#might use it to liveblog some fics

[employee052]

16 pages into house of leaves atm (the numbered pages at least, i got thru the foreword too) and just holy fuck

...anywho gonna put it down for the night

save me old man simpage, save me

[bomberqueen17]

well, it goes on

It was my birthday and i celebrated by working. well, i'd had the previous day off, my only day off in the whole two-week stretch, so i spent it lying around and trying to catch up on sleep and also, sort of against my will, writing fanfiction about minor characters from the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin series.

I need more people to talk about this fic with, alas, I've been siloed in Witcher stuff so long that I don't know where to turn. I've been hesitant to browse the tags because the thing is I don't care about writing or reading Aubrey/Maturin fic and also I haven't seen the movie since it came out in '03, I specifically want to geek out about the minor characters and the books, LOL. So anyway if anyone is interested in cheer-reading my attempts at slashing Tom Pullings and James Mowett please drop me a line. I was going to just write a couple of drabbles but well, as these things go, it's now 15k long. (Uh, fair warning, they're super underage for the beginning bit and like not in a fun plausibly-deniable way either.)

No, I have no idea if it's any good or makes any sense, but that's a separate consideration. I just. Listen! They should fuck. But I am me and couldn't just have this be a oneshot. No. They have to have a strange circling complex relationship over the course of ten or twenty years that includes Tom's canonical wife. I can't rest unless I make this happen. No, I'm not done with my Witcher stuff either, but I've been blocked on it a bit and decided my birthday present was to let myself write some of this. So that's what I did.

But. At any rate. I listened to the whole series and now I'm going back through it in a desultory sort of fashion for my own amusement. I might liveblog this reread. I don't have time to do anything more interesting or in line with my long-term goals at this moment. But, snippet.

“I think my virginity’s grown back,” James said glumly, leaning back with his book on his knees. It was a fine day so they were laboring at their mathematics, tucked out of the wind under a grating between two of the midships guns. It was an out of the way spot but they could use the harsh light from the grating to read their figures. “It’s ages since we’ve been into port,” Tom agreed. He was nearly cross-eyed with his sums, and though he’d had the best of intentions about doing extra to practice, he didn’t think he could manage it now. He gave it up and put down his pen, carefully ensuring the inkwell was shut tight. Then he frowned. “It don’t work like that for boys, there’s naught to grow back.” James blinked owlishly at him. “I thought it was universally metaphorical, at any rate,” he said.  “No, I think it’s a real thing, but for girls,” Tom said. The phrase universally metaphorical had so many syllables he hadn’t actually parsed it at all but was operating solely off James’s dubious expression.  “That doesn’t seem right but I don’t know enough about girls to tell otherwise,” James admitted.

[stormyoceans]

VICE VERSA (RE)WATCH 2024

with last twilight ending and no show to replace it on friday yet, i thought this might be a good time to do a vice versa community rewatch and maybe give an excuse to all the new jimmysea fans to watch the show for the first time if they didn't get around to it.

the schedule: from february 2 to may 9

as this is quite sudden and im hoping to reach as many people as possible, i thought we could do one episode per week, without having only a single set date but rather a range of days where each one of us can decide when to watch it. so the schedule would look like this:

feb 02 - feb 08: ocean blue (ep 1)

feb 09 - feb 15: forest green (ep 2)

feb 16 - feb 22: soft blush (ep 3)

feb 23 - feb 29: deep magenta (ep 4)

mar 01 - mar 07: winter white (ep 5)

mar 08 - mar 14: fire yellow (ep 6)

mar 15 - mar 21: sunset orange (ep 7)

mar 22 - mar 28: cloudy gray (ep 8)

mar 29 - apr 04: midnight black (ep 9)

apr 05 - apr 11: pink (ep 10)

apr 12 - apr 18: real red (ep 11)

apr 19 - apr 25: crystal clear (ep 12)

apr 26 - may 02: faded pink? (our skyy ep 1)

may 03 - may 09: multicolor (our skyy ep 2)

how to watch: youtube (main series + our skyy)

what to do: watch or rewatch the episodes

that's pretty much the only mandatory thing that is required to do, but if you feel like it you can also:

liveblog your watch

share your favorite scene(s) from the episode

pick your top weekly outfit

reblog old and new posts

create content like memes, fics, gifs, edits, etc.

anything you want!!!!!

if you do any of these tho, please tag your posts with #vvrewatch24 so people can find them!!!!

the main goal i hope to achieve with this is for everyone to just have fun and maybe find some comfort. a big thank you in advance to anyone who will consider participating or even just sharing this post!!!!

[aprillikesthings]

It's Fridayyyyy

TIME FOR MORE SHE-RA

s1 ep11 Promise

oh shit I remember this one it's a heartbreaker

(good stuff for my fic though)

Hey remember when I swore up and down I wasn't going to liveblog my entire rewatch? Good times.

Part of me is like: I would get through these so much faster if I didn't insist on screenshotting them and commenting and making jokes

But the rest of me knows damn well I probably just wouldn't bother watching them?? This way feels a bit like watching it *with* someone, which I always prefer to watching things alone.

Also tbh if I did just marathon them while knitting or something I wouldn't remember anything!! Which would defeat the point!! So here I am.

If you're new to these posts: I am doing a rewatch of She-Ra with the specific purpose of taking notes for a fic I'm working on--but because this is me we're talking about, I also post a ton of screenshots with the purposes of commentary, squeeing at specific scenes, and making jokes. Because it's a rewatch, I don't comment on every plot point and I often mention things that happen later in the show--in other words, these might be confusing if you haven't seen the show yet.

EDIT: yeah this was another one where I hit the image limit, will have to reblog to finish it

I know people have figured out the "alphabet" of the first ones what does this sayyyyy

I mean wouldn't they all be portable in some sense? The one that recharges Glimmer could be taken down and moved somewhere, couldn't it? We know the one from Scorpia's kingdom was taken and moved to the Fright Zone, for instance.

"Query not recognized."

Adora's frustration here is exactly why I don't use Siri, like, ever.

Light Hope reminds me of a specific model? actress? from the 1980's but I can never remember who and it drives me CRAZY

*does some googling*

GRACE JONES I AM THINKING OF GRACE JONES

TELL ME I'M WRONG

Grace Jones also did disco music, TIL

back to cartoon lesbians

yeah that couldn't have been important for anything no worries it's fine

you didn't notice anyone else there until She-Ra destroyed something lolol

ehehehehehehh

Look I know it's the point of the whole show but I grin every time they're supposed to be on opposite sides and one saves the other's life (Does Adora do it more than Catra does? surely someone kept count)

don't mind me

little shit

🎵BUT YOU DID IT ANYWAYYYYYY🎶

"how many times are you going to make that joke" well how many times does Catra say it lolll

"where are your friends?" "you mean the ones you KIDNAPPED and CURSED???" "uh, yeah?"

lol

I just like the art style here

Okay so I can't screenshot audio, but that little moment of Catra saying "Adora? Adora???" where the tone goes from "hey look at this" to that almost-panic and then she turns around and it's kid!Catra is just so, SO well done.

ugh these scenes are such a punch in the gut

I'm not getting emotional at cartoon characters remembering the happier bits of their shitty traumatic childhood together, YOU ARE

;_;

man this shot is just good, ugh, you can see so much of their characters on display: Adora's self-righteousness vs Catra's sullen defensiveness

anyway they should've made out

lol

they're 1:1 so far this episode

(even though this cliff probably isn't even real)

"Did you really think I'd just let Shadow Weaver erase your memory like that?" oh so she DID know

Adora: "I don't know, probably" I mean I thought she would

I've been CALLED OUT lol

Adora: "Can you blame me? Catra: "*scoffs* Not really"

😏

John Cena.gif

BABIES (okay a little older like maybe 13)

(still babies)

I mean, true

I'VE HIT THE IMAGE LIMIT FOR THIS POST lol I knew I would

gonna post and reblog

[bumbleboa]

I just need you to know that your artwork of Law combined with Calypso's ZoLaw fics/AUs have send me down a wonderful rabbit hole and maybe kinda turned me into a ZoLaw shipper. Definitely a Law fan. Seriously you two are AMAZING and so creative and all of your work is beautiful

(including the second ask, typos haunt my existence, so I feel you, Anon)

First of all, this is such a sweet message! I love Law as a character which is probably quite obvious from how much I draw him. He has been haunting my mind for a long time now and if I can pass on some of these feelings to others, then that's awesome.

