#mostly with myself but also with everyone on this whole fucking planet

[damndude69]

I am so sad and so tired

[lucozadehulahoop]

Star-crossed. Lo'ak x fem!human!reader

This was originally posted on my side blog @thankeywa. It's a brand new blog and tumblr thinks it's a bot so it's not giving it visibility. Please go give it some love, I want all my avatar!related stuff to be on there.

PART 2 HERE PART 3 HERE PART 4 HERE

I know that literally nobody asked for this, but I've noticed a disturbing lack of Lo'ak fics out there, so I've decided to give my input. I've had a story in mind for a while now, and I needed to get it out there. It will be a reader insert to make it more accessible, but it's somewhat based around an original f!character, so I apologize for that in advance if it gets too specific.

WARNINGS: Lo'ak is 20 years old in this and so is the reader, I do not write about minor characters. There will be eventual mature themes in this so MINORS DO NOT INTERACT WITH THIS WORK.

For everyone else, if you like my writing, please let me know if you want to be on the tag list for future installments and SEND ME REQUESTS (head canons, imagines, sfw/nsfw, ecc.) ! I love that shit.

words: around 1.200

summary: reader is a human left behind on pandora, she grew up with the remaining humans who'd been aloud to stay on the planet after the war and has been friends with the Sully clan her entire life. She and Lo'ak were best friends until he began to pull away from her in their teen years for seemingly no reason. This story is about them reconnecting on the day of her twentieth birthday, and dealing with the feelings they have for each other and the obstacles that come with them being from two different worlds.

TW for this chapter: angst, smoking (don't do it, ever), brief mentions of alcohol, brief mention of war and death, brief mention of child birth, reader can breathe on pandora.

Y/n looked at the 'birthday cake' made out of cookie rations that Norm and Max had made for her. No matter how many years would pass, her dads always knew how to get creative.

"I'm twenty years old, you guys don't have to keep throwing me a birthday party." She reprimanded them softly, though her heart was filled with joy. Y/n was so thankful to have people in her life who cared enough to make her day special every single year.

"Considering you spent most of your early existence tied to test tubes to stay alive, we're merely celebrating the scientific marvel your continued survival has been." Norm joked, raising a beer, and y/n shoved him, before blowing out the single candle that had been meticulously re-used each year. It was a wonder how there was any wax still left on it.

"What did the birthday girl wish for?" Max asked, reaching for a dried-up cookie and cringing slightly at the taste as he chewed on it slowly. "The whole point of a birthday wish is to keep it to myself... or it won't come true. Honestly, I question your two's knowledge of Earth's traditions." y/n shook her head, before taking a celebratory sip of alcohol.

Norm and Max left eventually, back to the main base. They were more than capable of piloting a helicopter those days, and y/n was all grown up. More than capable of living by herself. What once had been an avatar lab, smack dab in the middle of the forests of Pandora, had been converted into her home. Pandora's rapidly repopulating fauna had surprisingly left her residence alone, well... mostly. There were still some creatures who couldn't help but keep themselves away. And by creatures, she meant Spider. Y/n was also friends with actual people like Neteyam, Kiri, Tuk, and... Lo'ak. Truth be told, she didn't know whether or not she and Lo'ak were even friends anymore. They'd been thick as thieves for as long as she could remember, always getting him out of trouble and fixing him up after a scuffle with his siblings. But then, around her sixteenth birthday, he'd started pulling away, and y/n had never understood why. They'd had a big fight about it, bottom line, he hadn't wanted to be around her anymore and y/n had to accept it.

"Open up! It's fucking freezing out here!" Came Spider's loud voice followed by an incessant banging on the door that immediately pulled y/n out of her reverie. "Alright, alright..." she laughed a little as she went to let them all inside. The Sullys were always insisting on spending birthdays together, even though some of them were now getting too big to even fit inside her 'home'. Neteyam had to walk around with his back bent forward, and Kiri knocked over quite a few things before they made it to y/n's main living space, which was more or less Na've-proof. "Happy birthday!" Tuk hugged her and y/n struggled not to feel crushed by the embrace. Even the littlest Sully was now nearly as tall as her.

Y/n let them all inside, already giving them dirty looks at the sight of gifts. "I told you guys not to..."

She stayed on the doorstep a little longer, gazing out into the night, desperately hoping one last uninvited guest would turn up. She felt Neteyam's hand on her shoulder. "He's not coming. I tried to talk to him but he was being a skxawng as usual..." Y/n blushed, not really wanting Neteyam to know she was pining for his younger brother. "Oh, right! I was—just checking you were all here..." she closed the door and they both went back to join the others.

___

"Alright come on, your mom is going to kill me if you get back late and I don't have enough space in here for all of you. Spider would have to sleep outside." Y/n teased, trying to let Tuk understand it was time to go. "Hey!" Spider protested at her lighthearted jab, but knew it was time for them to get going. Nobody wanted to get on Neytiri's bad side. Y/n hugged them all goodbye and thanked them for the presents: Tuk had made her a lovely drawing, and the others had collectively made her a rather beautiful necklace, which she immediately wore. Y/n waited on her doorstep till she could no longer hear the sounds of her friends chatting, and then proceeded to do two incredibly dangerous things: she sat outside of the protection of her bunker, all alone in the cold Pandora night air, and lit up a cigarette.

