#like i dont mean to be a downer seriously but like a lot of the time its just drugs and crimes joke number 32

[la-vie-en-romano]

oh my how are you all still alive

[andy-wm]

My thoughts on SEVEN, both the song and the MV, and what it says about Jungkook.

About the song:

My biggest take away from the song is that Jungkook has total confidence in his ability to keep his partner satisfied and entertained. Daily. He also has a good reason to do heaps of laundry.

Also, he gets to say Fu@k a lot (always fun) and his pronunciation has really improved since he collabed with that disrespectful a$$hole who's name i won't bother to mention.

Seriously though, i hope his adulthood will finally sink in for the people who still try to keep him in babyville.

From a musical point of view, he does get to use those magnificent pipes he has, and use them well. The song flexes his vocal range and has lots of dynamic movement. And he gets to rap. I can see why he would have wanted to sing it.

About the MV:

I have a few observations about the mv and the relationship represented. I know it's meant to be lighthearted but that doesn't mean it shows us a healthy relationship so i'm gonna say my piece. Sorry if it's a downer, feel free to skip.

The power dynamic between JK's character and Sohee's character is what i find interesting.

She's totally in control of their narrative the whole way through.

At the start, she's angry and berating him and he's just listening, his head down. Very submissive. Most of the time his hands are in his lap or on the table while she's gesturing to herself and even throwing her hands up. The only time his energy is up. Is when he pulls her away from the falling debris.

She's getting up to leave halfway through his response, too. She doesnt really give him a chance to respond.

Even though he tries and tries to talk to her, she's dismissive, rolling her eyes, ignoring him, constantly walking away before he can finish what he's trying to tell her. At one point she pushes him so hard he falls backwards. He's repeatedly risking his personal well-being to get her to hear his side, but even then, he's still completely submissive. He brings her flowers, he walks three steps behind her, he tries to make her laugh to break the tension so she will listen.

Theres only one point at which he is assertive and that's at 2.55 when he gets around in front of her.

When he does eventually get her to stop and hear him out, he takes the role of a supplicant. She is very much in control of the outcome. She eventually offers her hand, and then basically hauls him along behind her. He is trotting along behind her like a scolded child.

I found it a little hard to watch because JK isn't an actor. Not because his acting is bad but becuase it's really him.

I could be way off, i admit that, but i honestly feel that his character is responding exactly as he himself would respond. He's soft and sweet and gentle, but dammit he believes in them! He's trying his best to placate her even though she is giving him NOTHING back.

I hate that it reminds me of that damn hamburger incident (he's is a sponge cake. Pls dont hurt him, world.)

Anywayyyyy....

My take away is 2 things.

First one is, throughout the MV his character is "fighting *for* the relationship", which is different from fighting within the relationship. He wants this problem they have to be solved, and he's prepared to do the work. Go, you Jungkook’s alter ego.

Second one is, despite a lot of people seeing this as a,stalker situation, the power balance is very heavily weighted towards her. Also, she treats him pretty disrespectfully. If these gender roles were reversed, the comments would be very interesting...

Other than that i loved the aesthetic, the humour, and the energy.

But what does this overtly hereronormative MV tell us about Jungkook's sexual orientation?

I'll say it does not tell us anything about who he likes to do the horizontal boogie with.

He liked the song, and wanted to record it. I have no idea if he had any hand in the MV storyline. If he did, awesome. It's fun.

But let's be real about the likelihood of him coming out to the world through a MV. I'd say it's ZERO. Reality dictates that whatever his own orientation, the MV needed to represent the Jungkook (most of) the world WANTS to see. Dont forget, this song is more of a business decision than a creative decision for Hybe. We know SB had a big part in the processs, and that man is all about the dollar bills.

It's certainly not a personal statement from JK. Its a fun, summer song and he gets to say F◇CK a lot and flex his vocal chops. That's it.

Do i personally think JK is gay? Hell yeah. With bells on.

Do i think he would risk it all?? ('it' being a huge entertainment empire, his own and his friends' careers, social damnation, personal freedom, and the loss of his contact with ARMY)

No, absolutely not. Not for a song that he didn't even write. Not in his solo debut. Not in today's America (sorry American readers, the USA isn't a safe place to be queer right now).

An unrelated question:

Do i think he will show us something more substantial with his album?

I think he will. I truly hope so. I dont think he's going to sing about his orientation but i do think the songs will be meaningful and personal and I'll be quite suprised if there isn't a fair bit of queer subtext.

If he includes a hidden track and Jimin features on it, I will throw a party and sprinkle glitter EVERYWHERE.

Just for fun, here's some JK looking gorgeously gay...

Living his best life in the Butter MV

His gestures... so pretty

No words for this one (cr to photographer)

I mean he's not wrong...

[dreamywolfdd]

i apologize for my sudden inactivity again, i hope you've all been doing alright

i had this bottled for 3 years but ive not been feeling too well, i'd like to take a time to write this post since i no longer want this bottled and im exhausted

been going through some economical situation with my family for a while now and recently my grandpa has sadly passed away, i made my grandpa one last drawing before he got cremated, im gonna miss him so much, i will cheerish so many fond memories i had with him and giving him this one last top cat drawing was what came to my mind since i used to give him lods of drawings, i will miss him a lot

i had to spend all of my left savings for transportation and such so we could assist to my grandpa's funeral so i currently do not have any money with me anymore, in these 3 yrs i been pmuch helping my parents with lending them money for food, supplies and payment stuff w dad, but unfortunately it hasnt been doing much help, job hunting hasnt been going well for me either and commissions have been slow, as what i posted earlier, i have decided to open a ko-fi account for donations, it would seriously mean alot to me recieving any help in any way, ive been feeling hopeless but i never considered trying to look for this kind of help

i dont usually do these kind of posts and i am very sorry for writing this down or if this looks like begging or some sort of that, i dont mean to be a downer to anyone but i seriously would just love any type of help in any way right now

my commissions are (still) open as well too, but i also appreciate both commissions and donations since it helps me supports my work and doing art commissions is currently my job

i hope ya'll are been having a good one and such, please hug a loved one if you can too and tell them how much you love them, i will return to posting artwork shortly, but for now i just would love any type of help in some way since i am currently not ok at the moment, tysm for your understanding and support

[mickgaydolenz]

one of my sources for studying degrees in-tangent gives like these little descriptors for each degree to give a visualization as to what that degree can entail. its kind of neat tbh.

but for 3° Cancer, which is what Micky's 4th house Saturn in Cancer is in - and i've already talked a lot about it so we're aware of what it already entails - it gives this description that made me sink to the floor:

"A woman seated in an altitude of grief, her clothes disordered and her hair unkempt, holding some faded flowers in her hands; among the flowers are lilies and roses"

amongst all of that, which i dont think we need to dredge over 'cause it's honestly a bit of a downer to discuss; not ideal to feeling grief on behalf of another person for today. however, because im so cool and epic with a lot of sexy knowledge, i want to discuss the lilies and roses since i am a super sucker for symbolism in all things. it's not necessary but it's what the neurodivergency is commanding me to do and i have no say.

note: both roses and lilies have sooo many different colors and varieties to them that its hard to pin down an all-encompassing symbolic generalization for them. but my sources have tried their best at it and i think it works well.

remember that Saturn slows progress, and always brings difficulties to wherever its placed and in aspect to, so it's overall going to dampen the symbolism of these plants; hence the 'faded flowers', because that's the nature of Saturn's influence.

lilies are known to be recognized as a flower of purity and innocence -- it's a flower of sympathy. it also happens to be associated with the Moon! and i think that's incredibly coincidental considering his Moon opposes his Saturn. so, a whittling away at that purity & innocence due part to his home life, either growing up in or in trying to establish his own, is a possibility. especially since he's been working in the entertainment industry since he was a child. i don't think he ever got to experience that kind of child-like innocence and purity much in life due to that and just became part of him as he got older, quite literally tending to his inner child a lot of the time. lilies also symbolize dignity and honor, in which those things can only be accomplished through hard work, and at times through his life it seemed those things did not come into play throughout his career. his Moon is in Capricorn 10th house; he's always taken his career choices very seriously and emotionally invests himself into it to which, again, can cause problems in the home (as we've discussed before), and could struggle trying to uphold those things at home.

roses are much more recognized for their symbols of love and romance, which is the usual accepted generalization, and i do agree with that too. but roses are also known for its secrecy. the 4th house is already pretty private as it is; double that with his Saturn conjuncting Juno....someone HELP HIM dios mios. roses are associated with Venus, but Juno is pretty much a fine-tuned off-shoot soooo *nervously pulling at collar*. tbqfh "faded" is an understatement for roses here.

and you can combine the two flowers + their meaning and you get a whole fuckin' mess. someone throughout life who lacked discipline in personal relationships because of his rose-tinted glasses. he fucked around AND found out. 🧠💥🤯 (other placements and aspects can back this up too, this ain't just one speculation)

now to tie this all together: 3° Cancer.

other than the one nice thing, "an ear for music", there's also: "dependence on home, possible mother fixation", "strong feelings that over-rule reason and experience", "expects support from home without effort", and "easily influenced by the opposite sex which can cause either injury or disgrace". so, y'know. use context clues for that one.

……..i……..i………i need to throw myself off a bridge…….

[mr-double-downer]

I kinda like Alex Jones ironically (i dont take him seriously but damn if he isnt entertaining) but this whole thing reeks of 2 things: 1. you aren't allowed to challenge the narratives that guns are bad and some mass shootings are planned out. Jones was way off the mark on this one but look at the vegas one and tell me that isn't suspicious as fuck, and if you look at chat logs you can probably find CIA/FBI/NSA fingers in every pie, because disarming the civilians is a goal of the .0000001% ruling class (sandy hook absolutely happened but HOW and WHY it happened are things I'd rather investigate than denying it outright).

And 2. Jones was a threat to the established norm. Whether or not he was taken seriously, he deviated from the standard narrative on anything and everything. Was he wrong about 99% of shit? Sure. But that 1% of the time he was right was unacceptable. He has to be punished for this.

Like Al Capone and getting fucked for taxes, this was the only way they could get to Jones and they absolutely sent a message of retribution for opposing the ruling party here.