And I am doubly glad that you followed @calysto1395 and me into the ZoLaw rabbit hole!

Fun story about that: Calysto started catching up to the manga this summer (she was only up to Water 7 before from watching the anime when it aired a long time ago). She liveblogged her read-through and I lived vicariously through her reading plot beats for the first time. Her favorite character has always been Zoro, and mine, as stated above, is Law.

I tried REALLY hard to not be too giddy for Law to appear in her read-through, to not gush about him and set up false expectations that might be disappointed in the long run. To my relief, she also ended up liking him and in a true moment of genius she decided that if Zoro is her fave and Law is mine ... what better than to mash the two together!

I had up to this point not thought about this pairing besides ''oh that's neat'' in passing, but very quickly we both realized that we fell head-first into a new ship that will keep us busy for the foreseeable future.

I am very grateful to have such a good friend like her, who saw me gushing over a thing and decided to play in my space and then invited me to read the stories she came up with. It's been a real blast!

[thewertsearch]

Asks Comp 13/4

I think he's behind that door. The platform bears his symbol, and it's his final chance to show up in-game.

The best theory I have is that Bilious Slick is the god of Sgrub, and he only appears to a party of Players who have truly proven themselves. Given that Sgrub's endgame involves the creation of a universe, his role probably relates to this in some way.

Maybe he's the one who grants the Players the 'seed' - or whatever else is mechanically required to alchemize a universe.

The thought has occurred to me, too! I've been skimming some old posts while writing asks, and a couple of things have stood out to me.

We still don't know who the pen pal is. I'm still convinced he has something to do with Grandpa Harley, and my best guess is that he's someone who contains Grandpa as an alchemical component.

The session monitor in Skaianet's lab has a new meaning now. Every single one of those sessions could spawn a universe. And it's been implied that every planet with intelligent life will eventually spawn Sburb sessions. If you do the maths, it's clear that each universe should spawn billions of sessions. Just how many 'children' does each universe produce?

Ooh, yes, let's think about the implications of all this on my 'sonas!

If we assume that the kidsona was on comic-canon Earth, then she's in the universe created by the Zodiac trolls. The universe that she and the trollsona could create could be a completely new one!

...that is, if they create a universe at all. There's nothing saying you have to use that grist on a universe, and they might have other plans...

I was actually thinking about Tinkers when I made that post!

I read Worm a couple of years ago. In retrospect, it would also have made pretty good liveblogging material, although probably not quite as good as Homestuck. There's some great stuff in Worm, but a lot of what I really like about it doesn't show up until close to the end.

I initially assumed that the Psychic Double Reacharound was a contingency plan that she'd prepared earlier, since she couldn't possibly have come up with something so elaborate in the heat of the moment, while bleeding out on the ground.

But then I remembered she came up with the Sollux/Mind Honey plan seemingly on the spot, and now I'm not so sure. God damn, Vriska.

This is genuinely super flattering. I hope the inconsistency isn't too much of an issue - and, yes, I note the irony of saying this immediately after a four-month hiatus!

If was clear from early on that things in Homestuck weren't always what they seemed. Hell, sometimes they're not even what we're shown.

We have to assume some of what we're being told is true, or else we wouldn't have a story - but we always have to remember who's telling the story.

[Lol I love this fic. lots of **GIANT** spoilers tho, just because of the nature of the fic. For example, big ones starting at 16, 55 and 57 - C]

Recommended, and does apparently contain spoilers - but this is one I'm particularly looking forward to.

It's kind of a funny question, isn't it?

From Davesprite's perspective, he did change the future - his future. John died, but he 'changed things' - and now John's alive, even though he was dead 'before'.

But if you zoom out a little, you can see that this change was predetermined by the Alpha Timeline, which always depended on these events. Davesprite changed the first-order future - but the meta-future was always set in stone.

The Medium's timeline is so weird, isn't it? Its retroactive existence is difficult to puzzle out.

I don't think you could see the history of your Land by travelling back before you entered. All physical evidence of that history is there, but it's generated in a single instance when you Enter, and can't be accessed. It's analogous to read-only-memory.

After all, John, Rose and Dave are in the past with respect to LOJADE, but they're never going to see its 'history' - and Jade's Entry isn't going to insert it into the Medium retroactively. It won't have been 'there all along' when John was flying around earlier on his jetpack - it'll only ever have been there from Jade's Entry onwards.

As for getting into Earth's past, I think Karkat had it right, when he described the kids' original universe as 'a set of points to choose from'. You can't get into Earth's past by time-travelling around the Medium, but that doesn't really matter, since you can open portals into any point in its history, as long as you have the gear.

They're fascinating questions, aren't they?

Pre-Exile, she was the Tradition Wrangler - a Prospitian lawyer who struggled to interpret the Medium's archaic laws!

DD is a man of action, and I'm sure he approves of any Player who acts decisively themselves.

Plus, I'm sure he can emphasize with Aradia's situation. After all, it sucks to be bossed around by someone whose motivations make no goddamn sense half the time.

Common Terezi W.

True - she didn't need to hold her there for long. The laser pointer thing is a better analogy, blinding her almost instantly. I don't think it's any less fucked-up - it's more like a different flavor of fucked-up.

That's a pretty impressive robotics feat for Equius, actually. I wonder what Aradiabot is actually made of?

Tracing the source of alchemy gear is one of my favorite Homestuck 'minigames'.

Hivebent's art is fantastic! I really see why the comic blew up around this time. It's really coming into its own, stylistically. Of particular note is the art of Make Her Pay, and the art accompanying Aradia's final monologue. I can't wait to see more!

Gamzee is just too high to be rendered in a less symbolic manner.

Sollux is broken, and probably another mutant. The Sgrub trolls don't seem surprised by his level of power - but considering their circle includes other absurd espers like Aradia and Vriska, they probably aren't the best people to ask about what's normal.

Damn, I wish we could have seen more of Alternia. I know some of the spin-offs dig into this, but I hope we get more in canon, too.

Terezi's dream self is blind, because that's the version of herself she identifies most with. There's very little doubt in my mind that your dream self would reflect your self-perception in other ways, too. Skaia is clearly an ally - thank you, king.

You could imagine a Player whose dream self changes after they realize - or conversely, a Player whose dream self cracked their eggy loking thign. I'd be surprised if there weren't many fanfictions where this is a plot point - and depending on how things shake out in the comic itself, I'm not ruling it out.

In asking about magic, Kanaya really does start to sound like the young child that she is. It's easy to forget, but heartbreaking when you remember.

A few people have talked about this, so I added all of my 'immediate reaction' posts to the liveblog tag! I think it got them all - other than LOLCAT, which I missed and will add now - but if there are others, let me know!

I guess Matespritship isn't explicitly described in terms of romantic love. It's described as a close analogue of human romance, which is 'rooted in strongly positive emotions'. I've been assuming, based on that, that Red Romance is effectively interchangeable with the human concept of romantic love - but I suppose that's not necessarily the case.

I do think you're hitting on a very good point, here, too, which is that the quadrant system itself is described as something that trolls need. I think the 'need' for these categories is enforced, artificially, for the benefit of the Empire. It wouldn't be the first institution to pull something like this.

Either way, it'll be interesting to see how the troll/human ships end up shaking out. It's going to be a challenge to merge their respective relationship frameworks. The best solution, of course, is for them to experience their own relationships without any cultural baggage, but I don't think I'm just speaking for myself when I say that that's easier said than done!