She'd discovered a terrifyingly endless supply of cigarette cartoons back at the base almost a year prior, and as soon as she'd tried her first one, she'd gotten addicted. Y/n hadn't told Norm or Max, of course, as it would have broken their hearts, especially because of how fragile she was. Y/n's mother had gone into labor in the aftermath of the battle for Pandora between the Na'vi and the Sky people. The soldier had lost her life giving birth, but her baby had survived, taking her first breath in the inhospitable Pandora air. Norm was convinced Eywa herself had kept her alive, had given her the ability to take in the air that hadn't previously failed to kill any other human. Sure, it had come at the price of being particularly fragile her entire life. And how was y/n repaying that gift? By cutting her miraculous existence short more and more each day. Thankfully, it was a while since she'd been used as a test rat, or had check ups of any sort. As far as the Sullys were concerned... they were way better off not even knowing what she was doing to herself.

A sudden rustling in the trees instantly made y/n alert and she didn't waste any time getting back inside. She showered, and shamefully hid her smokes somewhere her dads or the Sullys wouldn't look. When she had nothing else left to do, y/n forced herself to crawl into bed, placing a hand over her necklace. Her wish to see Lo'ak hadn't come true in the end, and while not surprising, it still hurt like hell.

"A pack of viperwolves? Seriously, Lo'ak?" Y/n groaned in frustration as she cleared her table for her best friend to lie on.

"I thought I could take them." He hissed as she doused him with disinfectant. "Yeah, well, you know human medical treatment hurts like a bitch, so it's either my way, or you're going to have to fess up to your parents about what you did." Y/n tried to sound cold, but she'd always been too soft on him.

When they were younger, and Lo'ak still hadn't grown to be double her size, they would often fall asleep together in her bed. "You don't have to keep doing this shit to prove something, you know?" She whispered to him one night, turning over to look at him and gently touch his face. "Your parents love you. And so do Neteyam, Kiri, Tuk and Spider. Lo'ak, I— we— don't want to lose you."

Y/n was almost asleep when a loud 'thud' coming from outside woke her. Something was moving on her roof, or rather, someone... Y/n didn't show whether she was dreaming or not as she looked out the window and locked eyes with Lo'ak, because the second she did, he seemed to slide off the top of her bucker, falling down into the grass below with a loud groan.

He'd probably just woken up half of the animals on Pandora.

[nanomooselet]

My Brother's Keeper (VI)

You may have noticed that I didn't extensively discuss Rollo, Livio, or Legato, which is maybe odd considering they are (and pretty blatantly so) parallels or foils to Wolfwood and the twins. And it's mostly because I'm trying not to let this damn thing become even longer (it was supposed to be three parts. Three. It's clocked out at seven, and that's after I took a machete to it to stop it becoming eight. Goddamnit) and I did already go on about all of them in the episodes they appeared.

It's also because at this point, Wolfwood's story (for the moment) is done. When he makes the choice to leave July and Vash behind, that's the end, and the reason he returns actually isn't about him at all. The narrative focus is instead on Meryl and Zazie, making sure we know what both have to say about this. It's good to know Zazie's displeased by this turn of events and very unlikely to ever again believe a word Knives says. (Humans will eat your planet just like they did their own and real quick Imma use Vash to eat the planet myself first sorry-not-sorry BYE WORMS.) It's sweet that Meryl's love of Vash didn't result in her death by Knives's jealousy, as it did for Rem and nearly did for Luida.

Nick's concerns, however, have always been limited to the orphanage and Livio, and their fates are both now out of his hands.

Everything always comes back to the twins, in the end. I think in this analysis I've come to understand the key to Stampede, which is that almost nothing in it is only about the thing it seems to be about. It's always also in some way about the twins.

Wolfwood's part in Stampede is about how he was Knives's weapon and became Vash's follower. He goes from being Nicholas the Punisher full time, a walking dead man carrying his own tombstone, to being Nicholas D. Wolfwood, the awkward, scruffy, snarky dweeb who cares for his family with his whole heart and lives to see a kinder world. Inevitably he has been scarred and stained with blood - he remains the one who killed all those people on the cult's orders, and he'll bear the cross for them. But he's no longer limited to killing in order to save. There's a new path for him to follow.

It starts with doing what Vash would do: getting out of there while he still can before everything explodes. He just happens to scoop Meryl up as he's fleeing. When the twin angels ascend to do battle, the best place for mortals to be is anywhere but nearby.

He wasn't going to rescue Vash, and he never could have. Protecting Vash was the task Knives gave him, and that was out of an complete absence of respect for Vash as a person, a competent adult, a being of unimaginable power, an independent-thinking-individual-who-isn't-exactly-like-Knives etc. The very last fucking thing Vash needs is to wake up in the care of another paternalistic "older" brother - not that I believe Wolfwood would ever treat him the way Knives does, but frankly I can see why neither would want to take the risk.

(Also increasingly sure Knives is bsing about being the older twin. It's like how Wolfwood really is still a kid, and he acts like one, and honestly I think Vash treats him like one. Those startlingly fond, adoring expressions that blow you away a little bit? They're What Vash Is Like Always About Everyone. But especially kids. He's like that about Meryl, too, just less overtly.)

If anything, Vash saved Wolfwood. So Nick realises he has to survive, when before he kinda just wanted to die. He's no longer permitted some dumbfuck last stand. Fighting Knives is crazy and impossible, so let the impossible crazy man take care of it. It's his field of expertise. Love and peace ya'll. Woowoo's out.

Two things, however. The reason, in the manga, that Wolfwood didn't return to Hopeland (until he did), and the reason, in the manga, Chapel has none of the narrative's sympathy (not even Vash really gives a fuck when Wolfwood snaps his neck, and Chapel was already in a wheelchair at the time. I remember a bookclub post that declared God hates Chapel. I'm a layperson, but I'd call that theologically sound).