I mean I think it’s pretty complicated but what he’s in hot water for is kinda a big deal in terms of what you shouldn’t do in the wake of a major tragedy so again it’s hard for me to feel sympathetic

Like you know what they say a broken clock is right twice a day. Most people had already written off Jones as a crazy man so calling him a threat to the established norm is kinda stretch. Even after mainstream attention he was and still is on the fringe culture wise, reduced to jokes and memes by all but the most dedicated info warriors.

Do I think he should saddled with a debt he can’t possibly pay? Not really, but only cause it sets a precedent for future cases to end like this. Debtors’ prisons isn’t a new concept and if they’re serious about prosecuting him for being unable to pay that’s exactly where he’s gonna go, and if it can happen to him it can happen to anyone.

But also, fuck that guy. He is nothing short of a grifter who makes money off selling questionable dietary supplements and just seems like a rancid person who even admitted that a lot of the nonsense things he says are just that. Like I don’t know him, never watched any episode of infowars and don’t really share a lot of views and opinions similar to his. I have no personal stake in his fate, I just don’t like the idea that it can happen to anyone.

And the easy answer is “Well Downer, don’t call a school shooting a false flag and all the grieving parents crisis actors so weirdos will go harass them for the ‘truth’” but again, does the punishment really fit the crime (I know it’s a civil suit not a legal one)?

I don’t know, it’s just something to think about.

[chat-noir-always-here]

I rewatch Miraculous—The Bubbler

Okay here we go time to dive back into French Sailor Moon aww hell yeee

(J.K. I’ve never sat through a single episode of SM in ma life)

•Tikki’s face when Mari is trying to kiss the Adrien collage wallpaper is low-key funny

•plagg lacks toe beans

•how do you “accidentally” come across your childs emails when cleaning their room? Mari’s mama is devious.

•Adrien is that a cookie keeping your breakfast crescents company? Just like Adrien to have cookies for breakfast.

•Adrien’s pained expression after Nathalie tells him happy birthday😭😭😭poor cinammon roll child

•nino: “You’d think he at least remembers to be young and wanna party a little!”

Adrien: “No Im pretty sure he was a downer back then too.”

LOL roast him, Adrien. Here Gabriel have some ice for that burn.

•Why does Nino’s shirt remind me of Goofy’s Monsters inc. appearance from Kingdom Hearts 3?

• “Am i seeing what I think I’m seeing? Dont tell me its Adriens birthday!” Girl you been his friend since childhood you cant remember it on your own?

• “Dont be a pushover! Literally!” Yeah that goes for Sabrina and Adrien too. You two let Chloe do whatever she wants with you? Yeesh.

• “Ring the doorbell.” Yeah for real ring the doorbell thats what its there for. 🙄🙄🙄

•Mari been forgetting to sign notes since episode one

Facepalms

•Bitch please you cant buy your own son a birthday present instead of bullying Nathalie into stealing Mari’s???

•that fucking painting hanging on the wall right where the staircase in Agreste Mansion forks. Can we just... Can we just burn that painting? Reduce it to fucking ashes. Seriously how can people look at it and not call the French CPS that piece of “art” is the most distubring piece of possessive B.S. i have ever had the displeasure of seeing. My brain hates my eyes for seeing it every time its visible in the show

•Im sorry Nino. Im sorry this dumbass bitch said that to you. (For real tho were you expecting anything different?)

•”Adults ruin everything all the time.” Kiddo your about four-five years from being an adult maybe check yourself

•for real check yourself cuz Gabriel is an ass and said that to you just so he could akumatize you

WORST.

PARENT.

EVER!!!

•i havent played with bubble wands since i was like ten. Are tbey more popular in Paris or is it just Nino’s thing?

•Nino’s akumatized form is so ridiculous, still. First time around it nearly drove me away from this show.

•something else i found ridiculous first time around is bubbling the adults. Its a bit more frightening though when you think about how they only have so much air in their bubble. If LB and CN failed to free them they would have all suffocated to death and Paris would be populated solely by orphans.

•LB you seriously just gonna entrust a couple of kiddos to a stranger? I know you dont really have a lot of options but still. If this were a crime drama or a D.C. movie those kids might not have faired as well.

•”Wow. That was a birthday lunch break to remember. Yaaay.” Kiddo you sound so sarcastic i love it. 🤣🤣🤣

•that little pompom or whatever the hell on top of akumatized Nino’s head jiggles a little every time his head moves and im just. Ugh. Cmon couldnt they have given him a better outfit or at least something less uncomfortable????

•Plagg is literally that little devil Kronk from “The Emperors New Groove” that sits on Kronk’s shoulder and tells him to do bad things. Or in this case, sits on Adrien’s shoulder and tells him to do bad things. “Its fiiiiine shirk your responsibilities for a hot minute and dance with your buddies. Its not like theyre here under suspicious circumstances or anything.”

•Adrien, honey, if you dont want her to kiss you you should say something. I mean i get cheek kisses mean something different in France but Adrien looks really uncomfortable.

•MAAAARRRIIII you just wasted a good deal of transformation time in a fit of jealousy for what i wish i could say was the first and last time 😩😩😩

•Tikki being a good guide and scolding Mari 🙏🙏🙏

•ugh are those storebought cookies? I can practically taste those things. I hope for Tikki’s sake they’re homemade or at least warmed up.

•”You were right Tikki i never should have waited this long.” In other words you shouldve fixed the problem the first time around not wasted your transformation in a fit of jealousy like you did? Correct.

•upon hearing the truth from LB, Adrien immediatley runs off to transform. Good boi didnt know how serious the situation was, is all.

•that look LB gives CN after her yoyo bounces off his head. Giirrrrrl he boyfriend material you knoooowww itttt admit itttt~~~~

• “Kids need adults!” The way Mari says this makes her sound like such a goody two shoes, i really cant stand it for some reason. Oof am i channeling Lila?

wipes my hand on a towel then throws towel away

• LB: “Adults keep children safe and protected! They care for their kids, they love them!”

CN: “Most adults do anyhow.”

Behold the difference between their respective households summed up in two seconds. Poor Kitty boi....😿😿😿😿

•Aww the way LB is hugging her kitty as he tries to kick at it ❤️❤️❤️

• “couldnt you have said that 500 feet ago?” Sarcastic chat noir is wonderful

• LB: “we cant stay stuck in this bubble together forever!”

CN: flirty looks

In other words theres something they could do together in their bubble.

asdfghjkl🤣🤣🤣

•the kids’ bubbles look smaller than the adults bubbles. So they are more cramped and have less air. Unfair much?

• “pound it!” Theres a joke in there but i wont. F.Y.I. In French they say something like “good job” so the joke is lost in that version teehee

•”did my son like his gift?” Again bitch PICK IT OUT YOURSELF

• “hey nice scarf Adrien! Off the chain!” Alya honey where DO you get your phrasing from? The late nineties?

• “can you believe my dad got this for me? Its so awesome he’s given me the same lame pen for three years in a row.” What the hell kinda parent gives their child a flipping pen for his birthday??? F.Y.I. In French Adrien says that his father forgets his birthday every year and gives him nothing.

Annnnnnd that wraps up episode one. Ill do episode two some other time.

[avvidstarion]

5, 10, 15, 18, 22, 50, 51, 94, and 96 for fisher!!!!

mina i LOVE you

5. What’s their reputation like? Does this reputation contrast what they’re really like?

Fisher probably has the reputation of being, like, a dumb but lovable goofy fuckup? Like being completely incompetent and lazy but still funny and charming enough that you keep them around. Like sans undertale or todd from bojack. a lotta people probably think they won’t amount to much. it’s not super accurate- they’re accident prone and a slacker but they’re not stupid and they work really hard if they need to (again, it took effort to cheat like that. sure they coulda avoided that effort if they had studied but that’s boring). i think part of the reason fisher wants to do well at aeon despite not doing well in hs is cause they’re sick of people thinking of them in that way and not taking them seriously

10. What’s a simple thing that brings them joy?

they really like fast food and snacks. they are easily bought and will love you forever if you make them food. nick and sally and fisher bake together a lot, even though i feel like the latter two are really incompetent when it comes to cooking

15. How good are they at conversation? Are they a small talk master, bad at initiating, etc?

fisher’s easygoing and good at small talk and socializing in theory but i think they’re really out of practice. they’re good at making causal acquaintances but they’re really bad at maintaining friendships cause the only friend they have that isn’t their brother (or their brother’s friend) is sally, and they’ve known each other for so long that neither really remembers how to make new friends. plus no one their age really wanted to be friends with either of them growing up, so they never had the opportunity. I think that they’d hit it off with someone who’s really extraverted and fast moving w friendship, which is why they get along so well with glitch! she basically just pointed at them and claimed them as her newest best friend (and perhaps they will be more but i have yet to decide between glitch, k, and sally whoopsie). 

18. If you had to represent them with a flower, colour, and animal, what would you choose?

flower- the balloon flower! resilient, easy to care for, but still a little gloomy looking (depending on the color)

color- dark blue! blue is their favorite color! dark blue is a little gloomy but is also a very sturdy and solid looking color (if that makes sense)

animal- oh absolutely a big fat cat, they definitely make the :3c face once a day, they’re full of mischief, and they love to take naps

22. What’s their silliest or most unusual fear/phobia?

they strike me as someone who cried when they went to disney as a kid cause they’re scared of the mascots. it’s something about mickey’s big, dead, unseeing eyes

50. Why would they be a good partner for a road trip?

will listen to any music, funny, good at telling stories, easygoing so you wouldn’t get into a fight

51. Why would they be a BAD partner for a road trip?

oh they absolutely do not have their driver’s license. 1) they never got around to it and nick and sally drive them everywhere anyway 2) they have adhd so they just dont trust themself to concentrate well enough to not kill someone 3) they’re extremely directionally challenged (can’t tell left from right gang rise UP) and 4) I think they’re really afraid of having another mind control episode behind the wheel or being otherwise hindered by their mind blindness

94. What does their room look like?

oh god it’s disgusting. used dishes, clothes on the floor, stuff everywhere, etc. they know where everything they need is, but it is GROSS. nick just doesn’t go in there anymore cause it gives him a headache. I imagine it’s nicely decorated though, with posters of stuff they like and  pictures of fisher and sally and nick and gray (and eventually glitch and kent)  on the walls. I think they have a lot of stuffed animals too, and oh god. oh god they absolutely collect funko pops. it started out as ironic but sally always gets them some for holidays (only having like one or two friends means she absolutely goes all out, I imagine) and now it’s just a problem. they won’t admit that they like them but they do. 

