaly shrugged, eyeing Anger Mouse to make sure he was ready, and threw!     ...But he missed.     Anger Mouse waited for Anomaly to find another ball and throw it, but he missed again. “HEY, COME ON, AIM A LITTLE.” The fat rat picked up a ball! And then he, he... rolled it to Anomaly? “TRY AGAIN.”     The fox threw again, but it went right over Anger’s head.     “WHAT’S THE DEAL? YOU CAN’T THROW?”     “You’re too short!”     “WHAT!?”     Anomaly picked up a ball outside the ring, and came back in only to... roll it over to Anger Mouse. “If you’re so good at throwing, prove it.”     Anger Mouse confidently picked up the ball, leaned back to throw, aaaand... dropped it. “HA! YOU CAN’T trick me THAT easily...” his voice started to crack and squeak. At this rate, no one was going to get the other out.     “Come on F- uh, I mean, Anomaly!” Lesbuni cheered, “You went to pie school, or whatever. You should know how to throw balls!”     “Throwing pies and throwing balls are very different, they’re totally different shapes!” Anomaly panicked, things weren’t looking good. “It’s complicated, you wouldn���t understand!”     “TRY USING BOTH HANDS,” Anger Mouse screamed. Anomaly couldn’t handle so many people yelling at him. This wasn’t as fun as his first performance.     “Wait... a performance!” Anomaly grinned, anything was more fun as a show. The fox dashed around the ring, collecting balls all for himself. “Watch this, Angry Pants!” Anomaly started juggling three big dodgeballs in his hands, the audience was mildly curious. But then the fox started walking forward, right onto a dodgeball! But Anomaly didn’t slip - he stood on top of that ball as he juggled the others in his paws. He then raised a leg, balancing on one foot!     “Hey Anger, keep an eye on these balls for me.”     “YOU’RE MISSING A PAIR,” he grumbled as he peeked under the fox’s tutu.     “Hey, it’s a costume! Don’t judge me there.” Anomaly giggled, and suddenly lost their balance. “Oh fudge!”     “GAH!”     As Anomaly landed on his back, the dodgeball under his foot shot forward, right at Anger Mouse! It punted the little guy right off stage - flipping over the ropes and landing on the ground outside the ring.     “Anger Mouse is outta the house!” Oxnard exclaimed, “Anomaly, watch out!”     The fox on his back looked up, the three balls they were juggling were falling right towards him!     “Those balls are coming down on him hard!”     “I wish I was in his boots right now.”     “Happens to me all the time! What’s the big deal?”     With the audience’s eyes all on those balls, Anomaly timed his kicks to knock the first two away. The third was on its way, but the fox reached up and caught it in both his paws. He was safe!     “Whew! He did it folks,” Oxnard yelped over the speakers. “That was almost a draw, but Anomaly is goin’ to the finals! That performance was quite a kick in the balls, fella. Watch it next time.”     The audience cheered, and Anomaly hopped around happily. He did it!     “You’re amazing, Anomaly.” Don cheered from one side.     “You’re gonna win it all, Foxie!” Lesbuni squeaked from the other.     Anomaly was happy, but hearing Foxie’s name brought him back to reality. It was back to being Foxie with the show over. She wished these moments lasted longer. Foxie was left wondering one more thing about the fight...     “HEY!” As Foxie went back to her guard in the hallway, Anger Mouse chased behind her, “WAIT.” The short mouse took her hand as they went through the exit.     “Um, what’s up?” Foxie asked the little guy.     “YOU’RE GOING TO THE FINALE.” Well, that was obvious.     “Yeah... I mean, I won the fight... so, that makes sense.” Foxie nodded.     “I DIDN’T try to win.” Anger Mouse grumbled, looking down at the floor.     “You didn’t? Haha, I didn’t even realize it... you gave me a lot of chances to hit you, huh?” Foxie thought. “And you almost didn’t show up at all!”     “I WAS HIDING. I WAS GONNA GIVE YOU THE MATCH.” Anger Mouse sighed, “I didn’t want everyone to watch me lose. But...”     Anger Mouse rubbed his face, was he sad? What was going on? Foxie pat his head gently, she almost forgot, this loud little guy was just a little kid.     “What’s wrong?” Foxie leaned down to ask.     “DON IS MY FRIEND. I GUESS. SO... Y-YOU GUYS... GET TO BE IN THE FINALS TOGETHER.” Anger Mouse sniffed, “HE WANTED TO SPEND THIS WHOLE COMPETITION WITH YOU. THAT’S THE REASON WHY HE JOINED. THAT, and I asked him. I thought we would be on a team...”     Anger Mouse lost on purpose, so that Don and Foxie could be together in the finale?     “Oh, Anger... you didn’t have to do that.” Foxie smiled sympathetically.     “HE’S GONNA FORGET ALL ABOUT ME.” Anger Mouse shrieked with a high-pitched scream, “HE WANTS TO BE FRIENDS WITH YOU INSTEAD. DON’S THE ONLY ONE THAT CARES ABOUT ME. I’LL BE FORGOTTEN BY EVERYBODY.”     “Anger, no... that wouldn’t happen.” Foxie rubbed his back, looking at either of their guards to step in... but no such luck. She felt like she was playing mommy. “If Don and I become friends, we can all be friends together!”     “Y-YOU’LL join us?” Anger asked, sounding hopeful.     Were Anger and Don in a club? Well, whatever made him happy again. Er, wait, was Anger Mouse ever happy?     “Sure, I’ll join you guys. We’re all boxing prisoners here.”     Anger Mouse squeaked and grinned wide, clapping his gloves together. “Heeee!”     You know, when he wasn’t being an angry brat, this rat was kind of cute.     “THANKS LADY.” Anger Mouse went towards to his guard and reached for his hand, “GOOD LUCK WITH DON. KICK HIS BUTT!”     The chubby mouse chuckled and walked off into the hallway. Was Foxie supposed to beat Don? Or... if he was a fan, maybe it was his dream to be on stage with Foxie in the finale?     Foxie felt happier as she left for the night, “For a pair of bad guys, Don and Anger Mouse sure are sweet.”

[himbotiem]

What if,,, shadow/reader royalty AU 👀

just like. I kinda wanna make a fic where shadow is on the run from the law and reader is next in line to the throne, and they meet in like-

Oh no I’m recreating Aladdin.

ok weLL I WAS GONNA SAY that the reader likes their status as royalty but they still want to have some fun before they’re the leading monarch of the kingdom, so they go out in a disguise and meet Shadow. Heck it is like Aladdin ok neW PLAN-

what if, this time, Shadow was next in line to his kingdoms throne 👀 and Reader is for theirs and it’s an arranged marriage sort of situation 👀 and they meet in a garden (because of course they do) and they don’t fall in love yet. But Hiromi turns out to really like them as their time to get to know eachother before they’re married goes on, and he makes a deal or something like “give me three months to get to know me, and if you dont love me then I’ll call off the wedding” or smth because we know how these things go. Reader accepts this deal and they live in Hiromi’s castle for a few months and they fall in love and get married and they live happily ever after etc etc

OR,,

what if it’s angst? wait what could the angst be? Pushy parents? What if it was like a beauty and the beast or swan princess deal where one (or both?) is cursed? What would the curse be? How would they overcome it? Would Adam be a villain in this story? If adam were there, what would the other cast’s roles be?

Ok what ifffff it was just a fantasy AU, aaaand, they’re both adventurers! Or one is a knight! Or one isssss a drAGON! Or! Elf! Or so many other things! What if it took elements from Skyrim and Reader was The Chosen One™️ for some big quest? What would the quest be? And so Reader is this big hero that’s supposed to save the world, and Hiromi, Lord Shadow, is their most trusted right hand man, and they go on adventures to save the world. how would they meet? Maybe, Shadow is a blacksmith, and he just calls himself Lord Shadow because he has big dreams of owning his own castle one day with a big courtyard and so many servants, and Reader is like “good luck with that buddy, now can i please get some new armor?” OR the reader is super anxious, they’ve never beaten anything ever, why do they have to do this? Who chose them? Why? And Hiromi is like “I know how to fight,,, a little? Maybe I could come with you so you don’t die.” And Reader just looks at him with big eyes and is just “🥺🥺🥺 really?? You'd do that??? I don’t even know you???”

ooh

oooooh

what if we isekai’d it

So Reader comes from our world or one that’s close enough, and they wake up in a field in the middle of nowhere. They don’t know what happened or how they got here, but they pick a direction and start walking. All of a sudden, they get an absolutely monsterous headache and a blurry vision of… sort of a face? Maybe? If you squint? But the blurry face is like “you need to do this thing” in a booming voice that only makes their headache worse, and they are just like “FINE ILL DO IT GO AWAY” and the face does! Without telling them how to do the thing, or where they need to go, or what they’re even doing. So they keep walking until they reach a small town, and they ask around, and maybe Reki is working as an apprentice somewhere? I dunno, but I feel like I could steal prince Langa from the cindereki CD and throw him in for funzies. WHAT IF SOULMATE AU ON TOP OF FANTASY OR ROYALTY-

these are just ideas I wanted to throw out, feel free to add on to any of these! I have no idea what this post is lmao

[chalkrevelations]

Episode 32 of Word of Honor, and once again, this is just. A LOT. A LOT is happening, and all of it is A LOT. Also, show, what is even happening? I have questions. A LOT of questions.

(Spoilers. Go ahead and scroll on by, then come back later, if you want to watch it unspoiled.)

BUT FIRST, before anything else, you know I have to yell about this for a minute because we once again see that the Gu Xiang/Cao Weining relationship and the Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishou relationship are the same relationship. We get the same scene with A-Xiang and Cao Weining – again – that we’ve already seen with Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu, this time from Ep 27, with Fan Shishu in the role of Ye Baiyi. Fan Shishu (YBY) asks “Do you know who she (he) is?” and this time, Cao Weining knows, just as ZZS knew in Ep 27. Cao Weining (ZZS) literally throws himself in front of A-Xiang (WKX) to protect her (him). “Kill us both” (Ep 27). “If you’re going to hurt her, kill me first” (Ep 32). Fan Shishu, like YBY, eventually lets A-Xiang and Cao Weining go, despite having them in a position where he could do them in. Color palettes between the two couples in these scenes match again, with the younger couple being more intense this time – A-Xiang and Wen Kexing in pinks, Cao Weining and Zhou Zishu in blue. (ZZS is mainly in creams and grey, but the piping on his robes is a very light blue, I think the greys have a blue undertone to them, and when you stand him next to Chengling in more intense blue while he’s wearing that particular outfit, it really starts to pull out the blue of ZZS’s outside robe – you can see this at the end of Ep 26.) Between the way these relationships continue to mirror each other and the hairpin scene from the last ep, I honestly don’t know what our takeaway is supposed to be, other than that WKX and ZZS are essentially married.

I also find it interesting - although this almost seems like too much of a stretch to be anything other than coincidence - that we get a specific callback to Ep 27 in this episode, as Ep 27 is also when WKX talks about not wanting to lie to Chengling about who he is anymore, and this ep is when they finally (apparently) meet again after Chengling learns the truth.

Aaaand now A-Xiang is crying, so of course I’m crying. Aaaand then we have the mournful montage. Give me a minute. And some tissues. I notice how much of this mournful drunken montage is ZZS remembering all the times he was cranky with WKX. Oh, honey. No. That’s what you’re remembering, because you feel bad, but it’s not what he would remember at all, if he was looking back over his time with you. And even if he did, it would be with great fondness.

Yeah, so, if I haven’t mentioned, this episode is a LOT. We get a big confrontation between WKX and half the jianghu/the Scorpions/some of the Ghost Valley contingent, ZZS showing up to support his man, Fantastic Cranky Grandpa of my heart getting in his eleven cents, Chengling shooting one of his dads, and two yeets off a cliff. And that’s only 15 minutes into the episode. This is too much, show. And I have too many questions. Also some observations. Also some wild speculation, not just about the fact that Wen Kexing is not dead but also about how he may have (not) got that way. And not just because there’s still four episodes left, and it’s too early for him to be dead.

First a small observation but pretty significant, I think: WKX is NOT in his blood-red Ghost Valley master robes during this confrontation. In fact, I think we’ve seen this set of robes in happier days with Zhou Zishou and Chengling. Just noticing this. Also noticing WKX’s face when Shen Shen starts going on about WKX’s parents and how omg if they could see WKX now they’d die all over from the shame, and WKX’S expression is like, the fucking audacity of Shen Shen saying this, and if he could actually kill people with the power of his mind, Shen Shen would be twitching and frothing on the ground. Also noticing the complete change when WKX sees Chengling – it’s like Shen Shen ceases to even exist for him. Gong Jun, your face, it’s killing me. Anyway, I’m going to start wildly speculating here for a minute, because WKX is willing to let Chengling kill him, because he’s so tired and wants to stop fighting, but he’s going to kick everyone else’s ass who even tries it? And then Chengling is actually the one who shoots him and yeets him off the cliff? Is this a set up? Is Chengling in on this? Is he the one who’s supposed to “kill” WKX? If so, at what point did we get Chengling in on this? And who did it? Did Chengling send what’s his name, Jing Beiyuan’s guard, away on purpose at this particular point, because he knew ZZS would show up in time for this confrontation if he heard about Chengling’s reaction to the news about WKX? And do I actually believe Chengling is smart enough – and a good enough actor – to pull off any of this? (Look, I love our little goldbean plenty, but let’s face it, he’s not the brightest kid running around here.)

Also, my dudes. My clever little killers. Xie Wang and Wen Kexing. I am unwilling to believe that you two aren’t somehow still together on this in some way in order to fuck over Awful Yifu. Your antagonistic back and forth seems a little bit like playing roles. Xie Wang gives Awful Yifu a weird side-eye a few times when Awful Yifu talks about how tricksy and cunning WKX is, like maybe he’s reconsidering, and do not tell me you’re questioning and reconsidering whatever deal you’ve made with WKX, little gambler. Why does your Awful Yifu’s bs always work on you? This is really not the time to roll the dice again. I’m assuming A-Xiang is still the only one who knows about their tete-a-tete? If so, this is a side-take I never would have expected on “you don’t fail me, and I won’t fail you.” Honor among thieves? Stick to the plan, Xie’er, whatever the hell it is. Do not blink.