I mean, there are multiple reasons, but the most relevant is that in the manga, this evil-minded wrinkly fuck trained Wolfwood to kill. Wolfwood believed that being a killer rendered him unfit to ever again return home, until the day Chapel launched a direct assault on the orphanage using Razlo and Livio, revenge upon Wolfwood for taking up another cause - being Vash's friend - when his sole loyalty and purpose was supposed to be in death. He's disgusted that Wolfwood let Vash's ideals blunt his edge when previously he was near-"perfect".

I can't tell you what shape these events will take. But I can tell you they're still in the future. Stampede is a prologue, and the final phase has not arrived. Wolfwood's beginning is complete. His real story is yet to come. And I don't think he's forgiven himself for fulfilling the contract, even if Vash has.

The angel's eye, the Eye of Michael, still watches.

(And only the angel's? We'll see.)

Anyway, back to the twins.

(Part I)

(Part II)

(Part III)

(Part IV)

(Part V)

(Part VII)

[brakingpoint]

Idk if you have seen this question go around twitter and tiktok, but i have seen a lot of people discuss "if the 20 drivers on the grid were in the hunger games, how would they perform?"

I would like to hear your take! :)

thank you SO much for sending me this... i would not call myself a hunger games connoisseur because i put all my energy into hyperfixating on the prequel instead but i AM a hunger games enthusiast and i spent far too long thinking about this in the shower. also i'm doing the 2022 grid bc i don't have the vibes of the 2023 newbies totally locked down yet

(also i'm doing this as everyone roughly competing in individual games as opposed to against each other. bc i think that is more fun)

max: adjusting for inflation (how old he was when he started f1 vs the age you have to be to do the hunger games) he is like, a career tribute in training from district 2 who jumps up and volunteers when he is about twelve and then effortlessly wins the whole thing. gives an insanely nonchalant victory interview, does the victory tour like he's being held at gunpoint, and then is never seen again

charles: finnick odair if he kept almost getting murdered by other people's poor decisions. receives the most strategically pointless gifts from sponsors. literally put him in a desert arena and he will inexplicably be sent raincoats by the dozen

checo: ceo of coasting his way to the final like, three or four tributes based on a combination of luck, occasionally clever moves, and mostly just getting forgotten by everyone. his downfall comes when he overestimates the loyalties of the tributes he's in an alliance with and they stab him in the back (literally) with no remorse

carlos: objectively promising, great scores when he does his little demonstration, capitol haircare brands are tripping over each other to do a deal with him when he wins (because surely he will) but in practice he's another one who mostly just shithouses his way to the final three/four by being in the right place at the right time

lewis: scarily good. wins 75% on strategy, stealth, and speed and 25% by occasionally lashing out and murdering someone off the face of the planet but somehow avoids blame for it. also you know he somehow manages to wear the fuck out of whatever heinous fit he gets put in to ride in those chariots

lando: almost inadvertently starts a revolution because from the second he shows up in the reaping he gets such a devoted nationwide teenage girl fanbase that there are legitimate riots when he dies through an objectively silly unforced error in the final days of the games. also almost inadvertently gets assassinated before the games even start because he says something landogate worthy about the president in his interview. he was just having a laff

esteban: is genuinely just sort of having a nice time camping out in the trees and avoiding all the drama. it is just very unfortunate that in some idk quarter quell gender ratio fuckery he managed to get reaped alongside his childhood bestie pierre who has devoted his entire time in the arena to murdering esteban and esteban specifially

fernando: absolutely fucking terrifying. they have to stop showing his murders on tv because he's a little too gory even for the central thesis of the hunger games as an institution. he's just chill about it though. cracking his little yokes

valtteri: builds up so much pure boiling rage from being constantly ignored compared to the other tribute from his district that after a week or so of surviving because everyone kept ignoring him he finally snaps, swings through the forest on a vine tarzan-style screaming TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, FUCK YOU, takes out four career tributes in the space of fifteen seconds, and then slams right into another tree killing himself instantly

daniel: crowd favourite going into the arena. makes a little joke at the reaping, serves in all his silly little outfits, gets great scores, secures the most sponsors, has the most charming interview in the history of the hunger games. and then when he's on the little platform waiting for the games to start he gets a bit too excited, starts doing a little dance, and gets blown up immediately

seb: another unlikely child prodigy victor with a polarising but highly effective tactic of utter ruthlessness paired with being very charming and also crying a lot. he is at his most powerful and dangerous, however, when he moves into the mentoring side of things because not only is he just an objectively good mentor but he does it while plotting to take down the capitol from the inside at the same time. the hunger games trilogy vs the hunger games trilogy if katniss had sebastian vettel for a mentor

kevin: impressive scores from the gamemakers (voted most likely to have a bit of a katniss moment during the evaluation; fok smashes door on his way out?) but doesn't really do a whole lot during the actual games. makes it pretty far and has a couple of genuinely impressive kills but is let down by a lack of sponsors and getting a little too invested in his vicious rivalry with nico hulkenberg

pierre: bit of a rollercoaster ride. impressive pre-games energy, good scores, looks hot in the interview, but tries to hang with the career tributes very early on and nearly flops his way to an early grave. not to be discouraged, he strikes out on his own and makes it impressively far as a free agent, but keeps putting himself back in danger by focusing too much on a) regaining the respect of the careers who really couldn't care less and mostly just want to kill this guy every time he shows up and b) taking any opportunity to slaughter esteban. killed around the time of the cornucopia feast (yuki's fault)