[gffa]

I'd like to ask, I wanna get into the books of SW, but there are the Legends and now the Canon. How should I approach the books? Is it "easier to stick to one over the other" or "u can mix n match" or "dealer's choice"??? Help 😭

Hi! It really depends a lot on you and what you want out of the books, like what experience are you hoping to get? Do you want to read just Disney canon or Legends canon? Or would you prefer to mix and match? All genuine questions btw! <3 My personal advice is to consider what you're looking to get out of them, because honestly I don't think it matters much in fandom, there's not really a ton of fic that focuses on events of the books and the stuff that's derived from books (like the entire concept of the AgriCorps or Obi-Wan's time on Bandomeer before he became a Padawan) is often more fanon-based than that you need to read the books. This isn't a value judgement on the fics that use those tropes and scenarios, just a general nod that, honestly, so much of Star Wars fandom is a big game of Telephone and we're on the far side of the circle at this point. So, read whatever book you want in whatever order, it doesn't really matter because the people who made the movies and who make the shows might give nods to the books (mostly Favreau tbh) occasionally, but the vast majority of the time, they do not go out of their way to stay in line with the books. The books are entirely supplemental, both to watching the movies/TV shows and to vast swathes of fandom. I personally find it easier to stick to Disney canon books, in general I prefer it to Legends (though, Legends has some banger novels that I enjoy as wild rides, like nothing will ever beat Stover's ROTS novel or the absolute manic RIDE that is Wild Space), I find it them a little more internally consistent, but honestly you'd be fine picking up any book that sounds interesting and reading it, so long as you understand that the books are way down on the ladder of what's like to be important to future canon installments. They're delightful to read, I love them very much and you can see I pore over them to liveblog them or scour them for lore bits, but they're very much supplemental. So "dealer's choice" and you're the dealer, there's no one better way to approach them than the other! If you want some recs, I have a tag of books I've enjoyed if you think our tastes overlap or you can just close your eyes and spin around in a circle in a Star Wars bookshop and let that choose your first book to read! XD

[ryley-robinson]

Okay FINALLY sitting my butt down and reading You Don't Have to Be A Hero. @minecraftgender

I've heard a LOT about this and I'mma go ahead and liveblog my reactions to it. Please note that I have not played BZ and I might be missing some context/info about Al-An and Robin, but for the most part, I know the plot/what happens.

Spoilers for both games and the fic itself, ahead! Doing this by two-three chapters each. I didn't want to SPAM comments on AO3, but I really do like going through fics like this, I used to all the time.

(anything in 'quotations' is @minecraftgender's writing, it's just stuff that stuck out to me, so I highlighted it; done so with permission)

Chapter 1:

First off, loving the premise. Loving the idea of Ryley actually taking a jab back at Alterra, the idea that Robin and Al-An were caught and taken prisoner is super realistic, there's SO many possibilities here. Let's go!

---

'He reared up on his back legs, striking one of the grunts in the head. A different grunt threw a rope that landed around Al-an’s neck.'

Starting off with a damn BANG, let's DO THIS- Love the implication of the Alterra grunts treating him like a damn animal, plus the literal part about his body being in that plan/shape anyway.

---

'Nobody on Earth understood what he went through. Hearing about the mission to the stupid planet after his return had just been insult to injury. They never asked him for help with the mission, he was still a nobody as far as Alterra was concerned.'

Ouch ouch ouch. I have this same headcanon, that at the end of the day Alterra could not give a fuck about him, and that they treat him 'well enough' because it'd be bad for PR if he went missing.

But this is a perfect headcanon/bit of lore too, it really fits him and Alterra in general. Damn.

Love the descriptions of Robin's cell too, and how organised and concise her thoughts are. Really neat so far!

---

Chapter 2:

'“There are none left to give me one,” he replied.

His body crumpled to the ground as if simply saying that took all of the strength out of him.'

It's too EARLY TO BE CRYING THIS MUCH OH NO- Oh my god if this does end up being the actual, canonical ending somehow in Subnautica 2, I will die and I haven't even played BZ.

'“I’ll show you the scars from my infection.”'

Extremely sensible and clever plot point.

'Of all of the torture Alterra was attempting to put them through, nothing compared to what Al-an’s mind came up with on its own.'

Fucking relatable. You described his train of thought really well, how it spiralled and just kept going and going and going. Love how Robin was like, no, stop being sorry.

'The only person to understand what Ryley went through.'

Sobbing.

'The bottom of one of his top surgery scars showed as well, though Ryley tried not to be nervous about that. Better to get that part of him on the table now anyway.'

Felt. This. On. A. Spiritual. Level. God, I might be reading into that too much but also 'I just opened your cell door and am trying to save you from a hellscape corporation's wills and being at their mercy but also uh anyway let's not talk about this yet-'.

Also love the gesture of him helping her with food. Awww. ;-;

Loving this so far and we're two chapters in. :D *spams the kudo button*

[grayintogreen]

Pinned Post II: Electric Boogaloo

Hi, I'm Chris! I'm updating my pinned post to be more streamlined so here we go.

I liveblog Critical Role every week and tag with "cr spoilers" up until Monday. This tag also gets used for Candela Obscura and any one-shots. Dimension 20 spoilers are labeled “d20 spoilers.”

This is primarily a Critical Role and Dimension 20 blog, but I contain multitudes. You will see a lot of random shit depending on my mood. I’m really into Hazbin Hotel right now, for example, so my blog is kinda inundated in that. Honestly I might as well admit I am also a Hazbin blog at this point. Sorry, women.

I write a lot of fic, which can be found on my AO3 here. I primarily write fic centered on minor/supporting characters. I'm also the author of the life in the margins of redemption and red roses and dead things series- more about these below.

I have a ko-fi if you'd like to give me a tip for any reason.

I am the assistant manager of a convenience store that is part of a large retail chain and if you tell me that you shop there because “Wal-Mart is crooked” I’ll kill you. Mine is worse.

My two big series are as follows:

red roses and dead things (or Roseverse), a canon divergent Hazbin Hotel (goes AU after 1x06) series that deals with working on continuing the story while I wait for new material. It is lore-heavy, Team as Family, and redemption-focused with focus on Huskerdust, Alastor and his deal, Lucifer and his relationship to Heaven and Hell and his family, and Charlie continuing to pursue her dreams. Also contains significant amounts of Helluva Boss because we’re not beholden to copyright here.

life in the margins of redemption (or LitMoR), a For Want of a Nail CR2 Canon Divergent series, is a duology (with additional side stories) that takes the alternate path outlined in the Harvest's Close session notes- Cree rescuing the Nein from the Gentleman's wrath should they betray him- and takes it a step further with Cree reviving Molly on the Glory Run Road and traveling with the Nein in the hopes of finding a way to bring Lucien back. It is extremely Canon Divergent, but does feature CR2 plots under radically different circumstances and with additional characters. It's worldbuilding heavy, character-driven, often dark, but has a guaranteed happy ending. You may heard of it as "that 1.5 million word fanfic series."

It is not canon compliant with TNEOL as I had finished OUADYA before TNEOL came out. While I use some elements from the novel, the backstory presented for Lucien and the Tombtakers in the series is entirely different.

More details, including links to the fics, beneath the cut.

THE MAIN STORIES.

Note that while the series features Fjorester, Beauyasha, and Widomauk as primary ships, it is above all a gen fic that focuses on the platonic relationships even more than the romantic ones. I cannot in good faith rec this fic to you if you HATE any of those ships, but I can say if you're indifferent/just want a plot and platonic relationship focus, this fic will appeal to you.

once upon a damn-you-all. Cree saves Molly on the Glory Run Road, sending the Nein's trajectory off the rails in a story about redemption, change, fate, and team-building. Also Molly having to contend with the Somnovem.

you can't deny high noon. The Nein continue their journey with an additional member- a reluctant, captive Lucien- as they continue to face numerous challenges while enemies lurk in the background. While OUADYA is mostly original plotlines, this fic follows the majority of the major plot beats of canon albeit a bit twisted around and out of order.

THE SIDE STORIES

While not necessary to read in order to understand the main duology, I feel like not reading them causes a loss of impact, as often events/characters from them are referenced in the main narrative and having more perspective on the events adds more oomph. This is an extremely detail-oriented series and barely anything goes in without some thought put into it. For the sake of not overwhelming my audience, I'm only listing the side stories I think are actually important to the overall narrative, but please do read the others if you have the time.

there's something divine in the way screams can sound. The events of OUADYA as seen through the eyes of someone trapped in the Astral Sea- or Lucien's utter breakdown, now with context. Introduces several backstory elements that become super relevant in YCDHN.

as in the painted parlor, ophelia dreams. The story of how Ophelia came to the Run, became a Mardoon, and gave up her son.

all of the dreamers defying convention. A fic that takes place in the two month gap between the two duology stories and bridges the two narratives.