So then, Ye Baiyi shows up, and my immediate reaction is NO. My beloved cranky grandpa, don’t fuck this up, because whatever is going on seems to already have a lot of moving parts with a lot of places for things to go wrong! But … are you in on it, too? Have YOU coordinated with Chengling? (If so, maybe you should have warned him to expect ZZS’s wild-card self-yeet over the cliff’s edge, since you’ve already seen how self-destructive self-sacrificing these two can get over each other.) Making me even more suspicious, Ye Baiyi later proceeds to walk out of a banquet before even eating anything. This guy is walking away from food? There is no clearer sign in this ep that something is up.

Also, while we’re on the banquets, listen. I cannot be the only one who wants to punch Zhao Jing in the face during his interminable yapping during both post-fight banquets. This is one of those places where the show and the actor have done their job too well, because he is so dislikeable and so off-putting that I almost can’t bear to actually watch him. And yet, I can’t fast-forward, because what if I miss some info? Like the fact that … you know, I went back to watch this bit three times, and that is a very … interesting series of camera shots during the second banquet - after the toasts, just as a couple of randoms start advocating for Zhao Jing as head of the Five Lakes Alliance, and we move from Xie’er to Shen Shen to Chengling, all of them still standing, facing Zhao Jing after their individual toasts, all of them in a formation that’s almost caging him in from the front and both sides. It gets more interesting every time I watch it. Is … is Shen Shen also in on this, somehow?

See, I know that is a lot of wild speculation. I know Wen Kexing got yeeted off a cliff, and Ye Baiyi was busy catching Zhou Zishu. And we saw a body. And ZZS set that body on fire. But I also know that Liu Qianqiao was the person holding vigil outside the shed where the body was being held. And I know she’s the other person, besides ZZS, who we know of that knows the facemask disguise technique (in fact, didn’t she learn it from ZZS’s shifu?) We actually get reminded of this later on in this very episode. Which makes me wonder if that was actually WKX’s body, or somebody else, in the shed. Who “found” that body and recovered it? Was it a Scorpion or one of the Ghost Valley contingent? Also, where’s that key WKX was waving around, and why does no one seem to remember it?

 Other things:

lol at A-Xiang’s reaction to Jing Beiyun talking about how ZZS used to ask him to set ZZS up with girls. Further lol at Jing Beiyuan, “And funny enough, he was NEVER interested in them. Welp, time for another drink!” Seriously, Qi Ye, we like you, you can absolutely stay.

Still at the banquets, Xie Wang seems discombobulated during a lot of this. And then when Awful Yifu calls him Zhao Xie’er in front of everybody, holy shit, he’s getting everything he ever wanted. Xie’er, you … you’re not going to fall for this again, are you? Please tell me you are not falling for this again, at what is likely a crucial moment. This is NO TIME to take another roll of the dice, little gambler. Stick with the plan, whatever the hell it is.

Oh, hey! Are we finally getting some backstory on Fantastic Cranky Grandpa? Oh. OH. “Our child?” What is up, my friend? (I did go back to Ep 16, when WKX calls Chengling “my child” while defending him against Ye Baiyi, and looking at the Mandarin subtitles, I can’t entirely figure out (with my Level 2 Duolingo Mandarin) all of the nuances of these two references, but it doesn’t look like they’re using the same words to describe these relationships.) So some further wild speculation: Apparently, Cranky Grandpa Fantastico is solitary drinking in the dark instead of feasting at the banquet, over someone who (he feels) foolishly wanted to save the lost souls in the Ghost Valley? And now he feels like fate is making fun of him? And he’s asking Dead Beloved what he would do in Ye Baiyi’s position? Ye Baiyi, is it possible that fate is making fun of you because you have found yourself in the position of saving a lost soul from the Ghost Valley? Also, Ye Baiyi, I’ve noticed the children have been turning you grey. I don’t think you had that grey streak when you showed up for the first Hero’s Conference, did you? In fact, I feel like you got offended when WKX talked shit about possible grey hairs on your head. 

Duan Pengju, this asshole, omg … OMG. Well. I guess you got your confirmation, Xie’er. Were you really considering rolling the dice again? AT THIS POINT?

[dreamer213]

Broken Machines: Lights The Dark

Chapter 5: Lesson Plan: Orientation

Penny sat nervously on the train car as it began to move upwards towards the city. She’s looking down at her feet and legs, now dressed in a pair of black stockings and a pair of brown Mary Janes, her rocket boots was now sat at her side in shape of a handbag. She had gotten up early that morning to make sure she got ready on time and looked nice. She even double checked after her morning patrol but she was still absolutely terrified! But what girl wouldn’t be if the cute boy she met at an evening party, who’s life you saved, and shared an amount magical evening with agreed to be your etiquette teacher.

Penny: Is like a something out a romance novel. The perfect scenario for a modern take on the charming prince falling for the ditzy commoner girl. There’s even a twist on the trope with the prince protecting the girl not with a sword but with his wit!

Penny blushes her head fulling with different possible romance scenarios that could happen during her lessons. But soon her better judgment makes her recall why she was doing this in the first place. She takes both hands and smacks her cheeks until she’s forced the romantic thoughts out of her head.

Penny: No, no, NO! Bad Penny! These lessons are supposed to help you with the investigation. This is a meeting with comrade NOT a romantic encounter! There is simple plan in place for this mission and I am following it! I am going to take these lessons, learn to act like an Altas elite, investigate the suspects, find the spy, get “the project” back on schedule, and help protect EVERYONE! That is what I’m here to do and that is all I will do.

With that reaffirmation Penny feels motivated and gets pumped up. She starts bouncing in her seat as the car nears the station. Soon the train comes to a stop, she’s arrived at the station. Penny quickly grabs her things and heads out the doors when they open. She makes her way though the station and once she’s outside she looks for the car mentioned in last night’s message. She only has to look for few seconds before she spots man in a Chauffeur’s uniform standing outside an expansive looking black car holding up a sigh with “Ms. Polendina” printed on it. It was unbelievably, the limousine for the evening party was understandable but this was just over the top, Penny could barely process the sheer amount of shame and embarrassment she was experiencing but still she knew she has to get in. Penny hastily walks over to him once she gets close enough the chauffeur, Godfrey, calls out to her.

Godfrey: Good Day, Ms. Polendina.

Penny: Good Afternoon, Mr..?

Godfrey: It’s Godfrey, Ms. Polendina.

Penny: It’s nice to meet you Godfrey and you don’t have to call me Ms. Polendina, please just call me Penny.

Godfrey: Alright then Ms. Penny shall we be on our way?

Godfrey sits the sign in front passenger seat then opens the back passenger door for Penny. Penny gets inside, sits, buckles up, and looks around. The interior was spacious with black leather seats with a built in cooler full of bottled sparkling waters. It’s such an overall lavish scene inside and out that it’s honestly overwhelming.

Penny: Is this really necessary? A taxi would have been much more practical and cost effective. And much less overwhelmingly obvious.

Godfrey: Ready to go?

Penny:Oh! Yes, I’m ready to go!

Godfrey starts the car and pulls out onto the road. During the drive Penny looks out the window, the streets were so different from Mantle’s much cleaner and less populated, so many fancy shops, cafes, and skyscrapers, but somehow it felt unauthentic like the city itself was all for show. After an hour or so the car finally comes to a stop in The Schnee Manor driveway. Godfrey opens the door for Penny and walks her to the front door where a maid stands waiting. Once they’re at the door Godfrey tips his hat to both the maid and Penny then leaves. With him gone Penny turns her attention to the maid, the maid bows to her then looks Penny directly in the eyes and speaks.

Mary: Good Afternoon Ms. Polendina Welcome to the Schnee Manor. I am Mary Shallor, I am here to escort you to the Young Master. Please follow me.

Mary walks inside with Penny trailing behind her. After going through several hallway they arrive at one of the libraries where another maid stands waiting. The maids share a nod and Mary leaves, the other maid ups the door and guides Penny to the back of the library. As they go deeper into the room Penny spots someone sitting at by table next to a window reading a book. Once they’re close it becomes clear who it is. There he is Whitley Schnee dressed in his everyday business causal wear, sitting cross legged in an arm chair, sunlight beaming down on him, reading a book on art theory, topping his finger against leather covered spine as he reads.

Penny starts to fidget and looking around, trying her hardest to focus on literally anything besides the literal daydream come to life sitting in front of her. But she just can’t keep her eyes off him no matter how hard she tries. She can feel herself tensing up and her cheeks are starting to go red again. She tries change tactics by focusing on her mission and repeat the purpose of this meeting,

Penny: This is a formal meeting with a comrade. You are here to learn about etiquette and investigate the thefts. This young man is your instructor. This is a professional meeting nothing more-

At that moment Whitley looks up from his book, they’re eyes met, and Penny’s mind goes blank. He sets the book down on the table and gestures to the seat across from him. All while wearing a picture perfect smile.

Whitley: Good afternoon Ms. Polendina, I’ve been waiting for you. Please come take a seat.

Aaaand there goes her plans to be professional about this. Instead her head starts feeling hazy and the drumming in her chest returns as she sits down. Her legs are shaking and she can barely keep her composure. It was just so strange that one smile could make a battle android like her feel so painfully nervous.

Whitley: Now before we get start the orientation we need to get couple things out in the open. First I need you to go over the case details you already have so I can figure out which events you’ll need to attend and which families and or business groups you’ll need to focus in on. Second I need to know just how much you know about etiquette so we can make you a proper lesson plan.

Penny: W-while that’s a reasonable request, for the first subject I can not give you many specific details as the matter is still classified.

Whitley: That’s fine all I need to know is the crime and a list of suspects, nothing more.

Penny: A-Alright I can give you that much. In the past month several supply trucks carrying military equipment have been stolen while in route from the shipping facility or direct from the factories. It appears that someone in a position of high authority is divulging classified information to help facilitate the thefts.

Whitley: That’s very unfortunate. And the suspects?

Penny: Regina Holly, CEO of the Holly HighTech communications technology company, Elio Brugmansia founder and president of Mansia Mobile, Julia Primrose of Inscribed cellular, Arthur Hemlock Vice President of Hemlock Steel, Matthew Datura primary shareholder of Arum Iron and Steel, Alejandro Altissima head of Altissima Fuel, Sylas Foxglove owner of FastFox Fuel and Jospeh Speedwell chairman of Speedway Energy and Fuel. Half were suppliers of the now stolen equipment and Many of the others are also contracted suppliers but could not be ruled out as suspects. At least not yet.

Whitley: My, my, my, that is quite the list, a lot of big players and old money in there. Hmm, one more question Ms. Polendina. Why did the military contract so many different companies at the same time, especially since several are known rivals in their industries?

Penny: With the loss of global communications everything had to be bought or made locally and with most local companies being cut off from their other factories and facilities, no single distributor could supply enough material to fulfill the contract completely so the order was spilt and divided amongst several companies instead.

Whitley: I see. Now on to the etiquette lessons. How much do you know about etiquette and manners?

Penny: I’ve been taught to say please and thank you as a sign of gratitude, to not place my elbows on the table at a meal, to never talk when my mouth is full of food, to always smile when I greet someone regardless of they’re attitude, to hold the door for the person behind me when entering a building, to give up my seat for any person in greater need of it on public transportation, and to say bless you when someone sneezes near me.

Whitley: That is…not exactly what I…….Never mind.

There is a moment of silence as Whitley digest this information. The situation was not the best, too many people on one job makes things too complicated. Especially when dealing with egotistical elites with little empathy or impulse control. And with the current state of the the economy things could only get more complicated.

Whitley: Every person on that suspect list has more then enough means and motive to pull a stunt like this. Could be attempting fraud or price gouging or just a new means to undercutting their competition or something else entirely, there’s no storage of possible motives. And with the market tanking and global trade slowing to a near standstill they’ve probably grew desperate to maintain their business a float as well. (Sighs) Every suspect is the perfect suspect and their motives are endless. Ugh this investigation is going to be absolute nightmare.

Trailing off from that Whitley looks over at Penny, when her identity as a soldier and a huntress were revealed Whitley had assumed that her appearance was just a sort of camouflage to disguise her true nature but it would what seem that was not the case.

Whitley: How she could have possibly became a huntress skilled enough to be recognized by Ironwood himself and yet still retain such an childish and innocent mindset is beyond me. Still she follows orders well and speaks much more properly then I expected so it’s not completely unusual. And it’s not as though having an innocent personality is a bad thing, in fact given the situation we’re in this might make things a little easier.

Whitley stands up from his chair and walks over to Penny, he holds out his hand to her and gestures to her to stand. Instead of just standing up Penny takes his hand as she pulls herself up and out of her seat. The moment they’re hands touch Whitley suddenly feels a tingle, a sort of warm jolt his never experience before. He had held her hands before, at the evening party, but at the time his focus was on getting out of the situation and getting her to Ironwood rather then how her hands felt but right now things were different. Right now she had his full attention and something about her just made him feel so….different. He didn’t why but this one touch just felt so odd like he was burning from the inside but it didn’t hurt. Instead it feels. It feels. He doesn’t really know though some small part of him, almost desperately, wants to know. But now is not the time for this.

Whitley quickly pulls his hand back, causing Penny to pull hers back as well. There a few seconds of awkward silence before Whitley regains his composure and clears his throat.

Whitley: Since it appears that you’ll need a bit more teaching then original thought we’ll have to readjust your lesson plan. So for today we’ll just take a quick tour of the areas we’ve already prepared then you’ll be dismissed.

Penny: Un-understood.

Whitley: Good then we’ll start here. This is the east wing library. It’s stuck with numerous text on almost every topic one could think of. History, Classic literature, Science, the list goes on.

Whitley begin walking through the library towards the entrance with Penny and the maid following close behind. He holds the door for the ladies as they exit from the library and move to the hallway. From there the tour begins with the three walking to the different area in manor, Whitley gives a quick bio of the room or area, then moving on to the next.

First up, a room with a large cream colored L shape sofa paired with a glass coffee table with wood trim was a few magazines, an ashtray and a small phone, and a matching loveseat, a few paintings in walls, potted plants, and a fireplace.

Whitley: This is one of our many lounge rooms. It’s primarily use for entertaining guests or as a sitting room for business colleagues. It’s also used as a rest area for tired or inebriated guests during parties. The small phone on the table has three set speed dials 1 is our in house physician 2 is for the kitchen and 3 is for the clean up crew.

Penny raises her hand to ask a question, Whitley notices and points to her.

Whitley: Yes.