lance: exceptionally dangerous but not intentionally so. at first the general commentary take is that he's very good at making his kills look like an accident, until they finally get the right camera angles and it transpires that all of his kills are in fact total accidents that come about through his own recklessness and stupidity. unlikely fan favourite due to his perpetual exasperation with his mentor (brad)

mick: the son of a fearsome victor from days gone by but largely underestimated due to his nice guy reputation. attempts to leverage this by taking a kind of johanna mason angle and appearing utterly unthreatening until the last minute when he plans to brutally and efficiently kill every other remaining tribute, but his tactic backfires dramatically due to the incompetence of his mentor and sponsors and he starves to death in the middle stages of the games

yuki: gets unexpectedly far due to his small stature making it easy to hide and by forming an alliance with pierre that charms the crowds and prompts widespread speculation about whether there is a romance brewing in the arena. unfortunately he gets them both killed with his reckless enthusiasm about the feast at the cornucopia

zhou: yet another one who gets really far mostly by being ignored. once he gets into the arena, that is. the entire buildup to the games is defined by his rapid ascent to capitol fashion icon. he wins the whole thing through a combination of laying low and getting sweet sweet sponsor gifts and then is permitted to stay in the capitol where he enjoys a prosperous career as stylist for future tributes

alex: he either dies in the very first brawl at the cornucopia OR sneaks his way to the final handful of tributes and wins the whole thing, no inbetween. if he does make it to the end he has at least one dramatic near death experience due to overestimating the kindness of the careers he forms a brief and tentative alliance with but he gets excellent medical care from his sponsors who are mostly supporting him because they saw a really cute video of his cats back in his home district

nicky: again he either dies immediately OR he coasts to the end by being a bit mid and forgettable foxface style and when there's around four tributes left he attempts a raid on their encampment to get food and somehow, in a series of events that no number of replays have ever successfully put into a logical sequence, blows up half the arena and everyone in it, leaving the games without a victor and setting into motion a series of events that lead to the downfall of the capitol, the destruction of half of panem, and a dramatic coup. after all this max verstappen finally looks out of the door of his house in the victor's village in what remains of district two, where he has been playing sim racing games for the past ten years, sort of shrugs his shoulders, and goes back to hanging out with his cats

bonus nico rosberg: district one career tribute, runner up, mostly remembered for the intense psychological warfare between himself and lewis after they formed an alliance in the first hour of the game that got so deeply homoerotic that the gamemakers were like full time on the phone to president snow like hey man. we might have to allow two victors this year or people are gonna be really mad. but luckily nico and lewis solved that problem themselves by turning on each other when they were the only two people left and engaging in a like three-week long increasingly toxic cat and mouse chase that had the entire nation glued to their televisions 25/8

[thankeywa]

Star-crossed. Lo'ak x f!human!reader pt.1

I know that literally nobody asked for this, but I've noticed a disturbing lack of Lo'ak fics out there, so I've decided to give my input. I've had a story in mind for a while now, and I needed to get it out there. It will be a reader insert to make it more accessible, but it's somewhat based around an original f!character, so I apologize for that in advance if it gets too specific.

WARNINGS: Lo'ak is 20 years old in this and so is the reader, I do not write about minor characters. There will be eventual mature themes in this so MINORS DO NOT INTERACT WITH THIS WORK.

For everyone else, if you like my writing, please let me know if you want to be on the tag list for future installments and SEND ME REQUESTS (head canons, imagines, sfw/nsfw, ecc.) ! I love that shit.

words: around 1.200

summary: reader is a human left behind on pandora, she grew up with the remaining humans who'd been aloud to stay on the planet after the war and has been friends with the Sully clan her entire life. She and Lo'ak were best friends until he began to pull away from her in their teen years for seemingly no reason. This story is about them reconnecting on the day of her twentieth birthday, and dealing with the feelings they have for each other and the obstacles that come with them being from two different worlds.

TW for this chapter: angst, smoking (don't do it, ever), brief mentions of alcohol, brief mention of war and death, brief mention of child birth, reader can breathe on pandora.

Y/n looked at the 'birthday cake' made out of cookie rations that Norm and Max had made for her. No matter how many years would pass, her dads always knew how to get creative.

"I'm twenty years old, you guys don't have to keep throwing me a birthday party." She reprimanded them softly, though her heart was filled with joy. Y/n was so thankful to have people in her life who cared enough to make her day special every single year.

"Considering you spent most of your early existence tied to test tubes to stay alive, we're merely celebrating the scientific marvel your continued survival has been." Norm joked, raising a beer, and y/n shoved him, before blowing out the single candle that had been meticulously re-used each year. It was a wonder how there was any wax still left on it.

"What did the birthday girl wish for?" Max asked, reaching for a dried-up cookie and cringing slightly at the taste as he chewed on it slowly. "The whole point of a birthday wish is to keep it to myself... or it won't come true. Honestly, I question your two's knowledge of Earth's traditions." y/n shook her head, before taking a celebratory sip of alcohol.

Norm and Max left eventually, back to the main base. They were more than capable of piloting a helicopter those days, and y/n was all grown up. More than capable of living by herself. What once had been an avatar lab, smack dab in the middle of the forests of Pandora, had been converted into her home. Pandora's rapidly repopulating fauna had surprisingly left her residence alone, well... mostly. There were still some creatures who couldn't help but keep themselves away. And by creatures, she meant Spider. Y/n was also friends with actual people like Neteyam, Kiri, Tuk, and... Lo'ak. Truth be told, she didn't know whether or not she and Lo'ak were even friends anymore. They'd been thick as thieves for as long as she could remember, always getting him out of trouble and fixing him up after a scuffle with his siblings. But then, around her sixteenth birthday, he'd started pulling away, and y/n had never understood why. They'd had a big fight about it, bottom line, he hadn't wanted to be around her anymore and y/n had to accept it.

