#mary is my first hunter main...actually

[theodove]

hi! *shows you my mary because i love her*

[lvmbien]

god after getting abused by hunters and sacrificed by selfish survivors all day there is just something so refreshing and soul healing about the chaos of a specific brand of late night friendly hunter match

[soft-pine]

Hey hey, I saw you said you don't get many asks. I have one! Can you do any freeform thoughts about Pastor Jim? (What he represents, his skillset, how long John's known apparently him, how John cried for him, etc? Whatever you feel like, really.)

I'm fascinated by the fact that by your timeline, it seems that the once John starting leaving the kids with others, those folks started getting picked off pretty early, perhaps inflaming John's sense of paranoia and isolation in parallel to how Azazel isolated Mary and picked off her support systems.

And I'm curious how Pastor Jim fits into this. :-)

hi Shal! that's so nice!! sorry it took me so long to reply!

i love the connection you made with the timeline and people getting "picked off" as you say! yeah i think that would have certainly fueled john's paranoia and stretched him and stressed him even more!

also i apologize in advance because i know you're maybe not a self-described john-anti. and, though i find his character complex and fascinating and sometimes even sympathetic, i do have mostly harsh criticism for him. and also sorry cause your posts are so tidy and well formatted and this is gonna be kinda a spill out. i can pull up citations for anything here if needed though!!

but okay jumping in! i'm really fascinated by the people john had connections to while he was raising sam and dean and i'm interested in the two main subcategories of that group - people he had a falling out with versus people he didn't. pastor jim falls into that second category, along with martin, travis, fred jones, deacon, jefferson (?), and caleb. (the first category includes elkins, bobby, tara, ellen, etc).

i think that part of the reason john kept his family separate from the hunting community at large is because hunters tend to tell each other that kids shouldn't be involved. at least that is the kind of hunter dean became. and i think it's possible that some of the fallings out john had with other hunters was over that issue. that certainly is a contributing factor to the strain in his relationship with bobby.

so what does that say about the hunters which john remained in community with? we don't know much about jefferson or caleb. but martin has a black and white view of monsters and isn't worried about harming civilians himself to get results. travis also is impatient and cruel in his methods. fred jones gave both dean and sam alcohol before they were 10. and deacon is a physically abusive prison guard. maybe this is me being too harsh but those actions stick with me as they overlap with john's own black and white views and in contrast to bobby or ellen for example. none of that says anything specific about jim himself i guess but the general pattern of hunters who didn't have a falling out with john is interesting to me!

unfortunately, the other reason i have a somewhat negative view of pastor jim is i was raised evangelical and ... i did not care for all that. as best as i can tell jim is some form of protestant minister... and one whose denomination has some kind of liturgical tradition. one of my early fic chapters is kinda about him actually. or i mean about the kind of person/pastor that he strikes me as and about the comradery and tension between him and john.

i tend to think of john as somewhat of an atheist. a "nothing up there's gonna save you, you gotta do it for yourself" kinda guy. so i think he kinda puts up with jim's beliefs and faith because jim has a very safe base of operations and seems very well equipped. i also imagine that jim is someone who can offer the kind of emotional support johh might need. from his brief conversation with meg at the beginning of 1.21, it seems like he's used to offering kind of talk-therapy-esque conversations. here's a little excerpt from my fic that shows that kinda?

Dad must have wrapped up his hunt cause he's back in the morning when Dean goes into the house to brush his teeth. “I just don't know how to do it,” Dad's voice is saying, low and quiet from the kitchen. He sounds like maybe he's crying. Dean crouches down low in the front hall. If he walks past the kitchen door, they're going to hear him. “I know, John,” Pastor Jim says. “I know.” “You know, I... I try to do right by those boys... not lay it all on them. But I just. I miss her so much.” Dad is crying now. “You're doing the best you can, John.” “Sam's too young to really understand all this stuff and I know Dean tries,” Dad lets out a long sigh. Dean digs the tips of his fingers into the coarse hallway rug. He doesn't want his Dad to feel like this. He hates that his Dad is sad and he hates that he hasn't done a good enough job making sure Dad knows he can talk to him if he needs to. That he'd do anything. “I've got to hold it together for them, Jim. And some days I feel like I can't.”

(rereading that chap and it's possible i put a bit too much of my own knowledge of and baggage about evangelical issues in the late 80's into it... oopsie)

i really am inclined to think john knew jim for the longest of most of his contacts. i mean in the semi-canonical john's journal, he meets him at the end of the month that mary dies! but even by the show's timeline, jim is trusted enough for john to have him as a backup safehouse for the boys as early as 1988 which suggests he's known him at least some time by that point.

from all the conversations sam and dean have with travis, martin, fred, and deacon, it doesn't seem like they or john have seen any of those people for a long time. but in s1, they're still very in touch with pastor jim. is he perhaps john's oldest and most consistent friend?

which tracks with john's deeply emotive response to jim's death. i would argue the most grief he shows in the show besides for mary. i think that tracks with the loss of a support and confidant of decades. certainly both caleb and jim's death show a devotion to john beyond a care for their own lives.

i'm sorry i don't know if i have much to say about jim's skill set! some of the specific mechanics of hunting and the supernatural are not quite in the purview of the way my spn-special-interest shows up im sorry! but i think the church as sacred ground and jim's familiarity with the concept of demons would both protect him somewhat from azazel's lower level minions and also probably endear john to him.

and what he represents!? oh gosh! i think your narrative analysis is on another level from the one im dabbling around in.

thanks for the ask!! and thanks for all your amazing analysis!

[worldismyne]

Iceberg Bing for layer 3 and 4.

My memory is really bad, so some of these might have already appeared in earlier layers.

AMVs - Either specific songs that were popular to use in the fandom, or any fanmade content from during the manga's run that was popular

Soul and Maka Split up - Apparently this interpretation of Maka and Soul's final discussion in the manga is a hot take. There was a lot going on in the final chapter, but here are the phrases from the manga that gave me that impression.

Will cross this box off for any analysis from that final chapter tho.

Thompson Twins - Can't remember if this specific reference was pointed out, but stands in for any pop culture references brought to light.

The Dress - This is a newer development, but at some point this dress got listed on Devil Inspired and advertised heavily on instagram.

A bunch of Chrona cosplayers independently saw it and adopted it. (There were at least 3 or 4 at the first con I went to after it was listed). It's so prolific I've seen it in fanart of Chrona now.

Mary Shelly Theory - Saw someone in the tag a while back theorize Marie might be an allusion to Mary Shelly. It would add a layer to the electricity power outside of the Mjolnir reference.

New Art - Any mention of the 20th anniversary drops. (It didn't fit well in the square)

Purple/Pink Gate - Another one I can't remember if it's already been covered. Despite most fan artists color picking a dusty rose for Crona's hair, lavender wigs are still more common for cosplayers. I am a pink wig truther.

Shinobi - Okay, this is a PS2 game that predates the manga by two years. The main mechanic is a katana that sucks the lifeforce/soul of the user unless it's constantly fed other souls. I am fairly sure this is the inspiration of the uncanny sword. Even the cover art gives post time skip vibes.

If not, both pieces of media have to be referencing the same thing.

Zagreus + Dionysus : Death the Kid's role in SE has similarities with the god of the rebirth. Particularly the part of the legends where he's dismembered and eaten. There is some confusion in greek mythology if these are just different names for the same god or just two gods whose roles overlap, thus why I put both names.

Ragnarok - Particularly how he stops being a character after Salvage. Will also check off for mention of the war of the gods.

Merch - There's a lot of merch out there. Apparently they made a speaker inspired by bonus art. I'm sure there's a bunch of official stuff I haven't seen before.

Official Cosplay - There's a few talking points here that come to mind. Like how Soul is the only weapon with an official cosplay prop. Any Spirit, Ragnarok or Tsubaki props you see were made by the cosplayer. Death the Kid rings get sold one at a time, even if they're advertised as a set.

Translations goofs - There's little things like Afreet and Kishen being used interchangeably in the sub. The Witch hunter evolutions have a few different names. I'm sure there's other translation stuff that I don't know about that might pop up.

Demi-god Black Star - Another umbrella square. Black Star's arc towards the end seems to be referencing something specific. Idk what it is, but Marie goes out of her way to put him and Death the Kid on the same level and snubs Maka at the end of the manga.

The Dread Queen - Comparing Chrona to Persephone is really common in the Kirona crowd. After listening to some deeper dives on the topic there's actually precedence for them to be an allusion ancient underworld goddess that predates Persephone and Hades, but not the abduction myth. They're never referred by name only by titles. Crona's name being literally Dark One in Japanese fits with this theme, as well as usually being referred to as the Demon Sword rather than by their given name. This could be more coincidence than anything else though.

Unlocalized content - The iceberg has already covered the games, but there might be audio dramas or other in-character content that didn't make it's way over when SE was popular in the US.

[oracleslibrary]

Bayonetta 3 Sucks and Here's Why

[Content warnings for: Gore, sexual themes. Spoiler warnings for the entirety of the Bayonetta series.]

Good evening, everyone.

I have summoned you all here to my little shop of horrors today to talk to you about witches.

When I mention 'witches,' one of the first words that pops into your head might be 'Salem.' The Salem witch trials are perhaps the most famous of all of the many, many witch trials that took place from the 1500s to the late 1800s. The witch trials of both Europe and America were a perfect example of hysteria and the fear of the other, and how that hysteria can lead to the deaths of innocent people. Witch hunts and witch trials began in the early-to-mid 1500s in Europe and around 1648 in America, with their final trials being in 1782 and 1878, respectively. Now, the victims of these trials were not witches. They were innocent, often marginalized folks who either went against the rigid status quo or merely existed as 'undesirables' and were slaughtered for it. But the witch trials have heavily influenced how we see witches in the modern day (even if some of the ideas we have nowadays have dubious origins of whether it was actually the witch trials that spawned them). They use familiars, they are in league with the devil, they have "witches' marks" which can take the place of birthmarks or scars or literally any mark that the hunters decide is evil, their hair is a large source of their magical ability. All of these things are traits we still associate with witches today.

And if any of these traits sound particularly familiar to fans of a certain game series, it's certainly no coincidence.

Before I get into the main topic of today's essay, I need to set up some backstory with the development of Bayonetta, the plots of the first two games, and an analysis of Bayonetta's character herself. It's integral to future understanding of what I'm going to have a fucking hernia over.

Bayonetta was first released in 2009, garnering positive reviews from both critics and fans and selling over a million copies worldwide. Taking inspiration from the stylishness and exaggeration of Devil May Cry, former director of PlatinumGames Hideki Kamiya wanted to focus on sexiness and stylishness with the snappy and hard-hitting gameplay of a hack-and-slash. Bayonetta herself was designed by Mari Shimazaki in conjunction with Kamiya in order to create a modern-day witch with glasses and four guns. This design and character, intentionally or not, draws a lot from these old European ideas of witches. Bayonetta's hair being the source of her power, Bayonetta having infernal contracts with demons, her being able to transform into animals as well as cats being completely calm around her--hell, even her beauty mark would have been considered a witch's mark. As well, Shimazaki pushed hard for Bayonetta to have a beehive hairdo as a modern representation of a witch's hat.

As a brief summation of the first game, Bayonetta follows the titular Umbra Witch as she goes to find the secrets of her past, as one day she awoke in a casket in a lake with no memory of who she was. As a quick note, this world has two major factions of supernatural ability: the Umbra Witches, and the Lumen Sages. The Lumen protected the light, the Umbra the dark. Bayonetta is the only known remaining Umbra Witch, as the rest were hunted and killed in the Witch Hunts. The Lumen had been defeated by the Umbra just before the Hunts began when they went to war.

Bayonetta's search brings her to the holy city of Vigrid, where she faces off against Angels with her own infernal powers as they try to stop her from getting closer to the truth. Among these adversaries is the mysterious Jeanne, who strangely enough has powers that mirror Bayonetta's perfectly, hint hint. After an unfathomable amount of property damage, Bayonetta meets a little girl named Cereza, who mistakes Bayonetta for her mom and becomes attached to her quickly. Bayonetta is less than enthused about being followed around by a toddler, but also finds that this child can see Angels, and is being hunted by them as well. Joining together with investigative journalist and most pathetic man alive Luka Redgrave, who has his own bone to pick with Bayonetta, they make it to Isla del Sol, where just--fucking everything happens at once. 

Balder, the one in charge of all the Angels and the last remaining Lumen Sage, is revealed to be Bayonetta's father, Cereza is actually a time-displaced young version of herself, Bayonetta is the holder of the Left Eye of Darkness, which is used in conjunction with the Right Eye of Light to resurrect Jubileus, the Creator who is basically God, and Jeanne turns out to have been her childhood friend and fellow Umbra Witch who was brainwashed by the angels to fight for them--it's a whole thing. It's kind of absolutely fucking insane actually.

But in the end Bayonetta kills God and seemingly dies but she's okay actually don't worry about it.

Bayonetta 2 was released in 2014 on the Wii U, which was certainly. A decision. But despite the unfortunate platform, the game received rave reviews and was a massive critical success among fans and critics. The game almost didn't happen, if not for Nintendo partnering with the creative team and funding the project. The game was praised for its improvements over the original, from the lessening of insta-kill quick-time events and making them more forgiving, to easier ability to build up power with button mashing and spinning the joystick, to new weapons and powers, to new animations for which direction Bayonetta was attacking, to stronger pacing, and to more refined art direction. Gameplay remained largely unchanged, mostly because, well, it didn't really need to change. It was excellent as-is, with some new adjustments such as using magic for Wicked Weaves at the end of combos for extra damage, and generally having an easier time building up magic at all.

The plot follows Bayonetta as she goes to rescue Jeanne from Inferno after a summon gone wrong. In doing this, she goes to the water city of Noatun to reach the mountain Fimbulventr, where it is said that a gate to Inferno resides. Along the way, she meets Loki, an amnesiac child with a foul mouth and a snippy attitude who feels compelled to climb the mountain to learn who he is. All the while, Bayonetta is constantly being confronted by a Lumen Sage, which surprises her, as she killed the last one of those in the previous game. That Lumen Sage turns out to be a younger version of her father, Balder, before he went insane and evil. There's so much backstory to explain who all of these characters are and their relevance to the story, but I'll give context as needed to further explain. 

Bayonetta and Balder kill God at the end again and Balder traps God's evil spirit in his body before going back in time and then going insane which leads into the events of Bayonetta 1. Stable time loop.

The plot of Bayonetta often surrounds themes of deception, misunderstandings, secrets, identity, time travel, and what it means to be. It's about family, whether by blood or by choice. It's about righting past wrongs. It's about fun and freedom and stylishness. But I'd argue one of the strongest themes in Bayonetta is love. The people you love, the places you love, the things you love. The things you'll do anything to protect. I think a lot about one of Bayonetta's quotes from the first game, when she's talking to Cereza (long before she ever knew Cereza's whole deal), and making sure that Cereza's Umbran Watch is secure:

"When you love something, never lose it. Understand, little one? You must keep it safe, close to your heart."

Bayonetta's character was a line that the crew could have very, very easily fucked up. It would have been so easy to make Bayonetta just a fanservice character, there to be sexualized without having any actual personality. But they didn't; instead, they made an incredibly distinct character with a strong personality and distinct style who simply oozes sexuality, which is never derided or seen as a bad thing. The way I've always described is that fanservice, namely bad fanservice is the camera sexualizing the character. The key component here is consent: if a character in-universe is showing off their body, then it's still fanservice, but it's not a violation of the character. Now I know what I just said is really fucking loaded because they're ultimately fictional characters, but there's something of an underlying theme of the non-consent being the main driving point of the appeal of certain types of fanservice. Y'know, a woman's clothes tearing or someone falling on her breasts, or being caught in the middle of a shower or in her underwear. (It's almost always women, for the record.) It's not always this, fanservice comes in many forms, but when you usually think about it, it's mostly likely you think of the objectification of women.

The way that Bayonetta handles fanservice is more like... instead of the camera sexualizing Bayonetta, Bayonetta is the one grabbing the camera to look at her. She's constantly posing, dancing, teasing--just doing everything she wants to for the camera. Almost everything she does is of her own will, because she clearly finds it fun and humorous. There are only a couple of occasions where the camera does sexualize her without her consent, but I'm willing to let it slide because they were the setup for or outright goofs, with exaggerated camera zooms and cartoonish sound effects. (The only exception that does make me uncomfortable are the Joys. Just. Eugh.)