Penny: Why is necessary to have a speed dial for the clean up crew in a lounge room?

Whitley: I’d rather not say but if this investigation last longer than let’s say a month you’ll probably be here for my father’s next black and white party. And if he serves red wine and the good rum again trust me, you’ll find out.

Penny: Oh.

Whitley: On to the next room.

Next stop seems to be a studio, there some sound equipment and speakers, wood floors, and a large mirror covering the entirety of the back wall with a ballet bar going across it.

Whitley: This is the dance studio. Here myself and many others were taught to dance, walk, maintain good posture, and to greet properly. Soon you will learn the same.

Penny takes a moment to look around, she remembers seeing rooms like this in some books and magazines. She runs her hand across the bar as she reminisces about her days in the lab, training her fighting abilities and learning about human through books and old movies. She stands on her toes and does a little twirl, emanating the dancers she’d seen so long ago. Whitley lets her enjoy herself for a bit then calls her back so they can continue the tour.

Next up , a room full of instruments mainly a selection of violins and cellos in various size, a few flutes, three pianos, a record player, and several bookshelves filed with a variety of records and sheet music.

Whitley: Welcome to the music room, this addition built almost forty years ago. During that time a number of people have learned to play their chosen instruments with most advancing to an expert level, myself included.

Penny: You’re a musician?

Whitley: Yes, a pianist to be exact. In the music world I am known as the Silver Maestro of Atlas, I perform every 50 days sometimes solo sometimes with an Orchestra.

Penny: Amazing. May I come see you perform someday?

Whitley: Hmm. Given that most of the venues I play in are usually elites parties and high profile concerts you’ll most likely have to attend one during your time here.

Penny: Wonderful! I’m excited to hear your music.

Whitley says nothing and heads towards the next room with Penny and the maid in tow. While walking towards the next area they pass a large window with a view into a grand garden. They are about to pass the hall to gardens main entrance when Whitley spots Willow walks past on the other side of the glass, a bottle in hand and several more being carried by Mary most being empties. Whitley stops the two women almost trip trying not to run into him. Whitley turns around with a almost stranded smile on his face, he stands there for a few more seconds until he knows Willow has passed their field of vision then taps the window and gestures for Penny to look throughout it.

Whitley: If you look over here you’ll see the famous Schnee Manor garden, home to several hundred different types of flora and fauna, many of which can only be seen here or at the Atlas Botanic Garden. This garden was built by my grandfather Nicholas Schnee as a birthday gift to his dear daughter Willow, my mother.

Penny stares at the window in awe, her face almost pressed to the glass. There’s so many flowers in some many pretty colors. She hadn’t seen many flowers since she’d been stationed in Mantle, outside the ones in pots hung on houses as décor and the few stray wildflowers that grew in the parks so seeing something like this was just incredible. It was like field of eternal spring with roses, lilies, tulips, even some of her dad’s favorite,Yellow Snapdragons! So gorgeous she could just run inside and spend the day there, just watching, picking, and smelling flowers for hours and hours. She looks over to Whitley her eyes practically shining in excitement.

Penny: It so beautiful! I’ve never seen so many flowers in one place! Whitley could we please go-

Whitley: NO!

There was a surprised silence, Everyone, including himself were stunned, shocked by the volume of the young Schnee. It was very very rare to hear him speak so loud and when he did it was always a sigh of something unpleasant happening. Once out of his shocked state Whitley looks a bit uncomfortable and ashamed.

Whitley: I a-apologize for that, it was inappropriate of me to yell. (Coughs) To answer your question, No there’s working been done inside right now so we can’t go into the garden today.

Penny: Okay.

Whitley: We’ll go in at another time just not today. Let’s just continue the tour.

The group continues walking in complete silence. They continue going to the few more room but the mood has taken too much of a downward turn. They ended at the ballroom standing in the middle of the room Whitley gives his last speech before the end of the tour.

Whitley: This is Ballroom, a place I’m sure you’re at least a little familiar with.

Penny blushes a bit puts her head down and nods.

Whitley: There’s really no need for a lot of explanation, this room has only one use, to host all the manor’s grand events and parties. Be it evening parties, charity galas, dinner parties and so on, this is where some of the grandest parties in Atlas are hosted and only a select few get to attend this events often for others it’s a once in a lifetime experience. And with that this is the end of our tour.

Penny gives an enthusiastic round of applause to which Whitley gives a slight chuckle and a few dramatic bows.

Whitley: Thank you, Thank you, your too kind. Now since the tour’s over you’re dismissed for the day, I’ll have your new lesson plan sent to you before tomorrow morning so please remember to check your scroll for it before you return. Have good day and Ms. Polendina, Genevieve Please see her to the car.

Penny: Thank you for having me. I look forward to seeing you- You all to-tomorrow.

Penny gives a small wave as Genevieve guides her to the front door, Whitley gives her a smile and wave back. Once she’s out Whitley turns around and heads back to his room to his desk. His day has just begun and he had a mountain of paperwork and studies that need to be done before dinner. Meanwhile Penny’s back in the car with Godfrey, heading back to station she looks out window and chats with Godfrey until they get there. Once she gotten out from the car into the station, and on the train back down she looks at her scroll and realizes that it’s still quite early and she still has a lot of work to do. But despite that fact she didn’t feel groggy or groggy or deflated like most would. Oddly enough she actually felt sort of calm, relaxed and ready to get to work. When the train car finally stops in back at the Mantle station Penny gets off the train, heads outside and sits at the near bench, puts her boots back on, and gets back to work!

After another long day of protecting Mantle Penny goes home, has dinner and family time with her dad, then head to her room to get ready for bed. Sitting in her pajamas brushing her hair, Penny think back on all that’s happened today and what could happened tomorrow when she remembers what Whitley said about sending her new lesson plan. She picks up her scroll and looks through her messages to see if Whitley’s sent the new lesson plan for her or if he sent it through Ironwood instead. She looks and looks but finds nothing, it getting late and she needs to rest so she plugs herself in to charge but keeps looking at her scroll waiting for his message. She knows it’ll come before she leaves for patrol in the morning but she wants to read it the moment it’s sent to her, she wants to see his message.

Penny pauses for second and realized what she was actually doing. She was unnecessarily waiting up for a work related message just because he was the one sending. Suddenly she recalls everything she said to him today and starts to blush again. She buries her face in her pillow and starts screaming into it.

Penny: Did I really stutter that much? why did I asking so many unnecessary questions? Why did I grab his hand like that? He pulled his away so fast he must have felt so uncomfortable! How could I be so stupid!

She continues to whine and worry about how she might have come off for another hour or so, never once let her scroll go as she turns into a blushing embarrassed mess.

.

.

.

Whitley sits at his desk typing away at his laptop. He had finished his work hours ago but he still had to update Penny’s lesson plan and find an easy event for her to attend as soon as possible to help jump start the investigation. He was almost done with the lesson plan but still needed to find a more causal event with the right people in attendance to send Penny to. He’s typing away at his laptop with one hand and looking through his scroll at the local social media with the other.

With global communication gone the elites had lost most of their social media audience and now only had fraction of onlookers to watch them flaunt their wealth so the local servers had become a giant message board were young elites post about the parties they’re having, dangerous pranks they were pulling, stupid stunts, petty drama, and weekly shopping hauls.

Whitley detested using social media as it was full of amount nothing but vapid idiots looking for validation but it was the easiest way to keep up with happenings of Atlas youths so he checked it every few days. After scrolling through countless food pics, videos of people being stupid, morons screaming at each over things they don’t really understand he puts his scroll down leans back, and puts his hand on his face, completely frustrated.

Whitley: If I have to see another picture of an idiot eating dish cleaner for attention I’m going to have an aneurysm. (Sighs) Why I am even doing this we only agree to teach her and get her into events not to hand pick them for her.

He looks up to the ceilings and and recalls the events of the afternoon. She had only been in the manor for a couple of hours but he had learned quite a lot in that time.

Whitley: That girl, She’s definitely a intelligent, driven, and strong person, the way she spoke about the case was concise but clear, not hint of worry, doubt, or deception just cold facts. Her articulation and vernacular while a bit stiff were also far more advanced than I was expecting. If she learns quickly and keep her head on straight she should do fine but-

The memories of that afternoon flash in his mind, her twirling by ballet bar, the excitement in her voice when she discovered he had musical talent, her vibrant green eyes staring with wonder at the garden. A soldier she made be but that wasn’t all she was. She was sweet, innocent, excitable, and very much vulnerable. She could become a true darling in high society if trained right but right now she’s too gentle, like a hummingbird flying without fear if she gets too close to wrong flower a predator could rip her apart before she could even put up a fight.

Whitley sits back up, stretches his arms the gets back to searching. He calls for a maid to get him a cup of coffee, takes off his vest, and settles in for a long night of work.

[anileahvictoria]

Adam Kendall from My Little House on the Prairie.

Cutie Mark: Adam has always had a fascination with law and thought about becoming a lawyer many times, but ultimately decides he could do more good as a teacher for the blind. His cutie mark was inspired by the saying that justice is blind, so the scales of justice represent balancing his love for the study of law with his responsibilities as a teacher, and husband, and the cloth is Lady Justice’s eye covering that makes her blind, just like Adam is.

I accidentally referred to Little House on the Prairie as My Little House on the Prairie, and this fan art was born. More on that later, It's time for a rant. Adam is my favorite character from the series until I got mad and left the fandom cause they did this beautiful man dirty, so It’s time to rant about it.

#1. The Romance. The romance between Mary and adam was totally out of the blue. When Merry goes blind, she's shipped off to blind school, and her teacher is this capable, intelligent and hard-working young man named Adam Kendal. His teaching still is very much tough love, and he doesn't take crap from his students. Mary starts as a reluctant, uncooperative, self-pitying, closed-minded student doing things like throwing her things across the room. Adam handles all this brilliantly, saying stuff like: if you're gonna make a mess, your gonna clean it up. Doesn't baby her or pitty her AT ALL. Exactly what she needs. After a few months, Mary's attitude changes drastically, and she's thriving thanks to Adam. But when Adam sits her down to teach her some piano, she has a moment of self-doubt: 

Merry: I could never learn...

Adam: I wish you would forget about that. Some of the greatest writers and composers in the worl were blind.Have you ever heard of John Milton? 

Merry: Well of course. He- he wrote Paradise Lost, one of my favorite books.

Adam: Well, he was also blind. Now, do you want to play the piano or not?

Merry: There wouldn't be enough time. You know my family's coming to take me home. They'll be here in a few days.

Adam: It's been a long time, hasn't it, since you've seen your folks?

Merry: It seems like a lifetime. Adam, I'm so scared. I mean... I know I'm ready to go home... But here it's- it's easy, and I've always got you to help me.

Adam: Merry, you can't depend on me forever. And I'll be leaving too. 

Merry: Where are you going?

Adam: To Winoka, to start a new blind school.

Merry: Why didn't you tell me?

Adam: I don't know. It just never came up. 

Merry: Then I'm glad I'm going home.

Adam: Merry, it's not that much different out there. Not really.

And now it gets all angsty:

Merry: Yes, it is. I wouldn't expect you to understand. How could you? 

Adam: Mary...

Mary: The world isn't like the Burton school for the blind. It... It's a huge, dark place filled with... hidden obstacles and... strange sounds and voices coming from faceless people. Even you. I've never even seen you. 

Adam: Well then look at me. 

... And then they start feeling each other's faces and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure blind people don't actually do that...

And then it gets randomly and weirdly romantic...

Mary: What color are your eyes?

Adam: Blue.

Mary: Your hair?

Adam: Brown.

Mary: Thank you Adam.

Adam: ...What do you look like, Mary? Ive never seen you either.

Aaaand more face touching.

So apparently, they're a thing now. I'd understand if Adam fell for her cause she looks like a literal angel (seriously, no girl has any business looking that gorgeous), but Adam's blind too. So he's going ultimately off of personality, I'm guessing. And when he first meets Mary, she is not a pleasant person. Yes, she does improve quite a lot, but what makes her any different than all the other students he's taught? It certainly isn't their age, cause Adam's 22 and Mary's 15 (back then, I guess it wasn't a big deal). Also, It creeps me way out that her teacher falls in love with her. The man who spends most hours of the day alone with a vulnerable teenage girl falls in love with said girl AND THEN asks said girl to work for him at his new school in a busy city away from her family where it would just be Adam, Mary, one old man who lives on the top floor, and a few students, not to mention Mary would also be spending the nights there... It's a good thing this isn't that kinda show cause there's a million different ways that could've gone... But because this is Little House on the Prairie, nothing happens, and Adam asks Mary to be his wife soon after she moves in.

#2. Regaining his Sight And Becoming a Lawyer.

This really makes me mad. When Adam gets his sight back and sees the faces of all his friends and, most importantly, his wife for the first time. It's beautiful and wonderful and heaven knows the man deserves a miracle like that, BUT his whole character changes. He goes from a responsible teacher and loving husband who knows who he is and where he's meant to be, to an ambitious young man who would rather chase his dreams of becoming a lawyer than take care of his responsibilities to the school he started, the children he teaches, and the wife he loves. I can understand wanting to go and see the world and do things you couldn't do before, but sighted or blind, he has responsibilities. Mary is kinda left in the dust when Adam makes all these new sighted friends and drags her along to all his fancy lawyer parties while he plays games, runs around laughing and talking, and leaves Mary sitting in a chair all by herself. Like, he doesn't even consider how she must be feeling! He doesn't try to include her in conversations or introduce her to his new friends; she's just a pretty thing that sits there to be cared for. And the thing is, this is exactly what Adam was afraid would happen to him when Mary thought her sight was returning a few episodes ago! Now Adam's new fancy friends get him an opportunity to take some fancy tests to become a lawyer and Adam, without a second thought for Mary, goes off to take the test, not evening considering who would run the school if he passed and became a lawyer. Then some bad stuff happens, and he can't make it to the test, and I'm all relieved cause we all know he belongs with his wife teaching at the school and now he'll see things clearly and get his head off the cloud and onto the here and now. But nooooo, this whole time Mary is hoping he'd fail (and so am I), but when she sees how heartbroken he is, she goes and has a talk with the professor and convinces him to let Adam take the test. He finally relents, and Adam passes and becomes a lawyer, giving the school away to a wonderful woman who teaches there. This whole thing is treated like he made the right choice when he obviously isn't! Not I blame this on the time period the show was made in. Back then, a man had to be ambitious and provide for the family and leave the teaching and such to the woman, so back then, it was a good thing he went off and became a lawyer, but still, I'm mad. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when Adam hands the school over to the lady, Mary no longer teaches there, which means that Adam has taken away Mary's dream of teaching on top of not spending nearly as much time as he used to with her and (though he doesn't realize it and I don't think anyone brings it to his attention cause men are supposed" to do all the work) doesn't let her do things for herself.