"Open up! It's fucking freezing out here!" Came Spider's loud voice followed by an incessant banging on the door that immediately pulled y/n out of her reverie. "Alright, alright..." she laughed a little as she went to let them all inside. The Sullys were always insisting on spending birthdays together, even though some of them were now getting too big to even fit inside her 'home'. Neteyam had to walk around with his back bent forward, and Kiri knocked over quite a few things before they made it to y/n's main living space, which was more or less Na've-proof. "Happy birthday!" Tuk hugged her and y/n struggled not to feel crushed by the embrace. Even the littlest Sully was now nearly as tall as her.

Y/n let them all inside, already giving them dirty looks at the sight of gifts. "I told you guys not to..."

She stayed on the doorstep a little longer, gazing out into the night, desperately hoping one last uninvited guest would turn up. She felt Neteyam's hand on her shoulder. "He's not coming. I tried to talk to him but he was being a skxawng as usual..." Y/n blushed, not really wanting Neteyam to know she was pining for his younger brother. "Oh, right! I was—just checking you were all here..." she closed the door and they both went back to join the others.

___

"Alright come on, your mom is going to kill me if you get back late and I don't have enough space in here for all of you. Spider would have to sleep outside." Y/n teased, trying to let Tuk understand it was time to go. "Hey!" Spider protested at her lighthearted jab, but knew it was time for them to get going. Nobody wanted to get on Neytiri's bad side. Y/n hugged them all goodbye and thanked them for the presents: Tuk had made her a lovely drawing, and the others had collectively made her a rather beautiful necklace, which she immediately wore. Y/n waited on her doorstep till she could no longer hear the sounds of her friends chatting, and then proceeded to do two incredibly dangerous things: she sat outside of the protection of her bunker, all alone in the cold Pandora night air, and lit up a cigarette.

She'd discovered a terrifyingly endless supply of cigarette cartoons back at the base almost a year prior, and as soon as she'd tried her first one, she'd gotten addicted. Y/n hadn't told Norm or Max, of course, as it would have broken their hearts, especially because of how fragile she was. Y/n's mother had gone into labor in the aftermath of the battle for Pandora between the Na'vi and the Sky people. The soldier had lost her life giving birth, but her baby had survived, taking her first breath in the inhospitable Pandora air. Norm was convinced Eywa herself had kept her alive, had given her the ability to take in the air that hadn't previously failed to kill any other human. Sure, it had come at the price of being particularly fragile her entire life. And how was y/n repaying that gift? By cutting her miraculous existence short more and more each day. Thankfully, it was a while since she'd been used as a test rat, or had check ups of any sort. As far as the Sullys were concerned... they were way better off not even knowing what she was doing to herself.

A sudden rustling in the trees instantly made y/n alert and she didn't waste any time getting back inside. She showered, and shamefully hid her smokes somewhere her dads or the Sullys wouldn't look. When she had nothing else left to do, y/n forced herself to crawl into bed, placing a hand over her necklace. Her wish to see Lo'ak hadn't come true in the end, and while not surprising, it still hurt like hell.

"A pack of viperwolves? Seriously, Lo'ak?" Y/n groaned in frustration as she cleared her table for her best friend to lie on.

"I thought I could take them." He hissed as she doused him with disinfectant. "Yeah, well, you know human medical treatment hurts like a bitch, so it's either my way, or you're going to have to fess up to your parents about what you did." Y/n tried to sound cold, but she'd always been too soft on him.

When they were younger, and Lo'ak still hadn't grown to be double her size, they would often fall asleep together in her bed. "You don't have to keep doing this shit to prove something, you know?" She whispered to him one night, turning over to look at him and gently touch his face. "Your parents love you. And so do Neteyam, Kiri, Tuk and Spider. Lo'ak, I— we— don't want to lose you."

Y/n was almost asleep when a loud 'thud' coming from outside woke her. Something was moving on her roof, or rather, someone... Y/n didn't show whether she was dreaming or not as she looked out the window and locked eyes with Lo'ak, because the second she did, he seemed to slide off the top of her bucker, falling down into the grass below with a loud groan.

He'd probably just woken up half of the animals on Pandora.

[sleepymccoy]

Fuck it, Ive found myself googling topics to start a fight again cos I'm trying to write spones, so I'm creating a list for myself here. If you have suggestions please feel free to add them. You are also welcome to use this as a prompt, although I don't know if it'll really help

These are mostly nicked from other lists, so hey may need tweaking to be more star trek sci fi in vibe. But I think they suit the sort of fights they have. Entertainingly, many of the questions on these lists have already been addressed my star trek. Like, I'm not going to go into eugenics here. They have a whole arc in tos where everyone expresses their opinions on eugenics (against) (the Khan stuff). So like, those aren't included! Or questions about ubi, trek world is a successful communist, they're all pro ubi.

Anyway. I've tried to hash it down to topics where I can easily see either how they disagree, or I can see how they agree but for different reasons. And, as this is for me, I might even include some of those details too!

Is technology making us more or less connected?

Could argue either way. McCoy's only contact with his kid is via tech, so he could be in favour. Same with Spock, but I think vulcans have a lot of physical cultural stuff that form part of gathering that (American) humans don't as much. Like, incense and how the planet is a different temp to the ship. So, maybe Spock is really feeling how tech is a shadow of the real thing more.