OTHER LINKS

original character guide. A guide to the many original characters featured in the series.

[theminecraftbee]

I posted 23,379 times in 2022

That's 12,272 more posts than 2021!

5,012 posts created (21%)

18,367 posts reblogged (79%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@/gardenergulfie

@/harley-the-pancake

@/simplydm

@/bananasofthorns

@/starsandfluff

I tagged 20,218 of my posts in 2022

Only 14% of my posts had no tags

#from the queue - 11,399 posts

#answered - 2,886 posts

#stream liveblogging - 822 posts

#hermitcraft - 555 posts

#ask game - 354 posts

#double life spoilers - 213 posts

#hermitcraft spoilers - 196 posts

#a bee fic - 177 posts

#joe hills - 171 posts

#empires smp - 130 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#i love grian’s weird contradictory ‘is immediately bound by any rules of competition and won’t break them even if they’re all in his head’

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

[image ID: two pictures of joe in his daughter's homemade zombiecleo costume. /end ID]

...oh my god,

4,233 notes - Posted October 26, 2022

#4

huge fan of how they did this 1.20 update so far. the changes really do feel like “they are doing things to make minecraft more minecraft”, just adding several small things that makes everything feel nicer is exactly what i want from an update. just… small details! huge fan of that! also a big fan of them going “we are only going to show you features that are done”. it does mean we don’t actually get to know what they’re planning until it’s about to be in a snapshot, which will be an adjustment, but it’ll prevent all the nonsense that happened around 1.19, so I’m a fan. overall, like how 1.20 is looking!

4,370 notes - Posted October 15, 2022

#3

genuinely all the pairs are insane. shoutout, for example, to tango and jimmy, the single most doomed pair of people i can possibly imagine. mr. “dies with tragic futility” and mr. “dies first despite his best efforts” are on the same team AND one of them was already blown up by a creeper. i cannot imagine a more “will die first” pairing. those poor boys i’m already planning their funeral,

5,032 notes - Posted June 17, 2022

#2

“Alright,” Jevin says, “now you just have to give the egg basket back.”

Grian stares at him with big, black, soulful eyes, and holds the basket closer to himself. “...give... you... the eggs...?”

Jevin closes his eyes and mentally counts to five before opening them again. “Yeah. That was the point of the game, right? Collect the eggs and then give them back to prove you’d found them.”

Grian continues to stare.

“So you hand me the basket...”

“Are... are you keeping an eye on them?” Grian asks.

“Keeping an eye on the eggs.”

“Well, it’s a dangerous world out there,” Grian says. “You never know when some maniac with TNT might show up. Probably best to just keep these in my ne- base. Keep these in my base.”

“A maniac with TNT?“ says Jevin, in a tone of voice he hopes conveys exactly who the maniac with TNT normally is on the server.

“You never know,” Grian says. “You’ve seen the eggs now. You know I found them. Really, what do you need all those eggs for? Surely you won’t miss these, right?”

Jevin sighs. “Yes, but I need the eggs to prove you didn’t cheat. You can’t win unless you turn them in.”

Grian stares blankly at Jevin, big black eyes watering as he tries to decide between winning (a thing Grian is very bad at giving up on) and, presumably, some stupid bird instinct that’s refusing to let him let go of the eggs. Jevin’s not sure which one is winning. He is sure, however, that he is slightly regretting making the egg hunt actually use eggs.

Because, he thinks wryly, it’s hardly just Grian.

“Jevin,” Doc says, landing on the platform to the egg hunt central area. Grian makes a sound somewhere between a hiss and a squawk and pulls his shulker full of carefully-padded and protected eggs closer to his chest. “I have found all of my eggs.”

“Excellent! Now, if you’ll hand them over -”

Doc is holding a shulker close to his chest. “Give you my eggs? Don’t be ridiculous.”

...the worst part, Jevin thinks, as he tries to figure out how to negotiate with a bunch of hybrids who haven’t slept in too long and therefore don’t realize they’re being irrational, is that the others are almost certainly going to insist on playing again next year. Something about optimal hiding spots. Next year, though, he swears: he’s not calling them eggs.

5,705 notes - Posted April 20, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

general writing advice, actually: you don’t need an excuse beyond “BUT WOULDN’T THIS BE COOL” to write something into your fic. write things in solely because they make you cackle with the delight of a 12-year-old-boy playing with his dinosaur toys. it’s fun and there’s nothing stopping you or any of us at all any longer.

20,415 notes - Posted February 25, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[duhragonball]

Super Dragon Ball Heroes 1-6

We’ve reached the final (planned) stop on the 2023 Dragon Ball Apocrypha Liveblog, and it’s the most apocryphal series of all, the Super Dragon Ball Heroes web anime!

Here’s the deal.  In 2010, Bandai Namco published a trading card arcade game called Dragon Ball Heroes.  Then in 2016 they updated it to improve the user experience, and renamed it Super Dragon Ball Heroes.   A manga adaptation of the game began in 2017, and then in 2018 Toei began this “original net animation” to promote the game. 

My engagement with the DBH franchise has been superficial at best.  Mostly, I just rock out to the theme songs when I find them on YouTube.  I’ve never played the games because I have no idea where and how to play them, and the gameplay doesn’t look all that compelling to me.  I think some of this stuff is only available in Japan?  I’ve never bothered to find out, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

And yet, I’m somewhat familiar with the story mode from the games, as they involve the Time Patrol, which I wanted to research for the fanfic I’m writing, part of which serves as a prose adaptation of Xenoverse 1.  I even wrote a guest appearance with several characters from DBH, and I might use them again down the line.  Also, the manga contains some backstory involving Towa and Demigra, who also appear in Xenoverse 1, and feature heavily in my fic.  So I’ve read some of the manga, and I watched some of the web anime, but mostly for the purpose of scraping them for useful lore. 

From what I can tell, the entire thing is a mess from a story perspective.  The game has been around for 13 years, so it’s clearly a success, but the manga feels completely removed from the story the game tries to tell, and the web anime seems to go off in a completely different direction from that.  At its core, Dragon Ball Heroes is mainly about answering the question “Wouldn’t it be cool if you teamed up with Super Saiyan 3 Vegito to fight Dark Demon Baby Majin Hatchiyack?”  The answer is obviously “hell yeah”, so I don’t understand why we need a manga and anime version to tell stories that don’t really touch on what makes the game fun. 

Mostly, I wanted to run through this web anime for the sake of completion.  The whole thing is up on YouTube, ripe for the viewing, but I keep losing track of which episodes I’ve already seen, and I can never remember what the hell happened.  So this is where we put the “log” in “liveblog”.

We’re starting today with the first six episodes, which make up the Prison Planet arc of the show.  That may sound like a lot of ground to cover, but these episodes are short, so we’re only talking about 40-45 minutes of footage.

The story begins with Goku and Vegeta training with Whis on Beerus’ planet.  Also, the Supreme Kai is here serving tea, and then Future Mai runs over, so she’s here too, apparently.  According to Shin, they came to Beerus’ planet so Trunks could train, but this scene make it look like Mai came here alone, which I’m pretty sure is impossible.  Maybe Whis or Shin brought her, except she was supposed to be with Trunks, so why is everyone just now finding out he didn’t make it?

To be clear, this is the Blue-haired Trunks and Future Mai from the Zamasu arc.  When we last saw them, Whis had arranged for them to take refuge in an alternate timeline where Zamasu hadn’t killed everyone yet.  It was also made clear that they would never return from that world, but SDBH just has them dropping in like it’s Sunday brunch.  Now, you might be asking “Didn’t you just say Xeno Trunks was a character in Heroes?  Why isn’t that version of Trunks in this show?”  And to that I say: Don’t worry, he’s in this too, just not as much.

Then this shady-looking dude named Fu shows up and tells everyone that Trunks is trapped on “The Prison Planet”.  Vegeta asks how he could possibly know that, and Fu explains that he’s a friend of Trunks and he investigated his disappearance.  I like how skeptical Vegeta is of this story.  “My son doesn’t have friends, get the fuck outta here.”

So Goku, Vegeta, and Mai travel to the Prison Planet, which is just a bunch of clip art of planets from our solar system clustered together and surrounded by cartoon chains.  It looks stupid as hell, like they told the art department “We need a prison planet design, and make it as literal as possible.”