96. What’s their sense of humour like? (Dad jokes, morbid humour, basic knock-knock jokes, stand up comedy, etc)

it’s basically all self-deprecation. fisher’s highest stat is humor but morbid isn’t too far behind, so I think that manifest in them using their humor to berate themself and as a means of venting without actually asking for help. it helps that most people think they’re a loser, cause they constantly make themself the butt of the joke. mostly it’s harmless stuff (”lol i’m such an idiot, here’s a funny story about my latest screw-up”) but sometimes they take it too far. they probably got sent to the guidance counselor back in school cause new teachers would get worried, but I think the curse of always being seen as the goofy fuckup with habitual self depreciation is that people who get to know them tend to get used to their self hatred and just write it off as fisher being fisher (sally and nick and grayson aren’t exempt from this. they’re all lovely and they all love fisher but they’re not perfect and I think if anyone’s gonna step in and actually make them get help it’s gonna be someone with new eyes, like glitch or kent). 

ok wow downer ending sorry!! they also really like puns and bad dad jokes and physical comedy. anytime fisher or nick hears or comes up with a fucking terrible dad joke they immediately run to the other and tell it. I think if sally and fisher are ever bored in public the two of them just start acting weird and see how long it takes to get stared at. they compete to see who can one up the other before they have to stop out of embarrassment or before they’re asked to stop (they are SO annoying and insufferable). Fisher’s also a really good story teller and can make the most mundane event funny or entertaining in some way (they’d be great at standup) 

[retrauxpunk]

sv 6.06

recap post of the penultimate episode of silicon valley under the cut (with spoilers as usual)

this miiiight be a downer post so if you want to avoid that ... this is your warning

...

...

... i think this is the first episode recap post i’m writing that doesn’t start with ‘what the fuck’ because honestly i think i found this episode a bit weird and not ................that good? and MAYBE it’s just because i’ve had a shitty couple days? i’m not totally sure.

but.

I dunno.

I’ll try do this chronologically.

it was a good point of yikes with richard not actually having secured the AT&T deal and just telling his employees that he had because like, that’s a good potential source of conflict. i’m down for that.

i liked when he was talking to AT&T guy and then there’s a cut to dinesh and gilfoyle standing their like shocked parents. dinesh’s expression of ‘WHAT’ ... yeah i like that. also gilfoyle looked especially fine as hell, particularly the hands.

okay.

i 

... gilfoyle using THE AI TO DEBUG CODE? i think this broke my suspension of disbelief. this seems wildly stupid and implausible given, like, gilfoyle’s WHOLE CHARACTER? i don’t really buy that someone who’s as security-conscious and conscientious as he is would, um, DO THIS? please feel free to present counterarguments if you disagree with this (or any other points in this post tbh) because i’m honestly open to hearing them, in fact i would welcome anything that made this episode feel more sense-making and less ‘what the fuck did the show just decide to fire all their tech consultants and throw character out the window?’

LIKE. it’s partly the fact that this seems a bit farfetched on the technological realism front but it’s MORE SO the fact that it just seems so NOT GILFOYLE.

GIVEN THAT FIVE EPISODES AGO HE GOT MAD AT DINESH FOR LETTING THE TWO AIs TALK. HE’S CLEARLY AWARE OF THE RISKS.

and he acts like this cavalier dont give a fuck asshole but i DO NOT BELIEVE that he would risk ALL OF PIED PIPER’S CODE with his AI?????? FUCK what is this!!...?

..............????

okay.

i’m  ............ upset that they seem to have COMPLETELY DITCHED this whole jarrich thing they were building up. i’m NOT saying i’m mad that they’re not canonically a romantic couple. i’m saying that -- shipper goggles completely not in the picture -- the first four episodes built up so much stuff for them, there was SO MUCH about their relationship, and with 6.05 and 6.06 there was just fucking NOTHING. and it just. feels like kinda shitty writing? UNLESS?? in the final episode there’s a lot of richard and jared content to make up for it?

like the first four episodes had so MUCH content about their relationship (jared’s whole generally lovelorn thing, accidentally driving to the hacker hostel, quitting, richard throwing a fit when he quit and watching with this cocktail of sadness and bitterness and anger as jared leaves, their fight at the hacker hostel, JARED BRIEFLY FORGETTING TO BE MAD AT RICHARD AND SMILING DURING THE WHOLE BUYING HOOLI THING, richard apologising and telling jared he missed him, JARED FUCKING CRYING) and then there’s just NOTHING? what the FUCK? IS THIS? it HONESTLY feels like the writers were building up to a big richard and jared moment (whether romantic or platonic, either works) but then that storyline got axed by an executive and they got forced into dropping or something, or they just fucking collectively FORGOT about this whole arc seriously WHAT. IS THIS?????

this is the first time in my life i’ve gotten this level of upset about any tv and i guess, well, whatever they do with the finale, it can’t be as bad as what they did with game of thrones!! (i don’t watch game of thrones or read asoiaf, but it was pretty impossible not to catch wind of that whole clusterfuck) that’s gonna be my source of ......... solace.

so yeah.

for FUCK’s sake. all of jared’s talking about gwart, i just. if that’s meant to be sincere i don’t fucking buy it because no fucking way did jared imprint so hard on a person who was fundamentally a rebound

I’M STILL MAD ABOUT THE LACK OF JARRICH STORYLINE WHAT THE FUCK this is not even a queerbaiting issue THEY HAD A FUCKING STORYLINE TOGETHER AND NOW IT’S VANISHED INTO FUCKING SMOKE WHAT THE FUCK

ALSO DID THEY SERIOUSLY JUST WIPE OUT HOLDEN OFF-SCREEN ARE WE REALLY MEANT TO JUST IMAGINE THAT IN THE GAP BETWEEN EPISODES JARED JUST CONTINUOUSLY EMOTIONALLY ABUSED/HARRASSED HOLDEN INTO QUITTING WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK

honestly when i set out to write this recap i was just like ‘this prob won’t be a long post because all i really have feelings about and want to talk about is the ending of the episode’ but clearly ... that has turned out not to be the case

okay anyway, yeah, i mean, it’s definitely plausible that if richard and jared were to real life people that jared would rejoin pied piper and they’d just simply never address their falling out, right, i mean people are plausibly that emotionally constipated sometimes and don’t communicate in situations where you’d expect them to.

BUT THIS ISN’T REAL LIFE IT’S FUCKING TV and it appears to me rather much like shitty screenwriting when you set up a relationship conflict that’s fucking PACKED with juicy emotional moments and then it DISAPPEARS INTO THIN AIR what the FUCK

jesus christ

okay

anyway.

russfest.

honestly when jared was seeing gwart around i was a bit like, okay if this meant to be a legit hallucination it’s a bit Much because, really, jared being that genuinely devoted to gwart that the breakup with her cut him that much? i’m not buying it 

so i’m glad it turned out to be Not a hallucination

i liked the twist that actually yaonet wasn’t throttling pied piper, pied piper itself just wasn’t good enough. i liked richard breaking down over it. tbh on a subjectively level i found it a bit painful to watch because he really did behave like a toddler and that was a bit, like, second-hand-embarrassment. but i don’t like object to it or anything.

WHY IS THIS SEASON ONLY SEVEN EPISODES.

the fucking speed with which richard breaks down and then magically finds a solution honestly feels way too rushed and unearned.

U N E A R N E D

that is how i feel about the resolution of this episode. like.

okay so if i remember/understand this correctly, richard’s [extremely hand-wavey solution] was to apply his compression algorithm to son of anton which allowed it to become more intelligent and learn faster/better? and that basically FIXED PIED PIPER? he used gilfoyle’s [a tad unrealistically] bitching AI to like ... have pied piper fix itself? 

i barely understand it.

and it’s not like i demand a fully fleshed-out solution, right, like with the middle-out jerkoff epiphany, that wasn’t fleshed out but there was enough detail for it to feel believable. whereas with this ... it did not feel like that. 

yeah the whole thing felt way too rushed.

what even was it? like, gilfoyle was using son of anton on pipernet to debug things ... whereas richard first used his compression algorithm on son of anton, then set son of anton loose on pied piper? okay that makes, like, enough sense that if they poured more time and detail into this, then i’d probably be totally happy accepting this in the storyline and my suspension of disbelief wouldn’t have been fucking skullfucked

but this, just. this pacing. i did not like it. it felt massively unearned because there were, what, a very small number of minutes between when richard finds out his tech is inadequate to when he finds a solution?

GOD THEY COULD’VE MADE THIS SO MUCH BETTER IF THEY’D PUT AN EPISODE BETWEEN PROBLEM AND SOLUTION INSTEAD OF JUST LIKE TWO FUCKING MINUTES

this makes me SO MAD IT GIVES ME THE CONFIDENCE TO THINK I COULD WRITE A BETTER STORY THEN THEY DID? FUCK???????

???

okay like yeah totally possible the writers had constraints outside of their control and they did the best they could. but. i’m still not ... happy with the result lol

anyway yeah i’m fucking cheesed off about how richard gets skullfucked with the inadequacy of his own tech, has a breakdown, and then MERE MINUTES OF SCREENTIME LATER, he has a wild solution that works!

and sure, they had it appear to fail first, which was good. but then it magically was back up and running! and yeah i liked how russ said ‘lights!’ and it turned out that this magical new pied piper had gotten so awesome that it build this new feature for itself or whatever, but, honestly, it happened way too quickly to feel believable or satisfying and i’m mad.

because this show has set a pretty high standard in the past and now it’s been a fucking let-down with this episode. god.

what the fuck is this pacing? it was so good at the beginning of this season!! WHAT IS THIS???