OR

McCoy hates and is unimpresssed by tech, and just wants to be home. Spock is perfectly happy with the perfunctory contact w his parents.

Is censorship ever acceptable in art and media?

This one is fun cos you can world build a bit with the premise. What's the art and media? I think McCoy has one of those inspected opinions, he's against censorship until you start listing terrible things then he gets annoyed cos he kind of agrees with a little bit of censorship. He doesn't think dead bodies should be shown on billboards across from schools. But he says, when asked, that he's against any censorship.

I think Vulcan has censored pre reform stuff from society quite a lot. And Spock's opinion on this is a real character choice you can make, does he agree people should only find out about history in university when you're spoon fed it kindly enough? Or does he think everyone should know?

Should we prioritize space exploration or focus on fixing problems on Earth?

This one is hilarious to me, cos they both work exploring space. But I think McCoy could get worked up over the focus and energy being on new space stuff if they're leaving hungry children behind, you know. I think Spock leans bigger picture

Is traditional marriage still relevant in modern society?

Ha! Have a great time! They'll be so off topic within a minute and just discussing their personal life that their opinion doesn't bloody matter

Is privacy more important than national security?

I think Spock is more into privacy then McCoy. Can't put my finger on why, I might come back to this

How can a good diet be used to control certain diseases?

I think the groundwork of this argument is that McCoy is having a go at Spock being vegetarian. So they're discussing broadly, but McCoy keeps slipping in how great meat is lol

Is it better to live in a big city or a small town?

Spock likes cities! McCoy likes small towns! This can devolve into a squabble about feudalism if you want to go crazy

Animal zoos: are they morally acceptable?

This is good worldbuilding too, zoos would be more rehab centres now. But Spock likes to have a go at old earth practices too just to see McCoy go red

Is online learning as effective as traditional in-person learning?

I reckon Spock likes online learning. The little freak

Is online dating more effective than traditional dating?

Heheheheheheh make them fight about dating. Make them list their favourite types of dates in an aggressive way. Heheheh

[emilinqa]

what do you think about the search for spock

LOLL thank you for asking. i wasnt expecting someone to actually send me an ask when i said that but youve opened pandoras box. so.

i think the thing about the search for spock that makes it stick in my head so bad is that in reality its like. a mid movie. its okay. it falls short in almost everything it tries to do but it hits the emotional highs and lows and looks good which means it gets by just fine. it's one of those 80s movies where you get about an hour in and realize oh okay the plot is happening. like this is it. TMP suffers a little bit in this way too but its also why i find myself thinking about it much more than the "good" movies.

the curse of tmp and tsfs that particularly riddles me is that i think they have some really interesting things going on conceptually that never come to fruition-- not necessarily at fault of the movie because they're ultimately minor and i dont really know how they would explore them in greater ways-- but that i find personally very compelling. i've said this before but i yearn for a star trek space horror movie so deeply and im not gonna punish either tmp nor tsfs for not being something they're not trying to be but i think the horror elements of both movies are really untapped in terms of fan exploration/meta/content. the spock/mccoy stuck in the same body mind meld thing is played mostly for laughs (because it is a good bit. and very funny) but honestly i find the fact it like. physically makes mccoy sick and absolutely freaks everyone the fuck out like good for haunting reasons.

THIS SCENE in particular i think hits the mark on the weird creepy aspect of mccoy being partially posessed by spocks katra

it also helps its shot and lit clearly with some horror influences in mind; the way bones is sitting creepily in the chair while spocks voice speaks through him, enshrouded in shadow, etc.. of course the movie has to split itself between the ship and what's happening on the genesis planet but i really would have loved some more of these moments where spock is Haunting the enterprise and its freaking everyone the fuck out. there is that bit later on where bones actually speaks in spocks voice on the bridge and kirk turns around like wow bones that was really cool never do that shit again that was freaky as fuck and its mostly just funny but the implication that spocks actual voice can be spoken through mccoys body is something im thinking about. really bad.

i really enjoy the ways the movie shows kirk is so deeply haunted by the death of spock (i mean, the movie opens with him saying "the death of spock is like an open wound" so.) and obviously by extension, mccoy, who is stuck with spocks literal soul in his brain the whole movie. the mind meld scene with sarek is also a really good moment which is also just shot and lit well. are you sensing a theme here. im easily swayed by pretty colors.

this in combination with the weird gross regenerative process spock's body is going through on the genesis planet is very compelling to me. i was talking to a friend about this recently and he brought up that he was imagining that spock and the genisis planet had kind of a symbiosis; that he could feel the terror and disaster of the planet even outside of the biological regeneration process his own body was going through which i thought was fascinating. especially because of all the moments during the series where spock would mind meld with a being everyone else was unable to comprehend as a life form. theres something there.

its not really explored in the movie, and really not in depth in any of the further movies, but i also think spock losing his memory after being rejoined with his body is an interesting addition to the themes of rebirth and memory. the rift created between everyone who remembers spock before and wants to allow the New Spock to be the man he wants to be, but they're ultimately haunted by the lives they all had with him before. kirk having spent a whole life with him, only to lose him, gain him back, and then have spock not really remember what they had before. kirk trying not to resent him for it, spock knowing it doesn't make sense to be hurt that kirk wants him to be something he can't, etc etc. its good stuff.

tldr they should send me back in time so i can make the 80s star trek horror movie ive always wanted.

[wearelondonhq]

Time for a meme! If you want to take part all you have to do is reblog this post. Remember if you reblog to send them out to those who also do. Meme lasts from today (17/02) to the next Friday (22/02)! As always, please have fun and happy meme day!

MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE SENTENCE STARTERS: featuring quotes from deadpool, venom, ant-man & the wasp, thor: ragnarok, wandavision, doctor strange, ant-man & more. credit for some of these goes to @scotchymemes

Go back to whatever cave you ever crept out of!

What is grief, if not love persevering?

The world has taken too much from you for you to still be considered innocent.

I love you. I love you in every universe.

Where once you were nothing, now you are something.

Expect disappointment and you will never be disappointed.

We were good together, weren’t we? Maybe it’s time to reignite that flame...

I love you 3000.

You still owe me a dance.

Every good family film starts with a great murder.

Kiss me like you missed me.

You’re a lot smarter than I look. You can’t really live until you’ve died a little.

You are not judge, jury or executioner.

You’ve let me down for the last time. What did I do to piss off a grumpy old sucker with a Winter Soldier arm?

You shut your trashmouth!

Sorry, I tend to process traumatic events with dad jokes. 

The only thing that does make sense is that nothing makes sense.

I make grave mistakes all the time. It all seems to work out.

You are my sadness and my hope. But mostly, you’re my love.

Good morning! Are you ready for your hot fresh cup of bodily harm?

You’re not seriously thinking of going back, are you?

Piss off, ghost! I have to get off this planet.

It’s an honor to meet you, officially. I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping.

We never lose our demons. We only learn to live above them.

I’m expendable. That’s why I’m here.

Some of the best love stories begin with a murder.

You ever feel lost? Just look into the eyes of the people you love.

Do I have to figure out my whole future before lunch, or is there, like…?”

He’d rather lose this fight than lose you.

I’m gonna have to rain check that dance. 

Don’t do anything I would do, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. There’s a little gray area in there. That’s where you operate.”

Love is a dagger. It’s a weapon to be wielded far away or up close. You can see yourself in it. It’s beautiful until it makes you bleed.

Someday I’m gonna make great machines that fly. And me and my friends are gonna go flying together, into the forever and beautiful sky.

There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t regret having said yes.

I just want a chance to prove myself. Because that’s what heroes do!

You know what I like about being upset? The blame.

You’re just using me to get to (...). That’s so gross, you’re not even my friend.

You don’t have to fight anyone, but we’re in danger so we have to move.

Your hair looks nice. What did you do to it? Did you change it, maybe wash it?

He is as dishonourable as he is attractive.

Where do you store all this useless information?

Good is not a thing you are. It's a thing you do.

You know you didn’t have to humiliate him in front of everyone.

House blowing up builds character.

I’m just a bad guy who gets paid to fuck up even worse guys.

Motherfucker, you’re the world’s worst friend.

Less talking, more kissing.

Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?

I know what you’re going to say, but this guy/girl/person is all the way bad.

You are so pathologically self-observed

Love the optimism, but in my experience, when it looks bad, it’s usually worse.

I do not understand the intricacies of social interaction.

What master do I serve? What am I supposed to say, Jesus?

I told you that when I was drunk, why are you bringing this up?

Please tell me nobody just kissed me.

There’s a shawarma place two blocks from here. I don’t know what it is, but I want to try it.

If he ends up being evil, we’ll just kill him.

Trying to get you to stop has been one of the few failures of my entire life.

! Do you ever feel like your life is one monumental screw-up?

You people have no shame! What does the FBI even stand for? Forever Bothering Individuals?

Ninja Turtle, you better stop poking me.

I get emails from a raccoon, so nothing sounds crazy.

I just keep imagining you waking up in the morning, sir, looking in the mirror and then in all seriousness saying to yourself, ‘You know what would be a really kickass name? ______!’

I told you, I don’t want to join your super-secret boy band.

Look, I’m going to be totally honest with you:

I forgot you’re here. Well, I was in the neighborhood so I thought I’d save you the hassle.

So are you two…do you…fondue?

You call me _______ again, I’ll shove my foot up somewhere it’s not supposed to be.

Don’t drink fountain water, you idiot.

That’s disgusting.

We'll be okay. You can rest now.

I do some dumb things and it ends up hurting the people I love the most.

Maybe you need a partner, someone to watch your back.

You can do it. You can do anything.

Together, we’ll figure something out.

Missed me, missed me, now you gotta- You know what, forget I said anything.

I’m not one to be judgemental, but you, sir, are an extremely disturbed man.

Lie is such an ugly word. I prefer misdirection

I just conned the hell out of you and here you are trying to save me. How can you be so damn nice all the time?

[whatyourusherthinks]

Dune Part Two Review

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT'SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS HHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What's The Movie About?

SAME THING AS THE FIRST ONE!

Ahem. Sorry, excited. This is the follow up to the first Dune movie and portrays the second half of the Dune Novel. Mostly Paul and his mother imbedding themselves into the Fremen and amassing an army to take on the re-enstated Harkonnens.

What I Like.

These movies are fucking gorgeous. There are quite a few jaw-dropping compositions and the designs of all the technology and outfits are very cool. The story is excellent, although it should be a surprise since the book is a classic and as far as I can tell the movie is mostly faithful to it. The few changes they made I actually think are for the better, like not jumping the story forward or changing how a certain character dies. I really liked the Fremen society. It felt like a real society that would exist on a planet like Arrakis. The pool of water they add their dead people's water to felt like something that would actually come to be. And I dug Paul's downfall at the end. The Bene Gesserit are so sleezy that I felt genuinely bad for everyone who fell for their religion. I also felt like Stilgar is probably completely broken by the end, and that sucked because I really like Stilgar. (Sucked in a good way I mean. It was definitely intentional for the audience to feel bad.) I also weirdly like Feyd-Rautha. Like he's absolutely a villain, but I like his personality, how he's supposed to be an opposite to Paul, and I kinda liked him more than Paul at the end of the movie. He's just a silly guy, it's not his fault he was born on the German Expressionist planet to a family of snuff film makers. Christopher Walken as the emperor is also pretty awesome, very inspired casting. The score is great. I'll catch myself wanting to belt out the wailing used every so often. The action was also pretty awesome. The high frequency shields is an inspired bit of world building, because it brings more of the fighting into the realm of desperate knife fights, which I find more interesting than just people shooting back and forth. Also, as someone who's played the Dune board game before engaging with the Dune story at all, was was neat to see the characters take actions that could be done in the game and where some of the names of cards come from.