There, the gang meets a second Goku, who can turn Super Saiyan 4. This is not the same Goku from Dragon Ball GT, and official sources refer to him as “Xeno Goku”.  He’s an agent of the Time Patrol, and when he encounters the other Goku, they get into a classic superhero misunderstanding and fight.  Then Fu shows up and it quickly becomes clear that he’s the one behind all of this.   Xeno Goku is on a mission to apprehend Fu, and Fu brags that he uses the Prison Planet to trap powerful warriors for his experiments.  Fu tricked Trunks into coming here, then used him as bait to lure Goku and Vegeta.  Xeno Goku pretended to get caught in order to infiltrate this place, but that suits Fu’s purposes, since he’s trapped here now. 

He tells them to find Trunks themselves, and says something about how they’ll have to gather the Dragon Balls on the Prison Planet.  Xeno Goku has one, but the other six are in the hands of the other prisoners.  This sounds like a pretty decent gauntlet for the good guys to go through, but this whole idea gets abandoned by Episode 2.

Meanwhile, Trunks wakes up in a cell with a prison uniform and some sort of tracking bracelet on his arm.   Then the wall opens up and he runs out into a city.  Then Cooler attacks him, seeking the Dragon Balls.  This seems like a pretty cool premise, more authentic to the “Prison Planet” title, but this is all dropped immediately.

From his lab, Fu watches everyone and seems extremely pleased with what’s going on, although he never explains why, or what his plan is.  Get used to this, because this is pretty much all he ever does.

Meanwhile, he’s got this other guy locked away.  His name is Cumber, the Masked Evil Saiyan, and he has a Dragon Ball too.  At the end of episode 1, Fu says it’s not quite time for him to get involved yet.  In Episode 2, Cumber breaks free and heads straight for the good guys to attack them.

Goku tries to punch Cumber, but Cumber has this weird power where if you touch his ki, it makes you go berserk.  That sounds pretty awesome, except it only happens to Goku here, just once, and then it never gets brought up again.  I notice I’m saying that a lot here. 

Also, berserk Goku’s skin is darker for some reason, which I like better, actually, except this is supposed to signify Cumber’s dark energy corrupting him or something, so that seems kind of problematic. 

Fortunately for Vegeta, Trunks and Cooler show up to help.  Yeah, Cooler’s on our side for this.  Apparently he and Trunks came to some sort of understanding between Episodes 1 and 2.  The prison clothes were pointless, since Mai brought along Trunks’ own clothing, so he changes out of them to join the fight. 

During his captiviy, Cooler heard from Fu about Golden Frieza, so he decides to try that for himself and succeeds immediately.  This is treated like some big game-changing moment, as if fans haven’t been photo-shopping Cooler since 2015.  Cooler than goes “I think I shall call this form.................... Golden Cooler!” like there was any possible other name he would have used.

Goku finally comes to his senses, but then Cumber breaks free of his restraints. Trunks goes in to distract him while Goku and Vegeta use Potara earrings which the Supreme Kai gave to Mai before they set off on this trip. 

So it’s Vegito Blue vs. Cumber, and things get so rough that Vegito has to do a Kai-o-ken on top of Blue.  Here’s a picture of Golden Cooler just standing there like an asshole watching. 

Vegito seems to gain the upper hand, but then Cumber reveals he knows the fake moon technique, and he turns into a giant ape.  I’m not sure why he’s this orange color, unless this is meant to be like Golden Oozaru tainted with evil ki or whatever.  The thing is, they keep calling Cumber an “Evil Saiyan”, but he hasn’t actually done anything that evil.  I mean, he choked out Trunks, but there’s plenty of regular Saiyans who would do the same thing if they could.  “Evil Saiyan” implies that he’s some kind of next-level evil, like hanging goat entrails over his altar to Moloch or something.

His first ki blast causes Vegito’s fusion to dissolve, but perhaps more importantly, Cumber’s fighting at such an intensity that it’s damaging the giant chains that seal the Prison Planet off from the rest of the universe.

Goku and Vegeta decide their only chance now is to cut off Cumber’s tail, and Trunks flies in to back them up.  Mai watches from the sidelines, and she’s got two more Potara earrings.  Wait, how many of these things did Shin give her, anyway?

At this point, Fu finally notices the cracks in the seal on the Prison Planet and goes to the battlefield to scold Cumber in person.  He takes out his sword and does some sort of technique to dispel the fake moon and reverse Cumber’s Oozaru transformation without cutting his tail. 

Fu withdraws, apparently satisfied that he’s brought the fight down to a more acceptable level.  This pretty much puts us back where we started, except Goku’s now using Super Saiyan God to fight Cumber, even though we just saw Cumber give Vegito a hard time at Super Saiyan Blue.  Cumber seems to recognize the God form somehow, but he never explains his reaction to it, and this never gets brought up again.

Despite Fu’s intervention, the chains break away completely.  You’d think this would upset Fu, and he is upset, but not because of this...

No, he’s upset because, while he was away, someone found his lab and wrecked it.  Now he can’t monitor the battle, which disrupts his experiment. 

Cumber wrecks Goku’s shit, which knocks him out for a while, but fortunately Xeno Goku and Xeno Vegeta show up to defend him. Seems that they were the ones who wrecked Fu’s lab, and I guess that explains where Xeno Vegeta was until this moment.  He was scouting out the lab, waiting for an opening. 

I don’t know why the other Vegeta isn’t getting involved in this fight.  I think he’s okay, but he just stands with Trunks and Mai watching the battle. I mean, Golden Cooler is doing the same thing, but I think we’ve already established that Golden Cooler is just an asshole.

Xeno Vegeta suggests that they fuse, since Cumber’s one tough bastard.  He hates fusion, but he’s willing to make an exception.  So for those of you keeping score, this is the second fusion in less than six episodes.

So now it’s Super Saiyan 4 Vegito vs. Cumber, who decides to bust out Super Saiyan 3.  You can tell because his eyebrows are gone.  This seems weird, because base Cumber was giving Vegito Blue a hard time, so the only conclusion I can make here is that SSJ4 is stronger than Blue, or Cumber’s transformations don’t mean much.

Vegito 4 seems to beat Cumber, but then Fu shows up again to confront the jerks who broke his lab. 

Then Cumber rejoins the battle, and Fu observes that the seal on the Prison Planet has been broken. And he seems... happy about this?  If this was what he wanted all along, why did he cancel Cumber’s Oozaru form?  He says that “they will revive soon”, and leaves.

I like how he uses his sword (swords?) to cut an X-shaped portal for himself.  That’s a nice touch. 

Xeno Goku wants to chase after Fu, but they have to rescue the others from Cumber, who’s fired a giant ki blast at them.  Regular Vegeta complains about Regular Goku just lying there passed out, when...

Goku suddenly wakes up and goes Ultra Instinct.  While he fights Cumber alone, the rest of them teleport back to Beerus’ planet.  Xeno Goku and Xeno Vegeta say their farewells and head off to continue the hunt for Fu, and I guess everyone just assumes that Regular Goku can save himself when he’s ready.

Just as Goku beats Cumber, another portal opens up, and out comes... Zamasu?  And he’s got a posse.  They grab Cumber and leave.

This leaves Goku alone on the Prison Planet as it explodes.  Nice callback to the destruction of Namek, except Goku can use Instant Transmission, so why isn’t he?

Back on Beerus’ planet, the Supreme Kai of Universe 6 suddenly shows up, and he breathlessly informs Vegeta and the rest about an invasion in his home universe.  Dammit, now I have to look up his name.  Fuwa.  The Supreme Kai of U6 is named Fuwa.  Glad we settled that.

Vegeta’s like “I’m a bad enough dude to save Universe 6.  Let’s rock.”

So yeah, this is a bunch of nonsense.  There is a plotline running through all of this, but Toei presented the first six episodes like it’s a single story arc, and it’s more like the first leg of a larger story arc.  There’s hints of something more ambitious here.  Trunks’ prison uniform and the Dragon Balls suggest that they might have been planning to spend more time in this setting, but instead the whole thing explodes in less time than it takes to get a pizza delivered. 