But this sexuality, this femininity, is integral to the identity of the games, as well as to Bayonetta herself. She's a beautiful, sexy woman, who not only flaunts but even weaponizes her sexuality in the most insane ways possible. You don't see that a lot with characters, least of all written as well as Bayonetta.

But her character doesn't stop at her beauty and sexuality. She went through a full character arc, with growing warmer with Cereza to the point where she sings to the girl when putting her to bed, to her learning more about her past and her role in the schemes of the villain, and then pushing past this predetermined plan in order to protect the world and the people she cares about. She's witty, clever, sly, has a quick and skillful trigger finger, and can adapt to changes in her environment very quickly in order to rid of her enemies.

But she's not just stylish and awesome and whatnot. She can also mess up and make mistakes, such as her amazing expression when she accidentally crushes Enzo's car in the beginning of 1, or when she tries to blow up one of the virtues in a cool way by lighting a trail of gasoline with her gun-heel, while looking away, and it's all super cool--until the spark dies halfway through, and Bayonetta just ends up. Standing there. And she just groans and shoots the tank of gasoline normally. Or when she tries to do a cool maneuver using Loki's cards to teach him a lesson but they just fall to the ground useless. It's these moments of goofiness that really give Bayonetta a humanity to her, that shows she's not infallible or perfect, but can be just as silly as the rest of us. A personal favorite is when she goes to retrieve Cereza's doll Cheshire from one of the Virtues, and she holds it up to her ear as though it's talking to her. Like, no one is around but her, and yet she's doing something that a mom would do with her kid's toys. It's such a small thing but also very sweet--especially when Bayonetta returns the doll with a band-aid over its eye. That's such a motherly thing to do, especially when kids often see their toys as living beings.

It's with Cereza especially that a lot of Bayonetta's softer side begins to show, with her affectionately calling Cereza "little one", becoming increasingly worried when she appears to be in danger, going out of her way to do things for her--eventually culminating in her putting Cereza to bed, telling her that the nightmare is over, and that she's a strong girl. When I was typing up the script, I was starting to choke up just thinking about that scene, because it's just such a strong scene. The fondness for kids transfers to Loki as well, with her taking to him as some endearing teenage son almost, with her being legitimately worried that he might be hurt or even killed, and seems genuinely upset when he was just playing dead.

Jeanne, too, is the subject of Bayonetta's softer side. Hell, the entire plot of 2 is Bayonetta defying death itself in order to save Jeanne's soul and bring her back. The scene where Bayonetta calls for Jeanne, and actually fucking begs her to wake up, is heartbreaking. Jeanne is Bayonetta's closest confidant, with the two actually living together post-1. They're best friends, they're treasured companions, and they have a domestic life together. They were planning a Christmas party at the beginning of 2.

As well, Bayonetta's demeanor can shift to very serious when the situation calls for it, such as her genuine fury when she thinks Balder has killed Luka. Bayonetta may not say it outright, but she clearly cares a lot for the people around her, being willing to risk life and limb to protect them. Another quick thing I want to mention--whenever Luka accuses Bayonetta of killing his father (she didn't, by the way, long story), Bayonetta, unable to actually recall what happened that day, looks actually rather downcast and troubled. She actually seems to think that she might have killed Luka's father, and looks quite upset at the thought. As much as Bayonetta would like to depict herself as infallible, she cares so much, and that care is a driving force behind the games.

I stress a lot about Bayonetta's character because I think it's a core aspect of the games. The games would not be the same without Bayonetta. Bayonetta's character is baked into everything--the visuals of bleeding rose petals and butterfly shadows and a lock-on of lipstick, into the elegant and joyous lounge music, to the plot and backstories revolving around Bayonetta's past and her roles in previous events. Bayonetta herself is the core of the games. I think she's probably the biggest appeal, because her character shapes the rest of the game aspects. It just wouldn't be a Bayonetta game without Bayonetta and all of the beautiful aesthetics and unique gameplay and creative ways of torturing and killing angels that she brings.

...

So then there's Bayonetta 3.

Bayonetta 3 is... I think the perfect 'fuck you' that you could ever give a fan of a series. Bayonetta 3 spits in your face and demands that you praise it. 

I want you to imagine this. It's 2017. You're watching the Game Awards for some reason. And then, a specific teaser shows up, revealing that Bayonetta 3 is in development. It's been three years since the release of 2, so you're pretty hyped about it.

And then you hear nothing about it for years.

The most that you see is a couple articles with quotes from devs that development is "going well" in 2019, but even then, you still hear nothing about it. No trailers, no teasers, no images, not even leaks, to my knowledge. Just absolutely nothing. Games take a long time to develop, sure, but usually there's teaser images or such in order to keep the game in the collective consciousness of gamers.

Cut to the Nintendo Direct of 2021, where a trailer for something begins to play. And after a while you realize Holy shit it's Bayonetta 3 oh my god this looks amazing holy shit what the fuck.

(Pour one out for Astral Chain fans, by the way.)

So now you finally have a new trailer, you have something to show that this game is tangible and real and happening. Later trailers reveal the release date: October 28th, 2022. Exactly a year ago from today assuming that I manage to get this done on time.

There was also the, uh... controversy, but I'm not getting into that today. There's plenty of coverage on the Helena Taylor thing, and I'm not really talking about the controversies surrounding the game as I am about the game itself. The only thing I'll say is: Fuck TERFs, Bayonetta says Trans Rights.

Release day comes without a hitch, and what you get is... hoogh. Okay where do I start.

Lemme start with the things I like about the game, because I don't hate it, and it mechanically isn't a bad game. 

Jeanne hands-down has the best segments in the game. Like mechanically they're not the beeeest, but the amount of fun that they have with it is great. These segments follow Jeanne as you break into a top-secret facility, complete with a spy intro (that does unfortunately play in its entirety at the beginning of each segment with no option to skip) and kickass music. It's absolutely absurd and I love it, because Jeanne is so into the spy shit. She has one-liners to herself, if she gets smushed by an elevator she does the cartoonish thing where she gets flattened and flies about like paper, it's just really good. (There's a thing where a homunculus can go into a shower while she's showering and she kills it which is kinda weird but still pretty in-line with a Bayo game so.) Especially since we actually get to hear her basically do a magical girl speech and transformation into Cutie J, her actual genuine superhero alter ego, and get to play as her as an invincibility power. It's genuinely an extremely characterized segment and is a delight to go through. Jeanne is a loser and that's so important to me. She breakdances after killing an enemy.

Rodin's gimmick this time is great. The pizza truck is just. Perfection. He's as cool as ever when he's not. Y'know. Being a dick to Enzo after Enzo seemingly loses his wife and family that he seems to love very much. (I'm gonna get to that.)

Viola is hands-down the best character, she's such a try hard who's doing her goddamn best and her VA really put her all into the role. It's almost over-acted, which seems to be intentional, as Viola is very expressive with her hands and body as she talks. She's also a complete loser and I think we need more failgirls in media.  I just wish that the narrative didn't fuck her over at every turn.

The gameplay's pretty solid, with the demon summoning being pretty fun. It's a shame that torture attacks aren't as common and only can be used when an enemy is stunned, but I also do appreciate how they don't stop the gameplay or force you to do button-mashing in order to execute them when they *do* appear. It keeps the flow going and is just overall a nice fix. The combat still feels good, the level-ups are a tad strange since in previous games boosts to health and magic were automatic but it's not that big of a deal.  The new forms are also fun, and even if the spider is a little hard to control, I still absolutely loved being able to just swing across the whole map.

The music is absolutely great as per usual, though--okay I need to have a sidebar about Moonlight Serenade real quick. I know this is the section where I talk about what I like but I just - I need you to understand my vision.

So. I don't like Moonlight Serenade that much. BUT IT'S FOR SUCH A SPECIFIC REASON. The song never feels like it has a proper conclusion. Like - ok I might be wrong abt this because I know shit about fuck when it comes to music theory but if you listen to the chorus of "fly me to the moon" and "moon river", you feel like that is a complete phrase, right? Like the buildup happens, and then the last line of the chorus sounds like a satisfactory end to that part.

Like the song could stop there and it wouldn't leave you musically hanging, it's called a cadence i believe. But moonlight serenade doesn't have that. It doesn't have that musical conclusion and thus constantly feels incomplete, it feels like I'm waiting for smth that never comes and it makes it annoying to listen to. Which is weird, because in the Frank Sinatra version that they use in the credits, the song does eventually have a cadence at the very end, so it's not like the song just can't be performed that way! Just - here's the ends to the three main themes put together.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND.

It's such a small and niche thing to be upset over, I know, but it just drives me insane. Moonlight Serenade is like your brain building up an itch that it never scratches.

Regardless--the music is still really good, as always for a Bayonetta game. Always with the upbeat jazzy tracks, and Viola's theme "Ghost" absolutely fucks. Also Phenomenal Uncertainty may or may not have made me cry the first time I heard it.

In terms of graphics, the game is, for the most part, very pretty! The particle effects are gorgeous, the animation of human bodies in the teal goo that create the Homunculi is really cool, and gives a brilliant hint as to what the Homunculi actually are before you learn it in-story. I also really like the stained-glass thing motif they have going on with anything fae related, it's really striking.

Something appreciated is also Naive Angel Mode, which actually is a setting you can turn on to censor things more. Things like gore and nudity are covered up or changed, which can allow for more people to feel comfortable playing it, because while nudity isn't something to be shamed... it can still be really embarrassing for people. Some of its censors are simple, like Bayonetta's butterfly form having covers over her breasts, or Bayonetta's outfit not being removed whenever she summons demons. Other changes are... Rodin's donut cigar and Bayonetta pulling a tomato out of her chest. There's arguments to be made one whether or not this is actually helpful as a censorship tool, especially since they don't censor out any swearing and the tomato thing is absolutely a scene killer... but it's also really fucking funny.

... Okay I think that's all I got. Anyway time for the bad.

I'm going to talk about a lot of miscellaneous things in succession, such as graphics and gameplay, in this section, while the story and especially the ending will get their own sections, because dear god.

Since I ended the last section with the visuals, let's start this section with them. The thing about Bayonetta 3 is that it's very... sweaty. If you look at Enzo and Luka, they just look... meaty. And I hate saying that. Those words make my bones itch. What's strange is that the previous games didn't look like that, which leads me to believe this is because of the idea of "next gen graphics" or whatever, trying to make it look more realistic, when instead it looks like meat.

The facial expressions can be a little dopey, and the mouth movements really don't fit the words being said most of the time. Granted, that's always been a thing, but considering that all cutscenes are animated this time rather than being mixed in with still slideshows of renders, it stands out more. Textures in certain areas look very flat, even when they shouldn't be, like the roses on the banner in the beginning--others are an insanely low resolution, like the cracked glass and concrete in Tokyo. These textures are directly next to things that are not low-resolution, which makes them stand out in the worst way.

As I mentioned with Naive Angel mode earlier, it does have things that could really ruin a dramatic scene for you, like the tomato thing. It's making fun of the people who use it by dampening their experience. Like, I don't think people are being prudish or something for not wanting to see such intense gore but still wanting to enjoy an experience. Because it's not like they can get gameplay like this anywhere else, Bayonetta's combat is very unique to itself. There's a lot of nuance and argument to be had over censorship laws, and Western (specifically America's) discomfort with nudity even artistically, whether this type of censorship is made to made it more marketable or more accessible or possibly both, whether it should even have it because it makes no secret that it's a mature rated game for a reason--there's a lot to be said about it, so I at least wanted to bring it up here. But also I can completely understand them adding something like this because, you know, Bayonetta was in fucking Smash Bros. That exposes her to a much wider age range, and probably has many more young people interested in her series. 

Another thing related to this is the mockery of Easy Mode, and how no matter how well you do in a section, no matter if you have amazing combos and take no damage, you will never get a rank higher than clear. In the past, while some battles wouldn't appear on easier difficulties, you could still at least get higher than clear. This? Fucking sucks. Accessibility is really such an important thing in games, because listen: some people are physically incapable of playing video games as well as an abled person. Easier modes can help those who physically can't do what other modes demand of them. Some people want to get through a game quickly because they want to go through the story.

Also some people are just fucking bad at video games, man. I don't think we should punish them for that.

Easy Mode punishes the player for picking it by delegating them to the lowest rank possible. No matter what you do, unless you play the game on its terms, you'll never be good enough. This can really alienate a subset of the audience who were interested in playing it until they realized that the game was basically making fun of you for needing help. Which is stupid and gross and can we PLEASE stop doing this.

Wartrain Gouon was easily the worst of the demons by far. It's so hard to control and get it to the path you want due to the rigidity of its tracks. The clock tower was so non-memorable that I can't even remember what it does.

The demon sections suck. They just do. In concept riding Gomorrah down toppling skyscrapers is sick as fuck, but the controls are nightmarish. Same with Phantasmarae's section where you have to jump from building to building. You have too much momentum due to size, which makes controlling it really hard. Accurate to the size and speed of the creatures? Yes. Fun to play? NO.

The Sin Gomorrah fights are such bullshit. It's rock paper scissors. Bite beats shield, shield beats slam, slam beats bite. If you're still learning the movements of the enemy in order to figure out what they're doing and counter it before it hits you, or god forbid you press the button just a little too late, you get hit. And this fight is probably the slowest of anything I've ever seen. If you fuck up, you wait around 10 seconds in order to do it again. And you have to watch the fight move at the speed of moss in the meantime. It was actually painful to go through.

The others weren't awful. Madama Butterfly's section was okay, I had no idea how the fuck to control anything though. Baal's was the best by far, as it's a fun rhythm game that shakes up the gameplay but still feels at home in a Bayonetta title.

Okay - let's talk story. Finally.

Bayonetta 3's story is something that gets worse the longer you think about it. It's almost insulting how horrible the entire thing was, but especially the ending. Let's go through the plot quick. I'm gonna summarize most of this as a refresher for those who played it and a baseline for those who didn't. I'll be leaving out a lot of the details which I'll bring up later because I don't want this summary to be seventeen hours long.

The game opens up with a fight with Bayonetta as seen in the first game, albeit with her beauty mark in a different spot. Considering this game is about multiverses, we can safely assume this isn't the same Bayo from the first game. She's fighting against an exceptionally powerful foe, one who's shrouded in shadow and can manipulate the environment as though it were clay. We have a monologue overlaying the fight as per tradition, but instead of being Antonio or Luka, we hear a female voice, who we later learn is Viola. (This is kinda clever but it's cleverness based on a plot point that sucks but anyway.)

This foe manages to beat Bayonetta down as Viola talks about 'truth', another thing I'll get into later. She's doing very badly, and eventually gets almost crucified in rock. We then watch as Bayonetta is brutally murdered, and a girl named Viola is given the last 'world bridge.' The man who gives it to her is blown into chunks, and the girl manages to escape just as the shadowy figure tries to kill her.

And that's how it starts! Bayonetta fucking dies!

It doesn't get better from here.

We then cut to New York, where Bayonetta is bullying Enzo as per usual. She's apparently supposed to be meeting someone on a cruise liner, where she is eventually set upon by bizarre teal-and-silver enemies who cause a massive tsunami to head towards the city. These enemies begin to destroy everything and everyone without regard, seemingly trying to eradicate the entire area. Viola falls out of a portal from the sky into Enzo's car, Jeanne shows up with a cute little reference to her first appearance in Bayo 1, Rodin comes by, and eventually they all manage to escape to the Gates of Hell while the rest of the world above is seemingly erased. Unfortunately, Bayonetta wasn't strong enough to even put a dent in the massive army that appeared.

Rodin and Viola reveal that the strange creatures are Homunculi, manmade bioweapons that are actually part human. Their leader is named Singularity, and his ultimate goal appears to be to erase as many universes as possible to gather enough power to wipe out the Trinity of Realities in one go. We don't know why, we just know that he's trying to create something called the Alphaverse, which is essentially all the power of the universes pulled into one world. Viola has been trying to get through the worlds to collect Chaos Gears from other worlds, which if collected and given to a man named Sigurd, should be able to stop Singularity somehow. Jeanne goes off to find Sigurd, while Bayonetta and Viola go off to the Lumen-Umbra island of Thule, which was an ancient hub of study for the multiverse. Something of note is that Viola showcases her abilities to use Witch Time, as well as having a demon companion named Cheshire who remarkably resembles a doll and has pretty childlike behaviors. This will be important later.