#3. He's Fictional.

This one makes me the madest. At first, I turned a blind eye to all these flaws cause I assumed Adam Kendall was based off an actual person, like most characters in the series, but noooo. They made him up just for the tv series. This means his romance with Mary WAS totally random, and Mary staying in the same building as he did BEFORE they were married WAS the writer's choice, and Adam regaining his sight and leaving his wife and school in the dust WAS ALSO THE WRITERS CHOICE! AND he was basically just made to me Mary's husband because Mary doesn't marry or have children in real life. So yeah, my favorite character's development went down the drain. But oh well, that's what we have fanfic and fanart for, am I right? Oh wait, this show is old. No one's made any good fanart/fanfic. K, I'm gonna go cry now. Bye

Also, if anyone has a different opinion or point of view, please tell me about it. I'd love to go back to loving this character, so please change my mind 🥺. 

[powerosewaterpuff]

yk so i was watching bmw (boy meets world :) ) while procrastinating an essay so oF COURSE i decided to write some more of my reverse robin au (that pertains to jason being the oldest of the batkids w/ him and dick growing up together) except fLUFF bc i cannot handle angst rn (oR cOulD I wE wiLL nEvER kNoWwwW)

oh and disclaimer there may be several medical inaccuracies so please feel free to correct me :)

jason often gets night terrors, ones that can get particularly awful when bruce goes on an overnight business trip. so one night bruce is in new york after being forced into it by lucius, with dick being adopted for some time now. dick was awake because he was having trouble sleeping, for no real particular reason in all honesty. he heard a short yell though, coming from the room next to him and he dashed over, tripping over his blanket and still gripping zitka tightly. he knew that he wasn’t supposed to fight yet, but he doesn’t really think about that as he yanked jason’s door open.

he then saw his brother laying on his side, turning back and forth, breathing heavily looking so visibly pained it was hurting dick. he rushed over to jason, his eyes darting around because he just didn’t know what to do. taking his chances he tapped jason’s shoulder gently, and he already felt like it wasn’t the right move but he sucked it up and tried again, only this time to some result. jason shot up, gripping on tightly to dick’s arm, his eyes hazy and unfocused and his chest heaving.

dick remained still, only slowly trying to push jason off of him and back into his bed. jason’s grip didn’t let but he laid back in bed, squeezing his eyes tightly as if he was trying to push away everything he had just witnessed. dick took this as an initiative to gently climb into bed, as jason fell back into a less violent but equally as stressful sleep. he placed zitka next to jason, who still hasn’t let go of his arm, and awkwardly sat up in bed, almost acting as a protector. slowly, dick began to doze off, feeling a lot more comforted in his brothers prescence then he had been in his own room.

jason on the other hand, doesn’t remember much of that night, as he rarely fully remembers any of his night terrors (only the scars they leave behind), but when he wakes up at the ass crack of dawn with a few fragments of something he would prefer not to remember, he puts it together rather quickly. he guessed it would happen, and he could’ve told bruce and he knew the guy would drop anything in a heartbeat, but that pissed him off, more so then it justifiably should. he wasn’t a child and he hadn’t been a child for a long fucking time, and it was stupid that he couldn’t deal with a single night without bruce. jason then turned onto his side, disgruntled with a new found rage directed at himself that he might take out on someone else, when he found dick, sleeping at an awkward position.

he was leaning on the headboard, but was slumped down and drooling a bit, which would have been hilarious blackmail material on any other given day. but today, jason felt a pit in his stomach. the only rational thought that his mind could conjure in its fear muddled frenzy was please tell me i didn’t hurt dick, pleasepleasepleaseplease. he quickly checked over dick’s face, cupping his checks and looking for any signs of a bruise. he had given bruce a particularly nasty one earlier in his tenure at the manor, after bruce attempted to restrain him while he was having a night terror so he could avoid hurting himself, instead jason kicked him in the jaw. he even felt bad about it the next day, which was an odd surprise for him at the time.

after checking over dick hasilty, he could see he wasn’t all that hurt, even though if he looked hard enough he could see inklings of nail shaped markings in dick’s right arm just under his shirt sleeve. jason felt a bit of bile rising up, as he gently shifted dick into a better sleeping position, and pulled the blanket up to his chin and slipped a pillow underneath him. dick opened his bleary eyes, mumbling jason’s name in question, and squinting his eyes. jason rolled his eyes but nodded, “yeah, it’s me. now sleep–why’re you shaking yer head? you don’ wanna sleep? too bad.” jason pressed another pillow onto the side of dicks face in a teasing attempt to smother him to sleep, but dick only proceeded to giggle, and snuggle closer to jason, who had sat up already. jason tossed the pillow to the side after a few seconds of play fighting, dick was going to be too sleepy to remember this break in the ‘teasing older brother’ façade. so, he ran his hand through his little brothers hair and laid back down, tracing soft circles into dick’s scalp absentmindedly. and feeling a rush of gratitude that bruce had brought this little circus boy into his life. he really didn’t know what he would do without his little brother. (needless to say, dick became a constant comforter in jason’s night terrors).

jason blames dick for everything. if a vase got knocked over, it was a dick. if the tv wasn’t working, dick had been playing with the satellite. if his phone was missing, dick stole it to play games. if his sweater had a stain, you better bet it was dick. the boy in question, of course, adamantly denies these facts and does have a way of persuading bruce (he is the golden child after all, jason could testify to that), but bruce also knows both of his boys are annoyingly good liars. so every incident is treated like a little miniature crime scene, and it never fails to make jason howl in laughter at dick explaining how he couldn’t have possibly used up jason’s shampoo because he has his own washroom with his own shampoo and so w h y jason w h y would i steal your shampoo. (jason’s usual response is a deadpanned ‘why wouldn’t you’, and that just gives bruce another headache as the two bicker on and on and on.)

the pair of them usually go biking together, and it’s usually quite tranquil to start. until dick makes a sly comment that jason’s old bones must be so tired from cycling, so why not take a break? jason snide reponse is how the fuck are you touching the pedals with your stubby ass legs. that’s really all it takes for them to delve into a full on biking race. it never really ends well, but the two always come out rolling in laughter so whose to complain.

dick thinks real housewives of beverly hills is better then new jersey, and jason is adamant that new jersey is superior in every shape and way. the two agree that atlanta is the absolute winner no matter what though.

jason is dick’s english tutor. and it’s safe to say that it’s an experience. dick already knew a fair amount of english growing up, his father had been a wonderful teacher but it wasn’t exactly up to gotham academy standards apparently (jason knew the feeling) and his accent was still quite prevalent to have him be considered an esl kid, so jason ended up being his tutor once dick started going to english class at school and after his time with an esl instructor. jason, who has an untapped passion for literature that not many can match, is absolutely dedicated to teaching dick, because fuck man this is genius! genius, dick! and dick isn’t exactly a fan, but he does secretly think jason should be a teacher, he’s better then any of the teachers he’s had that’s for sure (his father would’ve really loved jason too, that was also for sure). and dick is considering buying him a little briefcase with his little initials on it. ((it happens, and jason tries really really hard not to cry))

bruce is absolutely that parent that secretly takes pictures of every single moment possible. he isn’t a photographer, in any sense, but he likes to capture natural moments, and he has a series of pictures dedicated to the one trip him and the boys took to Barbados where he started this habit. he wasn’t and still isn’t a big fan of beaches, they’re hot, crowded and just too much for bruce to feel any kind of comfortable in. he remembers sitting under a floppy beach umbrella, feeling the knot in his chest sit heavily on his heart, fire ants scurrying across the underlining of his skin, burning under the side stares of those passing by. it wasn’t until he caught a glimpse of dick riding on jason’s little shoulders, as they trotted around waist deep in the clear ocean water, that the fist squeezing his heart like the rotten fruit it was began to ease. he glanced down at the camera that alfred had subtly slipped into their bag after dicks insistence, and lifted it up to fiddle with it slightly. then raised it up to take a swift picture. capturing jason mid laughter as he leaned back, in a joking attempt to shake dick off who was in the middle of a yelp but had entrenched his hands in jason’s mop of curly hair. it was hilarious imperfect, but bruce would not want it any other way. not at all.

(jason found it once. he saw the picture at the corner of his eye sitting by the keyboard of the ‘Batcomputer’ ((dick was so shitty with names, thank god he didn’t come up with flippy man as his code name )), and he hesitated for a moment before hastily grabbing it. examining it with an unexpected amount of gentleness, he rubbed his thumb against the glass above dick’s hands in his hair and felt something snake around his heart. slowly and methodically seeping into it until he felt like he couldn’t fucking breathe. then he heard damian trotting down the stairs as he explained the details of his anthropology class to dick who was hopping down behind him. jason shoves the picture back and grits his teeth together to ignore the sting that was absolutely not in his eyes)

aAAAND THATS ALL!! i’ve had these in my notes for a while so it’s relief to get them out there hehe so i really hope y’all enjoy ive legit been falling in love with this reverse au bC THERE IS SO MUCH POTENTIAL U G H IVE NEVER BEEN EXCITED TO WRITE SHIT UNTIL NOW SO Y A Y FOR INSPIRATION

Y A Y :)

[gabriel-agreste-has-no-rights]

Rating: G

Summary: XY tries to steal Luka's non-existent gym badges.  Instead, they both end up making a new friend.  (For @luxyweek day 3: Pokemon)

Word Count: 2071

XXX

Luka woke up to a stranger rummaging in his bag.

He should’ve known better than to fall asleep in the Pokémon Center, especially in a city as big as Lumiose.  Exhaustion after a late concert was no excuse to be careless.  Even if crime was rarer after the takedown of Team Flare, there were still unorganized thieves around.

Like this idiot who thought Luka was an easy target.

“C’mon, he’s gotta have at least one…” The idiot was mumbling.

Without opening his eyes, Luka slowly moved his hand to his pocket.  He pulled out the one pokéball he had on him.

“Who the heck carries so many metronome items…?” 

While the thief was distracted, Luka pressed the button on his pokéball.  One click, and his Loudred burst free.

“GWAHHHH!!!”  She boomed, and the thief jumped back with a shriek.

“Wh-h-hey!” he stammered.  Luka finally got a good look at him.  Tall blonde hair, tacky outfit—was this some remixed Team Flare grunt after all?  He was wearing purple rather than red, though.

“That’s an, uh, nice dude you got there.”  He eyed Luka’s Loudred dubiously.

“Symphony is a girl.”  He scratched her behind the ear, and she made a low rumble.

“Uh.  Nice babe then.”

Luka snorted.  Why had this thief bothered to stick around?  He thought he’d have run off by now.  Luka really hoped he wasn’t going to have to battle.  Symphony had worked hard enough tonight.

“Why were you looking through my bag?”

“Pshaw, I wasn’t doing that.  Besides, you don’t have anything useful.”

Wow.  This guy really was an idiot.  The Team Flare grunts were never too smart, either.  Just a bunch of kids who got mixed up with the wrong crowd.

Well, Luka was no trainer like the ones who’d busted them up last year.  But maybe he could keep one kid from following down that road.

“What do you count as useful?”  Luka asked.  “Money?  Items?  Pokémon?”

“Maybe Pokémon would be useful, if they’d stop being haters and listen to me.”  The guy crossed his arms and pouted.

“...So you’re not a trainer?”  Luka glanced around the Pokémon Center.  Everyone else was very determined to mind their own business.  Not that Luka needed their help to deal with a guy who couldn’t even use his own Pokémon, but still.  Someone could’ve tried.

“I’m going to be a trainer.  Just as soon as I steal a badge and get this Zorro dude to listen to me.”

Luka raised an eyebrow.  “Zorro dude?”

“Yeah.  Dark type?  Sick red ponytail?  Likes to copy me and make me look stupid?”

He sat up straighter.  “You have a Zoroark?”

That Pokémon was rare enough to border on legendary.  They didn’t even live in the Kalos region.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”  The guy looked at Luka like he was stupid.

“How did you catch a Zoroark if it won’t even listen to you?”

“Dad gave ‘im to me.  He wants me to get famous here, but it’s harder to fake battles than I thought.”  He sighed dramatically and sunk to the seat next to Luka.

Clearly the ‘get famous’ plan wasn’t working.  Luka had no idea who he was.  At least he was pretty sure he wasn’t a Team Flare grunt, though.

“And you’re telling me this… after trying to rob me… why…?”

“Cause you asked.”

Luka blinked.  “Touché.”

He gave Symphony one last pat, then returned her to her pokéball.

“Traded Pokémon won’t listen to you without badges,” he told the would-be thief.  “And I don’t have any of those, if that’s what you were looking for.”

“Really?  But you look—”  The guy gestured to all of him.  “Y’know.  Cool.  Tough.”

“Thanks? I guess?  I’m just a musician, though.”  He patted his guitar next to him.  It was pretty telling that this guy hadn’t tried to steal that.  “I only battle if I have to.”

“Huh.  Well that’s pretty cool too, I guess.”  The guy shrugged.  “I did Pokémon Contests in Hoenn for a while.  Before I got banned for using holograms.”

Luka raised an eyebrow.  “Any other international crimes you want to confess to?”

“Crashed my boat into a herd of Luvdisc in Alola.  But that was an accident.  How was I supposed to know they were endangered?”

“I was being sarcastic, man.”  Luka shook his head.  “Nevermind.  Come on.”

He stood and hoisted his guitar over his shoulder.

“Huh?  Where are we going?”  The guy trotted after him.

“To catch you a Pokémon.  Before you get yourself kicked out of another country.”

XXX

The stranger’s name was XY.  It stood for Xavier-Yves.  It didn’t sound like an Unovan name, but that was still the least weird thing about the guy.  Maybe that was just a pseudonym.  He probably needed one after all of his criminal acts, accidental or not.

“Alright, XY.”  Luka stood knee-deep in the grass of Route 4.  “You’re going to be borrowing Symphony for this.  Borrowing.  If you run off with her, she’ll suplex you into the ground.”