This probably goes without saying, but there’s too many characters in this thing.  We have two Gokus and two Vegetas, and both pairs fuse to make two Vegitos.  It’s fanservice, I get it, but it’s over before we can really get into it.  Golden Cooler literally doesn’t do anything.  I mean Mai doesn’t do much either, but that’s because she doesn’t have any powers.  I don’t know which one irritates me more. 

I like the idea of Cumber, but they never fleshed him out.  Fu keeps teasing details about the guy, but we never find out where he found Cumber or how he got him here, or why he wears that mask.  At least Cumber is still alive so he can return in future episodes and hopefully give us the scoop, but I’m not optimistic that we’ll get much. 

[tarisilmarwen]

It is deeeeeaaaaaad at work right now, I am going to Do Research (AKA watch the BBC miniseries production of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair and liveblog through it) to take notes for my Ahsoka Silver Chair AU fixfic.

Under the Read More in case people want to go into that fic blind without any kind of spoilers.

I love the opening theme they did for the BBC Narnia stuff, it's just so warm and wholesome.

Ah Experiment House, I remember tumblr weirdos complaining that Lewis criticized English boarding schools like it for their hands-off "soft parenting" approach, which basically meant that the teachers did nothing while bullies ran rampant.

Or maybe they were weird about how Lewis seemed to imply the sex integration and female head were both bad for this particular school idk.

Anyway, enter Jill Pole, being bullied and having a crap time.

"I thought this was supposed to be a modern school where everyone was tolerant and respectful of other people's rights!"

It is a modern school, Jill, that's its entire problem alas.

Oof this is bringing back some elementary school hurts. (I too was chased around the playground for no damn reason at least once or twice.)

Props to that one male teacher that scolds the bullies.

Hello Eustace! :D

Hinting at Eustace's prior character development from Voyage, fun, fun.

So being that Sabine and Shin are filling the roles of Eustace and Jill for the fic here (somewhat, I think Ahsoka will also partly share Eustace's role) obviously I have to have one being the cynic and one being the True Believer.

Sabine is definitely gonna take the cynic role.

(Though Shin is going to be the one that receives the Signs.)

Ahhh the big cliff! I could put that as the map-reading place on Seatos where Baylan, Shin, Morgan and Marrok are camped out when Shin gets the vision from the Force about the Signs.

These effects are super dated lol.

(Part of this series' charm, frankly.)

Aslan being a right troll to Jill here lol.

I forgot how good this dialogue was.

Right, so this is gonna be the exposition dump story beat, to get us caught up. (Probably going to go to Baylan or Morgan.)

The Siiiiiiiiiiigns. :D

The music cue right here is so cozy and lovely.

The kids bungling the first Sign right off the bat, ha ha. The running theme of the book.

I think this owl is played by Warwick Davis? It sounds like him at any rate.

Trumpkin's hearing problems lol.

Ha ha I wonder if Trumpkin hitting his head on the carriage was improved/an accident.

Plus of filming this in Britain they have no shortage of actual castles to use as sets.

Delving into the angst of Narnia Time, ow.

Huyang is going to fit right into the Parliament of Owls inspired scene. (Another Exposition Dump beat.)

Backstory time!

*musing about possibly working the New Republic bureaucracy plotline in*

Lilliandil. :(

The backstory is giving me Ideas but I'm not sure how workable they'd be to integrate into the story. Maybe just as bonus filler behind the scenes for flavor idk.

(See the problem is that anything I do relating to Ezra has to have a tight lid kept on it, because that is the source of a fairly large twist. Might be able to work something in with the Noti though.)

Rillian was not taught adequate Stranger Danger I see lol.

"Accursed no longer to me." Okay Rillian, calm down. Stop thinking with your loins good sir.

Right, so as part of my agenda to Make 👏 Peridea 👏 Weird 👏, I have decided that there are going to be remnants of some kind of civilization of giants. The ancient Nightsisters had some kind of symbiotic relation to this ancient race, when they died out so did their knowledge of how to harness the Purrgil to cross the stars, so the group on Peridea was then cut off from their sisters in the main galaxy.

So lots of ruins, giant alien bones, landscapes shaped by the movement of this ancient species.

Puddleglum!

I love Puddleglum so much.

He's such an Eeyore.

Eustace trying to hold back a chuckle.

And Puddleglum is considered flighty for Marshwiggles lololol.

Jill rolling her eyes.

Jill wanting a bow and arrows instead of a knife, girl, do you even know how to shoot?

Travel montage!

Eustace boldly going up to the dragon to give it pats awww. He feels a kinship to it I bet. (Owing to his own dragoning in the last book.)

There are quite a few encounters I didn't remember from this journey, nice to get a refresher.

This stone giants sequence makes me think of the one in The Hobbit, not surprising, Tolkien and Lewis were BFFs.

Lolol Jill picking up on Puddleglum's doomerisms and tossing them back at him I love it.

Aaaaah it's her it's the Witch!

*vibrates from the dramatic irony of this scene*

Unnnngggggghh I wanna talk about the fic and how I translate the premise of this scene into it but I caaaaaaaaan't.

This actress does such a fantastic job of making the Witch seem cordial and benevolent.

So as mentioned I already have plans for a bone field on Peridea's surface (to match the bone rings around the planet, and just to emphasize the inherent deadness of the world), that's probably going to be my UNDER ME trench equivalent I'm thinking. Something Sabine misses in the moment while she's trying to get past it to somewhere else, thus missing that Sign.

The Tower is going to also be vaguely equivalent to Harfang. Not a one to one since plot points are kind of shuffled around a bit.

Man when you know the later reveal, all the giants' demeanors are so threatening and ominous.

The greenscreen isn't actually that bad in this sequence.

Drunk!Puddleglum! :D

Ooooooof the uncomfortable feelings from the Giant Queen saying to spoil Jill.

You leave Jill alone you creep.

This nightmare sequence is also quite unnerving.

Heh. This nurse giant has met her meat and now is having regrets. XD

Aslan himself turning up to repeat the Signs to them like a consternated customer service rep having to repeat their instructions for the billionth time lol.

Puddleglum insisting he can act chipper lolololol.

Jill putting on a masterclass act of "stupid little girl", love her. We stan.

"You're a growing child, we must fatten you up."

LINES THAT HIT DIFFERENT WHEN YOU KNOW THE REVEAL.

Ah ha Puddleglum's thousand yard horrified stare when the giants laugh about the talking stag they killed for the venison.

You're overdoing it just a bit, Jill.

Aaaaaaaand there's the reveal, they gon' be eaten, fun stuff.

Flee children, flee.

Oof and now for the claustrophobia part of the story.

Hello Earthmen.

Jill absolutely not wanting to go further into the dark cramped underground hole, relatable.

C.S. Lewis just randomly throwing a giant slumbering Father Time into the plot here. Just to make you even more unnerved.

This part of the fic (the underground stuff) is going to be heavily shortened, I think.

Ooooh the design of the castle is nice.

Snake figures all over the place, very clever bit of foreshadowing that.

The stonework of this set looks like cascading waterfalls or cave formations it's really on point.

Rilliaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! :D

(I mean we don't know it's him yet technically but still.)

Even under the full power of his enchantment he's defying the Witch any way he can.

Love the window glasswork of this set.

Yet more snake motifs. I'm sensing a pattern lol.

Rillian's actor does unhinged mood swings very well.

Oooooh and has a very nice Kubrick Stare too.

The subtle shift of mood when Jill mentions "Rillian" and "Narnia". Frick this is so so good, Rillian is Fighting From The Inside, I love this trope I love this trope I love it I love it aaaaaaaaah.

He's just half-sprawled across this table like he's a rabid animal holding himself back my gosh the physicality of his acting it's great.

The design of the Witch's headdress, oh man, how it fans out almost like a cobra's hood. They really gave you every single hint and foreshadowing that SHE BE A SNAKE YO.

How wickedly cruel of her spell to make him believe his one hour of nightly clarity is in fact an episode of madness.

And she bade him keep his visor down and not speak when she takes him aboveground on the slim chance someone might recognize him ohhhhhhhh what a bitch.

What a bitch.