AND IF THE PROBLEM IS TIME

THEN WHY THE FUCK DID THEY HAVE SO MANY PLOTLINES WITH FILLER? THE WHOLE ETHAN CONFLICT. GILFOYLE AND MONICA VS TRACY. GAVIN FUCKING BELSON’S STUPID BOOK DEAL. can you imagine how much better this russfest plotline would’ve been if they’d had MORE TIME from not doing those ultimately unimportant subplots? fuck

i have legitimately worked myself into a rage writing this post. i did not expect to have this many feelings, to this level of intensity.

and it’s fucking frustrating because the bones of an awesome arc are here! the moment when the AT&T guy sees the giant hologram from the plane, that could’ve been actually epic rather than a feeling of ‘i know this is meant to be epic but it just feels totally hollow because they completely fucking compressed the biggest part of this whole episode into five fucking minutes’

and richard’s breakdown where he’s jumping on the laptop, screaming about ‘six years’? god that point would’ve been amazing if there’d been more time to explore it!

on a lighter note, i was amused when richard said he had gilfoyle’s laptop because i was like ‘oh okay it’s nice to know that richard is a l33t enough hax0r that he can get through gilfoyle’s undoubtedly Strong laptop security with [presumably] relative ease’ ... and then it turns out it’s dinesh’s laptop and i’m like, ah, okay, less impressive then XD

...there’s no way that the girls in jian-yang’s ‘coding class’ were stupid enough to believe that writing fake amazon reviews constitutes ‘coding’. not in fucking 2019.

i’m mad.

god this has lowered my expectations of the series finale SO MUCH which i guess may be a good thing because, y’know, there’s less capacity for disappointment now.

IT’S OKAY.

IT’S OKAY.

EVEN IF THE SERIES ENDS ON A SHIT NOTE, WE HAD FIVE AND A HALF SEASONS OF SHOW THAT RANGED FROM FUCKING AMAZING TO NOT AS GOOD BUT STILL ALRIGHT.

and i have a whole imagination’s worth of potential fan content to be created once the show’s over. i don’t know how long this sv love affair will last but i sure fucking intend to keep it alive as long as i can.

on the topic of fan content, if you’re interested in making sv fan stuff and receiving it as a christmas/holiday gift, please consider signing up for the silicon valley secret santa/gift exchange that i’m running :))) the official blog for it is @svexchange2k19 and the sign-up form is here

[cyanidefilledcandy]

Does me only doing one small doodle a day count as me drawing everyday? :/

I mean, it’s more than what I’ve been doing, right?

I’m also used to taking literally hours to finish one drawing, but I’ve heard that if you’re used to doing that, the best thing for you to do is actually to just draw as fast as you can. Which is what I’ve been doing lately, though the quality is surely not there... And I think a large part of me (that part that sees everything as a chore, even things I love) feels as if I’m not putting any real effort into it....because I’m kinda not... :/  Oh well....baby steps, right?

On the up side, I haven’t actually designed anything in a while, so that was nice to get done. And I actually really like it! It’s a costume for a dance I want to do one day. (I keep trying to ignore that voice in the back of my head that’s telling me my time has passed.) Oh well....I owe it to myself to try. And a comment that someone made on here from my early, early days of Tumblr has stuck with me all these years. I said that I wanted to take ballet classes even though I knew it would never lead to anything; I just love it. That person commented that “hey...you never know where it will lead”. And they’re right. In this digital age where YouTube and Instagram exist, the opportunity is there. One of my biggest downers about doing adult ballet class was that even if I got good, no one would ever see me perform. Of course, I’d do it for the love of the art regardless, but still...I actually loved performing. But, there’s no reason that has to be a thing now, and even if I don’t reach a frick ton of people, I’d be happy if a dozen saw and enjoyed it. 

But, anyway, kind of went on a tangent here... Point is, I drew something today. And it was a design I really like and want to see brought to life. I have plans to actively chase my dance career. (Completely unrelated; kinda rambling now... Sorry.) But, yes. I drew SOMETHING today when I was seriously about to say screw it and skip today since I did one yesterday. But, again....baby steps.

And once I get a chance, I’ll post them as well as a past one I did. I may just do weekly doodle dumps since I plan on drawing every day. (Don’t expect much though. Right now, I’m just trying to get back into the habit of doing ANYTHING.) Not sure if I’ll post the designs though. Not that they’re terrible; I like them a lot, and that’s just it. I like them a lot and don’t want them stolen.

[3d10fire-damage]

Change Your Mind (spoilers)

oh god..... oh god

that’s a LOT of story boarders

chasing the pearls...

WHA... gay pride worm

this is a funky way of doing a flashback

oh,, holy shit

oh come on... the diamonds are so Dramatic

??? *morally* incorrect fusion

that was... not actually a powerful attack

IN WHICH BLUE DIAMOND FINALLY REALIZES HOW THEY ALL FUCKED UP

“back in your legs” omg

okay if this is like seriously YD’s throne room... it’s also doubling as a prison??? sheesh

WAIT THOSE ARE CLUSTERS WTF

ooooo diamond fight

safasd she about bitch slapped her

this is probably not a safe place to reform

HOLY SHIT

i’m getting pokemon movie flashbacks

pork chops quote

oh... okay

“your legs are this way” i love that they don’t call it a ship

DONT LIKE THOSE EYES

OH DAMN

agsafs this is literally a conflict between guilty children and a strict mom

ayyyyy

YASSSSS!!! REFORMED!!! omfg peridot’s VISOR and STARS

not to be a downer but i sorta feel like at least Blue would’ve had this realization by now? i mean maybe not but eh

peridot’s little disc...

“let’s just talk with WD” hhhh i mean. sure? but also? press x to doubt

they’re forming voltron, because WD is apparently not so OP her control of the legs overrides steven’s

what a weird pose

“i know my purpose isn’t to be happy” oh...

let us into your head

OH SHIT WHAT (also it’s like that episode of powerpuff girls)

ooh reformation through fusion, that’s fancy

! fusing with pearl

OOH LOOK AT THEM

PEARL’S GOT A JACKET

!!!! yessss

oooooh...... OH

oh what the fuck

Sunstone.... wow, so if they ever need to evolve a Sunkern...

THEYRE SO FULL OF LOVE THEY BREAK THE FOURTH WALL

omg why are they like this

garnet’s visor,,

OH? obsidian....

it’s like a callback to Alone Together, sorta

WHOA

oh damn, this theme

peridot “delusions of grandeur��� lastname

oh my GOD the second face is a FORGE that’s so METAL

is that gem language on the blade?

hehe, just face planting into that tower

hhhhhhhh

impurities... are what give a stone its signature color

oh no oh no oh no ok this is actually kinda nightmare town

this is fucking CREEPY

“i’d rather not spread my uninhibited self so thin” ?!

oof

oh god

uhhh

????

what

what? is this???

“i only want you to be yourself” well clearly you’re having some trouble there

animation suddenly got better

oh hey... color’s shining through

“steven what the FUCK was that”

this tone shift though i need some closure on WHATEVER THAT WAS

! pink pearl

it’s a blush

i mean “you need out of your own head” is both v true and a good pun but

sadie is singing greg’s song... also she can screw the rules cuz she has green hair

also suddenly here’s lars and the off colors

“we’re cracked” omg

i love you padparadscha

i mean... yeah this is a given

NEPHRITE

omg this is about to be so many gems

! the water bear gem

ALL THE NEPHRITES!!

omg even the beetles AAH THEYRE PEBBLES

oh hey jasper

i think amethyst said “hey sis”

five bucks says the song is Love Like You

well i lost those five bucks

so... that was it. huh

generally... i liked it

[terryblycute]

2020

overall this year was bad. bad, just like any other, how its always been, so nothing special. im writing this because my memory is getting worse and worse, and im sick of not remembering

corona lowkey annoying cuz i couldnt visit my friends on new years eve, but other than that everythings the same. on a positive note i didnt have to work as much either, and on a negative note i didnt get as much money. but thats alright.

((rude, unempathetic rant incoming. i know what im about to say is stupid but its my feelings and i want to talk about it regardless. if anyones reading, skip this)) what HAS been bothering me the most about corona is all the „2020 bad“ memes and people legitimately complaining about it. cuz like... nothing has changed. every year is horrible. it always has been. every year innocent people die, and nobody can do anything about it. of course i feel horrible for the people who lost their income/housing or family members because of it, and they have all the rights to complain... but lets be honest. none of the people i talk to were affected in any way by it. and the majority of people i hear talking about it havent lost their family/friends or homes to it either. its just a mild inconvenience to them, not being able to party without being arrested or seeing their friends or some shit. boo hoo, im alone all the time and never see any of my friends either and at this point im completely love & touch starvated regardless of corona. get over it

so... corona things out of the way, ive started thinking about my mental illnesses & trauma... A LOT. ive never thought about it all that much, because critical thinking is not something im able to do, usually. ive been reading lots of comix of people talking about/depicting mental illness, so i guess that kind of inspired and changed something in me, if i like it or not.

well, it turns out there is a shitton to unpack. i mean, ive always known there is so much wrong with me... but i was never really aware, if that makes sense. im still in the dark about most things, but its all coming together, little by little. i dont want to put my finger on anything, because im dumb, but at this point im 100% sure autism/aspergers isnt the only thing i got. far from it, in fact.

ive also learned that a lot of things in my life have left me with genuine, significant trauma, which ive never really realized before. i just thought the way i react to some things is cuz im, yknow... a whiny bitch. to name a few things:

me getting defensive/snappy when people of „authority“ (family, caretakers, doctors) ask me if im tired, how late i went to bed etc bc it is indirectly tied to why i was forced into psychiatry & the abuse i had to suffer there

fight or flight response activating when people talk about being in support of outdoor cats (i dont even want to fucking elaborate. tl;dr: my cat was almost killed by outdoor cat people and would be dead now if i hadnt gotten my shit together and worked hard on getting my own apartment, where he is safe. ive recieved no support & only been demonized during this time). this is a genuine fucking trigger

my rocky relationship with my mother and my thoughts about her, who is a genuinely good person, but managed to fuck me over, rip my entire ass apart and ruin my life regardless. also her lowkey restrictive/controlling upbringing stunting me for life

my huge, life-impairing abandonment issues. i dont even know where they come from, all i ever experienced were regular breakups & rejections with no hard feelings that just hit me especially hard for no reason i guess

how i cannot bear to be alone in a discord voice channel waiting for people to join & my stunted ability to talk to people when im alone with them (i got actively excluded by my best friends for being suicidal & a downer, they created a discord voice channel i couldnt see & didnt have access to for them to be without me, all while i was waiting all day long alone in our regular channel for someone to join me, in the same server)

relatedly, my inability to talk about my problems & mental illnesses with them. is also related to the cat incident

also my inability to show affection ever since my best friend stopped telling me „i love ya“

nothing else i can think of rn

i also realized that something is fundamentally, objectively wrong with me. i cant really talk about it... but the actions of one of my friends made it clear to me. it was proof that, somehow, im imbued with the horrifying essence of some eldritch lovecraftian horror being, repulsing everyone without them even realizing, unable of being loved. and its just... this knowledge, its too heavy to bear, for a single human being. i dont know what to do. i will have to live with this for the rest of my life - and i cant do anything about it.