The majority of the story is then spent going to different timelines and attempting to get the Chaos Gear from them, all while fighting the Homunculi. You visit Tokyo, Ancient China, Ancient Egypt, and France, and run into the various Bayonettas and Jeannes (and in one instance, Bayonetta's mother Rosa). Unfortunately, though Bayonetta obtains the Chaos Gears and some new weapons and demon companions, she is unable to save any of the worlds she goes to, and even has to mercy-kill one of her alternates when she gets assimilated into the Homunculi.

Jeanne, meanwhile, goes to rescue Dr. Sigurd, a man who's grafted technology to his skin and essentially lives within a test tube. As well, Bayonetta and Viola get set upon by a mysterious wolf creature who attacks them, and Luka shows up sometimes and does very little and then leaves.

So - I'm gonna just drop a lot of shit on you, because all of this is insane.

First of all fearies exist. No, there's been no evidence of their existence beforehand. They just do. Viola meets a variant of Luka named Lukaon who is a fae prince. Sure. Also that werewolf? It's Luka. It's because of something I'll explain later.

So when the crew has the Chaos Gears and Sigurd, Bayonetta and Viola go to the Alphaverse to face Singularity, while Jeanne stays behind to guard Sigurd. Turns out, however, that in the Alphaverse, the real Sigurd's corpse is hooked up to a machine, and the 'Sigurd' back with Jeanne is actually Singularity, who killed and replaced the original Sigurd. Singularity then kills Jeanne and absorbs her power as he had with all the previous Jeannes and Bayonettas, and traps Bayonetta and Viola in the Alphaverse while he makes a universe of his own creation.

Luka shows up to help them, and they escape to fight Singularity.

And thus begins the most laborious, horrible endings I have ever experienced in my undisclosed amount of years. 

The fight with Singularity is, and I do not exaggerate, seven phases. Stage one is the rock-paper-scissors fight with Sin Gomorrah, two is against Singularity Balance, three is against the minibosses that Balance summons, four is a replica of the opening fight, five is a fight alongside the Bayonettas from 1 and 2, six is the fight when all the Bayonettas combine, and seven, finally, is alongside Luka in his werewolf form. 

This shit takes forty minutes to an hour to get through, including cutscenes. It's during this marathon of repetition that we learn a few things: namely, that Viola is the daughter of an alternate Bayonetta and Luka. I'll get to that. Though Singularity was defeated, Bayonetta had pushed herself to her absolute limit, and her Umbran Watch had finally shattered. This leads to the summoned Gomorrah turning on her, her contract with it being up and Inferno going to collect. Viola, knocked unconscious, is starting to get sucked into a black hole that Singularity left behind, and Luka chooses to save his alternate daughter rather than Bayonetta. Bayonetta's soul is raked from her body, and the demons of Inferno start to drag her down. Luka manages to get himself over to Bayonetta, and holds her soul in his arms as the two of them essentially have a love confession. They reassure themselves that Viola will carry on their legacy, and share a kiss as they're pulled into Inferno. Viola cries out for them in heartbreak, before breaking down into a sobbing wreck.

We move to Viola out on a rock drifting in a black sea, unsure of where she is, before a shadow of Bayonetta appears with a Kraken demon that was actually summoned at the beginning but don't worry about it because it didn't matter. Viola then fights against the shadow of her mother, finally having control over her own Faerie powers as shown in a previous section. Before vanishing, Bayonetta tells Viola that this was her last lesson, and that she's grown so much, and 'perhaps the gift of a new name is in order.'

Cut back to New York, which is seemingly returned to normal. Viola, wearing a scarf and a pair of glasses, comes into the Gates of Hell where Rodin and Enzo are. Enzo's talking to his wife on the phone before leaving, implying that those in this universe have been restored. Based on Rodin's words, he's still in contact with Bayonetta and Luka in Inferno, and he's watching over Viola in the meantime. She takes a job from him, and Rodin mentions that he forgot to call her by the family name, "Bayonetta."

Viola stumbles over herself one last time before ushering in the credits with a pose.

... Alright fellas, grab your jaws off the floor and put your tits back on, let's tackle this nightmare.

The thing about Bayonetta 3 is that you just have no idea where to begin. There's so much fucking wrong with it that you really just can't figure out how to look at it right. It's like looking at a pile of glass that melted wrong.

The game's opening also sets a tone of despair and futility, because you play Bayonetta's last moments before being brutally murdered. If Bayonetta, two-time god killer, was beaten by this enemy without even a scratch on the opposing party, just how powerful are they? This is actually a pretty common trope, where in order to show how powerful a new foe is, they have them go up against a character that the audience knows is extremely powerful, and have them get absolutely trounced.

I suppose we'll start with some of the most glaring issues, such as the tone. The tone of Bayonetta 3 is much darker and more serious than that of the previous games, obvious from the moment you start up the game with the start menu looking like This. You have to press a button to get to the familiar logo, but even the logo is a bit edgier--almost literally, with the sharp cracked 3.

But the reason it doesn't work here is because this immediately places Singularity almost as overpowered. Like, Bayonetta was able to kill God. Twice. Albeit, this was with help, but she was still able to hold her own for a significant amount of time. To see this almost immediately gives the audience a feeling of dread, because if Bayonetta can't even land a scratch on this guy, who can?

Things don't get better as the story goes on. Out of the four timelines you go to visit, you save none of them. You get to watch as all of them are essentially eaten by the Homunculi. You get to watch as people die while fighting futily against the Homunculi. The Homunculi are hard-hitting, fast, and innumerable. There are just so many of them, and their units are massive. They're explicitly made to destroy. It is a massive spike in the stakes from the previous two games. It's like if Jubileus had been summoned at the beginning of Bayonetta 1 rather than at the end, or if Aesir had reformed at the beginning of 2. With the Homuculi, it doesn't matter how many you fight. They can regenerate, they can reform, and their most destructive units are about as big as a fucking city. And you don't make a dent in them, no matter what you do. The worlds are gone. The Bayonettas are dead. You can't save any of them.

And by the end, your own Jeanne is dead, and Bayonetta is dead. We don't hear anything about the other worlds. While the other Bayos' and Jeannes' souls are released during the final fight with Singularity, they don't appear to be fully there. They're translucent and glitchy, and they all disappear upon being hit once. Jeanne even reappears to help for a moment before also disappearing again. We never hear anything about Jeanne ever again, by the way. She's just killed in the most anticlimactic way possible, shows up for a second, and then disappears without another word. And we don't know what happened with the other worlds! We have no reason to think that they were returned to normal! And yet, Bayonetta still gets to be around, albeit indirectly. This really just gives the entire game a feeling of "why should I even bother, it's not going to do anything anyway." For all the talk of hope and truth the game spews, the ending is pretty fucking bleak.

On top of that, the majority of the game you just... watch people die. They're not angels, they're not demons, they're regular human beings fighting a war they have no chance of winning, no matter how hard they try. And watching swathes of human beings get wiped out is a much different experience than just watching angels or demons. It makes the entire thing feel just so dark. Because, again, we have no reason to believe that any of these worlds were restored. Singularity makes an off-hand comment about how the Bayonettas fighting back is 'reversing' what he's done, but immediately after one of the Bayos says how they're 'the only ones who made it this far' so like. Which is it?

The darker tone is conveyed through the visuals, also. Everything in this game feels... really desaturated. Like, the past games were bright and vibrant and colorful, but this game feels really gray, no doubt helped by the constant presence of the matter-eating fog.

Bayonetta games are no stranger to more serious topics and scenes, but they still had a ton of levity and fun between it all. There really isn't much of that at all in this game. It's just bleakness after bleakness with a lot of cool visuals thrown into the mix. Which like, yeah, surfing on Gomorrah is cool in concept, but Bayonetta never looks like she's having any fun. She looks so serious and angry half the time. One of the main appeals about Bayonetta as a character is how much fun she has, whether it's dancing or performing acrobatics or torturing angels. But while we get plenty of one-liners from her, it never looks like she's having the good time she usually has. And you could argue that it's because the tone of the plot is what causes her to be more serious, but I personally see that as a cue to lighten the story up a little. The only exception to this is the France level, because while I think randomly adding assimilation to the Homunculi's abilities is bullshit--the Homunculi taking over the French army and making them dance is the kind of shit I expected from the whole game. That was golden.

On the subject of Bayonetta's character, it really feels like they just stripped her of it all and gave her some facsimile of what it used to be. I mentioned earlier about her silliness and her mistakes and her moments of softness with others, but all of that is just devoid from 3 in favor of making Bayonetta this constantly cool, infallible person. She has apparent soft scenes with Luka, but I'll get to that whole thing in a bit. Just know that it's completely unearned. There isn't a moment where she has moments of willing vulnerability with anyone, especially Viola, who you think would be the most important person she would have that with. Instead, she's constantly undermining Viola's agency, insulting her and belittling her, and just never grows close to her like she did with Cereza or Loki. I think the game thinks that Bayonetta being Viola's blood mother means that they automatically have a connection, but--no. That sucks. Fuck off.

The argument can be made of, "Oh this is clearly a different Bayonetta than before! It's normal that she'd act a little different!" And considering that 3's Bayonetta isn't familiar with Phantasmarae, who 1's Bayo had summoned back in the first game, it's safe to assume that it isn't the same one. In fact it's implied that this is a grown-up Cereza from game 1, with the same braids, the younger version of Bayonetta looking almost exactly like Cereza if just a bit older, 1's Bayo telling her "you didn't cry while I was gone, did you?" All of that implies this is the Cereza we've seen from a changed timeline. But this isn't properly conveyed to the audience until the very end where 1 and 2 evidently take place in different timelines (don't worry about it). And even then, if it is because of a character difference, that still doesn't correct the tonal issue or the problems with how she treats Viola versus what the game says their relationship is.

And while talking about Bayonetta... we can't put off The Big Thing™ any longer. So let's talk about Adam and Eve.

Bayonetta makes no secret of its inspirations from Christianity and Judaism. The idea of angels, heaven, hell, demons, and especially the hierarchy of angels inspired by the Jewish hierarchy. But the thing about Bayonetta is that the series has only ever made one reference to the Christian god, that being at the very beginning of 1, where Bayonetta is reading scripture in order to summon angels. But the angels don't serve the Christian god, they serve Paradiso and Jubileus. The actual creation of the world and the Trinity of Realities has nothing to do with Christianity, it has to do with Aesir, Jubileus, and presumably Queen Sheba.

But Singularity refers to Arch-Eves and Arch-Adams, which across all universes are Bayonetta and Luka. Implying some cosmic force brings them together romantically.

I honestly feel like I don't even need to explain why this sucks, but I will anyway.

Most folks know the story of Adam and Eve. First man and woman, the Garden of Eden, the temptation of the snake, the Tree of Knowledge, and disobedience leading to eternal sin (at least according to Christian texts). But in Bayo 3, the only relation to the actual story that Bayo and Luka have are just... they're a man and a woman. So obviously they end up together. At most, maybe it's referring to Singularity trying to play God and Bayonetta and Luka defying him... but the analogy doesn't entirely work because Singularity isn't God, and there are also non-gendered characters from the Bible that could have been used.

The Arch-Eves refer to the one person within a world that's keeping it all together; if Singularity kills them and absorbs their power, then that universe will start to collapse. I don't think the same applies to the Arch-Adams so I don't even know why they're here. The idea that Bayonetta is, in every universe, the most important person, is dumb. It really is. Bayonetta is powerful. She is the holder of the Left Eye of the World. She's saved the world twice over. But she's still just another person--hell, the second game makes a point to stress that she's still part human. That's part of what makes her so strong--because she has humanity. But the idea of Arch-Eves really just... makes her this cosmic protagonist who's the most important person in all the worlds who are literally the only thing holding them all together. Why? Never explained! You just have to accept it!

Lukas across the worlds being Arch-Adams is also dumb. Literally why. Also speaking of Luka, he has faerie blood for some reason! Also there are faeries but I'll get to that! That's why he can transform into a werewolf, because all of the residual energy from the dead Arch-Adams awakened his faerie powers.

God this game fucking sucks dude.

(Sidebar, I read this section out to my fiancee who only knows the plot of Bayo 1, explicitly because I thought it would be funny, and he genuinely did not believe I was telling him the truth. He looked at me and said that he thinks I made this up to fuck with him. Also he said that Lukaon looks like a Genshin character.)

So. I feel like I don't need to say this, but Bayonetta and Luka getting together is fucking stupid.

While this is a different version of Bayonetta than the previous games, the romance hinges on the interactions the two had in the previous games, 1 especially. But if this is a different Bayonetta, then this is essentially the first time we're seeing these two specific characters interact. Which honestly makes it worse. The two of them barely have any screentime with each other, leaving their chemistry about as basic as fucking bleach. Sure, they flirt with each other, but players are primed by past games to know that Bayonetta doesn't really mean it, and mostly just does it to tease and fluster Luka. So it becomes very strange when it turns out yes, actually, she does mean it! Don't worry about why!

To see the two of them essentially confess their love for each other and kiss as they're dragged into Inferno feels so undeserved because their entire relationship was so underdeveloped it was like a sandlot. Just - completely barren. It just feels so unnecessary in a series like this. When I said earlier that Bayonetta was about love, I didn't mean making the female protagonist and a male character of mild importance kiss like Barbie dolls because they're within the same proximity. Luka was barely in the previous game, so him gaining such a huge role feels strange and almost undeserved, because in terms of the actual plot, he doesn't do anything. He just turns into a werewolf to be a couple boss fights. And I still don't understand what the point of the werewolf and faerie shit is! The faerie stuff I think was solely to set up Origins, because to my knowledge, nothing in the previous games even alluded to such a thing. 

I'd also like to bring up, ah... a certain thing about the relationship, assuming that this is the same Cereza from 1. Now I want to say that I don't think it's problematic or whatever, they're both consenting adults so it's whatever, but... It's still really weird how Bayonetta ends up with the alternate version of a man that she knew when she was 6, who has the same name, face, and mannerisms as that man, and who calls her the same nickname that the other Luka had called her child self. It's not pedophilic by any stretch, but it just leaves the slightest bad aftertaste in your mouth, like eating day-old olives.

That brings us to a big point of contention with the game: Viola. Now I personally like Viola a lot, I think her character is funny and a perfect encapsulation of a try-hard teenager trying to establish herself. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people who find her 'annoying' would think she's endearing if she were a male character. People just really can't handle teenage girls having flaws. But Viola gets the short end of the stick so fucking bad in the game. One, she's constantly the punching bag, both narratively and comedically. Some of the stuff is pretty funny, like Bayonetta landing in a cool pose as Viola and her demon companion Cheshire crash into the ground immediately next to her. Others seem to be unnecessary, such as her ass setting on fire and having to control her as she cartoonishly runs into the nearest body of water, or her getting dehydrated in the desert and having to scavenge for water as Cheshire (yes that actually happens). And some are just cruel, like her constantly losing every time she tries to fight.

Viola just isn't allowed to win. She's not allowed to even have a moment of looking cool, she's not allowed to fight bosses on her own despite her clear strength and power, she's not allowed to have a lick of respect from anyone, let alone her own mother Bayonetta. No matter how many times she tells her her name, Bayonetta never uses it until the very end when she's dying or already dead. And immediately after doing so, she instead gives her a new name, her old name. To paraphrase my dear friend Simon, "Viola sucks. You suck. You know who doesn't suck? Bayonetta. You're her now."

No matter how many times she spells out her name, no one listens. The only fight she wins on her own is the very last one, where she's stripped of the identity that she's fought so hard to establish by being forced into the shadow of her parents. She doesn't even get a moment to help during the final boss fight. I honestly feel like I need to stress this point: the secondary player character of this game doesn't even get to help you during the final boss fight. The moment she tries, and the moment her theme starts up, Singularity just tosses her aside, and that's it. She's done. Fuck you for trying, Viola.