*SQUEALS ABOUT THE IMMACULATE VIBES OF THIS SCENE*

THE WITCH INTENDS TO INVADE NARNIA WITH HER ARMY FROM BELOW AND INSTALL RILLIAN AS KING TO MAKE HER CLAIM MORE LEGITIMATE, BUT THAT'S WHY SHE HAD TO ENCHANTED HIM AND KIDNAP HIM FIRST, HE WOULD NEVER HAVE STOOD FOR IT IF HE'D KNOWN WHAT SHE WAS.

AND ENCHANTED RILLIAN HAS NO IDEA THAT SHE PLANS TO TURN HIM AGAINST HIS FAMILY AND COUNTRY AND USE HIM AS A WEAPON AGAINST THEM.

Friiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick so good.

Rillian's actor makes him so unnerving and scary here.

"I shall rule that land by the council of my Lady, who will then be my queen too." NNNNGGHGHKJHFHFHFF UNCOMFY.

Rillian's head visibly getting clearer as we watch his expression and his enchanted self can feel the spell weakening.

I may, uh, be liking this whole sequence a perfectly normal amount.

THE TITULAR SILVER CHAIR.

Yeah sooooo, this whole iconic scene here is pretty much the inspiration for the Ahsoka fic.

And That Is All I Will Say About That.

Imma just once again appreciate all the snake and serpent design motifs here.

"We have no desire to do battle with serpents." Well, see, ABOUT that Puddleglum...

Rillian's desperation. :(

I just loooooove the "Ohhhhh shit." resignation and realization in Jill and Eustace and Puddleglum when Rillian begs them in Aslan's name. (Fourth Sign FTW.)

They're just like, "Crap crap crap crap, that was it, that was the Sign, what the hell do we do now?"

Good man, Puddleglum. Love you.

Aaaaaaand it broken. SUCH A GOOD SCENE.

"Lie there in ruin, vile engine of sorcery, lest your mistress should use you upon another victim." Go hard, Rillian.

Aaaaand there be the bitch.

Go away lady. No one likes you. >:(

And she immediately starts in with the gaslighting.

Ooooh the way Rillian flinches away from her hands as they try to touch his cheeks.

Uggggggggh I hate her so much. The false concern in her voice as she tries to get Rillian back under control.

She is giving great Seventh Sister vibes her, frankly, lol.

"There's Aslan."

*THE WITCH TWITCHES*

Ha ha love it.

And here's Puddleglum's Crowning Moment Of Awesome.

Ohhhhhh this... this effect has NOT aged well.

I mean the transformation itself is fine but the final puppet is fake as hell looking.

And of course the lair begins to collapse upon Witch death.

And they don't actually explain Bism in this adaptation, pity. That was one of the cooler bits.

Bye Puddleglum.

Bye Caspian.

And here be Aslan, very happy with his bumbling charges lol.

Oh man the thorn symbolism.

"He was pierced for our iniquities, he was crushed for our transgressions."

And hello young Caspian!

He's so bright and eager I love him.

"You're there too, in our world?"

"I am... but there I have another name."

FRIIIIIIIIICK.

*cries in Christian*

And now we get that cathartic scene where we terrify the bullies. Love it. Ha ha.

Aaaaand it done.

Wheeeee! I got some good ideas from this watch. Mostly in the realm of emotional beats to recreate. I had fun, I did not remember the excellent acting on the part of Richard Henders here, it was lovely. Tom Baker as Puddleglum was a right delight and it was a decent adaptation of the book.

Now to write down my brainstorming into the fic outline lol.

[the-official-account]

Episode 18 liveblog YIPEE!

Fewer opening notes on this one. I'm gonna attempt liveblogging AND drawing at the same time, let's see how that goes. I'm currently feeling very smug with my advertisement efforts and while I hope to get to spar and vellum today I realized I made Anya kinda thin and that feels...not right for her vibes. So I'm doing Anya again...that's my excuse JGLDKDHDIS she's so...she's like a purse sized friend

Anyways, beginning of this i was not in front of my art tablet so:

"we come as a pair" haha. Cute.

Cloven heart said OUR little brother figure [bugs bunny com meme]

Scientist with a radio tower.....max.....hm. interestinger an interestinger

Yeah josepha you might be the only person in town who wants cloven heart to be the "center" of anything. Why not sindershore? She already works....idk, there? Or in v.n

Vellum just pulls out the papers lmao. Like why not!

Max came up with the schematics... Did max disappear? Yeah. Hm. HM!

Josepha used to be a woodworker? Was I remembering that right or did my brain just make this up.

"We would talk to Thorne" 😬

MAX WHAT

THEIR NAME WAS MAX WHAT?

Did grey have like....a really shitty alias? How old was max??? Fifteen days ago.... Hmmm.

Vellum would know if his uncle was out of town for like 2 and a half months if there was overlap and it took like a day or half a day of a train ride to get back and forth. It's unlikely vellum wouldn't connect those dots

"I was on drugs when I named it I will be honest".josepha is SO good. She's lovely. She's so funny. Oh my god.

"This may not be to your taste of perhaps it is I do not know how you party vellum" NFOSBDKSHDO

"THINK I COULD ROCK THOSE"

"I ALSO DONT KNOW HOW YOU PARTY AGENT VELLUM"

Trying not to burst out laughing in public this is a struggggllleeee

"The belt has 3 slots for arcane cores" I would rather we not go looking for bombs.... But yk. Queer people have plenty of odd hobbies who am I to judge

Okay but like short distance teleportation for someone with a bad leg is a pretty banger deal

"Sometimes you wake up one day and you're retired" In THIS economy?

Also I'm mentioning this out of order bc this episode is being funny faster than I can type, but (I say this with all of the respect) was vellums "I'm sure I'll find other use for you" sultry or was that just Ila's voice? HFOSHSKSBSOS

Spar sounds so depressed. Give this sheep dog some enrichment!

Vellum being like 'Hey you're good we still need to find some more bombs!' he is in fact giving spar some enrichment

"Waiting for this boat and seemingly intent on returninf to clovenheart"

I just squinted with SO much suspicion that that would be diamond

"Is Brunhilde!!!" Dksgsud ok

"Do you say hi to your mom as you're pretending to arrest the chick you dated who you invited into her home on grounds of a repeat assault?" My god

Spar is ~5'8 tati is 5'3 very good to know

~ many hours later, now doing art stuff~

Vellum could fall on this face and STILL look cool

Anya spar and vellum having a snack has gotta go on my to-draw list (my mind is so fast and my hands are so not fast! Ahh!)

OH NEW MIDTRO isk if this was here last episode. OH SHITFUN FACTS? i love blorbo facts

he has written a SYMPHONY? The essentricism is genetic i think.... a smphony baout YEARNING FOR BELONGING? you are handing me a fic idea. NOTE: symphony driven by loss and isolation over being trans, having lost his parents, wanting to find a place where he's accepted

Smooth velvet is his stripper name this episode is just raining fic ideas, huh? (i am joking but also I am not joking. BUt im joking but im not joking....I am deciding if im joking)

DONT BE MEAN TO ISHBALA (spell chat tdb) SPAR!!!!!!

DONT BE MEAN TO GREGGINS EITHER!!! LJKSAFHGLKAHFGLAKSG

greggins binder generator.

[not episode related but im battling between having sincere thoughts about Anya's fashion sense and going "ooooh belly"]

I FEEL LIKE THIS IS PROBLEMATIC AND YOU'RE GONNA GET CANCELLED AND HERE'S WHY

ALSDHGLKASDHGASKGFASGD MY SWORDS A GHOST NOW OHHHH MY GOD I LOVE THEM

SEKITAN WAS A VICTIM....WOAH.......WOOOOAH.

ALTERATION RESISTANT BLOOD? HOOOOLY SHIT. WOAH. WOAH. WAOH MAN. WOW. FUUUUCK. i dont evne......

anya said hey your uhhhh. Your uhh special friend is little stressed. go makeout of whatever. THEY'RE WALKING ARM IN ARM LMAOOOO

ishbala just chose violence SO unprompted

[anya is drawn now for spar and vellum iterations i am...........Well to be fair i am Never very confident going in and it walways turns out okay!!!]

"*he puts a gun in vellums hands* its goot to know you're with someone who can protect you." s;aldfalsfdjaw awhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! SPAR DOESN'T GET PROTECTED SPAR IS ALWAYS THE ONE JUMPING IN FRONT OF THE BULLET DO YOU KJNOW HOW MUCH THIS MEEEEEEEANS TO ME?????