XY eyed the Loudred next to him.  Sweat beaded on his forehead.

“Got it, Mr. Couffaine.”

“Just Luka is fine.”  He sighed.  This was such a weird way to be spending the night after a concert, but it was still better than going home.

“Got it, Mr. Luka.”

Close enough.

“Alright, now follow me into the grass.”

“I can’t do that!  That’s where the Pokémon are!”

Luka rolled his eyes.  “That’s the point.  You’re going to catch one.”

“I thought you were going to catch me one.  Because you’re cool and sexy like that.”

“Flattery’s not getting you out of this.”  Luka grabbed his wrist and tugged him into the grass, Symphony following behind them.

XY squealed again.  “But what if they eat me!”

“We’re on Route 4, dude.  The biggest Pokémon out here is a Skitty.”

“...Those things eat meat, right?”

“No.”  Even if they did, they would probably know better than to eat XY.  They didn’t know where he’d been.

“If I die, you’re paying for my funeral,” XY grumbled, even though he’d already gone off on four tangents about how rich his dad was.  Luka didn’t even bother responding.

Suddenly XY screamed again.  A few Fletching flew out of the red flower patch.  At this rate, they’d never catch anything.

“What is it this ti—oh.”  Luka blinked down at the tiny Pokémon clinging to XY’s ankle.  “It’s just a Flabébé.”

The little girl seemed to have mistaken XY’s socks for a flower.  She was shuddering, cowering against the fabric even as XY tried to shake her off.

“Dude, cut it out.”  Luka gripped him by the shoulders.  “This is perfect.  She already likes you.”

“Y-you think so?”  XY set his foot back on the ground.  The Flabébé tentatively looked up.

“You might not even need Symphony to weaken her.  Here.”  Luka took out a pokéball, but hesitated to hand it over.  “Are you going to take good care of her if I give you this?”

“What gives, man?”  XY snatched the ball.  “You were gonna teach me about catching Pokémon, not about, like, parenting stuff.”

Luka hadn’t thought this through enough before seeing the little Flabébé.  He couldn’t in good conscience condemn her to a life with XY without knowing that he would treat her right.

“Are you staying in Lumiose?  I live at the edge of the city.  I could come check on her.  Just to make sure she’s not giving you too much trouble.”

“I didn’t know you were gonna want joint custody.”  XY smirked.  “But sure, whatever.  Can’t complain if you want to do half my work for me.”

He knelt down and tapped the Flabébé on her head.

“You are just a little thing, aren’t you?”  He let out a nasal laugh.  “How do you feel about me being your new dad?”

“Please don’t say it like that.”  Luka groaned.

The Flabébé fluttered into XY’s palm and nudged the pokéball.  Wow.  She must really have no standards.

“Sorry.  Me and Lu are gonna be your new dads.”  XY grinned.

“Aaaand that’s even worse.”

The Flabébé looked at Luka.  He looked at her.  She looked at him.  He looked at her.

“...I’m not being your other dad.”

Symphony blasted out a honk of laughter.  He glared at her.

“Don’t make me put you back in the pokéball.”

She just smiled innocently.

“Okay, okay.  Shut up.  We’re doing this.”  XY took a deep breath and pressed the button on the pokéball with his thumb.  It split open, sucking the Flabébé into its light.

The ball glowed red while rocking back and forth.  Once.  Twice.  Three times.

Then it went still.

“I—I did it?”  XY stared at the ball in his palm.  Luka swore there was wonder in his eyes.

Hopefully this hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.

“You did it.”  Luka clapped him on the shoulder.  “Why don’t you let her out now?  She should get used to you before you take her home.”

After fumbling for a moment, XY popped the ball open.  The Flabébé flashed back out and hovered in the air.  She quickly zipped down and plucked a red flower, hugging it close.

“Aww, our first date and she’s already giving me flowers.”  XY laughed.

“It’s not for you.  Flabébé has to keep one close for protection.”

“Ah. Like a comfort blanket.”  XY nodded sagely.  “That’s okay!  I’ll pick my own flower.  Then we can match!”

He snatched up another red bloom, then tucked it behind his ear.

Luka was surprised to find himself smiling.  Who would’ve thought XY could actually be cute?  When he wasn’t trying to steal Luka’s non-existent gym badges, anyway.

“Are you going to name her?”  He asked to keep his thoughts away from that tangent.

“Huh?  Oh.  Uh… hmm.”  XY’s brow furrowed.  He stared at the Flabébé, who had fluttered back into his palm.  “You can’t tell me your name, can you?”

She let out a tiny squeak.  

“Hmm.  Yeah.  I feel that.”  He nodded.  “How about Cheeto?”

“Cheeto?”  Luka burst before he could think better of it.  Who named their Pokémon Cheeto?  

“Yeah, ‘cause she’s got that yellow dust all over her.”  XY rubbed a tiny bit of it off with his fingertip.  Flabébé almost seemed to purr.

“You mean… pollen?”

XY raised an eyebrow.  “Ew, gross.  What kind of name is Pollen?  Sounds like Pole-men.  And she’s a girl.”

Luka wanted to smack his forehead.  Symphony gave him a sympathetic pat.

“Well.  Have fun with Cheeto, I guess.”  He sighed.  “I’m going to go get some sleep.  You’ve got my Holo Caster number.”

“Wait!”  XY jogged after him, cradling Cheeto close to his chest.  “I didn’t get to say—thanks, man.”

Luka looked back over his shoulder, surprised.  “No problem.  This is better than stealing gym badges, right?”

“A lot better.”  He looked down at his new Pokémon fondly.  “Uh, sorry about that, by the way.  I—I’m gonna make it up to you.”

“Yeah?”  He raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah!  I’m gonna—take you to the hotel I’m staying at!  So you don’t look homeless!”  XY grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him back towards the city.

“I literally told you I live in town…?”

“Then why were you sleeping in the Pokémon Center like a hobo?”  XY smirked.  Symphony laughed where she was lumbering after them.

You’ve turned my own Pokémon against me.  Luka scowled.

“Didn’t feel like dealing with my mom,” he said under his breath.  

It was stupid, running away just because he’d finally found out about his dad.  His whole band was here. Including his sister.  Lumiose was a big city, but he couldn’t play guitar for Kitty Section and dodge his parents at the same time.

“Perfect!  There’s no moms allowed in my hotel room!”  XY beamed.

If staying out was stupid, then even considering XY’s offer was downright moronic.  XY had tried to rob him just hours ago.

But the dude was rich.  Luka didn’t have anything else he could want.  And whatever hotel room they ended up in was bound to have a more comfortable couch than the Pokémon Center’s.

“...Alright,” he finally agreed.

XY’s holler of joy could probably be heard in the next route over.

“Sweet!  Bro co-parenting slumber party, here we come!”

Luka let Symphony laugh at him.  He deserved it for ending up in such a ridiculous situation.

But somehow, he felt better anyway.

[theramseyloft]

3/10/21 Loft Notes

I collapsed from physical exhaustion yesterday around 6pm, so I'm taking things very, very slowly today.

To give you guys an idea of how functional I was, minutes before that happened, I tried to mark this new egg of Elliot's with a ?

I could not, even by muscle memory, work out what that was supposed to look like.

I gave that egg back to Elliot, made it back to the living room, and ceased being able to function.

I do not mean I got on the couch and fell asleep.  I mean I was fully conscious, but unable to move of my own volition.

Patron: "She said her veins were falling out."

It legit felt like the big one down the center of my left arm had come loose and just slid down my skin.

Patron: "How are you feeling today?"

Patron: "I was wondering if you remembered"

Numb and sluggish, but having missed cleaning Monday, I can't safely put it off any longer.

So I'm just gonna have to take my sweet time about it.

Took meds. Just finished breakfast.

Patron: "oof :( stay well in tune with yourself and be careful. good luck today!"

Gonna do my best. Thank you.

Prooobaly gonna list crap I need to do here so I can keep up with it.

The block tower that is my executive function is a pile of splinters right now.

Think I have my feet far enough under me to get a roast started. Then vacuum.

Roast done.

Living room vacuumed.

Aaaaand auditory hallucinations confirmed.  I swear, I hear a heavy downpour with high winds...

Buuut that is demonstrably not happening.

Vacuumed quarantine. Just kinda mechanically moved to the cages and forgot Gordon and April's exists.

Satin and Sprinks received their final doses of avionidazole. They will rejoin the flock tomorrow.

Heading out to the loft momentarily.

We'll see if our new arrival caused or got into any trouble.

I made that attempt to ? Elliot's egg because the timing is such that it could have been Elliot who stress laid the one I gave Alex and Dodger.

We may or may not know in a few days. XD  But if a home comes up for Alex, I will at least have some one I can put his foster under.

Bluh. Shaky again, so pausing to snack and recover before heading outside.

Checked the calendar while sitting here.

Time to stop turning the egg.

And pay closer attention to the water.

It's due to pip on Friday.

Aside from adding to the water every three days or so and turning the egg whenever I passed, I have not interacted with it much. At candling, 6 days ago, it was developing normally and very much alive.

The wren is back.

Angel is fitting in just like Satin and Sprinks did when they got here.

Not afraid of the other birds, or bird-focused enough to go harass any of them.

Aside from occasionally biting me for having the audacity not to be his mom-wife, he's great so far.

He's 4.5 months, and bigger than everyone else here, except maybe Sprinks.

And Farthing.

Farthing may also outweigh him.

Patron: "Angel hatched that long ago?? Ahhhhhh"

Late November.

Ginger tread Danica

Oops! The wren got trapped in the porch!

It left when I held the door for it. XD

Tiny wild friend, no! XD

Leonard's kids are chasing him around the floor begging to be fed.

Patron: "They’re already on the floor!? Oh my goodness"

Their nest is on the floor. XD

They go flailing back to it when they get full.

Ginger tread Danica again.

Aaaand they have taken up Sprinks and Satin's nest, the night she is due to lay, when Satin and Sprinks are due to return in the morning.

They had claimed the nest next to that, uncontested.

If Nica lays in there tonight and gets driven off in the morning, I'll have to tuck another one in the broken incubator.

Think I'mma go ahead and bring them on back out to preempt that shit.

Ginger's dumb ass the second Sprinks and Satin reclaimed their box: "Uh. 'Scuse me. TF y'all doin' in my house?"

Satin and Sprinks: "Whose house, bitch?"

Sprinks, confident that Satin can handle a little dipshit 2/3 his weight, is having a snack.

Patron: "now that's a tussle i'd like to see on video lmao"

You might get to.

And I now have 20 minutes of footage of Ginger fighting Satin and Sprinks until they went "You know what? Fuck this shit!" And claimed the box one level higher.

Followed by Ginger and Danica not being sure whether or not they want that specific one after all.

Followed by several minutes of Danica begging Ginger to tread her, and Ginger responding by crouching for her to tread him.

And Vito being a cock blocking bastard.

After the video, Danica strolled over to the other end of the nest wall and attacked Elliot's chicks.

I ice cream coned her away.

And am still sitting here because she thought I was too distracted by typing to notice her try to go after them again.

Bitch, you won the nest you wanted. Why you trying to throw out peeps?

And he finally tread her again.

Angel will eventually learn that trying to bite my eyes will get him snatched off my shoulder and tossed.

This is not unexpected.

Pigeons go for eachother's faces in sereous disputes, and that seems to be instinctive.

So it carries over to how imprinted pigeons respond to what they consider a serious enough grievance. Aaaand human eyes are a larger target.

Patron: "is the grievance in this case is just you turning your head in his direction when he's willingly in your shoulder lol"

While not being his mom-wife, yes.

He likes me ok most of the time, but he wants his Mom-wife and is more upset with me than he is able to deal with yet for not being her.

There is literally nothing she could have done to prevent it.

Every pigeon hand raised by a human is like this to the new human.

And she took him so Val wouldn't hurt herself by refusing to let Zephyr help.

It was a necessity, and I knew to expect the behavior issues.

Khou would be HELL for any one else!

[darkpoisonouslove]

Winx Club Season 5 Thoughts Part 1

It’s been so hard for me to make myself start this season because I know it only goes downhill from here but here I am at last. I don’t remember anything from this season and am prepared to hate the transformations (Harmonix because it’s impractical and Sirenix because it’s ugly) so let’s do this.

- I already hate the hair and I haven’t made it past the intro yet. This is promising.

- This is off to a great start. I got the wrong episode. Not by my mistake, however. Now that I found the actual first one, let’s actually do this.

5x01:

- It’s weird to see magic so publicly on Earth. At least they’re having fun. Though, I have to say that I am not a fan of the idea of them having a band. And they have unfair advantage over every other Earth band because they can do their own advertizing without having to pay a cent and it will still be better than any other band can afford since it’s magic. They should have just dropped the band.

- I am gagging over the fact that they have Roxy praise Bloom for the help but not the other Winx girls. They were all there for her and fought to protect her and tried to teach her magic. And at one point she even said she wanted to be like Stella. But now she says that only Bloom is like a big sister. Obviously a plot device to bring in Daphne since she will be resurrected this season and they have to set it up. Especially after season 4 forgot all about her. I am still gagging, though.

- You know, I could have loved the whole ecological message but I am pretty sure they are going to fuck it up anyway. Or just not take it anywhere.

- Ugh, Helia’s hair is so ugly. But at least Sky’s is as well. But what is that box Sky has? Not another engagement ring, please, for the love of everything sacred!

- Ahh, pendant. Yeah, their relationship is going so well that they will need magic to keep it in tact. Though, good luck for both of them will be to just split up and find someone that is actually good for them. Also, why doesn’t Brandon know about that? He is literally the squire and best friend of the prince.

- Poor Layla. She must be missing Nabu like crazy. Please, let her have a season to mourn and don’t shove a new love interest in her face right away. It took her a season and a half to get the first one and he was killed. She needs some fucking time!

- Love that everyone agrees that Sky’s hair is terrible. Even Bloom’s “It looks... great” sounds like a lie.

- Why is Sky going back to Red Fountain? Didn’t he finish that? God, just let them move on already. Also, he is not A Crown Prince now. He was the Crown Prince ever since he was born. He was crowned as the king of Eraklyon. Man, are they retconning everything?

- If Bloom cared so much about what he had to say, she could have asked Musa to give them a sec. I like the little Flora and Sky interaction, though. If only it could have been on a topic different than Bloom. I wish the Specialists would interact with Winx other than their girlfriends more. It would sell the friend group vibe better.