ive also reconnected with an old friend over animal crossing, who introduced me to some other old friends (they were more like aquaintances back then, really), and in one of them ive found a friend for life, pretty much. but theyre all great, really.... i seriously appreciate that. they took my mind off my other best friend, whos been kind of ignoring my needs, resulting in me having panic attacks every day.

also, im making more of an effort to talk to & reply to the people i care about, cuz i have this friend who would chat me up every now and then, without me ever messaging him, just for me to ignore him for a couple hours cuz im too tired/busy/whatever... so at one point i was like „wait, what am i doing? hes one of the few friends who actually makes an effort, and i really care about this bitch!!“, so i went ahead and got my shit together, as best as i can at least (depressions still a bitch but im trying)

one last thing i wanna talk about... my view on life. this is gonna be huge, i think. big trigger warning for suicide stuff & other negative shit

im suicidal. always have been. thats not a secret, everyone who knows how to read between the lines (i cant, but most people do) can see that. sometimes you dont even have to, cuz im telling you outright. i usually dont talk about this openly though, not to my friends at least, cuz people only put up with suicidals for so long, and i cant afford to lose anyone else... ahem. anyways, something changed in the way i see suicide. when i was younger, i wanted to die because the pain i had to bear was just too great. there was no hope. and its still true - the pain is unbearable. i am in pain every waking moment. i have been for almost 11 years now. there is no joy, there is no happiness, there is only distraction.

however, thats not the reason i wanna die anymore. i think think that if i put in effort, i think i could be... not in pain, all the time anymore. but, heres the thing: i dont want to. im too tired, im too broken. i dont want to change, and i dont want anyone else to change. now i just want to die, for the sake of it. because i love death, with all of my heart. i think death is the best thing that could happen, to anyone. i 100% believe death is the only thing that will save you, ever. i am not exaggerating when i say „i love death“. and to live, without having the means to safely & efficiently kill myself... its destroying me. i get panic attacks every week thinking about it. what if someone else leaves me? im not gonna take it anymore, i refuse to. i refuse to keep suffering, but to end my suffering once and for all i have to die. i really, truly hate living... it just really isnt for me. and thats okay, im fine with it, im fine with dying - its what i want, its my choice, its my destiny - and i love this destiny. i wouldnt want it any other way - to kill myself, or be killed, thats how i want to go. i just need someone to help me. idk where im going with this, so lets move onto my next point:

my worldview. so.. im not sure when this all started. was it 2020? or 2019? maybe it started to dawn on me even earlier, i dont really know, but its been really intense in 2020. the way i view the world & life has changed drastically (or rather, formed, ive never really thought about it that much before). my mom has made it clear to me that you could be a genuinely good, loving person... and still fuck up your kid for life. and this is why i came to the conclusion that good parents, who dont fuck up their children irreversibly... they dont exist. the moment youre born into this world, youre doomed. there is no one who doesnt suffer, there is no one who doesnt want to die - and if they tell you they dont, they either just dont know yet or are in denial. if there is ANY chance of someone growing up to suffer just like i do - it is not worth it. irresponsible, even - to bring a kid into this world. and, the way the world is, and continues to be, there will never be the chance for someone to never suffer like me. which is why i dont think children should be born into this world, ever. and it fucks with me - it fucks with me so bad.

...happy mew year, everynyan

[amwst-blog]

6 - 30 - 2019

6 - 30 - 2019

AMWST Stands For: ahh! many worrisome sad tendensies!

hi! today's the 30th, which means june is ending i love the word june i think if i ever had enough self confidence to have children (and if i changed enough on a fundamental level to justify having children to myself) then i think that i would like to name one June it just has a nice sound to it, june, joon, "joone".

today wasn't great i woke up today only early enough to get to work on time (i work at a coffee shop, or less fancily a starbucks) (todays motif is too many parentheses) work itself went fine but my ex keeps coming in with her new boyfriend its seriously been long enough that i should be entirely finished and over with the whole situation (its been 8 or 9 months or so since the breakup in all honesty) but even just seeing her around is enough to send a day on a spiral downwards, and enough to take my mood with it its not even that i miss her itself, i just sort of miss the times before the breakup

to recap for anyone (and everyone) who doesnt know my personal life in exquisite detail i dated a girl (lets call her September) for around two years to cap off highschool then, this september a lot of bad things happened at once for one, i turned eighteen for another, i got medically disqualified from the air force and THEN, the breakup of a two year relationship and THEN, the start of the 45 hour workweek that i had for awhile all of those events led to a lot of drinking and pretty much wasting away for a few months i still dont remember any of that time but i know that i went through more alcohol than i care to admit to top it all off, my new manager was her brother (i dont work there anymore)

but anyway, the sort of cut and defined before and after is enough to make it hurt sometimes i feel like i always end up hating anyone i love given enough time that either speaks to my standards or speaks to my psyche, and we've enough time to pick

anyway, i got home pretty late tonight and then just drank not nearly as much as i used to, but i didnt have anything else to do

Welcome To The Poetry Section --------------------------------------------- } } june, sweet as a pea } tired and without } a whole drop to spare } ---------------------------------------------

today was a two cigar day also, my windshield sfluid tis out, sfz so lets just pray that i dont have to drive through a dirtstorm i live in the mountains in the east, so i doubt itll happen i say i live in the mountains but thats a bit of a lie if im being honest i live in the mountains in the same way that a reptile in a terrarium can livei n the mountains of the terrarium the mountains i live in are a backdrop for a scenic mall town that hasnt dried up just yet (but will soon) (that sounded oddly forboding, i just mean that tourism tends to die eventually) the mountains arent there to climb or to look at, theyre there to sell the mood and the mood is All Natural Mountain Village so i live in the mountains, but i really live in a mall mountains in a bottle, bottled water for 2.25$

im not sure how long ill stick with this project i like to write things and i like to get my thoughts out but im really pretty flakey what i want more than anything in the world is someone to just... listen and thats what you are

not to be a downer, but i think about disappearing more often than i should disappearing here is said not to be a direct substitute of death, either i dont exactly want to die? i just want to leave this place and these people a town gets real small when you are surrounded by exes, people doing better than you, and ex classmates who tip five dollars out of pure sympathy id like to get away but i dont know where id go its just a fantasty of mine really

its funny how much the small pieces of human contact can matter to you i had a run in with a different ex (he might come up more than once, lets call him November) who ended up living with me for a few months "a few" here means six the thing i loved the most about him staying were just the few times we held hands or in the car when i would feel anxious, just the ability to have someone there to just.. reassure and respond or just the brush of the hair on my arms when he would be close to me i am an insanely lonely person these days

now i dont exactly want to leave it on that note, but thats about the note im feeling and i gotta smoke before i sleep heres to hoping for brighter (but less hot) days

[tumblunni]

Ok just... just... GIVE ME A SECOND to talk about the spoilery monster rancher stuffs, okay? Why THAT ENDING hurt so much but also fit so well with the rest of it, and why the third season kinda sucked so much despite being the continuation we all desperately craved. And why its still gonna have a place in everyone’s hearts, even the haters, JUST because it gave a conclusion to THAT FUCKING ENDING! I dont care if people say it would be more deep or whatever to leave on the downer cliffhanger, I still think it SHOULD have had a third season, just that it should have been better. Or I mean... maybe it would have worked better as a movie or a short ten episode season or something. Just there should have been SOME sequel to that ending, but a very very lighthearted season about a goofy tournement kinda wasnt what it should have been.

OKAY THE ENDING THE SEASON 2 ENDING the giant and damn awesome subversion of everything about the genre, which fit so well with everything else the show ever did, GAHHH Like.. there were SO MANY subversions and just interesting detailed twists on common ‘mon show’ tropes. One of the earliest episodes begins with an asshole trainer treating his Worm monster the same way a lot of people honestly might do while min-maxing in one of these videogames. He’s disgustingly abusive and feels like he’s justified because he’s making his monster stronger, and that’s all that it’s good for. And the show establishes its tearjerker tone early on by having this guy only repent after his horribly abused monster sacrifices itself to save him from the baddies, even after how badly he’d treated it. And he’s begging apologies to its dead disc stone, while it’s too late to do anything about it. But the show STILL gives him a chance at redemption, because our heroes trust him to raise a new newborn Worm, and to do it right. That’s just... what the show is. It went really REALLY dark, but it did this with this kind of determined optimism! And even the funnier episodes could have high stakes, and there was always the reminder that we were living in this dystopia and just trying to keep our smiles during it, because otherwise how can we change it?

And thats why season 3 fumbled by like.. not introducing its stakes early enough. Or.. at all. it was good that they finally introduced some good comic relief villains and generally villains with more motivations and backstory, but it combined badly with the no-intial-high-stakes thing to give a season that just felt way too happy. In a show that certainly had happiness in it before, but I mean it never felt hollow?? It kinda felt disrespectful to follow up a super depressing cliffhanger with such a badly explained and rushed flip back to the status quo, and then such a sparse plot with so few incentives to keep watching. Its only initial good point was that it resolved the cliffhanger AT ALL, but it could have done it WELL, and also established a new reason to wanna watch the show now the one big huge main plot has been resolved. Following up after the bad guy is defeated is always a hard thing, you cant just put no effort into it... Tho I feel bad even saying that, cos seriously season 3′s villains were the best part. They just might have fit better in season 1, or just if the plot kept up the slack surrounding them...