"when you got a good one you keep em" thats it thats spar

spar is correcting vellums stance and vellum must be SCREAMING inside lmao. Vellum focuses SO HARD on everything BUT spar directly behind him and accidentally becomes an expert

ARE THEY ALSO IMPRESSED BY THE SEXUAL TENSION

vellum, full on titanicking it with spar is trying VERY hard to respect boundaries and that is my FAVORITE kind of tension. "I am not making moves because i respect you as a person" is never not entertaining

STOP JUMPSCARING ME WITH THIS FUCKING KISSES I GASPED TOO HARD AND CHOKED ON MY SPIT HOLY FUCK. HOOOLY FUCK.

ughhhhh drawing kisses is such a pain but FUCK do i wanna.

oooh this new outro is so fancy!!!! i love the format changes that are happening here!

im torn between doing another episode tonight and saving it for tomorrow so I can focus fully on drawing.......ill feel out the vibes after i get spar's jaw right. LOVELY episode. spar is making moooooooves!!!!

@threeheartscast i almost forgot!

[3000-200-grains-of-salt]

Hi! I'm Salt!

(Woah, a pinned post?? No way???)

I'm always open to asks and being tagged in posts! I love to talk with yall, and I read every single reblog. ^_^

My message box is always open, either just to chat or for project inquiries, business, collaboration offers, and everything else like that.

If you follow me and your blog has no content and a random-person profile picture, you will be blocked! This is protecting myself from Tumblr's bot problem.

Also: I get quite a few scam messages (and really really dont want to open up a message with explicit content in it) so i am SO sorry if i block you. if i do block you accidentally, use a different tumblr account to send an ask or message my discord

If you submit an ask with a photo or a video, provide a description of it within the ask. It can be simple, just general colors + what it is. If I think you might be a bot, and you don't provide a description, I'm sorry, but your ask is goin' right in the trash can!

Any triggers will be tagged as "tw [trigger]", so make sure to block any tags associated with triggers you may have :)

~~~

Discord: 3200grainsofsalt

And you can follow my ao3 here.

My tags:

#seattlesaltsartowrk - my art!

#saltssavignfourlater - anything i've saved for future reference, mainly for me

#seattlesaltwroiting - all my fics (and some poetry)

#saltsasks+answers - any ask that i've received and answered

#NaClArtReblogs - reblogged art from other people

#saltstealsshinystuff - i may or may not steal designs from this art. mainly for personal reference

#otherseattlesaltcreations - other miscellaneous things of mine :)

#salt yells at cloud - tag for my text posts

#liveseattlesaltreaction - All of my liveblogs (beware of spoilers!)

#salt collects Data! Hell Yeah! - all my polls

[yogurtyogitup]

Hi hello it is Liveblog anon. I have a favor to ask. I am trying to get my lore obsessed friend to watch blackrock. But. I have bad memory and forgor. what is rythian’s lore again……… :,)

i remember end stuff but my brain unfortunately got filled with I Hope They Kiss disease instead of story

YOOOO LIVEBLOG ANON!!!

Ok so, Rythian's a human that was taken to the End (implied that the portal his scientist parents built was what allowed the endermen into the overworld) and raised to be a warlord and take over the overworld. At some point, he realized "actually this sucks" and ran away? details unclear--to the overworld, where he set up shop in the "Old World," an old Yogscast server. There, he was the resident wizard/sorcerer and played up the "totally not evil" thing. Duncan and Sjin then had a whole fight that culminated in Sjin burning everything with his fire ring and sabotaging Duncan's nuclear reactor so that it blew up and destroyed the server.

Rythian wakes up underground in the New World (colloquially called Tekkitopia or whatever by fans back in the day, usually in fics) and sets off to get revenge. He scams Sjin and Sips by pretending to be an employee of the new Sipsco, wanting to get items. It totally works, and he disappears to set up shop elsewhere. As he's scoping out an area, Zoey falls from the sky!!! Cue Blackrock.

There's some really fun tidbits like Rythian's enderbane sword burning him because of how end magic because interwoven with his being. Quote from Rythian: "From birth he was trained to use the powers of the End, and while he eventually adopted different disciplines of magic, the End left it’s mark. Enough to make the Enderbane hurt him, but not enough to do any worse."

More on Enderbane: "...the idea was that it was created and enchanted by magesmiths from the Realm of Twilight in ages past, and used in a war between the two peoples long ago. The weapon was used to great effect to slay Endermen, but what really helped win the war was the realm-wide aura that nullified/subdued/limited the use of End magic."

The wraps on his hands are from Enderbane burning his skin :) (We know this because Dusty asked him. Thanks Dusty!)

His hair streaks: According to Rythian, the hair streaks are because "powerful acts of magic have a physical cost." After healing Zoey between seasons one and two, he gets some gray streaks. The blond hair streak is from a past act of magic that has slowly been healing over time. Which has absolutely batshit implications bro what did he do

The wraps on his hands are from Enderbane burning his skin :)

hmmmmm what else. He really likes sandwiches. That might just be bleedover from IRL Rythian tho.

Thank you so much for asking me I love the chance to infodump about second best character (best character being Zoey of course)

[fancybois]

RIP Worth It

First off, I want to give a shout out to all the friends I’ve made along the way, you know who you are. I started this side blog during the peak of Worth It and the fandom, in 2017. And it was a much needed hobby for me to plug in to. 

I had just finished grad school, I had moved for an internship and I was alone and far from friends and family. I was getting over a major heartbreak too. I came back to my small apartment to my laptop to work on gifs for the fandom, chat with friends, or read fanfic (still some of the most quality fics I’ve read). I started my mornings before work watching Worth It in chronological order. I am so so grateful for this show and how it got me through my loneliness. So thank you Worth It fandom and thank you Andrew, Steven, and Adam and the rest of the Worth It team. 

Now. On to my last liveblog:

OKAY IMMEDIATELY NO. IMMEDIATELY 

HES’ GOING TO THE WATCHER STUDIO STOP THIS

IM LITERALLY SOBBING

SOMEONE MAKE A GIF WITH STEVEN GOING TO GET ANDREW IN  S1 AND NOW ANDREW GETTING STEVEN PLEASE i DONT HAVE THE PROGRAMS OR TIME TO DO IT

STEVEN’S DRIVING AGAIN 

Bub and Grandma’s has actually come up a lot in other videos for their amazing bread and I’m glad they have a shop now! If I ever visit LA I have to go there

First Cheers Steven, wonderful

Okay passionfruit donut??? Has to slap. That is my favorite flavor. Adam immediately going to that shows he knows whats up

Andrew just fucking dying when Steven said that he didn’t like limes as a kid

Andrew was like, you’ll remember this chef from our Oil episode and I was like, nope sure don’t, but I do remember the Boon sauce!

No Worth It fact?? ☹

Man, that chicken looks so so good

Steven: “Favorite food: free bread.” I knew he was my fave for a reason.

Second Cheers Steven!!!!

Oh man, pandemic Steven with the his black hair and glasses?? So fucking cute

Damn, we really got some Hearteyes! Andrew when Steven said he only thought of mousse as the thing his dad put in his hair. This last episode is a gift

Andrew was not ready for Steven to say confidence is sexy haha

Okay but that chicken might be sexy but that dessert is absolutely sexy too

Now Andrew is drivinggggg

Lot of French inspo in this episode

Man, remember when these boys had next to no experience with fine dining?? 

CHEERS STEVEN X3 HELL YEAH

Andrew: “This amuse bouche feels like the closest thing I’ve eaten to a pet treat.” hahaha

Half the things this chef is saying is in another language and I’m like, idk what that is but it looks good!

Throw back to their first episode. Every time I see truffle I think of the boys <3

Also this song was used when they were eating another fancy thing and I love that

Damn, Andrew really missed the opportunity to call back his hot honey joke. Local honey, that’s what they called me in high school. 

Pocky. They made fancy pocky.

Steven: “This is me holding on to like... everything I own, ya know? I just don’t want it to end. Arguably, the worst bite. Because it’s over.” Yeah. I feel that right now. That gave me a lump in my throat. 

Adam: “My Worth It Winner is the friends we made along the way.” So well said. Thanks guys.