- Aww, I wish Layla wouldn’t hide her pain over Nabu. She probably doesn’t want to affect the others with it and doesn’t want them fretting over her either but this is just so sad.

- Love how Bloom doesn’t even remember Tressa. For a moment there I thought that it was her getting crowned which would have been cooler but yeah. Also, Nereus and Tritannus are almost identical. What the hell makes Nereus hot and Tritannus not? I am so annoyed I started rhyming.

- I love the idea of underwater tech!

- Lmao, gotta love how the king has already picked a favorite. And it doesn’t seem to be a recent choice either. Idk about Tritannus yet, but I don’t like this guy. I am all for him being attacked. He even reacted like an absolute asshole. He reminds me of Erendor.

- Ah, of course. Trident. We couldn’t possibly have another weapon when it comes to merfolk.

- Tbh Tressa would be the best ruler. She seems to have learned her lesson and become braver. And if she’s protecting her brother and doing all the work anyway, why not just crown her?

- Didn’t Flora tell him to wait until he is alone with Bloom? Why did he think a good moment to give her the pendant would be when Layla is visibly worried about what is going on and everyone is there with them? I wish he’d drop it and it would break.

- How the fuck can Flora tell that there is oil spilling into the ocean? The ocean is Layla’s domain and Flora has never been shown to be able to communicate with marine plant life.

- I hate how they had to show that Timmy is obviously physically weaker than Sky. It would’ve made sense for him to had built some muscle at the very least after 4-5 years in Red Fountain.

- How the hell did Tecna delete the oil? You can’t just erase matter out of existence. There should be a rule against that.

- Yeah, I was just going to say that closing the pipes is not going to work if they don’t stop the flow of oil. The pipes might explode but it will keep spilling. Seriously, this is basic logic. Nice move. Now it will be harder to stop because the spill moved underwater.

- What happened to Layla’s wings? Is the oil sticking to them and hindering their movements? You’d think she could prevent that with magic.

- This is what happens when you carelessly put something so important in your pocket. You don’t even need to be running a rescue mission. There’s a high chance that you’re gonna lose it anyway. Also, love how Bloom just left the other guy to drown and no one else went after him either.

- Layla’s awesome. She even managed to pull that guy out even though she was struggling a lot with it. I hate the fact that they forgot she taught the others a spell to breathe underwater in season 3, though. They could have used it. But of course, that would have probably rendered Harmonix unnecessary.

- Wow, they renovated the whole platform to make it eco? Why don’t they just do that with all of the oil platforms on Earth then? It’s not like it took much effort. I want to add to this that if they’d just done that (which probably would have taken a couple of days), they could have easily defeated Tritannus later because his only source of pollution in the first half of the season has been Earth. Because there is ocean pollution only on Earth, you know. They could have used that to incorporate an ecological message, except that would have taken work on their part. And also, most of the toxic substances Tritannus consumed were spilled on purpose by the Trix. So there goes a great wasted opportunity for a thematic message.

5x02:

- Here are my bad bitches. What the hell are they doing underwater, though? It’s kinda cruel to put them in a prison that forces them to use magic if they want to survive it. What happens if they tire out? They could die,

- Aaaand for some reason Bloom is the vocalist of the band even though Musa is literally the fairy of music and the only one that was initially having a contract signed.

- I hope nobody is expecting any commentary from me on the musical performances because I am telling you from now that I will be skipping absolutely all of them.

- The selkies look ridiculous. I could appreciate the idea of having small beings being powerful guardians but they will certainly not serve any greater purpose than the pixies did so this is going to be annoying at best. Also, the selkie of Earth was still there even when the fairies weren’t, right? This somehow implies that magical beings couldn’t stop the disasters that mankind causes to Earth even though the previous season said that it was the disappearance of fairies that threw the Earth into chaos.

- Aww, look at Stella and Brandon! So good when there’s no stupid drama.

- People really went cleaning the beach not just willingly but enthusiastically? That sounds a little unbelievable. I mean, they were supposed to be at a concert and that was an abrupt change.

- Correction, I wish Sky hadn’t lost the pendant so that he could have given it to her and this would have been over. Now he is going to sulk about it for ages and he is probably going to fuck up in a self-fulfilled prophecy kinda manner and I am so not here for it. Just shut up about Bloom and Sky and focus on the action, please.

- Well, Icy is now canonically a monster fucker. Even though she thought Valtor was ugly as hell in season 3 when he turned into a demon. He was uglier than Tritanus in all fairness but still. This seems inconsistent. And I hate her voice. Not to mention that she is already acting OOC when she’s not thinking about getting out even but about fucking him. Come on!

- Is the whole turning into a monster thing some sort of reverse Beauty and the Beast? That could have been interesting... but, of course, this is Winx.

- Yep, the selkies are absolutely useless.

- If the Trix don’t have powers, then how are they breathing underwater? Also, how does toxic waste restore ice and storm powers (there is some connection to darkness at least)? And if they went that route, they could have made their powers have an element of toxicity to them to make it more interesting instead of just having a guy boost their powers yet again. Honestly, the only good thing that came out of this is that Darcy and Stormy seem to be thinking more independently now which would be necessary in order for the DramaTM between the Trix later (that is just about the only thing I remember from this season).

- I wish Darcy would have used her hypnotic powers more in the previous seasons. They are so cool and would be pretty hard to deal with once you’re hit. It could have made for more interesting fights.

- If Tritannus was good, he could actually help cleanse the oceans by sucking out all toxic waste. He likes being a monster anyway.

- Okay, but the Trix know Bloom is from Earth. They should have known it was Winx from the second they felt the fairy magic in the air. That took them long enough btw.

- Of course, the monsters can also go on land even though they are mer-creatures. Makes perfect sense.

- Love how Musa and Flora are using new spells yet they look and act exactly the same way like the old ones so it is just same shit, different story. The writers are so unoriginal.

- Layla is strong! And Winx seem to be a little too strong against the Trix. Although, Believix is supposed to be really powerful anyway.

- This could have been the perfect setup for an Icy x Bloom romance. Sky lost the pendant so his relationship with Bloom is doomed and he later lost his memory so why not just break them up. Diaspro can have him if she still wants him (I don’t know why she would but anyway) and Bloom can get with Icy after Icy realizes Tritannus is not the right one for her. Everyone wins, especially, us, the audience. And it could have been a good way to show that Diaspro has reformed and she and Sky could actually be an okay couple. Or better yet, she dumps him and gets together with Bloom and Icy.

- Layla just kicked Tritanus in the face. Boy, I stan! And the underwater battle with weapons instead of magic is super cool, I love it! Wish there’d been more of that but, of course, only Layla can pull that off and we can’t spend more than a minute focusing on anyone else other than Bloom. Why didn’t Tritannus recognize Layla, though? Or did he just not care?

- Icy crying out for help? By a man? So not here for this. It is ridiculously out of character. How is he so powerful? Once again the villain is so strong it is a wonder they ever got to live long enough to get to the finale let alone defeat him.

5x03:

- Well, Winx sure are at the top of the popularity wave again despite the last time we saw them at Alfea being very different. Also, why is it the beginning of another school year yet again? Honestly, I am so sick of all of this.

- Sky is seriously annoying me with that stupid pendant and he is also the one that is fucking up their relationship with his stupid behavior. He should just focus on being a good boyfriend and do the best he can. I get it that in a world of magic superstitions probably have more merit, but he still has control over his own life and the choices he makes. He can “save” their relationship despite the omen of doom.

- Ugh, don’t tell me there will be Helia and Flora drama in this season to compensate for the lack of such in the last? Why did he only introduce Flora as his friend and not as his girlfriend? And how is he so close with the princess of Linphea? Is he from Linphea as well?

- I agree with Stella. Just when we all thought they were done, they started making even more transformations.

- I don’t think we’ve seen Daphne be anything but calm but it’s understandable when she is talking about the thing that made her a disembodied spirit. Still it feels weird to see her not believe that Bloom can handle whatever comes her way. Especially after the defeat of the Ancestral Witches. I guess that is what bugs me in this scene.

- Wow, Darcy admitted that Winx are stronger than them and neither Icy, nor Stormy protested? It’s good that they’re self-aware. It just seems a little OOC. And another power up in two consecutive episodes? Seriously? Will they ever get anything done on their own again?

- At least Sky is asking for advice. I am surprised that they are letting him interact with Flora yet again but I actually kinda like it.

- Why are they all gasping in surprise. They have been to the archive already when Bloom stole the Codex in season 2. It is the same room; they have seen it. Get over it already.

(- *sigh* I just lost my thoughts on half the episode. This season is not agreeing with me.)

- Flora was acting weird while Crystal was helping Helia. It was kind of like she was mad it was Crystal who could save him and not her and that is weird for Flora. I think she would have just been grateful he was saved.

- I suffer when the books suffer... and they did suffer a lot in this episode. Also, how come Stormy is creating life again? This still doesn’t make sense to me but compared to other things, it is more minor.

- I love Darcy’s hypnotic powers and the fact that she was using them on Stella. I think I might be starting to seriously consider this ship (as opposed to just entertaining the possibility of a cool dynamic between them). I mean, Stella looked like she’s seen the hottest new fashion collection and I know it was the magic but still. I kinda want a Darcy who is on her own (without her sisters) and manipulating/spelling Stella into being with her so that she could make place for herself in the Solarian court. And then she falls in love, of course.

- Just please tell me Sky won’t be without his memories for the rest of the season because that will just be too annoying. If they are going for drama, it would be good to at least make it relevant instead of shoving it in there by the ton for the sake of it.

5x04:

- Since when is the whole school so invested in Bloom? They weren’t when she was actually there and even though Winx are kind of legends now, you can bet your ass that there were still fairies that don’t like them. Not to mention that they shouldn’t all know what the hell happened when no one was there to witness it. Why would they let the whole school know if Erendor doesn’t even know yet?

- You are seriously telling me that Stella hadn’t considered being a fashion designer before? Really????? She literally spent her summer after season 1 as an intern for a fashion magazine and has been designing clothes since about the same time. This is just too dumb for words.

- Love how adorably awkward Timmy is. And I love that Tecna doesn’t mind at all. They are just too cute together!

- Ooh, tension between the Trix. That is interesting. Or at least would have been if it were focused more on the power balance in their own dynamic rather than on hate vs love for Tritannus. Why does everything have to be about guys?

- At least Flora seems to like Crystal now which is cool. But I cannot express how annoyed I am by the fact that the whole thing with the pendant is preventing him from getting his memories back. And the stupid thing is that this actually has potential. Losing the pendant could be the peak of Sky’s guilt towards Bloom for all the pain he’s caused her (about Diaspro and not only) and that could be very interesting to explore but this show will never go that deep. It’ll just remain as wasted potential. Just like everything else is.

- Okay, why does no one ever start with amnesia patients by asking them how they would like to go about things, how they feel? Stuff like that.

- Tecna really turned into a robot. Again, no fucking magical system to explain how you can turn a human into a robot. Plus, this could be interesting as well and also really deep but, again, this is Winx. It is not going to be deep. Even though they could have done so much with that premise and given Tecna a really cool arc.

- Ah, yes, I forgot to mention this while I was on the previous episode. I am done with Neptune being so dismissive and even aggressive against his other son. Like, maybe if you had tried some parenting, none of this would have come to pass. Just a thought. I am not saying that parents can prevent any bad choices their kids make but I am saying that he doesn’t look like he tried too hard to be a good dad. Nereus only turned out okay because they are twins and one of them has to be good while the other is evil. I am glad at least someone is trying to reach Tritannus even if he is beyond saving.

- Oh, off, Tritanus is not messing around. You know what? I actually like that. It was about time they made the villains as ruthless as they are trying to make them out to be. Even if I feel bad for his family because they just wanted to help him.

- Why do the selkies talk in the third person? They just went from useless to majorly annoying.

- Why don’t they just go get Faragonda? She may at least know what they are dealing with and possibly clue them in on how to unspell Tecna. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just find someone who knows how it was made.

- Great, they just set fire to the archive and nobody bothered to put it out. And they also released the elements in there. The question remains - will the archive survive their search for the Sirenix book? (What the hell were those other books, though? I would like to know where they came from.)

- Okay, but wasn’t the book Tecna opened cursed? What happened to that? And why did the spell on her phone only activate after she opened the book? This doesn’t make sense.

5x05:

- I am very confused about the order of episodes. “The Lilo” should be before “The Power of Harmonix” because they are still using their Believix powers but it makes more sense for the Harmonix episode to be after “The Book of Sirenix”. Anyway, I am watching “The Lilo” because Wikipedia says it’s the fifth episode even though it looks more like filler that wasn’t even meant to be in the season.

- At least we get to see Flora do something this time. She is the most neglected and it’s good to see her use magic for something else other than growing ivy. Seriously, Flo, chill with the ivy.

- “When I think of you, Helia, I believe in myself.” Because she can’t believe in herself if she doesn’t have a boyfriend. The intro is so totally right! What a way to show girl power!

- Why is the animation overly flowy? Is it because it is closer to 3D in order to tie better with the actual 3D later on? It kinda pokes out your eyes sometimes. Or at least mine.

- Someone remembered that the Whisperian Crystals were a thing. I love how they just made them sort of like GPS for magical objects even though they were only supposed to track the Dragon Fire. Proof of that is the fact that they never used them to track the Ring of Solaria even though they wanted it as well. So this is just a cop out to give them a chance to find the Lilo.

- Of course, the Lilo is in the possession of Mitzi’s little sister. Why wouldn’t it be?

- Gotta love how even the writers realized that it was too convenient for everything to be in Gardenia so they started making up excuses for it.

- Wait, how does Mitzi know who the Trix are? Have they... They haven’t met, right? What the hell? Also, Icy was literally standing in front of Macy but she couldn’t just grab the plant herself and had to order Darcy and Stormy to do it? Lazy much?

- Darcy’s powers are going back to their peak this season and I am so here for it.

- Flora legit just hit Icy with her shield. That was a good move and a little more aggressive than I would have expected from Flora but I’m not complaining.

- Great way to almost hit Macy, Stella.

- There was zero point to this episode. I guess they just had to do something to get them to a total of 26 episodes. And putting it right before the episode in which they get Harmonix is just ridiculous because they just powered up their Believix... right before they’ll stop using it.

5x06:

- They can’t even open the Book of Sirenix? Huh, that’s... kinda interesting actually.