It's honestly sad to see a character with such interesting potential as Viola be constantly fucked over by the narrative because they made her the designated punching bag. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't... hate the idea of Viola being the daughter of an alternate Bayonetta. Not with Luka, god no, but just in general. Maybe biological, maybe adopted. It feels like something of a natural progression of the motherly themes in the previous games, if Bayonetta had acted like a mother to this child at all throughout the game. But I can see some version of Bayonetta finding this child out on her own, because her parents had been killed or something, and maybe there was something supernatural about her. I can see that version of Bayonetta realizing that this child has no one, and mortals weren't going to understand how to care for a child like that. So, that version of Bayonetta took Viola in as her own, maybe raising her alongside Jeanne and Rodin while passing down the Umbran Arts to Viola as a way to keep Viola safe and to keep the Umbra alive. But when Viola's home dimension is destroyed and her mother is gone, she goes to 3's Bayonetta and struggles to accept that this is technically a stranger, even as this Bayonetta starts to become fond of her and act much like her own mother. Especially if this is actually Cereza from 1, then she can return the kindness that her own 'mummy' had given to her when she was displaced.

But that would mean that Bayonetta wouldn't get to kiss Luka and we simply can't live without that.

I want to touch briefly on another point of contention surrounding this aspect of the game, and I don't want to get too into it, but I would be remiss to not mention it. A lot of people were upset that Bayonetta ended up with Luka and not Jeanne, saying that it was queer erasure or queerbaiting, making Bayonetta "straight." There's... honestly actually a lot to talk about here.

For those unaware, 'queerbaiting' is defined as "a marketing technique involving intentional homoeroticism or suggestions of LGBTQ+ themes intended to draw in an LGBTQ+ audience, without explicit inclusion of openly LGBTQ+ relationships, characters, or people." Dean and Castiel of Supernatural are an example of queerbaiting I don't care what the finale says. Sherlock and Watson from BBC's Sherlock are an example of queerbaiting. These pairings were constantly teased and hinted at throughout their shows' runtimes, with people in-show talking about how they're obviously in love with each other and them showing their devotion for each other--but don't worry, they're not gay.

Note that this is different from queercoding, which is when the authors intentionally put queer subtext into a character or work as a whole, but can't confirm anything in-story due to demands of producers, publishers, or society at large. A big reason for queercoding starting in the US was the Hayes Code, which in essence banned anything considered 'immoral', which queer people were at the time. 

Homophobia aside, it's hard to say whether or not Bayonetta and Jeanne are queerbaiting, queercoded, or just have a close connection that fans like to interpret as romantic. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely think Bayonetta is queer--Bayonetta is asexual and I will die on this hill--but I honestly couldn't parse whether or not any subtext between the two was intentional. Kamiya has only referred to Bayo and Jeanne as a couple in the sense of a pair, not a romantic couple, and some nude art was made by the character designer Mari Shimazaki more for artistic nudity rather than erotic nudity. As a queer woman myself, I personally don't see either queerbaiting or queercoding. I think that any potential queer readings are just that: readings. I don't think any of it was intentional.

Also people attracted to both men and women exist people for fuck's sake.

A quick aside to talk about faeries. I literally don't know why they're here. I don't know why they exist in this game if not to set up Origins, and I don't know why they exist in there, either. It's such a strange choice to make when nothing at all in the past games has set up the existence of the fae. We barely learn anything about them, and outside of being power-ups for Luka and Viola, they're essentially non-entities. They didn't need to exist and I don't know why they do.

Now let's talk about one of the worst aspects of the game: the villain, Singularity. If your villain sucks, I think that's a massive blow to your game, and Singularity is probably one of the worst villains I've ever seen. His existence in the Bayonetta world just... doesn't make any sense. Did you know he was an artificial human, essentially a computer program that became self-aware and then murdered every single human in his world? No? You shouldn't, because it's ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL.

The thing about past games, and hell even games in general, is that you don't want to leave crucial bits of information hidden away in the files for your players to go find and read. In the previous games, it was all supplemental; it was notes on the structures and customs of the Umbra and Lumen, about magic and potion-making and architecture. It was all stuff that would have bloated the narrative if they were put into the gameplay proper, but are fun reads for those who want to get a little more information on them. 

But that piece of information? That's Singularity's origin story. We shouldn't have to read the manual to get a key piece of character information.

Especially since, we still don't know why he's doing all of this. Balder was trying to resurrect Jubileus because he was a religious zealot driven insane by the soul of Loptr inside of him. Loptr wanted to become whole again and was literally an evil side of a god who wanted to return to the power he had before. The younger Balder wanted vengeance for his slain lover. All of this was present and available in the story, giving you an understanding of who these people are and what they're doing here.

Singularity... I genuinely don't know. He became aware of the multiverse and decided to destroy it to consolidate the power of all the worlds into one in order to "impose his single truth" over it. I don't know what the fuck that means, and I'll get to the whole 'truth' thing later. Singularity is a nothing villain. He has no substantial motivation behind his actions. His existence as a creation of humans, of modern humans at that, also feels completely out of place in a game series focused on the divine. There's nothing divine in nature about the Homunculi. They're all technologically based in hierarchy, design, and origin, and it really stands out against the angels and demons.

You wanna know how to fix this? Just make Singularity trying to become a god. Maybe being an artificial human, he thought he had a chance of ruling over the World of Chaos as a manmade god. Maybe he was intentionally made to do that! Then it would explain why the Homunculi look like that, they're trying to mimic angels!

But that's not what happened. Instead we get computers I guess.

Also I'd argue this game plays into the evil disabled person trope since Singularity-as-Sigurd is in a mobility aid that is basically an electric wheelchair so thanks for that, game.

Sidenote, something that bothers me about this is that, like... the demons and angels are fucking nowhere to be seen. Their planes of realities are also at risk here, and yet angels only show up in optional fights that you really have to go out of your way to find. I don't think any demon enemies show up at all besides the summoned Kraken. You'd think that like, something interesting would be that the angels and demons have to actually work together in order to protect themselves and their own realities, but they're just fucking off and letting Singularity take ove the multiverse, even though it's explicitly stated that he's trying to wipe out the entire Trinity of Realities.

Let's move on to the ending, mostly from a gameplay perspective. The ending sucks. It's one of the worst things I've ever experienced. Namely, because it's too long and is the same shit over and over again. As I mentioned before, Singularity's fight has seven stages. That is absurdly long, even by Bayonetta standards. And at the very least, past final bosses have been broken up with unique gameplay, enemies, and environments. 

For example, in 1, you play as Jeanne as she motorbikes up a rocket and eventually runs up it in order to get to Bayonetta. Then, as Jubileus is almost resurrected, you fight her in a giant space sphere while she constantly throws galaxies at you, completely shifts the environment, and transforms you into a helpless child. Then, you have a stage where you combat Jubileus face-to-face, capping it off with summoning essentially what seems to be the Queen of Inferno herself, Queen Sheba, to take care of Jubileus. Then, there's a short segment where you fly Jubileus' soul into the sun. And finally, you destroy the pieces of Jubileus' body before they plummet to Earth. That's still long, mind you, don't get me wrong. But the segments vary in length and style. There's a stage where you need to reach a goal in time, there's fighting, there's that segment where you have to avoid hitting all the planets in the solar system until you knock Jubileus into the sun, and then there's a segment where you have to destroy everything before time runs out.

Outside of the first stage of Singularity's boss fight, it's just the same shit over and over and over again. There's another Sin Gomorrah fight which is again just rock-paper-scissors, and also to be perfectly honest it's pretty cheap to do the same trick with Sin Gomorrah again when past games have had some twist on it, or at least something unique to summon. Instead it's basically just the exact same fight as when you used Sin Gomorrah the first time. No changes, nothing to adapt to, nothing unique to this boss. It's the exact same.

Then you move into space, which admittedly is pretty neat even if it's not entirely new ground, and you fight Singularity in face-to-face combat on the moon. Pretty basic. Then he summons minibosses for you to fight, or at least strong enemies with big health bars. Again, really basic. There's nothing here that's making it stand out. There's no explosive kind of finale, it's just really boring. It's just whittling down one giant health bar after another with nothing new to differentiate the fights.

And then you watch a cutscene where all of the Bayonettas that Singularity had absorbed into himself are released, and they help our Bayonetta in kicking the shit out of Singularity. Which is fun to see, sure, but it's just a cutscene. You don't get to play as any of these Bayonettas. You only watch as the cool and unique thing happens on screen. And then it just immediately ends when Singularity wipes them all away. And then Jeanne shows up, and maybe you think that you're going to play as Bayonetta fighting alongside Jeanne again! But it's still just a cutscene! The next time you actually take control of Bayonetta, it's in a one-to-one recreation of the opening fight.

The next two sections are honestly the best part of the fight and I mean that completely unironically. These are the sections where 1 and 2's Bayonettas appear, and then they combine into one. Does it make any sense that 1 and 2 are different Bayonettas when the story makes it clear that they're the same person? Nope! Does it make sense that they just combine? No! But I don't care this fucking rules!

There's something called Rule of Cool, which is basically 'this doesn't make sense and shouldn't work, but it's really cool, so it's whatever.' It's a type of suspension of disbelief that prioritizes fun and fantasy over logic. Bayonetta games thrive on this concept, where no, it shouldn't make sense that Bayonetta should be able to talk to an Angel in the middle of a tornado, or headbutt a building, but we don't care, because it's fucking cool.

But then it just keeps going. And then the absolute final phase is... alongside werewolf Luka. Which just feels so fucking hollow in comparison to the weight that the previous sections had. That's a big issue with this ending, there are so many points where it felt like it could have ended that it just became a cycle of 'what do you mean there's more?!'

You'd think that the section with all the Bayos would be the final one, maybe you'd get to play as all of them in succession in order to round out the story, it was supposedly all about their timelines after all, and get some personal revenge on Singularity while having your mastery over the various weapons and demons tested. But it keeps going. Then with Jeanne you might think, 'oh, it'll be a parallel to 1 where you work with Jeanne to beat the final boss.' But it keeps going. Then you might think, 'oh, this is a recreation of the beginning, but Bayo's probably going to pull through when her other counterpart couldn't!' But it keeps going. Then you get to the section where the other Bayos appear and they combine, and you think, 'okay this HAS to be the ending, it's a perfect place to end both the battle and Bayonetta's story, by playing as all three at once.' But it KEEPS. GOING.

Every time the ending keeps going it cheapens the sections that came before it. There were so many points where it could have, and should have, stopped, and it instead ended on just the lamest final fight. There's nothing unique about the fight alongside werewolf Luka except that you're fighting with werewolf Luka. You don't even summon anything new; you just summon Gomorrah to finish off Singularity. You could argue that they needed to set up Bayonetta's death and Gomorrah turning on her when her contract is up, but there are other ways they could have done that and still had the explosive finishers the other games had. The game is prioritizing its story over the legacy of its series.

Some of you might be tired of me comparing 3 to 1 and 2, and I can understand where you're coming from. A game should be able to stand on its own without constant comparison to its predecessors. But the thing about Bayonetta is that it's a trilogy now. I'm not saying that 'oh, this sequel is different from the first game, therefore it sucks.' I'm trying to say that this game goes back on the pattern set up in the previous two games and suffers immensely for it. Comparisons to the first two titles are inevitable when talking about something like this, especially because Bayonetta is known for its campy, explosive gameplay. It's known for pulling out all the stops. And for this to be the end of Bayonetta as a character? It's a massive disservice. I'd say it's downright disrespectful. Not just to Bayonetta herself, but to the fans who waited years for this game. 

I think the worst thing about this game is... okay, this isn't my original criticism, I saw glanced at it at like, one of those chapter sections on a Youtube video that I didn't watch but saw in the search results looking for something else, and for the life of me I cannot find its original source. If I do, I'll link it in my source section, but I saw this and it really made things click for me. This is not a game about Bayonetta. This is not a game about her, her family, her struggles, her clan, her background. This is a game about a cosmic protagonist meeting other versions of herself while wearing Bayonetta's face. The Umbra and Lumen are mentioned like. Once. All the way at the beginning, where their island of Thule is a hub for multiverse travel. But the thing is... you could completely take out all of the Umbra stuff, all of the very unique lore that Bayonetta has, and nothing would change, because this isn't a story about Bayonetta.

Singularity has no relation to the Umbra or Lumen. The angels and demons barely show up. Inferno and Paradiso and even Purgatorio aren't important. As much as I love Viola, she does feel less like a Bayonetta character and more like a Devil May Cry character. (I think someone really wanted to make their own DMC5.) You could take out the backstory of the witches and the Trinity of Realities and even of the past two games and I don't think anything would change. Because it doesn't matter. Because this is not a game about Bayonetta.

I feel so much about this game, because it could have been something great. But at best, it was a massive disappointment. At worst, it's a game that spits in the face of its fans and destroys the legacy of what came before it. It's like the writers lost sight of what made Bayonetta games so appealing, and instead what we get is an empty echo pulling itself along while reapplying its lipstick.

I haven't played Origins. Unless someone like. Pays me, I don't have any plans to. I haven't heard anyone talk about it. It's like 3 singlehandedly killed any hype for the franchise. I'm sure there will be more games, 3 set up a sequel with Viola, but I have my doubts that it'll even be in the public consciousness for more than a minute. And that's really fucking sad.

So... what can actually be learned from all of this? It's one thing to rail on something, it's another to actually take something away from it. I suppose the best I have is: if you're making something--a book, movie, game, etc.--make sure you understand the core of your characters. Understand what drives the narrative and how they weave into it. Understand their multifaceted natures and how certain character traits manifest when they're interacting with the environment and with other characters. Understand what makes your story unique, what its themes are and how they're presented in the work.

And always remember: if you're ever worried about the quality of your story, especially the ending, know that it can't be more insulting than Bayonetta 3's.

[Sources here because Tumblr won't let me post this many links.]

[danisbrainrot]

I MUSTT KNOW if you have any thoughts about the yellowjackets being in a hunger games au!!!

ok, I don't know how to group my thoughts so I'm just gonna put them all here:

laura lee: wouldn't kill anyone, obvy, but also I think everyone would find her too sweet to kill. she'd die naturally, like eating the wrong berries or something. I don't think she'd last long (first to die in the show = first to die in the hunger games).

lottie: she wouldn't kill anyone either I don't think, she'd form an alliance but would piss someone off like taissa or shauna and they'd probably kill her. she wouldn't be good at hunting or gathering and would heavily rely on her alliance with van, gen, melissa and mari.

natalie: we already know she's a hunter. she would just convince one of the sponsors to buy her a gun and before you know it, bam! bam! bye bye people she doesn't like. I could see her being one of the victors, but secretly I think shauna could kill her.

shauna: we already know she's violent, so I think she'd kill everyone and anyone if it came down to it. she's a career if I'm being honest (love you though shauna 🫶). she'd ally with taissa and jackie (ofc) and would struggle with who to kill in the end, but at the end of the day, she'd still finish them off, she'd just feel real bad about it. she's the butcher, she'd feed herself and her allies off of the traps she'd set, or supplies she'd kill people for and would live the longest, honestly. I could see misty killing her (for revenge on natalie, of course).

jackie: this girl is USELESS. she wouldn't survive past the bloodbath if it weren't for shauna. would die of hypothermia in the arena because she doesn't know how to start a fire to save herself (and likes sleeping in snow for some reason???) she was pissing everyone off at one point, so she'd definitely be everyone's target. there's no universe I think she could win these games (unless shauna came to her senses).

misty: this woman is a cold hearted killer, and she's a healer. she'd definitely win, imo. she'd ally up with natalie (who hates it, but like, misty could help her with injuries, why wouldn't she try and keep her alive? no other reason, totally.) this girl is totally feral, though. she'd kill without hesitation. and she'd cover it up so well that the viewers at home would be wondering if she actually killed them or not.

van: would die for taissa and lottie. I've already told you who she'd ally up with, but she'd leave them in a second if taissa asked. she'd be a good gatherer, enough to survive. we've seen van, she's a killer when she wants to be, and she can't die. so maybe she could win 🤭

taissa: would die for van (and maybe shauna). her sleep walking would kill quite a few people. she'd gather plants and stuff, but her main goal is looking after shauna because we see how protective she is of her (and who wouldn't be? shauna shipman is the loml!) would heal shauna and van's injuries to the best of her abilities.

javi: he'd survive purely by hiding and stealing supplies. would die from falling in the lake though :(

travis: he's not making it past the bloodbath, sorry not sorry. he pisses everyone (or maybe just me) off by being so emo. if he didn't die in the bloodbath, he'd die because he doesn't know what he's doing and he wouldn't be a sponsor favourite.

mari: allied with lottie and them. EXCELLENT gatherer! would kill someone but only if she was in a pack with the girlies 🤭. she'd make her berry juice and get everyone drunk.

akilah: according to the hunger games simulation, she's the real winner (and vicious) but I think she'd starve and start hallucinating, so maybe she wouldn't last very long.

crystal: allied with misty, but is immediately killed after the bloodbath by her (bonus points if misty pushes her off a cliff).

gen: allied with lottie's cult group. would help mari gather. don't know much about her honestly, but I think she'd be somewhat helpful. would be killed first by mari or van probably.

melissa: same as gen, tbh.

ben: dead in the bloodbath. with his missing leg and how useless he is throughout the entire series, I wouldn't blame the girls if they just got rid of him asap.

the antler queen spirit: the president snow of this au.