BUT YEAH JUST THE SUBVERSIONS!! I could fuckin ramble forever about how great they were! Seriously it was just THE BEST ‘ending’ to a ‘stuck in another world’ story, ever! Having the main kid finally get back home, but at the ABSOLUTE WORST MOMENT, after all his friends have sacrificed themself to save that world and he’s the only one left alive. And he doesnt even get enough time to process the shock, he barely even sees the rescued world before he just wakes up home as if nothing happened. And he’s stuck feeling like he can’t adjust to being part of this world anymore, and he’s mourning people he can’t even talk to anyone about. Imagine how worried his parents must have been when he became depressed seemingly overnight and refuses to tell them why! And then it just ends on him crying in the rain and the ghosts of his friends trying to motivate him to get back up and find a reason to live again. That was ONE HELL of a cliffhanger, yo! So yeah OF COURSE people were cheering for a new season, but also OF COURSE that new season would fail if it insufficiently followed up on the emotional impact of the cliffhanger and then had a bazillion episodes of barely anything emotional ever happening again, when the first series had you crying your eyes out as early as episode 4...

oh and like DEAR GOD all the OTHER really good subversiony episode plots aaaaa like even down to little stuff like how genki actually fights alongside his monster pals. And he’s a total badass who does succeed in doing more than most humans could do, but still he’s just a human going against monsters. he knows what he’s doing is rash, but he does it anyway because he cares about his monsters and couldnt just let them die without throwing himself in front of the bullet. And every battle in this show is life or death rebellion against an oppressive regime like that! Random low risk tournement episodes used to be.. like.. FILLER in this series. It was a terrible idea for the entire third season’s plot... And I also loved how the team actually did help people along the way as they journeyed to defeat the baddies, and it wasn’t JUST fighting. They had a whole tearful episode about everyone struggling to hold back a dam that the baddies had sabotaged to wipe a village off the map, and it was INFINATELY MORE INTENSE than half of the things Pokemon has ever done, lol! (not that I dislike pokemon, just the anime in particular is a bit naff) God, how they were all strangers to this village and how they actually had bickering between the team members on whether they should really do this, and all the different ways they tried to save the dam and how they made it way too clear that they were gonna die from friggin holding this thing back with their bare hands. And how they organized the whole town to work themselves to the bone trying to divert the dam, and how a bunch of their attempts failed and they came so close to not having enough time! You had me weeping for the potential deaths of a hundred nameless faceless npcs just from putting me in the shoes of our heroes reacting to it! You made a little kid understand the complexity of civilian casualties in war! And OH MAN, Golem’s backstory! How he was a former war soldier who just shattered mentally after being forced to kill so many other monsters. And he was so gentle at heart, and he sat there guarding this church full of disc stones for god knows how many decades, blaming himself for what happened. Like.. it showed that even when you’re fighting villains, killing still breaks you. Dear GOD, his face when he came back down from his friggin ptsd flashback anger episode saving the heroes from the baddies, and he saw all the dead baddies, and just... you could not talk to that man and tell him that killing was justified just because they were BADDIES. Even if its in self defense, he still has to look at his hands that just murdered people. I’m so damn glad the heroes managed to befriend him and take him away from that place, cos that moment came so close to sending him back to his guilt spiral! If anything, I think that the dub calling them ‘baddies’ actually made all these moments way more effective. The childish terminology makes you think this is gonna be a paint by numbers story, so it hurts more when its anything but! Even in a world with a concept like ‘the bad guy magically turns people into his bad minions’, they still managed to deal with complex grey morality, and that’s one hell of a crowning achievement!

...plus it allowed for a happy ending after all. God, i cried for all those poor minor mooks getting brought back to normal in the end. Honestly, even though it hurt, I would have accepted it ending on all of the hero monsters being dead forever for the sake of bringing back all the dead civilians and brainwashed baddies. Sacrificing yourselves to save so many others! God, this show’s characters are too goddamn pure. AND COMPLEX TOO! man I loved how grumpy and selfish half of the hero cast is, yet they’re still heroes despite it, and god just HOW THEY ALL DIED TOGETHER AND OUR PROTAGONIST IS THE ONLY ONE FORCED TO KEEP ON LIVING that was such a fucking cliffhanger thank you terrible season 3 for fixing it man i can forgive anything you do because you did that baby mocchi lived and ate some mochi cakes and tiger and hare lived to bicker with each other once more and golem could find some peace knowing all the people he saved, even if he might never be free of the guilt of those he failed to save and suezo and holly didnt have to be apart again, he didnt have to end his life finally proving his ‘usefulness’ at the cost of everything else (SERIOUSLY SUEZO LOW SELF CONFIDENCE EPISODES KILL MY HEART) and genki didnt have to have his childhood completely destroyed by his ‘magical adventure’ plot ending on so much of a trope subversion even if still it was good that it happened it was a really fuckin good plot all that suffering just made the happy ending that much happier! GOD I miss this show very much...

[winnieruth123]

i have figured it out.

truly, my biggest flaw, is my fear of confrontation. wow. it’s so cowardice :( but it physically hurts me inside, like literally, i always have to take deep breaths when I START imagining myself starting to talk to the person i need to. omgomg.

but it truly is so cowardice. and i don’t want to do that to people i care about. i really am a coward. i wonder if im gonna ever get over it. i actually just want to move away, that’s how cowardice. sooooo cowardice. 

i need a therapist. i been needing a therapist. because these people CHOOSE to listen to and solve people’s problems right? that is the only way i wont feel guilty. they paid money to officially do this.

cus i cant get myself to vent to my friends. i feel a social responsibility of the energy i put out, and i would never want to burden that onto those that i want nothing but the best for. so why would i be a potential additional stressor?

i know, i always want my friends to feel like they could always come to me though right?

-- yes, of course. but, i feel like it’s because i have this in mind. sometimes i feel like we are trained to know that offering an open ear is the right thing to do. but we don’t always mean it. it’s manners. 

but no, cus i dont mean it like that? so your friends probably don’t feel that way too.

but it’s all the time. i’d just be a debby downer. im in a dip in disposition right now. for a while. and I AM okay with that. but my friends wont be. they always wanna solve things, or maybe yeah, they just want to help. --- IDK

okay, but yeah. it’s a dip right now. and it seems to keep dipping :’(

... i said i would right out my feelings about my issues with confrontation so that i could confront them, identify them, and tackle them so that i could get over it and confront the people i need to before it’s like too late. but.... i don’t to confront them. cus like i said before, it physically hurts inside. :( like start panicking. i really need to see a therapist about it but there’s no time :((((( so now whaaaaaaaat!!!

a couple of years ago, my mom told me that my dad was clinically diagnosed with depression. (omg *tears) but, yeah, that was heartbreaking, for multiple reasons which not sure if i want to address right now. but then a couple years later, maybe like last year or so, my dad tells me that my older brother also suffers with depression. and i know all of this hurts my parents, both of them individually so much for different reasons. but anyways, my brother had a dip like a week or two ago, when drunk.

and omg, it’s just me and him watching over my younger brother at home. and...... look at me. look at my past posts for the last 9 months. like *I* need to see a therapist....

and omg, i had a drunken depression episode in front of all my family. everything spilled out of me and i BLATANTLY sputtered the mess that is my mind and insides, also messily, slurring the entire confessional, amidst the matching messy of a bedroom that is exactly the perfect representation of the my insides. things are rotting in there, ants are eating away at some other things hidden corners, month old things sitting on shelves and the floor that should have been taken cared of months before, unfold clothes scattering every area of the room....

and i dont even remember what i confessed and how much. i know it was for hours. all i remember is yelling at a cousin :( and telling my brother that the church is a cult hahahaha. but i remember pouring a lot about the business. but overall, it was all presented very wrongfully, and now no one is going to take whatever i said seriously since it was said so stupidly.

whoever is reading this, since it says i have 1 follower now :(, i hope you dont actually know me. if you do, i sincerely ask that you leave this alone because it’s really meant to be private. i know, why not save in a word document or something? because computers die. the internet doesn’t. whatever, i hate how i feel like i need to explain. but if you dont know me... idk why you follow this meaningless to you blog. #TeamFollowBack ? lol

okay, wow word vomit. still didn’t accomplish the initial goal but... sdfkl.vxcm alrdgfkvmas

******* okay, the account following me is a spam account. whew. but still, if anyone i know stumbles upon this somehow!, please refer to above and be nice and respect my wishes??? idk whatever

[gulescamisade]

MN, Ground:  Day 27

DAVE: -Jesus Christ they're finally here. it's been a long time but motherfuckers he is coming HOME because of that cheesy bullshit that is home being where the people you care about are. He's slow to get his feet on the ground, taking in the scenery first, before following the others up to the house-

ARADIA: -they're here...-

DIRK: -everyone get the fuck out of the way. dirk is here to greet everyone, but especially family... which right now means dave so hello dave you're gonna get a brother hug... he doesn't really know the extend of the damage done to him so he doesn't know how to be MINDFUL OF IT...-

DAVE: -it's a relief seeing dirk alive and okay, but he doesn't have a lot of time to process it with the hug he's given and the way it gives him such a sharp pain. He grits his teeth, patting dirk on the back and wincing while in this brother hug- LOOSER NOT SO TIGHT

DIRK: Oh fuck-- Sorry. -LOOSENS HIS STRONG GRIP-

DAVE: -YA TOO STRONG YA ASSHOLE- its cool its like a love back break i get it we just gotta respect the property of my spine

DAVE: anyway sup

MITUNA: -Hops down as well, everyone is here wow look at this brotherly bonding. Gay-

MEULIN: -She ALMOST tackled Dave, but instead she's here to try to nuzzle between Strider tiddies.-

MEULIN: -Just. Right there in that hug.-

DIRK: You-- Oh. Hello there.

DAVE: -thank you Meulin for being thoughtful- also hey meu I dont think you can even see my lips moving right now but the sentiment is there

MEULIN: (^・ω・^ )

MITUNA: ehehehe

MEULIN: PRR PRR.

ARADIA: -watching from the roof-

RUFIOH: -also watching from the roof...-

MITUNA: -He's gonna inside. Pauses to wave at Aradia-

HESONY: =just hanging out with the dragonfly, dont mind him=

ERIDAN: -gazing from inside the ice cream truck in his stupid ice cream man geddup. The things he had to do to get everyone here on time... Horrendous. https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2014-12/2/15/enhanced/webdr07/enhanced-22416-1417551805-3.jpg -

DIRK: -nuzzles meulin's hair a little...- She's got cool shades that transcribe everything around her. I wonder who got her those.