- Oh, come on! Just when Bloom was making progress, Crystal brings in Diaspro. You have to love how the writers are implying that Crystal is no good by having her being friends with Diaspro. I thought we were over the Crystal drama but it looks like there will be more. And why is Bloom not losing her mind? Diaspro literally mind controlled Sky! Goddammit, it’s in situations like this I wish I could trust Erendor to do the best for his son! If Bloom could trust he wouldn’t side with Diaspro, she could have called him to let him make sure Diaspro stays away from Sky.

- Oh, they can lose their powers if they fail the quest? I like that! Extra stakes besides the Tritannus situation. This feels more intense now and I am here for it.

- I like the implication that there are other great fairies in the Magic Dimension and it’s not just Winx. Less so fond of the fact that the other fairies seem to be underhanded but I’ll take what I can get.

- Awwwww! That scene with Stella, Tecna and Musa was so precious! I love Stella’s joking and the fact that Tecna is so upset about what happened but she still believes their reassurances! And Musa saying she might start talking about her mother... *sob* This is so precious! They are opening up to each other even more than they have already! And about the tough topics. Ah, my heart!

- Okay, I kinda like the solidarity between Bloom and Layla. Also, the fact that Flora finally figured out what they are doing. Though, that’s kinda weird to me. Flora has been more wary of the reckless plans but I don’t think she would put her powers above her friends and possibly Layla’s whole realm if not the whole universe.

- Really wish it would have been someone else that had saved the horse and not Bloom.

- “Shadow hand”? Man, I was right. Darcy’s powers are peaking! Also, whatever spell Icy used on Winx to make it harder for them to move was super cool as well. I like it.

- They have to complete the Quest in one lunar cycle? That’s 28 days... On Earth. Maybe they should have specified which moon. Since Solaria has 2 suns there are probably millions of moons out there. Okay, that isn’t working out and I wish they had been more specific with it. This episode had some cool stuff about the Magic Dimension already and they could have done more. Anyway, one lunar cycle sounds like a short time but since it’s Winx, it is probably a long time.

- Oh, they just all got Harmonix without doing anything in order to earn it. Greaaaaat. And I have to say that the Harmonix design is so impractical. Why so many veils? They’re just gonna boggle them down. Of course, nothing ever gets wet on shows but seriously? If you’re fighting with someone, they can grab you by the veils or the veils can tangle around you and become the reason for your demise. This is stupid.

- Okay, so Tecna was being really insecure but they left her behind in the search of the Gem of Self-confidence? Like, you just threw away a golden opportunity. I am into the idea that they are going in the Magical Reality Chamber to still be at the place of the action so to speak and be able to help the rest better, though.

- Love the idea of the boat that can go to any water body. I would like one. Less so enthused about the contradiction in this very episode. Stella was complaining about wearing heels when she could have just changed with magic. The proof is right there since she changed hers, Bloom’s and Layla’s whole outfits just about 10 minutes later. This is ridiculous.

- Not @ the way the writers already threw Roy in despite the fact that it has been just five episodes since the beginning of the season. Also not @ the way he seems to be the stereotypical “girls need my protection” guy. Wish Layla would just keep not liking him. But they are probably trying to emulate what happened with Nabu at first. Ugh, I hate this so much I can’t even tell you.

- Oh, come on! They’ll be bonding with the selkies now? Let me guess, that was only written so that the selkies can get their powers back through the bonds, So Tritannus will enter the Infinite Ocean with the stolen selkie powers and Winx will enter it with help from their bonded selkies. This is so transparent, I can’t even. Also, totally needed their selkies to be matching the color of their Harmonix. I mean, how else are you gonna tell that they’re their bonded selkies? Not like they have personalities or are relevant in any way. Also, can another fairy bond with a selkie that has been “taken”? Like, there is a pixie for every fairy but the selkies are much less so... what the hell? This doesn’t make any sense.

- I hate what they did with the challenge for self-confidence. They could have done so much better. But first, Bloom’s test is all about Sky (which is dumb as fuck because it literally tells you their relationship is the biggest source of insecurity in her life) and Stella’s is about her not having confidence in her fashion taste? Really? Layla’s was most cutting as always but they didn’t even try to make it hard. It was so obvious that Nabu was an illusion because he was being cruel to her and the real Nabu would never. They should have gone for something else that would have really made her struggle with figuring out it is not real. Plus, by figuring out it is not real, she didn’t exactly confront her issue with confidence. And Bloom and Stella couldn’t even break out of it on their own and needed her help. How is that successfully passing the test?!?!?!?! And I was just starting to think that this could be getting better. It was I who should have known better.

5x07:

- Aww, I love how dedicated Stella is to knowing stuff about Solaria. She is going to be a precious queen. Also, her guardian of Sirenix is so beautiful.

- Ugh, the Trix are pulled apart again. I hate it. Darcy and Stormy do have a point. I just wish Icy would keep her head in the game. Also, do they sleep out in the open? In a swamp or whatever the hell that is?

- Wow, Sky that has no memory treats Bloom better than Sky that has memory of her. Interesting. Like, if he can calm her worries about Diaspro so easily when he doesn’t even remember how much he loves her, why didn’t he do that in the previous seasons? Honestly.

- Roy is annoying me just by cheering for Winx. This is not going well.

- Oh, damn, Flora got turned into stone. What did Tritannus do to that jellyfish? Turn it into Medusa (lmao, fun fact - jellyfish is called medusa [more like meduza but still] in Bulgarian)? Seriously. And why is Flora the one saving the selkies when she is the only one that isn’t bonded to any?

- Since the Trix also didn’t put any work into earning their powers, it is only fair that Winx get a free upgrade as well. I am just glad that at least the Harmonix spells look differently even though they function in the same generic way.

- Hey, Sky is actually starting to remember? Good. I was prepared to suffer through this amnesia arc up until 5x13 at least but now I have timid hope that it will not last that long. I guess the writers haven’t heard of muscle memory, however.

- How did the Gem of Confidence turn Flora back into herself when the jellyfish that turned her into stone had nothing to do with it? It was Tritannus’ doing and not even intentional. It shouldn’t have had petrifying powers in the first place. None of this makes any sense. Not to mention that the Gem somehow multiplied to six gems. I mean, really? Would’ve been much better if they could only choose to complete one box aka everyone else would lose their powers but then through their shared goal (aka Faragonda telling them that they have to be of one mind and heart) they could have all gotten the Sirenix. Just no other powers. That would have been way more interesting (obviously Layla would be the one whose box they’d complete and I don’t believe the Dragon Fire can be extinguished anyway so Bloom could even have a loophole out of that). And besides, they don’t use the old transformations anyway.

5x08:

- Stella is rocking that outfit. But why streaks? Stella, no!

- Tecna and Timmy are absolutely adorable with their mega nerdiness. I love it.

- Jeez, really? Sky is a better dancer with amnesia than Brandon is? I mean, this could have been plausible if they hadn’t established already in the previous episode that his muscle memory has fucked off into oblivion as well. Otherwise, yes. As royalty, he is probably better at dancing. Even though battle requires a lot of coordination as well. But nice of Kiko to try to help.

- Come on, Stella, you’re being insensitive. You would be “moping” too if Brandon had died. Please, don’t try to set Layla up with guys. Just give her some time to grieve!

- I don’t know what Stella expected. Of course, Layla is going to get offended by that. She doesn’t want company, she wants Nabu back.

- Oh, come on! Musa really got mad at Riven just because he liked the music another girl was playing? What, is he supposed to only listen to her music now? She isn’t even the vocalist of their band.

- They only have 10 days left to complete the missions? When did they manage to waste so much time? Like, they legit got the first thing done in one day. Where did the other go?

- Tressa has had so much growth since season 3. I love her. Really wish they’d let her be queen. But wtf, why can the king know what all of his subjects are doing? That is so invasive. Also, Layla should not be in the range of his powers. Man, the writers are really pulling some bullshit here.

- You’d think the selkies will learn that they can’t stop Tritanus and will try to not get in his way so that he wouldn’t get to steal their powers. But nope, they are both useless and stupid.

- Okay, Stella did mess up and she should have known why what she did was a bad idea but Layla giving her the silent treatment is not going to help either. I hope that the fact that Musa is dealing with the loss of her mother can help the two of them patch things up as well. Maybe there will be a lesson in this for both of them.

- Now it makes sense why Musa turned into an ocean type of monster. And this is a good opportunity for Stella and Layla to find their balance again and help save Musa.

- Stella’s attacks are still hurting Musa. And wouldn’t it make more sense for Layla to use her powers to stop her? She could make a net with morphix that will be both more reliable and less harmful for Musa. Seriously, why do they always make the dumbest choices possible?

- You know what would have been more interesting? If the healing of the bond could only work one way and the selkie didn’t get her powers back. They could have brought in Galatea to also bond with her in order to restore her powers later on so that they could enter the Infinite Ocean. That would have been more creative. But nah.

- Stella’s sudden understanding of Layla really came out of nowhere. And it felt like Layla only forgave her because she didn’t want to fight with her anymore, not because she was truly okay with what Stella did. This could have been done so much better.

- These Sirenix quests are so convenient. They all have to do with places the girls know and clues they have history with. It would have been much harder if they had to go to planets they don’t know how to navigate and a better way to do more worldbuilding.

- Bloom really can’t take 10 days away from the Sky mess? They can literally lose their powers forever which could mean handing Tritannus victory but she is more concerned with Sky’s memory that can possibly only get better in the next ten days while she focuses on the mission? Oh, come on!

- They are really trying to push hard the idea that Bloom and Sky are destined to be together. Also, now that they found the shell, can Sky’s memory block disappear? It would make sense. Please, just end this already.

5x09:

- Really? Bloom is sensing that something is wrong with Daphne but Marion isn’t? This could have been a cool moment to bring in the fact that their parents are back. Especially since Bloom isn’t going to do shit about it. I mean, how dense is she that she didn’t recognize the clouds of pollution hanging around Daphne in her dream? Could have at least tried to contact Daphne to make sure she was okay. Especially since she knows that Daphne talks to her through her dreams and that has been A Thing since season 1. I just... cannot.

- I... don’t even know what to say about Stella here. On the one hand I understand her frustration as she feels like no one supports her passion for fashion but on the other hand... Stella, no! Brandon was right that she needs to consider other people’s feelings sometimes, though, I’d say none of Winx exhibited particularly high levels of empathy here except maybe Flora.

- Oh, Tecna. On the one hand I want to say that there shouldn’t be a reason to feel nervous face to face with Timmy when they get along so well, but on the other, we have all experienced what she’s talking about. Texting can be so much easier sometimes even if it can also be dangerous because it lacks the context of body language.

- Seriously? We’re gonna make it through all the girls’ planets. I said it before and I’ll say it again, but this Sirenix Quest sure is damn convenient. At least it is kinda ironic that the Gem of Empathy is on Zenith since they seem to rely on technology more.... Man, that could have been an awesome opportunity to make Zenith more three dimensional by explaining that they develop so much technology so that they could make the lives of everyone easier when they have digital assist aka their focus on technology is driven by empathy. But again, that is just too deep for this show.

- Oh, come on! Stella really turned into a three-year-old? Why the hell would there be an age-changer spell in the pin? This doesn’t make sense. And again, a fucking wasted opportunity. Stella was running low on empathy here so including her in the search for the Gem of Empathy would have provided way more character development than this shit right here. I would have sent Stella, Tecna and Musa to get the Gem and Bloom, Flora and Layla to go look for Daphne. Or better yet, Stella and Tecna for the Gem, Musa and Layla after Tritannus and Bloom and Flora to check on Daphne.

- Is Layla ever going to use her Harmonix powers? Seriously, she has transformed how many times now and I can’t remember her using any of her new magic.

- Why is Layla now smiling at Roy even though she never transitioned from “annoyed” to “friendly teasing”? I hate this so much.

- It must be weird for Brandon to see his girlfriend as a three-year-old while he is still twenty. Like, that will make for a fun conversation once the spell wears off.

- It is so goddamn obvious that Tritannus has been there! Like, did the clouds of pollution not tip you off?????? Honestly, why don’t any of them have normal rationalizing abilities? It is a simple deduction! You don’t need the selkies to tell you! Besides, didn’t they already say that he crossed over to Zenith? This is like looking between a needle and a single straw of hay and having to point out which is the needle and they are failing!

- Shoot, I thought “where the one looks over the many” was supposed to be something of a mathematical riddle or something that would have to make Tecna focus on the whole rather than the details. The throne thing? Just... meh.

- I would have preferred it if their test of empathy involved something that was already inside them and came from themselves rather than them being placed under a spell by the Gem. It could have brought out their most unempathetic thoughts but I still think there was a better way to do this, and a more emotional one.

- Seriously?????? I mean, FOR REAL?!?!?!?!?! THAT is what they had to do to get the gem???????????????????????????????????????????????????? They didn’t even resolve their issues!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How did they prove they were worthy of having it. God, I hate this.

- How did the age-changer spell had any bearing on the plot or the characters? It literally didn’t do anything for Stella or Flora, Musa and Brandon for that matter. They had so many amazing opportunities in this episode and they were all wasted. I just... *frustrated sigh*

5x10:

- Is it just me or is the idea to put the Christmas filler episode right a couple of days before the deadline for the Sirenix Quest the worst idea ever? Well, not the worst because this show is just full of bad ideas but still somewhere up there with the big guys.

- I was gonna get incredibly angry if they’d made Christmas be a thing in the Magic Dimension but they got at least that right. And that way it’s cute that Bloom gets to introduce her friends to a new holiday. They all got so excited about the presents! Adorable! The only thing that would have made this better was if she’d invited Marion and Oritel to Mike and Vanessa’s as well to celebrate together.

- I was ready to hate this episode but it has actually caught my attention. Love how the Trix decided the magic of Christmas is literal magic and they want to steal it from Bloom. This is actually exactly what a funny filler episode should be like.

- Aww, a surprise Musa and Riven moment. That was adorable.

- Am I the only one who is getting Yu Gi Oh vibes from this monster? Okay, four monsters (Why four? That is so random. Three would have made more sense.). They just remind me too much of Blue Eyes White Dragon.

- You know what would be really cool? If Stella made a cage with mirrors at key places to reflect the light beam she shoots at the creatures so that it would keep running through the cage to stop them from reforming.