[gayhuckleberryinatrenchcoat]

I can’t believe it took me so long to watch “The Winchesters” but now that I did I am NOT OKAY😭 I only started watching cause I wanted to hear Dean’s voice one more time, in a new situation and I immediately fell in love with every single character🥺

But also there are so many things that scramble my brain PLEASE SOMEONE TALK TO ME ANOUT THIS!!

1. They SERIOUSLY used a watergun filled with holy water?! Jensen knows THE POST TM!

2. They made a HOLY WATER HAIRFLIP?!😭

3. They made a main character VERY CANONICALLY BI!!!

4. I did SO NOT expect any actors from spn to have an appearance and I literally squealed with joy every time someone new appeared I mean first the trickster, then Rowena and then Dean actually has a bigger scene and BOBBY and ofc Jack?!😭

5. They literally gave spn a new spin on that HORRIBLE end and I love that they mention that Jack has all that power and used it to give earth free will and restore everything again.

6. The “it’s time to get to the ‘there’ll be peace when you are done’” comment?!😭😭😭 I am so not okay cause YES DEAN GET SOME PEACE but also how Jensen used EVERY opportunity to reference meaningful spn things😭😭😭

7. I am not okay with Cas not being mentioned, obviously Jack must have gotten him back, why not throw in a tiny half sentence that says he’s back and they’re still besties (yeah we all know they’re husbands but if that’s too difficult to get in there cause of stupid networks or whatevs at least don’t erase him!!)💚💙😭

8. I am SO NOT OKAY with the show being canceled can we please just get it back?! I mean besides needing closure and a happy ending for Dean AND Cas, it’s so comforting to watch adventures out of this world again, even without the original characters. I will never feel as strong about the new characters cause NOTHING could ever come close to what Dean and Cas make me feel but I really love the new cast🥺

9. Also seeing baby again🥺

10. The fact that they changed the whole story of how John became a hunter but did make it still work and fit into the supernatural universe cause it’s just a different world. (Also I really like this version of John)

11. How John and Mary literally act like Dean and Cas like the parallels😭💙💚

12. Also the fact that this show made me ONCE AGAIN log into this hellhole after like 2 years of being out of here. All just because I cannot cope with spn and I need to talk to people who have experienced and feel this same insanity😭

[foxett]

Hey guys did you know im clinically insane and have multiple OMORI AUs not just swingset? Yapping below! (Spoilers for canon game sometimes i guess)

Swingset AU / SSAU / TRTT (two ropes tied together)(fic name abbreviation) wasn't even the first au I've made.

The first one i really created was ODS (Omori didn't succumb) but the original concept of that whole au is completely different to what it ended up. Originally it was Sunny surviving the bad ending but I changed it to him just remaining as a ghost that can sorta turn physical at will. No I will not make a fic of this.

The next au i can remember making (after swingset) was Kanpekikel (which i completely forgot existed until a few days ago) which is just your average hikikel au with a side of horrible parenting and lots of Kel angst. No, again, I will not write anything of this. I'm pretty sure Kanpekikel was a really early version of Daburumori without the whole double isolation for the kiddos thing.

Like a few days after i got the general idea of Wasurerumori which basically. Everyone forgets Mari and Sunny ever existed and Sunny has to navigate his new reality of "whoops guess nothing ever happened then! My friends don't know me" - again nothing planned to be written

I don't know when but i had a conversation with my friend which led to RWmori being created. Rain world/Omori au where everyone is a slugcat (but anthro. Clothes and stuff!) and deals with the Omori plot with bonus spice (Sunny is Hunter from rain world, a character that literally is terminally ill. Whoops. Sorry Sunter (the name)). I don't plan to write a fic of this one BUT I did start an animatic of it. Might finish it. We'll see.

Daburumori is my second most fleshed out au. I have some (outdated) reference sheets for the main gang (+headspace vers for Kel and Sunny) just check out the tag i guess. I will probably not write anything of it as the plot isn't really cohesive. Might make little comics though!

The next au(?) is basically more of a fic idea. I called it Fire And Ice and i might write it alongside swingset but without the usual once per week updates. It's basically just suntan with some royalty, magic and transgendering. You know me, i love suntan!

I promise not all of these aus are suntan. I PROMISE. (I might be in denial) (Sorry i love suntan sorry sorry AugghhHHHHH)

The last au i have is sporemori which is a big mess of media i like. Infections, mushrooms that really like growing in your bodies, elements from the ghibli movie 'Nausicaa and the valley of the wind' (I don't remember the name please don't attack me) and a whole lot of body horror! I've actually drawn sunny for this au but since i haven't finished anyone else's designs i won't post it unless i randomly get possessed and finish them all. I MIGHT write something for it. No promises. I tried to write something but it got a bit too messy 2k words in (and it was just like. Before the plot?)

Edit! I somehow forgot the existence of headspaced au. It's not that big of an au and it'd work more as a mod. But i cannot mod. Which is why i refuse to associate myself with this au because it's hell on earth to try to explain the lore. /Hj

Fox out ! Yay seeya

[so-long-soldier28]

if you could omit a storyline from the tvd show. which one would it be and why???

okay to complete this ask, i had to recall the main storylines from each season. this is what i produced. i will stick that below along with my decisions and thought processes.

also, i say it in the notes, but if this form of answering asks is too chaotic, i can switch back to the neat paragraph format i used in the avengers x kai post. i can cut out my gibberish and actually capitalize my sentences again 😅 just let me know which you prefer!

no tw except for spoilers all the way to season 8

the seasons & their storylines

1 - damon + kath / tomb

2 - stefan being a dick (+ wolves)

3 - mikaelsons

4 - shane + cure

5 - silas + travelers

6 - kai + geminis

7 - heretics + rayna cruz

8 - fucking sirens + stupid donovan family reunion

now... to judge them all and remove one...

alright… tbh, it took me way too long to remember the second villian of s7, because post-lily, my mind went blank

then it went, ah, yes, that stupid hunter storyline

and then i immediately selected that one bc i hated watching bonnie get abused again

this storyline was so stupid; the seven year time jump was so confusing

we were also given NO CONTEXT and MINOR HISTORY into bonnie and enzo's THREE YEAR RELATIONSHIP

like i love both these characters, but them together came out of nowhere

also… damon caring so little for enzo and vice versa in seasons 7 & 8 after all the history they had together PISSED ME OFF SO BAD, like they don't care for each other at all?? not even romantically, just platonic care / trauma bond, NOTHING?

anyway that's aside the point

i loved early season 7

nora, val, and mary louise were funny; matt being angry all the time was funny; bonnie and damon coming back from europe and immediately killing a heretic was funny

bonnie had so much sass in this season

but then plec had to drive her underground again with the magic pills & nearly killing her & all that shit

and i liked rayna, to some extent; she was pretty cool

but there was no reason to drag bonnie in the mix and make her kill her friends just because she took some stupid pills, just because some relative of enzo wanted her to open a vault

that st. john stuff was insanity; i still don't understand it

i don't think the characters did either; probably not the actors, either

i also don't like that the rayna storyline killed off nora and ML, like, let the lesbian heretics live, fuck off julie plec

and bonnie and nora should've had a fling but that's a different story

so yeah… the 7 years into the future storyline + hunters is the storyline i would erase

also… i don't know why caroline kept showing up with blood on her face and ranting about stefan, like, i was genuinely confused

it kept reminding me of season 2 when damon dated that newscaster but then stefan killed her.. or whatever happened...

anyway, let's take a look at a close contender… season 8 - donovans

why… the fuck… did the donovans have to have a family reunion?

i do not care about his dad, i do not care about his mom, i do not care about vicki, i don't care about matt, and i certainly don't care to see them all in one place

matt only survived bc zach and julie plec were hooking up i stg

this man and his whole family are weak links

the sirens didn't bother me all that much, compared to the donovans fucking existence

i actually liked seline, ish

[unless i just liked the actress bc she's in that containment series so i associate her with chris 💀]

but i liked that she was playing games with alaric

i think she and kai would get along well… fucking with alaric, nearly killing twins… plus his comment about wanting to fuck hot cannibals…

this post isn't about kai moving on

the sirens were hella annoying at first and i hated them, but as soon as they released damon & enzo, i started to like them

then they died

speaking of death, stefan's death was so stupid

i have a lot to say about that but that's for a different time

kelly ruining steroline wedding was so stupid

gtfo woman

another contender… the stupid travelers of season 5

what tf was happening bc i genuinely don't know

i have no idea what happened when tyler was possessed

i don't even know what to say bc i was so lost the entire time

but i wouldn't omit the storyline bc the spell that eradicated them is what kai sucked up later

and then he became all hot & dangerous

but where did they go after the spell kept them out??

where did they come from, where did they go??

i liked liv & luke, they were both grumpy & slightly dickish

the travelers shit introduced them so that's cool... bc they had to stop the dopplegangers or something, i have no idea

liv has a vendetta against life for no reason. she's just so angry

she doesn't even remember the Great Sibling Slaughter of 1994, she was 4. why are you so bitter, liv?

we'll never know ig

idk tho living with joshua parker post-1994 doesn't seem fun. doesn't seem fun pre-1994, but i feel he'd be even 10x angrier after, so maybe it's just the childhood trauma. sorry, liv

also i might've shipped her with bonnie just a little bit… just a smidge… thought bon would be real cute with another witch

aside the point

stefan's dopplegangers were great… i like both of them more than i like stefan

but the kill the dopplegangers thing was confusing and if not for early s5 with silas & quetsiyah + blonde twins in later parts, i would hate s5

other seasons' notes

season 4... i hated shane bc he was creepy, but i found it funny that bonnie was so into him. damon was so perturbed at this

oH! not a storyline, but omit them killing kol bc fuck elena. that's my other man

but i know why they did it

and i adored davina bringing him back

so ig not omit, but fuck them for killing him, especially for their own personal gain

kol died so that jeremy could dramatically yell while ripping off his shirt

season 2... so i just remembered that s2 was more than just a precursor to klaus / middle part elijah; it also had wolves

i forgot about them initially, bc i don't care about most the wolves

tyler, i have so many mixed emotions; hayley, hated in tvd, liked in s1-2 of the orginals, didn't care for her later on; mason, nice to look at, don't care about him; jewel, or jade, idk, blonde girl that was looking for mason and found tyler, hated her; the random apperance of stephen amell… gtfo off my screen

wouldn't omit the wolves bc they had a point (ish) and grew the show, but i just don't care

not to say i don't like werewolves bc i fucking love the werewolves (cough twilight cough) but i don't care for the tvd wolves - the originals included, fuck off jackson

that was mean… he was a good man, good husband… i just don't care, i'm sorry

oliver was way worse, let's focus on him instead. he can fuck off; jackson can stay

so yeah, the hunter curse thing in s7 needs to go

unless you're kai and there's sexual tension involved & you're mutually causing each other pain, don't hurt bonnie

the magic pills were confusing, don't hurt my lesbian heretics, either

st. john stuff made no sense; probably just an introduction to the armory so alaric could feel important again

one final note

i hate that the beautiful salvatore mansion was turned into a school for weasel-y children to destroy

children are messy, that thing's an antique

i hate alaric

oh, i know i also made a post about wishing kai didn't kill jo so that alaric wouldn't have feelings for caroline, but i don't know if i fully stand by that post

as much as i wanted kai to have a redemption arc, him being a heretic was fun (while it lasted)

if they were dedicated towards keeping kai alive (therefore omiting his death storyline), he'd be a great time

i can see him and damon becoming buddies & being absolute menaces together

damon fights it sooo hard at first, but can't help wanting to dive into kai's bad influence

he makes vampirism feel like vampirism again… raising hell and not being afraid to be the bad guy

while simultaneously getting bad looks from all his friends and promising he's trying to be kai's good influence, but we all know he's not trying that hard

jo would survive and raise her twins with her creepy husband

she'd live in fear of kai coming after her kids any given day, but would try to ignore the thought

maybe they move away & free us from ric for good

but while this sounds really fun, i don't know where the story would go from there

kai would definitely get stuck under lily's control with the rest of the heretics & he'd have a big fucking fit about it

if enzo got with bonnie with kai still alive, that would be ugly

he would totally fuck a siren… and then help them kill the twins

but…

him killing jo & raising absolute hell was very fun & i loved it

his sudden return in s8, effectively pissing off damon & ric was hilarious

loved that he got back & immediately killed a grill employee

just like old times

i really wished they didn't kill him off, but i did like his pop-up later on

so… the storyline I would omit:

hunters. as explained.

back-up omissions:

kai death

stupid legacies

[wrestlersownmyheart]

“Chances Are” Ch. 3 (Book 2 In the “Chances” Series) Finn Bálor X OC

Pairing: Finn Bálor  X Female OC Summary:  After a traumatic childhood and a murder attempt that left her with a heart condition, Miracle Seanoa wants nothing more than to find some peace and fulfillment in her life.  Working as a writer for WWE, she's shocked when Stephanie McMahon takes a gamble on her skills and assigns her to a new RAW roster member.  None other than Finn Bálor—the man who'd long ago saved her life and captured her heart.

Finn Bálor left his career as a police officer behind in order to chase his true dream of becoming a professional wrestler.  Working incredibly hard within NXT, he soon finds himself drafted to Monday Night RAW. He's shocked to see Miracle again, but even more shocked is he to see what a stunning woman she's become.  

However, someone else has had his eye on Miracle for a long while.  With his infatuation turning to a deep, dark obsession, he's not going to give up on her easily.  Finn will have to resort to his past skills as a cop, to protect the woman he loves.  

Because if her weakening heart doesn't kill her, her stalker just might... Disclaimers: I own nothing or anyone associated or affiliated with WWE. I own only the original characters. This is just a fictional story that came from my imagination. 

Chapter Content & Trigger Warnings: None Note: This part of the story is labeled “Modern Day” but it actually means back in 2016 when Finn was first drafted to the main roster. And fictionally, Joe will be also drafted at the same time, even though he was actually not bumped up to the main roster until 2017.

Also, this story is being re-worked because I just wasn't happy with how it was turning out the first time around. Hopefully I'll be more happy with it this time! 🙂

Chapter 3

~Modern Day~

Miracle rushed down the hall, speed-walking to Stephanie McMahon’s make-shift office in the DCU Center. Her red heels clacked against the concrete flooring in her haste and she finally stopped at Stephanie’s door, rapping her knuckles lightly against it. Almost instantly, the door opened and Stephanie ushered her into the office. 

Miracle quickly spotted Paul Levesque sitting in front of the large desk, and she flushed slightly.  “I’m so sorry, you guys,” she said. “Did I interrupt a meeting or anything?”

“No, no, no,” Stephanie replied. “Don’t worry, we were actually just chatting about our kiddos. Is that your pitch for Eva Marie,” she asked, motioning to the file folder in Miracle’s hands.

“Oh, yes,” she handed the folder over. “I hope you like it.”

“I’m sure I will,” Stephanie smiled. “You have shown much potential with these little faux storylines Daddy has you writing. We all absolutely loved the idea you came up with for Dolph and the Miz.”

Miracle smiled.  “I was thrilled you used it.”