ARADIA: -hops down to greet more properly. mituna first- hows your arm or lack thereof

MEULIN: (○｀ω´○)

DAVENFORTH: -Climbs out the back of the ice cream truck, bandaged and wearing his own shades again. Walks over to the nephew cat sandwich- Aint yall just adorable

DAVE: some anime asshole probably -fuck it's just nice to be with his brother again-

MITUNA: oh i75 how youd 7hink i7d go my balance i5 fucked

QIRIN: =just....eyeballing the Alaska group. What the shit happened to all of you?!=

KURLOZ: =Get over it, he's just going to get out and walk right into the cabin/house. He doesn't know you hos=

DAVE: -he can't help but smile a little at his uncle- yo uncle dave nice job wreckin the presidents -from this angle no one can see the scar on his neck and he is thankful for that-

MINDFANG: -What Didnt happen. Also shes standing near the dragonfly too, eyeing Hesony. Hes had it real good for a while.-

HESONY: =Hello Mindfang, he sees you looking, but the fight in him has pretty much died. They kept their promise.=

MINDFANG: -They sure did, and now there is no real reason to keep them around so she is just pondering that.-

ARADIA: yeah i figured ARADIA: -pauses and then just lightly and carefully hugs him- welcome back

KARKAT: =Is also out and about somewhere but he knows you hoes. At least everyone else didn't go through hell=

RILEY: -EVERYBODY MOVE THE FUCK OUTTA THE WAY-

DAVENFORTH: -It's okay, you can't see the scar on his eye. His face, his beautiful face.- Thanks but ro did the part that wasnt getting my ass kicked you should congratulate her

DAVENFORTH: You look like you went through some shit

DIRK: -lucky bastards, everyone can see HIS scar..-

DIRK: -smiles a little at brunc, but oh fuck here she comes... the mom-

ROXANNE: -Shes getting out of the truck after Derek and Riley, she wasnt going to be in the way of that, no sir.-

DEREK: -LEAPS AFTER RILEY-

DEREK: -JET NOISES-

DAVENFORTH: -Observes-

RILEY: -she's running at them and nearly collides into the boys and meulin consequently, wrapping her arms around their shoulders- OH THANK FUCK.

MITUNA: -A hug is probably the nicest thing he's had in a week. He loops his good arm around Aradia and squeezes and rests his chin on her head.- 7hank5 arayray

DIRK: -starting to get emotional... with his parents and his brother and his uncle and his cat all right here...-

DAVENFORTH: -Gets sad about his cat-

RILEY: -they're getting smooches on the head- my babies.

DAVE: -he winces a little at the first collision but he's okay and WOW WAY TO BE EMBARRASSING MOM- hey

ERIDAN: -disgusting... this clan of humans in their natural habitat... how do you tell them apart. Eridan fears for himself.-

ARADIA: you get to actually rest for a little while now

ROXANNE: -Eridan dont be a downer.-

MITUNA: yeah righ7 7he 5creamy a55hole5 ate back

ERIDAN: -He's always a downer. And eating a dreamsicle in the ice cream truck.-

ARADIA: who karkat

ARADIA: we have a lot of screamy assholes mituna

MITUNA: he ha5n7 been 7ha7 bad ac7ually i mean7 um i mean7 7he dead one5

ROXANNE: -WELL DONT BE.-

ROXANNE: -Also enough of watching the striders reunite, as cute as that is, shes going into the house on a quest to find her own daughter, where is rose where are you hiding her.-

DEREK: -places a hand on dave's shoulder during all this... that'll do pig-

ARADIA: oh that makes so much more sense

DAVE: -STOP IT BRO YOURE GONNA MAKE HIM CRY-

REDGLARE: -Oh, hey, hello. This. And everyone. And people. She's limping. She's tired. She's been keeping herself awake for the flight, and some of the pains have been keeping her from conking out anyways, but she's not quite ready to pass out on the floor. She hobbles over to the nearest thing she can sit on and sits.-

DAVENFORTH: !!!! -Walks over to Redglare and just kind of stands there, taking this all in. She looks so tired, and like she went through literally hell. His eyes linger on her a little too long- You mind if i sit here

REDGLARE: s1t. REDGLARE: 1 s4w your 1m4g3s.

DAVE: -SO SMOOTH BRUNCLE-

DAVENFORTH: -Groans a bit as he sits next to her.- I think they did too much justice

REDGLARE: ...

REDGLARE: Mph.

REDGLARE: You 4lso brought b4ck th3 s1lly... m4sk m4n 4ct.

REDGLARE: 4t l34st 1t s3rv3d 1ts purpos3.

DAVENFORTH: Got something against dave skellington movies

DAVENFORTH: Icon

REDGLARE: 1 th1nk 1 w4s cl34r 3nough.

REDGLARE: S1lly.

DAVENFORTH: Sex symbol

REDGLARE: uh-huh.

DAVENFORTH: -Sighs- Were gonna have a marathon when we get back im gonna get you an entire devils food cake and everything

REDGLARE: Th4t's...

REDGLARE: -snorts.-

REDGLARE: opt1m1st1c.

REDGLARE: You'll t3mpt th3 odds. Just c4ll 1t 4 sl1c3.

DAVENFORTH: Like youd just want a slice

REDGLARE: -PUNCHES HIS ARM-

DAVENFORTH: -Doof. He grins a little- So two slices huh

REDGLARE: M4yb3.

REDGLARE: On3 4nd 4 h4lf.

DAVENFORTH: One and three fourths

REDGLARE: You know wh4t.

REDGLARE: Sur3.

DAVENFORTH: -Puts an arm around her. He's just glad she's alive.- About time i win one

REDGLARE: Oh, shut up. You k1ll3d 4 world l34d3r.

DAVENFORTH: I had help

REDGLARE: Sudd3n bout of hum1l1ty?

DAVENFORTH: Sudden bout of getting crushed

DAVENFORTH: Probably would have a lot more worse for wear if it hadnt been for roxanne

REDGLARE: Oh.

REDGLARE: H4.

DAVENFORTH: I got sloppy and almost lost an eye or life for it you know whichever

DAVENFORTH: Not that ill get sympathy from you

REDGLARE: couldn't poss1bly 1m4g1n3 wh4t th4t's l1k3.

DAVENFORTH: Nope only me

REDGLARE: ...

REDGLARE: Won't b3 4bl3 to do much l1k3 th1s. Sp34k1ng of.

DAVENFORTH: Well get you back up and running

REDGLARE: 1'm not runn1ng 4nywh3r3. C4rry m3. 4ss.

DAVENFORTH: Like a bara princess

REDGLARE: Wh4t do3s th4t m34n.

DAVENFORTH: Ripped to shit

REDGLARE: Oh.

REDGLARE: Y3s.

JOHN: - I didn't get to rp it but you can bet your ass John vigorously rubbed himself on Dave, Aradia and Dirk. Because! He was worried! And he missed them! For Dave it's extra vigorous. -

DAVE: -JUST STEER CLEAR OF THE BACK and we will be good-

JOHN: - Hair gets floofed and refloofed-

JOHN: - Also you get more medical attention because he doesn't trust these non uu people to do it right. -

DAVE: -be my servant-

JOHN: -after all the emotional reunions and fussing over everyone as much as they'll allow him....john honestly feels kind of uneasy and restless. eventually he finds himself sitting on the ground with his knees crossed, dumping out every piece of medical equipment in his sylladex and carefully cataloguing it. it's probably not necessary but he just really needs something to do.-

DAVE: -plops next to John and sits- hey

KANKRI: -It sure was kind of crazy with all the reunions, and after he was settled he managed to find John....dumping stuff on the floor with Dave.-

KANKRI: -Awkwardly stays hidden at the doorway to the room to watch for now.-

JOHN: -taking down how much he has of everything on a little note pad. looks round at dave and only dave since kankri is being weird and evesdropping- hey, man.

DAVE: havent seen you in like a month

DAVE: crazy shit huh

JOHN: yeah. if i had to say the shit was anything, i might use the word crazy.

DAVE: what about ape shit

DAVE: we turning this all primate primape reverse darwins theory of evolution

DAVE: we start as fuckin advanced as hell creatures and then just go back to the monkeys

JOHN: is this your roundabout way of expressing that earth really blows because if so i grudgingly gotta agree..earth really blows.

JOHN: i mean i had expectations for how much it was going to blow but the batterwitch really hit it out of the park.

JOHN: which is impressive because the bitch banned base ball.

JOHN: how do you ban baseball.

JOHN: -SOUNDS REALLY BITTER AND HAUGHTY.-

DAVE: you cant ban baseball

DAVE: baseball lives on in our hearts or some shit

DAVE: you either hit a home run or strike out

DAVE: but seriously i forgot all about queen troll

DAVE: until like now

JOHN: i mean...i'll forgive you, seeing as you had a lot of shit on your plate.

JOHN; ...baseball puns.

JOHN: and i'm really glad you were able to make

JOHN: a home run.

DAVE: ... DAVE: terrible

JOHN: c:

DAVE: how would i have gone another day without your goofy ass

JOHN: -feels the urge to hug him again, but he just leans on him instead.-

JOHN: -what if he just kind of sits on all his friends and protects them.-

JOHN: -crushes them lovingly under his ass.-

JOHN: -would this protect them from the 10 billion things that want to kill, hurt and take them away from him.-

JOHN: -these are the questions.-

DAVE: -lets it happen. He can't get too mushy even if he wants to scoop his best friend up in a hug and just stay like that for ten hours. So that's the most he can do. Let him- who the fuck vacations in minnesota

JOHN: -it's okay dave. he understands strider psychology by now. he knows u love him.-

KANKRI: -Finally walking in after watching that whole exchange.- I think that at least s9me pe9ple must have, at the very least 6ef9re all 9f these redicul9us new take 9ver laws that have 6een implemented. Perhaps they name f9r the scenery.

JOHN: maybe they tried to get out of minnesota but they couldn't, so they made the best of it.

JOHN: -ends up talking at the same time as kankri ???-

KANKRI: -Its like they are linked. Except not.-

KANKRI: -Also he is just going to casually sit on the other side of John.-

KANKRI: What are the tw9 9f y9u up t9?

DAVE: its minnesota

JOHN: talking about minnesota and dancing around the fact that dave adores me.

JOHN: -just sitting there like :)-

KANKRI: Yes it is? And what a69ut it 6eing Minnes9ta makes it less desira6le then anywhere else?

JOHN: i'd say "it's an earthling" thing but

JOHN: i don't think that's a thing anymore.

KANKRI: I d9n't kn9w, I think that there still can 6e "earthling things." 

KANKRI: Whatever they c9nsist 9f anyways.

JOHN: then thinking minnesota is a snowy boring wastleland is probably one of them, to answer your question.

JOHN: although idk this place looks pretty nice.

KANKRI: It has 6een the nicest part 9f earth I have visited s9 far.

KANKRI: Then again I d9nt feel like I have adequate experiences t9 c9mpare it t9...