- Oh, wow. Faragonda showed up. I never thought that would happen. Not that she’s been much use. Like, you fought the Ancestral Witches! Surely, there has to be something you can do! Not to mention that how the hell did the Trix get magic of the darkest order? That’s just bullshit.

- You know what? I would be more worried about the fact that they may not be able to break the spell before they run out of water and food and other essentials. Like, the Christmas thing is upsetting but not a priority right now,

- Okay, the Trix are inside the ice dome but the ice dragons aren’t? That seems like a hole in their plan.

- The others got the spirit but they a little confused. Bloom doesn’t just miss Christmas but spending it with her family and they can’t give her that. Though, none of them didn’t even try to teleport. Depending on the way you do it, maybe they could have gotten out.

- This episode is kinda all over the place but at least it has that cool vibe from season 1 when they got to actually just chill around the school and do some fun stuff. Actually put time in just being friends. Oh, and the friendship charm bracelets are really cute! I love them.

- You know they don’t have what to put in an episode when they give the full transformations twice. Nice job, there.

- Making a hole in the dome does not sound like the best course of action because Winx could have just gotten out of there and forced the Trix to chase them. But no one thought of that.

- I feel second hand embarrassment on Icy’s behalf. If she ever gets to learn that she misunderstood about the magic of Christmas, that is. The way things are going, Bloom is gonna blast them out of the dimension without ever revealing that this was all for nothing.

- Well, Bloom could have just used her Dragon Fire to destroy the ice dragons the moment they appeared and none of that would have happened but why the hell would she do that? I have to say that I would have preferred it if Winx and the Specialists had gone to Gardenia instead of having Gardenia go to Alfea. Like, I get it that they wanted to make Christmas touch the Magic Dimension as well but Alfea has never celebrated a Zenithian-specific holiday for example or a Solarian one. It just makes the whole Winx universe a little too focused on Bloom again.

5x11:

- Omg, I am feeling so bad for Daphne. Hasn’t she suffered enough? Though, I have to say that I am at least glad Icy came up with a decent plan for counteraction this time even if it is cruel. At least it makes sense!

- Why the hell is the wind-rider competition held in Alfea? It should have been in Red Fountain but I guess the animators couldn’t be bothered to pull out their old animation of it and remember how to draw it.

- Bloom giving Sky a pep talk was kinda cute. I get why he would be nervous and it was cool that she did her best to help him. And that moment with throwing some harmless magic his way to show him his own reflexes was actually smart and hella cute as well. I just wish they wouldn’t have gone for the “he is the best Specialist ever to live” thing again but I’ll take it as his friends telling a white lie to soothe his anxiety.

- So the Trix are just being bullies for no reason at all. Also, they already used that invisibility spell when they messed with Tecna’s phone. Or at least it looked the same.

- Poor Kiko. Getting accused for something he didn’t do and then also being attacked by clones. But was it that only he could see them? Because otherwise, it should have tipped Bloom off that something’s wrong.

- They don’t need to remind us every time that there is no time to waste for the Sirenix Quest. We get it. And even if I had the episodes spaced out by weeks, I doubt I would forget that they have a time limit considering that this is not plot heavy and they have mentioned it, like, a million times already.

- Oh, they’re going to Linphea next. Look, even Tecna noticed that all the parts of the Quest have been on their home planets.

- Wow, Flora, you think the flower might be on your planet? Damn, girl, you’re such a genius. No one would have ever guessed. They have an ocean of flowers and she is still not sure? W.O.W.

- Love how it took Faragonda and Saladin a solid minute to interfere. Not like they were in a war or anything and should be 100% prepped to deal with crises. Why would you think that? And Griselda (and the other Alfea teachers) didn’t even get to do anything. Not to mention that Mirta has been studying at Alfea for a forth year now and she didn’t even try to fire at the beasts... You know, what could be considered an instinctive reaction.

- “Only one more keeper...”? Yeah, because there are only six-seven planets in the whole universe! (Didn’t he already get the powers of the selkie of Earth as well as from everyone’s home planets except for Bloom’s? Who’s gonna restore the Earth selkie’s powers... Wait, is it going to be Roxy? And does that mean we’re finally going to Domino this season?)

- I was gonna ask whatever Roy was gonna do without Layla being there but he isn’t there either. So why was he there the other times if not to drive the boat? They gave him one job to justify his presence and then they took that away as well.

- Funny how it is always the selkies of the girls that have gone on the Quest that appear and not any of the others. One of them (I am not even gonna bother to learn their names) said she could sense the presence of her fairy but still. Though, with their powers restored, I guess they could do that.

- Do I remember wrong or are Flora and her selkie the only ones that actually hugged? Cause that was kinda cute.

- Okay, Sky’s plan was good but did Bloom really need him to pull her out of the way? I am pretty sure she could have done that on her own since it was obvious what the plan was.

- If I were Stella, I’d be worried that a plant might eat me too. Having courage doesn’t mean that you can’t be afraid. It means that you find it in yourself to go on despite the fear. So I’d say Stella is courageous enough.

- Okay, but this plant looks like it was touched by Tritannus’ pollution and so did all the rest of the places from the Quest (except for Melody). So that means that what is happening wouldn’t have happened if not for him aka they aren’t actually completing the Quest because they are fighting Tritannus’ influence on the environment, not performing the tasks from the Quest.

- Good! Tecna and Layla are actually being strategical about this even though all Bloom wants is to hang out with the boyfriend. I wouldn’t mind if she didn’t just get targeted. But why the hell would she care about her safety - or Sky’s for that matter - when they can go on a romantic walk instead?

- Really? They need a translator? Flora has communicated with plants numerous times before. She should be able to understand what the Flower of the Depths is saying to them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dear god, the writers are really trying to be as stupid as possible.

- Why didn’t Bloom try to transform before jumping against the Trix? Or at least shoot some magic at them? Once again, how are they still alive?

- Darcy’s powers are awesome and she’s using them well. I love how she pushed Musa in her own trap. But damn, it was harsh of Musa to try to cause the rocks to crush Darcy. I thought the Trix were supposed to be the cruel ones.

- Wow, I thought Icy would have at least a couple broken bones after Layla smashed her in the rock like that but nope. She’s fine.

- Okay, I actually think that Sky and Bloom are cute in this episode, what the hell? I like the fact that they decided to stop trying to get the past back to him. That may even actually help him remember when he’s not stressing and straining to do it. I thought that Bloom meant one of the memories she wants to keep was that of the shell they found, though. Wasn’t that soulmate special or something?

5x12:

- Icy is really not paying attention, huh? I mean, Tritannus saying that he would give her one more chance somehow didn’t sound too reassuring to me. He gave the Trix their powers so he could probably take them away any time he wants and then destroy them. Which sounded exactly like what he was planning to do before Icy convinced him to give her one more chance.

- Well, they noticed the pattern of the Quest running through all their home planets. They could have tried looking for the yellow reef on Domino before asking the guardian of the Sirenix box. Just to do something on their own, you know.

- Who let Bloom go in that dress? Didn’t Tecna say Stella was there as well? How could she let Bloom even put that thing on, let alone wear it to the Domino renewal celebration. Also, why the hell is that happening only now? It has been a season and a half since Domino was restored. I thought this would be the discussion of Tritannus.

- Love how they didn’t even redo the footage from SotLK and just slapped the different art style right in the middle of the one from season 5. Lazy as lazy gets.

- Um, wasn’t the plan to capture Bloom? And if they changed it to getting Marion and Oritel, why didn’t they try to do that when Bloom wasn’t there? They couldn’t get her but they will somehow get her parents who literally defeated the Ancestral Witches while Bloom and two or three of her friends plus Sky are also there? How does that make sense?

- Oh, come on! The dresses looked much better without the flowers. Also, you’re telling me that Stella made them fit the same theme as Bloom’s but she didn’t have anything to do with Bloom’s dress? This is just... ridiculous. Also, how do flowers relate to Domino? Sparks or even gems would have made better sense. A fire pattern even.

- Marion and Oritel are giving very different vibes from the ones in Magical Adventure and even SotLK (even though they had like five lines each in that one).

- Did Bloom suddenly forget that Sky does not remember how he saved the Sword? And she left him alone even though he doesn’t have his memories? Also, why do none of their parents know about that? And up until this point, there were always three of them going on the Quest. But now that Bloom is actually needed somewhere else she is going even though she could have left it to Stella, Layla and Flora? Come on!

- Didn’t the pendant sink in the ocean on Earth? Where are the selkies now? And how come Flora’s selkie decided that she will know who the pendant belongs to? You know, out of the infinite number of people in the whole universe. The fact that she just so happens to actually know is yet another too convenient convenience but still.

- The mimicry fish are adorable and I love them.

- Wait, can any selkie open any portal? I thought they could only open the portals that they were guarding. But then Winx shouldn’t have been able to pass from Domino back to wherever Tritannus attacked - Andros maybe?

- Love how Marion instantly jumped away when the Trix attacked despite how much her outfit must weigh. And you’re telling me that Oritel is the fighter between the two of them? Yeah, right. Just please, let her use her magic to stop the Trix. We know she has it! Don’t make her look helpless because she is far from it.

- Well, of course, even the oceans of Domino are the best and have the rarest fish even though it is the planet of the Dragon Fire and Andros is the center of all oceans. Makes perfect sense.

- Okay, Marion and Oritel are definitely giving waaaay different vibes from the ones in the movies but I have to say that I kinda like how fierce they are. Not @ Oritel’s “Still have it in you?” because duh, she obviously does and even more so than you do, Oritel, but other than that I love how smoothly they just switch from celebration to a fight that is potentially for their lives. Also, I like that Sky gets to fight with them... Or at least he was supposed to.

- Yes, the one time Bloom is there, the others are completely useless. Also, that thing is not a coral. Wasn’t the Gem supposed to be in the jaws of the coral, not whatever the hell this fish is. And how is it in its mouth? How does it not ingest it when it eats? This doesn’t make sense.

- Love whatever Marion did there with shooting magic out of her sword. However, I don’t like the fact that the writers have forgotten she has magic and is not defenseless without a sword. And how did that trick even work? She could have just turned around and seen that it wasn’t the real Oritel. Not to mention that if Oritel knows the Trix are descendants of the Ancestral Witches, Marion does too aka she should have known that one of them has illusion powers. Given the fact that they fought a whole war against Lysslis, I am pretty sure she has faced similar tricks before and should have known better.

- Please, tell me the creature was supposed to vanish and it wasn’t Bloom that vaporized it from inside. Also, I so totally knew the last gem would be green. It made perfect sense.

- At least they remembered that Oritel’s sword is supposed to be special because it has Dragon Fire in it.

- Bloom and Sky saving her parents “together” makes no sense because Sky doesn’t have magic. So it wasn’t him that helped her save them but the sword.

- Their declarations of love were kinda undermined by him remembering and in such stupid way. Like, all the progress he made in restoring their relationship and even remembering a little wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t gotten the pendant back. Aka his blockage wasn’t actually going away. It was still there which means that his emotions were not getting worked out.

- I know Marion and Oritel will not go help save Daphne even though that would be the only logical thing and I am so fucking mad about it, you don’t even know.

5x13:

- Oh, god! They changed even the intro and the 3D animation is as ugly as I remember it to be. Love how they also spoil the fact that the girls will get Sirenix in this episode. Not that the title of the episode doesn’t.

- I have beef with this recap. That fish that had the Gem of Courage was so totally not a shark. It just wasn’t. I’m no shark expert but that was definitely not a shark. It looks like some fish you can find in the depths (I don’t remember their name) but it sure as hell ain’t a fucking shark.

- What training? They need to go get Daphne! Also, they handled Believix just fine. If Alfea had given them proper education, they should be able to control any transformation. Like, those should operate according to some goddamn logic.

- If Daphne hadn’t already told him, then why did she do it now? Man, he should have just made her talk before he told the Trix to leave Domino. Now that they were no longer there, Daphne didn’t have any reason to talk. She must have known that Bloom would find their parents so Tritannus lost his leverage. This is so nonsensical.

- What the hell does it mean that they have to look inside themselves? How is that gonna lead them to lake Roccaluche? The only one connected to it is Bloom because Daphne is her sister. This is ridiculous.

- How big is that lake and why does it look exactly the same way that the sea does? There is a difference between sweet water bodies and salt water bodies and the life inside them, you know, writers.

- Why would there be a protection system to guard the source of a whole ass goddamn transformation? It makes much more sense that anyone could just walk in and destroy it in 0.3 seconds.

- They just had to say that they will keep exhibiting the three virtues the Gems represented in order to get the location of the source of Sirenix? Man, really? Ugh, that is just so... ridiculously frustrating.

- For people who can lose their magic the same day, they sure don’t seem to be worried. Lounging and all.

- They know Tritannus was there. Obviously that is the explanation as to why the selkies did not find them.

- Yes, they totally look like they’ve “got this”.

- I actually liked the fact that Bloom had to give up finding out where Daphne is in order to save the lake. Seeing all the panicked animals rush around really drives home what is going on because they will all die if the lake dries completely.

- Oh, I am totally going to cry over Daphne’s anguish here. This looks so brutal. But here’s a thought for you. The whole power of Sirenix was put under a curse, right? Then why didn’t the Trix get affected by it? And if the Sirenix power is removed from Daphne, shouldn’t the curse disappear as well?

- Love how they forgot about the part where Sirenix was cursed even before Tritannus messed with the source.

- I hate the Sirenix transformation. It is the ugliest one to me and why did they have to go and give them streaks? The 3D look was bad enough already. Only the Trix’ Sirenix design is worse than this. (No, actually whatever the hell is happening to the Trix in the end of season 7 is the worst design idea they have ever had but I haven’t watched that.)

- So they didn’t need the selkies to enter the Infinite Ocean? Then how come that is what Tritannus needed? What the hell is wrong with the logistics of this whole thing?

- Where did all these minions come from? Did whatever he did to the... stone? thingy poison the nearby water and turn all creatures into his minions? Didn’t that work only on merfolk? If so, the Infinite Ocean seems overpopulated.

- They totally could have had Marion and Oritel in this but once Tritannus took Daphne into the Infinite Ocean, they would have needed to let Winx handle the rescue mission because the two of them wouldn’t be able to enter the Infinite Ocean. And boom, problem solved. They don’t have to drag Oritel and Marion through every episode while they still could have shown that they cared. Idk what was so complicated about that.

Part 2 can be found here.