“And I’m sure we’ll love this one,” Hunter spoke up. “But if it’s really good and we want to use it…it probably won’t be used on Eva Marie. We’re just curious right now to see what you would do with each superstar.”

“May I ask why it wouldn’t be used on Eva Marie,” Miracle asked, her forehead creasing with confusion.

“Well, she’s been causing some issues backstage with the other girls,” Stephanie answered carefully. “We’re trying to straighten her out, but I’m not sure rewarding her with a great storyline is the way to do that.”

Miracle nodded her agreement.  “Good point. Well, I should get going. Still so much to do… Do you guys need anything? Coffee?”

Hunter smiled.  “We’re great. Thank you, Miracle. Try to take it easy. You work yourself too hard.”

“Well, I know we’re short-handed,” Miracle said softly. “Especially tonight—what with the draft and everything.” She self-consciously straightened at the elegant red dress she wore for the show’s occasion. “I still need to go to make-up, and get my face touched up for the interviews later on.”

“Well, go get that taken care of, and then see what tasks you have left.  Take it one step at a time.  Don’t overburden yourself,” Stephanie said warmly. “We want you to be healthy.”

Flushing, Miracle nodded. Embarrassment flooded her gaze. “I should get going. Good luck with the show tonight,” she smiled softly and left the room, clicking the door shut behind her.

She fought tears as much as she fought the humiliation. She hated being seen as a liability. I wish someone would see me as a whole person, she thought sadly. I wish everyone would stop treating me like I’m made out of glass. She rolled her eyes at herself then. “Maybe I am made out of glass,” she thought out loud, remembering how her heart had been affecting her the past few months. Her cardiologist had prescribed her nitroglycerin tablets along with her normal medication to stop the chest pains she was suffering from. Shaking her head to clear it, Miracle continued her way down the long winding hallway to the area where the make-up artist had been assigned.

“Hi, Emmy,” she greeted, when she spotted the WWE’s best make-up artist in a make-shift booth. As she approached closer, she saw she already had Drew McIntyre in her chair applying some powder to his face. “Oh, sorry, guys. I’m interrupting people left and right today!”

“No biggie, Miracle,” Emmy chuckled and glanced up at her, smiling. “I’m almost finished with Drew here, and then I’ll get you touched up.”

“You’re finally almost done with me,” Drew asked playfully. “As good as I look, I’d think I would require less work than ten minutes worth.”

“Oh, no, you look amazing,” Emmy said, and then flushed drastically. “I mean, you don’t require a lot of work.  At all.  You must take great care of yourself. I… I’m… I’m absolutely scarlet, aren’t I,” she asked, fanning her hand at her burning face.

“Yeah. You are,” Drew said, a twinkle in his sapphire-colored eyes. “But it suits you.” He stood to his feet when she indicated she was finished with him. “Maybe I should cause you to blush more often.”

Miracle watched the interaction between the two, and wondered how long it had been going on. Drew chuckled softly, then exited the booth, patting Miracle on the shoulder, “Good luck with the interviews tonight, Miracle.”

“Thank you, Drew.” Miracle took her seat in the booth and closed her eyes as Emmy began adding to her eye liner. “So, what’s going on with you two? Why do I have the feeling you two have been flirting with each other for quite a while?”

She heard a slight clatter of cosmetic materials before Emmy answered.

“It’s nothing, really. We’re just playing around. Drew's still so fresh from his divorce, I think he’s just enjoying his freedom.” Miracle felt the brush return to her lash line. “Besides, I think he’d go for a sophisticated type of woman. Someone… blonder, maybe?”

“Emmy, your hair color is gorgeous,” Miracle said. “It’s a beautiful shade of-”

“Brown,” Emmy cut in. “Plain, old brown.”

“I was going to say chestnut, or burnt sienna.”

“So, are you excited about the show?”

“Change of subject, noted,” Miracle chuckled. “Yes, I’m very excited. I’m hoping Daddy will finally get drafted. It would be so amazing to be able to interview him on live television!” “I hope he does too,” Emmy said, smiling. She began adding a little contouring and highlighting to Miracle’s cheekbones. “He’s awesome. I’ve watched him and AJ Styles ever since they debuted on TNA. Vince would be nuts to not bump him up yet.”

Miracle grew quiet, realizing that Finn could possibly be bumped up as well. How will I face him? How will I interview him without looking awkward? Her heart began to pound slightly with the new worry.

She’d never gotten in contact with him two years before, when Joe told her Finn was at NXT as well.

“He said to tell you that if you’d stop by and see him that he’d love to explain to you why his phone-” Joe started.

“I can’t. I just can’t, Daddy,” she’d cut in, sadness in her eyes. “I have a feeling what he’s going to say...that he just gave me his number to be nice. And... I just don’t have the courage to face it right now. It’d be like going through it all over again.  Losing his friendship all over again—only worse.”

“Are you okay, Miracle,” Emmy asked. “You went sort of pale.”

Miracle immediately nodded, coming back to the present. “Yes. I’m fine. I just need to eat something, probably.”

“Okay. Well, I’m done. You look beautiful, as always.”

“Thanks to you,” Miracle smiled. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Pffffft. You don’t need me to look good, and you know it.”

The two said their goodbyes, and Miracle looked through her to-do list on her tablet.

“Let’s see…” Her phone rang and she quickly answered it. “This is Miracle.”

“Miracle, it’s Mike. Where are mine and Maryse’s iced caramel macchiatos?”

Seriously, she thought. “Mike? I have no idea. I didn’t know I was supposed to-”

“We ALWAYS have iced caramel macchiatos!”

“Mike, I don’t have time. I have the interviews tonight, and-”

“There’s a Starbucks two blocks away. I’m sure you have plenty of time. Now go get our macchiatos!”

He hung up and Miracle was left staring at her phone. “It’s times like this I wish I wasn’t so prideful and would be more open about my heart problem,” she thought out loud. The only people at her job she let know about her heart condition were the McMahon’s and Hunter, as well as the doctors so they’d be prepared to treat her, if needed. She’d also let Renee and the other correspondents know in case they needed to fill in for her at times. But as for the talent, she kept it quiet around them. “Okay, Miz, she hissed under her breath, as she headed for the building’s exit. "You’ll get your stupid coffee.”

Minutes later, she was out on the sidewalk walking the two blocks to Starbucks as quickly as she could. It took her a good ten minutes to walk the short distance as busy and crowded as the sidewalk was. Not to mention—her three inch stilettos didn’t make the trek any easier either.

By the time she reached the Starbucks, her pulse was racing, but she knew she had no time to worry about it. She went inside to order the two coffees and then paid for them, eager to get outside and get back to the DCU center. Within another fifteen minutes, Miracle was finally back inside the arena, and heading back to the dressing rooms to give Mike Mizannin his precious coffee.

She reached the door labeled “The Miz and Maryse” and knocked. When the door opened, she handed the coffees over to Mike and didn’t wait for a response. Beginning to feel over-fatigued she turned on her heel and walked away.

Her intention was to head over to the trainer’s office and take some of her medication. But she didn’t get the chance as she heard:

“Miracle!”

She looked further down the hallway, where a crew member was flagging her down.

“What is it,” she called, fighting to keep the tiredness out of her voice.

“You’re needed at the backstage set. The show’s starting, and the interviews won’t be far behind.”

“O-okay, thanks,” she called back. Reluctantly, she headed for the set instead, and began trying to calm her heart and her nerves, sans medication.

}i{}i{}i{}i{

Joe and Finn sat together in the NXT section of the room backstage while they and all the rosters watched the draft take place.

“Good luck to you, man,” Joe told Finn as they listened to Stephanie McMahon announce that RAW was about to draft two NXT superstars. “If you get drafted… I don’t know of anyone who deserves it more.”

Finn looked over at him with a crooked grin.  “Likewise, brot'er,” he said, his Irish burr coming through thicker than usual.  Nerves were definitely a problem for him at the moment.  “Ya’ve worked as hard as the rest of us, and harder  than some. Ya deserve y'r shot.”

They smiled at each other again, “too-sweeted”, and then turned their attention to the large television. They watched as Stephanie McMahon gestured to the Titantron for the result of the draft.

Joe’s breath whooshed out when he saw his own graphic appear on the huge screen. The whole room erupted in cheers, but the loudest cheers came from the NXT section.

“Ya did it, brother,” Finn clapped him on the back. “Congratulations!”

“Oh, my God,” Joe laughed, clearly elated.

“Joe.”

Hunter had appeared in the doorway.  “Come with me. You’ve got an interview to do.”

Grinning happily, Joe got up and followed Hunter down the hallway to a set backstage.

“It won’t air on television,” Hunter told him quietly as they neared the cameras. “It’ll be on the Network. We don’t want you to appear on live television till Monday night so it’ll have more of an impact.”

Suddenly, Joe was standing in front of his daughter, tears sparkling in her eyes.

“So, Dad,” she started with a smile. It was no secret that she was Samoa Joe’s daughter, so there was no need for her to be so formal with him. “What is going to be your goal upon your debut on RAW Monday night?”

Joe smiled proudly at his daughter, and then looked into the camera as he answered. “I’m, of course, going after the WWE Championship should it still be on RAW after Battleground.  If not, I will go after whatever world title the brand comes up with.  But aside from all that…” He sported his famous “Samoa Joe smirk”. “I’m going to enjoy making people hurt.”

}i{}i{}i{}i{

“Now,” Stephanie said loudly into the mic. “RAW will be drafting two NXT superstars! And RAW’s first pick from NXT is…”

Miracle watched from backstage as Stephanie then gestured melodramatically to the Titantron, which was being used to showcase the draftees.

An instant later, Joe’s graphic popped up on the huge screen. The whole arena blew up with excitement.

“Oh, my God,” Miracle exclaimed. Tears instantly started welling up in her eyes. “Oh, no! Are the cameras rolling yet,” she asked, trying to staunch the tears before they became obvious.

“You’ve got a few seconds, Miracle,” one of the cameramen said. “Just try to hang on a little longer. Then you can cry and hug your dad all you want,” he smiled warmly.

“Yes, exactly. The show comes first,” she reminded herself. “The show comes first. The show comes first.”

Joe appeared down the hall with Hunter, both making their way toward them.

“Okay, Miracle… We’re rolling in three… two…” The cameraman then motioned that they were filming and Miracle stepped into character, so to speak.

“So, Dad,” she said smiling, and still fighting tears back. “What is going to be your goal upon your debut on RAW Monday night?”

Joe smiled lovingly at her, but then turned to the camera and “Dad” was gone. The Samoan Submission Machine had arrived. “I’m, of course, going after the WWE Championship should it still be on RAW after Battleground.  If not, I will go after whatever world title the brand comes up with.  But aside from all that…  I’m going to enjoy making people hurt.”

He sauntered off then, and left Miracle smiling happily. Maybe with his parting words she shouldn’t have been smiling, but she couldn’t help it. Her father was just drafted to RAW!

“And our second draft from NXT…”

Miracle looked up at the monitor just as Finn’s graphic popped up on the Titantron.

Her pulse accelerated instantly at just the sight of him, and then her heart skipped a couple beats.

You can do this, Miracle, she gave herself a pep talk while she waited on Finn to arrive for his interview.  He was always kind.  He isn't going to act weirdly around you, or be mean.

“Miracle?  Are you okay, sweetie?”  

She looked across the hallway to see two of her fellow correspondents, Renee Young and Charly Caruso eyeing her with concern.

There was always one or two correspondents teamed up with Miracle when she worked because of her heart condition.  Her pulse was so unpredictable at times that she had to take an abrupt break from interviews and backstage segments.  

“Miracle?”  

Charly's voice snapped the younger reporter out of her thoughts.  Miracle watched as Renee took a step toward her.  “You look a bit paler than usual.”

Finally, she gave what she hoped was a convincing smile.  “Yes, I am fine, guys, thank you.  I'm just getting really excited about these drafts!”

Renee watched her friend closely for a minute, as if she suspected Miracle of playing down her condition.  At last, she gave her a little nod, and resumed her conversation with Charly.

Miracle let out a sigh of relief when her friends turned their attention from her.  She was grateful for the other correspondents' concern, but at the same time felt like a liability due to it.  She had no more time to dwell on the thought as she heard footsteps approaching from around the corner, along with a couple of male voices—one of which was unmistakably Irish.  Only a moment later, Finn stood before her.  Her pulse seemed to double its pace.

“You will be interviewed here and then you are done for the night,” Hunter was telling him.  “And I realize you weren't expecting any of this tonight, so don't worry about mistakes, because it isn't live.  It will be edited and aired only on the Network.”

After receiving a nod of understanding from the Irishman, Hunter hurried back to sit with his NXT crew for when the next draftees got called up.

Then Finn's bright blue eyes were on her; scanning over her face and down the full length of her body, then back up to her face.  By the time his gaze reached hers again, her chest was nearly heaving.  And not solely due to her heart's irregular pattern.

“Miracle Seanoa.  So grown up,” he finally murmured, staring into her eyes with a soft smile.

She returned his smile with a  shaky one of her own as she took in his appearance.  He was... so different, yet still the same.  He seemed taller than she remembered, his hair was cut shorter, and he'd grown a beard.  The last time she saw him, he was pretty much clean shaven save for a little bit of scruff.  

I love the beard, she realized, fighting the strong urge to reach up and touch it.  Finn had been gorgeous years ago, but now he was absolutely breathtaking.  Not to mention he was bulkier, and...  Oh my God—his abs!  His shoulders, she thought, her face burning.  They are so... chiseled.  She quickly shot her gaze back up to his and caught the slight smirk on his face.  And now, he knows I have been ogling him.  She mentally facepalmed.  

“Uh... Guys?”  One of the cameramen spoke up.  “We're rolling.”

“Oh, right,” Miracle finally managed to speak, and struggled to ignore the twinge of pain she felt in her chest.  I just need to get through Finn's interview, then I'll have Renee or Charly take over while I go get some of my meds.  She lifted her mic to her lips.  “Congratulations on being brought up to the main roster, Finn.  How does it feel to be faced with so many more opportunities?”

“It feels amazin', Miracle,” Finn replied, brushing his fingers over his beard.  “This is somet'ing I've worked very hard for, and f'r a very long time.  It's a dream come true.”

She smiled at him even as a sharp ache ricocheted though her chest.  “I am sure like many of the other draftees you plan on going after the WWE title.  There obviously can be only one champion, so what will your strategy be in order to be that one?”

Finn pulled no punches when he answered.  “I will mow down whoever I hafta. And I just might have to embrace my inner… demon.”

Miracle lowered her mic and smiled over at the cameramen.  “I think that will do it, guys.”  She glanced over at Renee and Charly.  “Would...  Would one of you mind standing in for a bit?  I need...”  She swallowed hard and coughed lightly trying to regulate the rhythm of her heart.  “I need some of my meds.”

“Miracle,” Renee scolded lightly.  “I knew I should have listened to my instincts.  This is my-”

“Not your fault,” Miracle shot back, rubbing her hand over her chest.  “I needed to do this—to pull my own weight.”

“You do that, and then some,” Charly cut in with her own two-cents worth.  “I will go with you, okay?  To make sure you get there all right.”  She turned to Renee then.  “Is that okay with you?”

Before the blond could answer however, Finn spoke up.  “I will go wit' her.”

"But you don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Renee started, her voice going slightly shrill in her concern.  Her friend's heart condition never failed to frighten her.  “She needs-”

“I’ve known 'er since she was a young girl,” Finn softly interrupted the correspondent.  "It's her heart, yeah?”

"Um... Guys?"  Miracle waved at the three of them to get their attention.  "She is right here.  You can address me directly, you know."  She sounded too cheerful, she realized.  But she didn't want them worrying.  She could hear the near panic in Renee's voice already and felt horrible for it.  "I am fine.  Don't worry about me."  She forced a smile and turned to leave for the trainer's office.  She only went a couple steps further down the hallway, when she heard Finn's voice say something to the older reporters about finding "her da".  A few seconds later, she saw him out of her peripheral vision walking beside her.  "Really," she started, her voice growing a bit frantic.  The pains were becoming sharper and closer together, and consequently, more difficult to hide.  She avoided his gaze.  "You don't have to follow me."  Her steps faltered a moment, and she struggled to get enough oxygen.

"I know I don't, lass," he murmured quietly.  "But let me, f'r my own piece of mind, okay?"  