DAVE: -literally just watching them talk so easily with each other and kankri hasn't even gone on a rant yet-

KANKRI: -That's because he feels like he doesn't really need a lot of words for John to get him.-

DAVENFORTH: -In the cool of the morning he finds himself sitting lake side, holding a mirror up to his face and peeling at the bandages around his eye. Great, yeah that was definitely gonna scar. At least he could see, even if it was a bit blurry. His face was started to heal up too, the swelling starting to subside despite there still being bruising.-

[forgetmenotblues]

52 in 52

So last year I tried to read 52 books in 52 weeks (aka a year, if you're nasty), and because I was a shiftless philosophy student, I managed and then some.

Here are the books I've read, with some thoughts on them, for posterity, or recommendations

1) Sandman Overture, Neil Gaiman

Pretty solid, usually I hate prequels, but sandman was always pretty meandering and non-linear, so it works well. Just annoying it doesn't fit in with my pretty leatherbound absolute editions

2) Radioactive: love and fallout, Lauren Redniss

Very cool artsy biography of Marie Curie, and glows in the dark!

3) XKCD What if?

Extremely fun science, makes some abstract concepts approachable, I mean it's Randall Munroe, it's solid

4) Rise to Rebellion, Jeff Shaara

Historical novel (gonna be a few of these, I'm dead into them) about the build up to the American revolution . Kinda dry for a lot of it, but can ratchet the tension up, taught me lots I didn't know, and there's a bit towards the end where John Adams' wife calls him out on his privilege and it's pretty rad

5) Dune, Frank Herbert

I hate myself for saying this, but I was expecting it to be a bit more... dry. But seriously, everything described it as complex philosophy and politics, ASOIAF in space, and then it was a pretty straightforward adventure. The dynastic politics boiled down to a family of cool beautiful good guys vs an evil family of "hilariously" fat perverts. It was a great read, but more Laurence of Arabia than anything else

6) Squirrel girl, Ryan North 

Fantastic, fun, brilliantly written - it's Ryan North, nuff said.

7) Virgil, Steve Orlando

A cool, dark, "queersploitation" comic. Your basic "beaten and left for dead, wreaks vengeance" type story, brutal, but honestly pretty cathartic

8) the house that groaned, karrie fransman

A comic about a bunch of dysfunctional people. I didn't care for it, it was a lot of kinda shallow Freudian psychology and slightly tim burton esque "quirky" characters. It was kinda like the A Dolls House arc of Sandman, but... not good

9) The Last Continent, Terry Pratchett

Discworld is always fantastic, and I've got a real fondness for the classic travelogue style rincewind ones.

10) Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist, Russel McCormmach

The story of a German physicist who's dedicated his whole life to ether model physics and is realising his life's work is being disproved by recent advances... so a barrel of laughs. All about mortality, the fear of obsolescence, nationalism, and academia.

11) The Property, Rutu Modan

Indie comic about a girl learning about her family's heritage in Europe, lots of post war stuff and exploring "the old country". Very good

12) The Wake, Paul Kingsnorth

This was one of the real wins of this year, a story about the Norman occupation of Anglo Saxon England after 1066, and resistance thereof. Written in a conlang made to simulate old english, it seems totally unreadable, but you pick it up, and it makes the story infinitely more engrossing. A cool setting plus a whole other language wouldbe enough, but kingsnorth goes one further and makes it a savage deconstruction of nationalism and a beautifully painful exploration of tropes these sorts of books tend to embrace. Can't recommend enough.

13) Adventures of Hergé, Jean-luc Fromental

Biography of hergé written in the style of a tintin comic, a lot of fun

14) Carpé Jugulum, Terry Pratchett

Another Discworld, another classic. A lot of fun stuff with vampire tropes, although also a pretty serious discussion of "all evil comes from utilitarianism", which I felt didn't entirely fit, and I disagreed with. But again, the biggest criticism I've ever had of a Pratchett book is "his intelligent discussion of philosophy felt a little out of place", so not the end of the world

15) Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett

I went on a bit of a discworld binge here, another great one

16) Half a King, Joe Abercrombie

Great deconstructive low fantasy  novel, one of the many ASOIAF-esque books out there, and one of the few I've really enjoyed

17) Batman and Robin Eternal, D.C. Comics

Fun story about the batfamily, one of the rare bat-titles to really say "hey maybe this should be fun, you guys?"

18) Magical Game Time, Zac Gorman

Brilliant comics about video games, capture the real magic and freedom you found in games when you're a kid, the epic narratives you'd weave out of very simple Zelda games on the NES. makes me happy on a fundamental level. A lot of its available as webcomics, look it up, you won't regret it

19) The Truth, Terry Pratchett

Another brilliant Discworld book. Not much to say as there's a lot of these another all just consistently amongst the best books ever.

20) Wonder Woman Earth 1, Grant Morrison

Grant Morrison's always got a gift for finding the heart of a character, and he doesn't disappoint here. A lot of weird analysis of wonder woman as a feminist character, but he handles it pretty well overall.

21) & 22) Half the World, and Half a War, Joe Abercrombie

Parts 2 and 3 of the series, stays brilliant. Abercrombie is apparently best known for more adult stuff and this is more YA, but if anything that refines his writing - stops him being another grimdark game of thrones wannabe, and keeps it slightly more reconstructive and intelligent. Brilliant use of characters, the hero of the first book ends up almost the villain of the last, and all for entirely understandable reasons.

23) Machine of Death, various authors

A short story collection about a high concept: a simple blood test can tell you your cause of Death, but not the time or any specifics. A brilliant idea is explored in a lot of clever, beautiful, and hilarious ways.

24) The Last Hero, Terry Pratchett

Another brilliant Discworld, acting as a bridge between the classic fantasy of the older books, and the renaissance era politics and science of the later books - v poignant

25, 26, & 27) Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic, Bernard Cornwell

Historical novels about the battle of creçy and the start of the 100 years war. Cornwells always good, although honestly these aren't his best. Pretty cool comparison between the chivalry of grain quests, and the reality of medieval warfare.

28) Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb

A classic batman, the story they based Dark Knight on, with a cool transition from down to earth organised crime of Year One to the zany madness of later batman

29) Little Brother, Cory Doctorow

A novel about post-911 culture, and counter culture rebellions against it. Fantastic novel, available as creative commons, so you can get it for free, so no excuses not to read! Very inspiring in that fuck Bush and fuck this war aesthetic, and Ihve a feeling it's gonna get real relevant in the coming years

30) Enders Game, Orson Scott Card

Pretty fantastic sci fi, analyses the psychological impacts of chosen one children saving the world, and the ethics of a "all the enemy are evil aliens" narrative. Obviously all this ethicality is a bit hypocritical from Orson Scott homophobia, so buy it second hand?

31) Black Guard, AJ Smith

Pretty cool fantasy, another faux ASOIAF type one, fairly straightforward, but plenty enjoyable

32) Deadpool vs Hawkeye

Pretty fun comic, read it on a plane back from Costa Rica, so I dont super remember it? But I enjoyed  

33) The Sleeper and the Spindle, Neil Gaiman

Very cool twisted fairy tale type thing, Neil Gaiman's always good, and beautiful Chris Riddel illustrations on top

34) Dial H for Hero, China Miéville

Great comic series, takes a simple idea (guy finds magic phone, when he dials it, he becomes a randomised superhero) and explores it in every possible way, becoming a full blown epic. Plus a scene where he becomes old timey racist heroes from the 60's and has to balance the good of doing superheroics vs the offensiveness of going out as "super chief" or whoever

35) Ravenspur, Conn Iggulden

Historical novel about the war of the roses. Iggulden is always very good, makes extremely readable stuff, and his war of the roses series is fantastic, a complex story made into an awesome action story. However, this last book isn't his best, it spends about 2/3rds of the book on a 6 month period where not much happens, then blazes through 10 years of action in no time at all, the pacing just felt a bit off. Still very good.

36) Howard the Duck, Chip Zdarsky

Very readable, very fun, very witty

37) Stonehenge, Bernard Cornwell

Historical novel about the building of Stonehenge, this is cornwell at his best, at border of very well researched intelligent history and the slightest hint of fantasy, making a brilliant story that brings history to life.

38) Black Orchid, Neil Gaiman

Slightly deconstructive superhero story, reads very much like a companion piece to Alan Moore's brilliant Swamp Thing

39) The Hartlepool Monkey, Wilfrid Lupano

Historical comic about a northern English town that hanged a shipwrecked monkey as a Napoleonic spy. A brutal read, exploring idiotic nationalism, well recommended

40) Turned Out Nice Again, Richard Mabry

Cute non-fiction musings on the meanings of weather and it's effects on our day to day life

41) The Heroes, Joe Abercrombie

Another deconstructive low fantasy, this time part of his adult series, which actually kind of works against it. Without the lighter edge, it can be a little bit of a downer. Nonetheless, well written, solid characterisation, and an excellent take-down of fantasy's belief in the glorious nature of war.

42) Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett

Another fantastic Discworld, fun, funny, and clever

43, 44, 45, 46, 47) A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons

Reread all of ASOIAF, absolutely fantastic, better on a second read. The first 3 are great as last time, plus all the foreshadowing that now makes sense. And 4&5, which I felt bit more ambivalent about the first time round, I've since read various analyses of (check out @asoiafuniversity), and I'd now consider them some of the best books I've ever read.

48) Gettysburg Address, Jonathon Hennessey

Absolutely brilliant comic, dissecting the Gettysburg address, using each line of it as a jumping off point to explore the history and philosophy of the civil war, incredibly high recommendation

49) Lazarus, Greg Rucka

A fantastic sci fi comic series, brilliant writing and characters, rucka is always great, and this is some of his best

50) Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

Another Discworld, but this one is even better than usual, this is one of the ones that stand out as serious business, much less comedic and much more epic than usual

51) A Brief History of Vice, Robert Evans

Hilarious and informative book from a cracked.com writer about use of drugs and alcohol through history, with recipes and recommendations for legal highs and drink recipes

52) Just City, Jo Walton

Sci fi / fantasy /philosophical novel, where great thinkers from throughout history are brought together to build Plato's perfect city. All about the clash between high ideals and practical reality. Very enjoyable, the sort of book where action scenes are philosophical debates.

53) Goldie Vance, Hope Larson

Fun cool progressive detective comic

54) Temeraire, Naomi Novak

A really fun fantasy novel with a concept that seems so simple, you don't know how no one's done it before. Essentially it's just the classical trope of dragon riders, but updated from pseudo medieval to the Napoleonic era, with all  associated tall ships and iron men and officer and a gentleman tropes