Finally, she stopped walking altogether and stooped over, bracing her hands against her knees in an attempt to rest and get some air into her lungs.  "Please, Finn..."  She panted, and resorted to swallowing her pride just enough to beg.  "I don't want you... to see me l-like this."  Before she could stop them, tears burned her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.  "Humiliating..." she uttered under her breath.

He was just about to speak, no doubt to tell her she had nothing to feel humiliated for, when her head grew fuzzy.  Her vision blurred, and she fell forward onto her hands and knees with a pained whimper.

"Miracle!  Sweetheart?"  

She heard Finn's voice, filled with urgency, right next to her ear.  His arms went around her and gently tugged her to her feet.  "Are ya alright, lass?"

The floor moved underneath her, or at least it felt that way.  She stumbled forward against Finn's chest.  "Need it to stop."  Her breathless voice was soft, but he managed to hear her regardless.

"You need what to stop, honey?"  His arms tightened around her and held her up securely.

"Spinning...” she barely managed.  She brought a hand up toward her chest.  “Hurts..."  Her unfocused gaze lifted to his.  “The trainer....  He holds some of my heart meds for me...”  She tensed suddenly, curling her fingers into her chest.  "Oh...  Lord, please..."  

"Miracle... honey?"  Finn stooped to lift her up, intent on getting her to the trainer in a hurry, when her legs buckled.  He quickly wrapped an arm around her shoulders and underneath her knees, then cradled her against his chest as he jogged down the hall.

Finn turned the corner, and finally reached the trainer’s make-shift office.  Darting inside, he didn't bother to greet the trainer.  “We need some help here,” he said as he walked over to a cot and gently deposited Miracle's limp frame onto it.  “She has a heart condit-”

“I know about it,” the trainer cut him off as he headed to his medical cabinets. “I’ll need you to leave while I check her over and see what she needs.”

“She needs 'er medicine,” Finn replied, following the trainer. He didn’t like the look of challenge on the man’s face. “And I’m not leavin’ 'er.  Ye'll regret it if ya try t' make me.”

He seemed to ignore Finn's threat and tossed out a couple of questions while he placed an oximeter on her finger.  "Was she struggling to breathe?  Chest pains?”  

Finn nodded, and looked down at Miracle's unconscious form.  "Yes.  Help her.  Please."

The trainer looked at the oximeter and nodded.  “Her O2 level is only at seventy-eight percent.  I'll give her some oxygen," the trainer reported, snatching up a packaged face mask.  He had it opened and attached to an oxygen tank within seconds.   "When she wakes up I'll give her some of her meds."  He placed the mask over her nose and mouth and then adjusted the elastic straps around her ears.

"Shouldn't she go t' d'a hospital?"

The trainer shook his head as he headed over to his medical cabinets again.  He opened a drawer and pulled out a couple of disposable medication cups, as well as a couple of medicine bottles and placed a pill in each cup.  "No.  Her O2 is low, but not dangerously so.  The oxygen tank will bring it back up to a normal level pretty quickly.  She has these spells fairly frequently.  She'll be fine in a few minutes."

Finn nodded apprehensively and took Miracle's limp hand in his, anxious for her to wake up.

He didn't have long to wait.  Within minutes, her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him groggily.  "Finn..." she slurred softly through the oxygen mask.  

"Shh..."  Finn reached up and brushed some hair away from her face.  "Ye're all right now, lass."

The trainer came over to her then with the medicine cups in his hand as well as a bottle of water and tugged the mask from her face.  “Here, Miracle.”  He all but nudged Finn out of the way.  “Take your pill, sweetie, and then you can put this nitroglycerin under your tongue.”

Nodding weakly, Miracle let Finn help her to sit up and then swallowed the little white pill down.  Then she quickly placed the sublingual tablet under her tongue as Finn gently laid her back down against the pillow. 

The trainer once again tried to get Finn to leave. "I really  need to check her vitals.  You should leave and give her some privacy for a few minutes."

“Finn stays, Gerald,” Miracle weakly reprimanded the trainer, as she sat up on the cot. “He is a friend I've not seen in years, and if he has to leave…then so do I.”  She swung her legs over the side of the cot and prepared to stand, but that was as far as she got.

“Miracle.”  Finn scolded her gently as he helped her lay back on the cot again and urged her back against the pillow. “Ye’re not goin' anywhere, lass.”

“And neither are you,” she added, a stubborn jut to her chin despite the fatigue in her onyx-colored eyes.

“Neither am I,” he repeated, brushing his thumb over her cheekbone.  He looked up at Gerald then with a hard glare.  "I'm stayin' right here.  I may not be a medic or doctor, but I know enough t' know that there are no vital signs ya need t' take that requires her clothing t' come off."

"Fine," the trainer grumbled, sliding his stethoscope from his shoulders and placing the ear-pieces in his ears.  Finn and Miracle remained quiet as he listened to her heart and lungs.  Then he checked her oximeter again.  "You are doing better, but you should probably rest here for a bit, and get a little more oxygen into your system."

Miracle nodded in agreement as Gerald secured the oxygen mask over her face once more.  "I'll be back in a few minutes to check on you again."  Then he left the room, but not before giving Finn another disapproving glare.

Once he was gone, Finn took her hand in his again.  “Feelin' better,” he asked in a whisper; his gaze hopeful.

She nodded, her eyes growing heavy. “Yes. But I’m sleepy. I’m always so exhausted after one of these spells.”

“Do you get them a lot,” he asked her.

She shrugged slightly, avoiding his gaze. “It’s been a little worse as of late. Today was a bad one. They’re not normally this debilitating, but I had so much to do today. And then Mike…” She rolled her eyes.

“Who,” Finn asked. “Mike? As in Mike Mizannin?”

She nodded sleepily with a small yawn.

“What did 'ee do,” he demanded gently.

“He sent me after a stupid coffee for him and Maryse. I had only a half hour before the show, and the creep ordered me to walk to Starbucks. I’d just gotten back and was going to take my meds when I was called for the interviews.”

Finn’s jaw clenched in anger. “Does ‘ee know 'bout y'r heart?"  

Miracle fought off a smile at the way his accent thickened when he grew angry or concerned.  She shook her head instead.  It was amazing to her how they could carry on a conversation as if it had not been years since they last spoke.  "I only told people about it who needed to know.”

“Well, lass, ‘ee apparently qualifies as needin' t' know.”

“But, Finn… No…”

“He’ll keep doing this to ya, if ya let 'im. Let me handle it, yeah?”

Reluctantly, Miracle nodded. “I’m too tired to argue, to be honest.”

“Get some rest, sweetheart. I’m going to have a l'il talk with Mikey, and I also need to find your Da and tell him what happened. Then, I can take ya back to your hotel room if ya want.”

“You’re going to talk to Mike, huh,” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Would this talk involve a fist?”

Finn shook his head. “No, li'l lass. It’s going to involve two fists.” He leaned down and brushed his lips over her forehead. “Get some rest. I’ll come back for you soon.”

“Promise?” She whispered the plea, gazing up into his blue eyes.

“Geallaim agam—I promise,” he replied softly.  "'Cause we have a lot t' catch up on, don't we?"  At her nod, he squeezed her hand, then turned and walked out of the room just as Gerald was returning.

Miracle felt so much better with Finn back in her life—as if a lost piece of her heart had returned. She nervously fiddled with the Irish Claddagh ring she wore on her left ring finger. 

She’d gotten the ring for herself years ago, and researched how to wear them to signify one’s marital status. She wore hers with the heart pointing toward her on her left ring finger—which indicated she was married. And while she wasn’t, of course, she knew she’d never love anyone but Finn.

“So what was with him,” Gerald asked, brushing his dark, shoulder-length hair out of his eyes. “He seems awfully possessive of you to be brand new to the roster.”

“I knew him a while back,” Miracle replied softly. “He saved my life a long time ago. And I’m so glad to see him again. We were friends—I’ve missed him terribly.”

Gerald smiled, but the gesture failed to reach his eyes, “Well, I’m happy for you. You need some extra happiness in your life. Similar to what a sugar-free decaf latte can bring?”

Miracle chuckled at their shared bond over coffee. “Definitely.”

The first time Gerald met Miracle, she’d commented how wonderful his cup of coffee smelled. However, she knew on her heart-healthy diet, she couldn’t consume any caffeine and she avoided sugar as much as possible. So, the next day, Gerald presented her with a sugar-free decaffeinated latte. Every time they worked the same shows, it became a little tradition that Gerald would bring her a special latte.

“Well, then I’ll have you one tomorrow. You are working the house show tomorrow, right?”

Miracle nodded.  “Yes, if I’m feeling better, I’ll be there.”

“I look forward to it,” Gerald replied. He leaned down and kissed her cheek.

Growing slightly uncomfortable, Miracle made a point of yawning. She’d always felt as though Gerald had feelings for her other than friendship, but she never encouraged him. She felt only friendship with him, and wanted him to feel the same way toward her.

“I’ll let you get a little sleep,” Gerald said, and Miracle could’ve sworn she heard a tone of bitterness in his voice. He left the room, and she finally relaxed—asleep in only minutes.

Translations: “Geallaim agam” ~ “I promise”

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@swthrt890 @librathepheonix13 @ironshamelessyouth @moonwolfdemonprincess21 @moxkindagirl

@jstarr86 @oliviasinematic @southerngirl41 @claymoresofinfamy23 @faythewilsonnn

@donttellnoliebabygirl @keisha-knell

[cpopnatural]

1x1 Notes

-SAMMY IN THIS EP IS A COLLEGE SENIOR SAME AGE AS ME

-lol the fact that Mary is supposed to be a hunter here

-aww :(

-Sammy’s voice is so high here aww

-CRASH AND BURN

-Dean be normal

-Dean’s voice is so high here hahahaha

-I forgot that they made Dean a misogynist

-“Dad’s been on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days.”

-ohhhhh the lights and shadows

-the way they set up the main conflict and the world and the difference in ideology between Dean and Sam

-oooh that’s so spooky

-it’s kinda cool to see them set up the Supernatural formula

-ohh the first ep is La Llorona

-they keep panning to the tits god I don’t miss this about early Supernatural

-the bridge lmaoooo

-wowwww they got this song for the first ep?

-ohh the rock riffs are so good here

-“a little young for marshals” oh you have no idea

-back when they hated the cops….love that

-this is peak Dean pouty lips pretty eyes eyelashes

-god. And you think about how much they rehabilitated John in the finale

-lol Dean covered in mud

-the fact that the show is them chasing John is so good because the audience gets to know John from the echoes of what he left behind

-the first jerk bitch :)

-“you got anything that’s real?” “My boobs” in the pilot??????

-maybe let this woman kill people. Like if she’s just killing cheaters…

-why is this actually scarier than when they had a real budget

-IT’S THE BATHTUB

-THE SCENE

-this is how you make a story. Set up the main conflict, the character dynamic and motivations. Show how the show will progress the story in bite sized chunks. Leave a teaser for what’s happening next as a hook to make viewers invested

God watching this right after the finale is wild. 9.5/10

[tetsunabouquet]

I just realized, I have a type (when it comes to husbandos). With KNB, I like Midorima but I just keep returning to Akashi for some reason. Akashi being one of the richest boys in Japan. Akashi has a white horse. Akashi is struggling with mental health issues because of the trauma of losing his mom. His dad is a dick. The anime/manga that really appealed to my YA-fried brain as a teen and got me into the husbando/waifu rabbit-hole is Vampire Knight. A problematic series with a few iconic side characters who deserve a better series (Zero also deserved a way better fate).

As the main love triangle exists of Yuki, the main heroine who turns somewhat Mary-Sue like as the series progresses- Zero, her foster brother who refuses to see her as a sister and is both a vampire and vampire hunter- And piece-of-shit Kaname, her ancestor who is posing as her dead brother, has been essentially grooming her since childhood and orchestrated the murder of Zero's parents. Zero is from one of the richest, most accomplished vampire hunting families and is basically a knight who technically becomes a prince through being with Yuki after she became vampire queen. Zero has a white horse. Zero is struggling with suicidal thoughts and self-hatred after the vampire who killed his parents turnt him into one. His parents were loving but they held some merciless views in regards of Zero's younger twin and were the kind of vampire hunters who never asked questions about the vampires they were assigned to kill (at least 1 had been innocent and framed). My first anime series, and the first series of which I also owned the manga, is Shaman King. I was like 8 or 9, when I had my heart stolen by Tao Ren. I can go on and on about the cringy things I did as a little girl, like practising how to say his last name with a proper Chinese accent to these elaborate fantasies in which I was his sidekick. Tao Ren will always have my heart, even 16-17 years later. Ren is from a rich family, considered an aristocrat with the Tao family pretty much having a gigantic historical reputation in the Chinese society of Shamans. Ren has a white horse. Ren is struggling with self-hatred and some low-key mental issues after his family basically brainwashed him to become a killing machine at a tender age and now regrets the many people he killed. His parents and grandfather, are utter shit as they literally will torture him, joke about poisining everyone and his grandpa literally holds him at gunpoint when Ren is acting like a brat. See? I clearly have a husbando type: Coming from a rich important family, owning a white horse and struggling with their mental health because of trauma linked to their family (plus being overall attractive).

I swear, fairy tales have started a certain brainrot in me as a child (in Dutch, the stereotype of Prince Charming actually is referred to as De Prins Op Het Witte Paard - The Prince On The White Horse). But why my brain prefers broken princes who have some deeply rooted trauma and coming from dysfunctional families, is a mystery to me.

[shallowseeker]

okay you know how mary was like weirdly against jody just bc she was A Woman In Her Sons Lives (she had a sarcastic comment about Jody mothering them....mary babe they were born in the same decade). anyway. with that in mind how do you think mary would react to meeting ellen, her son's actual surrogate mother?

I so love questions like this. My bestest tumblr friends give me excuses to ramble into the quiet of the night. Anyway, there are some wonderful opportunities for tensions between Ellen and Mary, but I'm not convinced the main ones have anything to do with Sam or Dean.

///

1. The old wound of John using Bill as bait. There's potential for Ellen to distrust Mary. At worst, she might displace anger of Bill's death onto Mary. This could manifest as Ellen refusing to go around Mary or being contrarian to the point of undermining Mary's authority, questioning her tactics, and nitpicking her decisions (in the guise of playing Devil's advocate ofc).

This would aggravate and heighten Mary's natural defense mechanism for dealing with fear and insecurity: "my way or highway."

///

2. Training Jo. Jo has some personality characteristics that are very like John: a heritage of hunting but being new to hunting itself and the very nature of hunting to feel close to a father. So, I think this hunting partnership would feel very comfortable for Mary.

When it comes to her own children, Mary wants to protect Sam and Dean from hunting (at least, at first). This is part of why she leans into blaming Cas as "co-protector-surrogate-spouse" in season 12 & why she's so vulnerable to the British Men of Letters' pitch, "a world without monsters."

But with Jo, there's none of that parental baggage. Mary naturally operates in a fatherly way to Jo. To Jo, Mary becomes Samuel. Ergo, you get an unhinged Ellen trying to forbid a Mary-Jo mentorship. Depending on the timeline and how frosty things are with Winchester dynamics, you might also get a frustrated and jealous Sam or Dean (of Jo)!

I'd bet my whole ass that Ellen would not jive with the above two mistakes of Mary's: Ellen naturally gravitated towards Cas's personality and stability, so she'd hold a grudge here, and she's so naturally suspicious of others that she'd hate British MoL. (Jo, on the other hand, could totally get sucked in for the grand sense of purpose, I think.)

///

Mode of hunting: Ellen does hunt, but her whole way of operating is different to Mary.

Ellen likes having a homebase and she likes being a shelter. She's a bit like how older Dean turned out in this regard. (Interesting that one of Dean's dreams was to own a safe harbor/roadhouse/hunting bar.)

Ellen gets very explosive and controlling when it comes to protecting loved ones, and when danger arrives, her first instinct is to yank everyone else out of the fight. Her fears are big and strong, and they come out mean. (It's not that Ellen is scared for herself. She's brave enough to face a bear bare-handed; just don't put her husband/daughter/loves ones in the line of fire)!

Mary, on the other hand, seems more comfortable being more nomadic in general, despite having relatively stable-ish parents + family home growing up (by hunter standards, anyway).

This is a part of Mary that's like Sam. I think having Samuel and Deanna somewhat stabilized her childhood and made this "mode" of operating feel safer for Mary, just as having Dean as caretaker made branching out feel a little safer for Sam (comparatively). At their worst though, like practically everyone in Supernatural, both give away their personhood to missions. That age-old desire to make up for personal failings in life / spare their loved ones / save the world, etc., and so, they become become reckless.

Whereas Dean and Ellen both crave being a little more stationary, or at least tethered to a home, to feel more emotionally secure.

///

Anyway, that's all I thought of tonight!

I might add to this later and revisit some Ellen-Jo arguments! I recently rewatched those seasons, and though I remembered Ellen fondly, she never struck me as particularly motherly to Sam and Dean, outside of the abstract notion of it.

As for Mary, her aloofness to Jody was influenced by her British MoL brainwashing, I believe. Her bitterness was informed by her fresh grief, loss of purpose, feeling iced out, not fitting into current time, and plugging that space with the heroic depersonalization of mission above all else. I'll throw away my personhood to get rid of the monsters, so you can be happy and get the life you deserve. I don't matter (and maybe my happiness is lost to me, anyways).

The bitterness that accompanied it all was so interesting, too.

At some point, she uses the SPN-time-honored phrase, "I'm doing this...for you. (To protect you.)" Mary chooses war and goes soldier-mode. Ellen doesn't seem to dissociate/compartmentalize quite the same way--at least, not that we see on screen?

[arickaandherfictionalothers]

Hi John. I’m your daughter from another universe.

(Main timeline!Aricka and AU!John Winchester.)

(Finale of the Winchesters series. Aricka comes face to face with someone she knows but doesn’t know.)

Aricka stares at the man in front of her like he had five heads. Sure, she knew what she was getting into when Dean asked her at the start of all this- the finding out the truth of his parents-well- their dad, his mom- and what their legacy actually was.

Aricka thought Mary Campbell was the most beautiful woman she’d seen. If she admitted it in her heart of hearts.

But now she was staring at the man who; in her and Dean’s universe; had left her. In the end it worked out for her own good, but when she was four all she understood was that her daddy didn’t want her. Plain and simple.

Dean was talking about how they’d saved Mary- saved Dean’s mom- and Aricka couldn’t do anything but stare at John. She wasn’t- scared, or mad, like she thought she would be. No.

Aricka felt such a deep sense of longing and something akin to a little kid seeing their parent for the first time after said parent left on a trip somewhere.

She saw all the features she had in her reflection in the face of the man in front of her. Their eyes, the way they were both chewing their bottom lip like their lives depended on it, they even had similarly shaped noses. She’d bet anything that John also had a semicolon shaped mole on the inside of his right elbow. Dean and Sam didn’t; so it must’ve been a dad inherited thing.

“I’m sorry- who are you-?” John asks, startling her from her reveri. Askance, she looked over at Dean, Jack, and Bobby. At Jack’s and Dean’s nods of okay, she turns back to John. Bracing herself, she said,

“Hi John. I’m Aricka. I’m your daughter in the universe Dean is from.”

Immediately she saw the reaction those words had on John- his eyes widen and his jaw drops slightly. He looks at Mary- who was also incredibly surprised- and then back at her; and Aricka felt sick. Anxiously sick.

He walks over to her, stands so they’re inches away from each other. She could tell he was staring at her as intently as she was him just moments prior. Now up closer, she could see various moles and freckles on his face, scars dotting his arms and neck, and she noticed the Akidra anti-possession mark on his arm.

“You- you my daughter?” He asks. She nods.

“From another universe.- I’m not sure what all I’m about to say-It’s a long story but-!”

Then John moved towards her. She froze at first, not sure what was happening, and then it hit her-

This AU version of her dad- was hugging her. The way she always wanted “her” dad to hug her. The way she could only remember her mom hug her.

Tears fill crystal blue eyes and she hugs back, not ashamed to wrap her arms around him and press her face into the jacket John was wearing. He only held on tighter, as if to make up for lost time, and his hand moved from her shoulder to her head, pressing her just a little bit tighter against him, but it wasn’t uncomfortable- it felt safe.

John only let go to stare back into her eyes, wiping away tears as he did; and to say- no, demand, gripping her hands as he did,

“Tell me everything. What you like. What you did back then. Did you- were you a hunter too-?”

Aricka looks back at Dean, then at Jack. And then she suddenly vividly understands just why she was allowed to tag along with Dean at all.

This was her mission.

Dean’s was to record their family history.

Aricka’s was to connect with the version of her dad that could’ve been.

With shaky breath and teary eyes, she looks back at John, squeezes his hands like he did hers. “Is there room for one more in that van?” She asks, and before John could answer Carlos was swooping in, wrapping a tight arm around her shoulders and guiding her over to the others.

“You’re more than welcome, darling. Come join the Monster Club.” She laughs, and was about to climb in behind Mary when it hit her-

“Wait,” she says, jumping out of the van-

And runs back to Dean. The man she owed everything to.

Aricka throws her arms around her big brother’s neck. “I’ll see you later on down the road?” She asks, not wanting to say goodbye.

“Of course. You know the way back home,” he says. “You do your thing. I’ve got my own gig.” Dean kisses the side of her head, ruffles her hair. “I love you, sis. Have fun with- well- our dad.”

She smiles. “I’ll keep them safe for us. For Sammy. Bring him by to meet us when he comes-?”

“You know it kid.” And then Dean gets back into Baby; his beloved car, which makes her exclaim,

“WAIT MY MIXTAPE-!” To which Dean laughed and pulled said tape out,

“You gonna educate them on our music-?” Aricka grins.

“You know it, big bro-!” He gives her a meaningful Dean Winchester Look, one she knew well; one she had been on the receiving end of since she was four years old-

I’m proud of you, kid.

She smiles; and waves as he drives away; and out of sight. She turns to the four in the van, waiting for her. Gripping the tape in her hand, she looks at Jack. “Watch over us, okay?”

“Always,” he promises. “But I’m staying hands off. You know this.” She nods.

“ARICKA!” She nearly jumped out of her skin at the very-Dean-like yell coming from the van.

John was waving at her. He was smiling and he looked eager to spend more time with her. The sight made her want to cry more, but she didn’t.

“COMING!” She yells back. Turns to Bobby. “Thank you.”

“I’ll always be here for you, little rascal,” he says, lips twitching up in a little grin. “You were always my favorite.” She grins and hugs him, giggling at the fake noise of protest from the grumpy old man. “Go on; get out of here.”

That was all she needed before she ran towards the van, grabbing John’s hand and letting him pull her inside.

The road awaited them.

And Aricka couldn’t wait to tell John all about her life.

————-

Behold- I have a new sandbox to play in.

I’ve been thinking about how I would use the prequel The Winchesters with my usual canon, and I’ve decided I’m making even more universes for my beloved characters.

This is main canon timeline (2005-2020) Aricka Winchester, the girl who is dumped in Dean’s lap when she’s four years old and grows up in the hunter life, in a versions of the Winchester’s series that’s like heaven. She will travel with them and tell them what happened to her in her universe to prepare them for what they might possibly encounter. Making an entire new timeline.

However I said universes which means that as always I’m making new ships and new families and it’s going to be good chaotic fun.

Until next time-!

————-

@astralshipper @rosieshipper @hyperionshipping @yeehawselfshipping @letsgofoletsgo @callsign-revenge @tsundere-selfship

[pushovermediacritic]

I was tagged for this meme by @tobiasdrake, but it got too long so I'm making a separate post.

Last Song: Bridge of Life by P!nk, from the Happy Feet 2 soundtrack:

Hot take, I think Happy Feet 2 is better than Happy Feet 1. There are some lower lows, but it has higher highs. Erik's big moment, the krill subplot, and the songs are all great. And the way dancing is justified as the solution to the problem makes much more sense than in 1.

Favorite Color: Blue. Always has been, always will be. The ocean, sky, the walls of my goddamn bedroom. I love blue.

Last Book: I recently read 5 random graphic novels from the library. Some were okay, some kinda sucked.

The Heart Hunter had an okay premise but the paneling was terrible and the writing was unbearably corny, using every "heart" idiom literally. Like "this character is honest and has high empathy, so they literally wear their bleeding heart on their sleeve". Shit like that, all over the place.

The Black Mage had better paneling but even worse writing. It was trying to do an anti-racist take on Harry Potter, but with 10,000 more anime references and no sense of subtlety or how to write a mystery. Like, the main character is the only black wizard at a white wizard school, and he meets the headmaster who is literally in KKK robes, then later he meets the ghost of Harriet Tubman who tells him that this school used to be a base for the KKK and he's like "wow, that's horrible", and I'm like HOW DID YOU NOT CATCH ON BEFORE NOW?! There's a whole mystery about why he was admitted to the school and one of the teachers mentions, for the first time, the mandatory school "ritual" all the students have to attend, then a few pages later it's revealed the ritual is sacrificing him to power the school.

Legend was pretty good. A classic "fight the corrupt government" thing with an actually well-written mystery to solve. Though the plot twist regarding the plague had me doing a triple-take because of how much it reminded me of COVID conspiracy theories, until I looked it up and learned this graphic novel came out in 2015 and any relation to COVID is purely a coincidence.

By Night was okay. Good writing, but the story was pretty slow and weak. It felt like it really wanted me asking questions about all the mysteries it was setting up, but like almost all the mysteries were answered already, or could be extrapolated from existing information easily. And the other world clearly has some sort of government and politics, but it doesn't feel like it, it feels like an empty fantasyland. Too much telling, not enough showing.

Constantine: Distorted Illusions was pretty good. A look at John Constantine's teenage years as a rebellious youth. The paneling was solid and the writing had a good sense of realism. The plot was a little bare-bones, but it had some cool moments. Great art and character designs.

Last Movie: Dr Sleep, the sequel to The Shining. I liked it. It was very "Stephen King", but I thought it was an interesting direction to take the story and it worked well as an action-horror movie in contrast with the first movie being straight horror. In that aspect, it reminded me of the transition from Alien to Aliens. I reject the complaints that the girl being super-powerful made her a Mary Sue. Like yeah, she's strong, but her power is literally the MacGuffin, she's got a distinctive personality and character arc, and she doesn't solve all the problems. Hell, she hardly solves any problems, she mainly just plays support for the adults so they can solve the problems.

Last TV Show: The last episode I watched was for Dragon Ball Daima, but I'd put Dandadan here, since I binged all the episodes that were out a week or so ago. It's good shit. Weird but good, you can see the DNA of Chainsaw Man in it, and some distant inspiration from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. The running scene set to a remix of the William Tell Overture had my jaw on the floor.

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Savory, all the way. In fact, I took a food class in college and had to report everything I ate, and it turns out I eat too much protein and not enough carbs. Ever since then, I've been trying to increase my sugar intake, but that's hard to do since I don't really like fruit.

Relationship Status: Single and lonely.

Last Thing I Googled: The last thing I Googled on Ecosia was "dortitos" because I was looking for the meme that went like "to. open. dortitos. bag.". Unfortunately, search engines suck now and no amount of quotes or pluses will make them search for "dortitos" instead of auto-correcting it to "doritos", so I couldn't find the meme.

Current Obsessions: Dragon Ball and One Piece are eternal, but Daima has definitely re-sparked interest in Dragon Ball. I don't know if I really have a "current" obsession, like right now, though.

Tagging: @unnounblr

[sarah-dipitous]

Hellsite Nostalgia Tour Day 279

There’s Something About Mary/Oxygen

“There’s Something About Mary”

Plot Description: Sam and Dean race to locate Mary after realizing an ongoing rash of hunter deaths across the country is no accident

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: I figured that the opening death would be a hunter, so I’m totally good. Pissed of that it seems to have been Eileen…even more pissed off that the BMoL seem to have themselves their own hellhound. Crowley, get your shit in order, man

Ohhhh, oh, Sam. He really did like Eileen. They were cute and a little flirty and she was a damn good hunter ☹️

Oh hey, Crowley. You should probably get better demons. These ones just aren’t doin their job

I’m not convinced this is actually Mary…shapeshifter?? Maybe? Nope, brainwashing. It was Mary. Probably

There was no GOOD way to break it to Mary all the hell John put their boys through, but this was probably the worst way to find out. Fuck you, BMoL lady

CROWLEY!! YOU GAVE KETCH THE HELLHOUND?!?! I’m so mad about that

He cuddles with the hellhounds?? You’re right, Luci, it strikes me as odd as well

I'd say I can't believe the head of the BMoL is pitting Ketch and Bevel (lady from the start of the season) against each other, but I actually totally can

Eileen sent them a letter, scared that she was being watched by the BMoL and asking to bunk with themmmmmmm. I'm even sadder that she's gone

Mannnn, things are not looking good for my man Crowley. I'm as fickle as any demon on this show. My loyalty to a king of hell relies on who's being the most fun and cunty at the moment

They're insufferable. I hope they both die (Ketch and Bevel).

I hope this is a trick on Mary's part and not that the brainwashing is working. Attack that man, Mary. You did it before.

"you certainly don't know me. you wouldn't want to" yeah, no shit. I've been bored with you for a WHILE.

The shock of her pulling the gun, momentarily pointing it at Ketch but then pointing it at herself...hated that so much. should have just kept it at Ketch. Mary, no. I get it. You're in a really bad situation and actually shooting him would not make anything better (and would probably make it worse), but NO

you don't get to make promises to her, you foul wretch of a man

I don't like guns, I'm typically a fan of evil women, but seeing Sam pull a gun on Bevel (even though he didn't shoot) had me cheering in a way that surprised me. I just fucking hate the BMoL.

omg. Crowley didn't even realize he was being controlled...

Does he have one more trick up his sleeve? Crowley...nah. you transferred your soul somewhere else. I know you did. I know you're not dead. There was literally no fun lighting when you died.

I want her to be playing the BMoL again...Please, shoot them. No...

Yeah. I knew the rat was important.

So, to wrap up. Sam, Dean, and Bevel are all locked in the bunker that doesn't have water and is quickly losing oxygen. Mary is still with Ketch (which I fucking hate). Crowley is seemingly dead, but I'm pretty sure he's possessing the rat that was right by him before Lucifer stabbed him. Lucifer is free and out looking for his soon to be born son. And I miss Castiel.

"Oxygen"

Plot Description: The Doctor, Bill, and Nardole discover that their spacesuits are trying to kill them!

Nooooo, she was so in love with her crewmate, why'd they all have to die??

What does the Doctor ACTUALLY teach at this university??

Oh, Nardole. He hasn't figured out the Doctor always lies yet. Of course he can go to space whenever he wants no matter what he tells you the TARDIS may need to get there

No, Bill, you're right. You SHOULD be floating if you're in space.

Ohhhhhhhh, I've figured out why I actually do like Nardole, now. He fits right in with my current favorite genre of Disney characters. I went through my princess phase, not sure I'll ever fully leave my villain phase, but my current favorite is the crotchety sidekick: zazu, cogsworth, sebastian...the ones who don't want the main characters to have any fun or be in any danger ever, no matter what.

Uuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhh I hate capitalism in space (also on earth, but I get so annoyed when it's in space too.) First sometime tries to maximize work time by decreasing the amount of time we sleep and now they're literally charging for every breath you take. Someone is. I don't know who, but I hate them

I don't trust this disembodied voice the gang is trusting. I trust him only marginally more than I trust the AI for the suits

Did they run out of plots at the end of Moffat's run? Because this is giving the two parter under the lake with the ghosts. But that one at least had some fun time travel fuckery

I hate that Bill's suit is acting up more than anyone else's. I know she'll be okay and she has more episodes, but no. no. no. no. no...do not give me a Bill almost-death. Illegal.

The things the Doctor will give up for the people he loves.

Is Bill only still alive because she can't pay to literally die?? Is that what the Doctor is getting at here? I don't like this episode. I didn't want to watch Bill nearly die twice

I do like that Twelve is more receptive to hugs though.

Oh. Interesting. I mean, I am with Nardole here that what the Doctor did was too risky, especially now knowing he's still blind and that will upset WHAT/WHOEVER THE FUCK IT IS THAT'S IN THE VAULT. But that is very much just on top of almost getting Bill killed twice, for me.