What I Didn't Like.

So I was praising how cool some of the shots were right? Well guess what. Pretty much all of them are in the trailer. Also, while I like how well built the Fremen society was, the Harkonnen planet seems like it should have flamed out in three generations. All they do is kill each other and they especially mistreat their women, so I don't know why they still exist. I get it's just supposed to be the evil guys so they took every opportunity to have them be evil, but it's kinda lazy writing. Speaking of Harkonnen, and this is gonna be petty, but I and everyone I talk to about Dune pronounces the name "Har-Ko-Nen". The movie pronounces it "Hark-En-En" and it was really distracting. There is also a major plot reveal 45 minutes before the movie ends, which happens to be when we drop checks in the theaters at my work. So I got fucking spoiled, thanks Denis Villanelle or whatever you name is.

Final Summation.

It's awesome. It's all the climax to make up for all the set up of the first movie. If you put a knife to my neck and made me choose which one I liked more, I guess I'd say Part 2 since more cool stuff happens, but like all stories split into two parts you should really treat it as a whole. And as a whole, Dune is fucking awesome. I cannot wait for the sequel.

[herecomesaspecialghoul]

I don’t know the ghouls :|

I'm gonna assume you mean, uhh, my siblings in the band? And that's okej, it's hard to know them. I'm not the sort of guy who likes to blame the fandom for everything, buuuut the nicknames y'all (not you specifically, anon, I mean 'y'all' in the sense of everyone else I am gesturing too but yo cannot see my gestures) do tend to create confusions. I will try, then, to to my best to tell you who is who.

For starters, all of us are simply ghouls. We do not have names. Nameless Ghouls is just what we are, as you are (I am assuming) a Named Human. We all are really fucking low tier demons. See, to have a name is to have power, and to know a name is to have power over a demon. Never tell a demon or any magic folk you name! Basic survival knowledge, right there. But us, the Nameless Ghouls? We are essentially sorta, ehhhhhh, practice summons. Baby's first demons. Without names we are quickly called into existence and dismissed just as fast. No fuss, no muss. In the earliest days of the church, they found that summoning ghouls for manual labour and land maintenance and such was far easier than hiring peoples or training them, and since we don't eat or sleep, y'know, we didn't need housing quarters or payments... I say 'we' in the sense of, uhhh, all ghouls, not in the sense that I was there in the beginning. I didn't emerge from Hell until, um, I think it was 1960? Maybe? I don't do so well with time, eheeheheh.

Anyways... So, nicknames. I gotta start this with explaining that all ghouls are created in Hell with an elemental tether to bind us to the Earth so our summon and subsequent existence on the planet is without issue. Every ghoul is either of Fire, Water, Air, Earth, or the Aether. I myself am a Fire Ghoul, which mostly means that every now and then I must set myself on fire in order to keep stable while I'm here... Is kinda like refreshing your router, so to say. Um, when the band project first began, Papa Nihil used a Fire Ghoul, a Water Ghoul, an Earth Ghoul, and an Air Ghoul. And when the band failed much like everything else in that old fuck's life, the ghouls were dismissed back to Hell, which is to be unmade and rendered back into the spooky goo we were called from. Kinda sucks but that's, y'know, how it is.

And then when the band program was reinstated, Imperator and the other higher-ups figured ghouls was the best thing for it, since, again, it meant no paycheques or food or hotel rooms to budget out. An Aether Ghoul was added, and those ghouls who worked under Papa Emeritus the First were sorta, inherited, I guess, by the subsequent Papas. I myself was brought on as spokesghoul due to my amazing ability to talk a whole fucking lot. Well, there's other reasons, but I'm tryin' real hard to stay focused on your problem, here...

When Papa Emeritus the Third came aboard, he decided the Nameless Ghouls needed fancier duds and faces. I helped with the shapeshifting and camouflage learning- all us ghouls have a degree of glamouring ability, which in the past I have likened to the abilities of cuttlefish, as we can only really alter the colour and texture of our forms and not, uhhh, turn ourselves into, um, Beetlejuicey monstery nonsense- but Papa the Third also had sashes made, each embroidered with the elemental, uhh, element, of each ghoul. This, I think, is where the nicknames started happened. This is where y'all (again, broadly speaking) began calling them, y'know, "Earth" and "Water" and such. And then "Alpha" and "Omega" due to some instrument stickers, but those are gone, so nobody use 'em any more, but they do, an' they ain't gonna start listening to my pleas any time soon.

Let's see... The drummer ghoul has always been an Earth Ghoul. Lately it is called Mountain. The bassist has always been a Water Ghoul, lately called Rain. The Air Ghouls have always been on keyboards, the ones who are called Ghoulettes now are referred to as Cirrus, Cumulus, and Sunshine... The Ghoul that provides additional guitars and vocals and tambourines, this is a Water Ghoul, new since Prequelle, and is called "Swiss" due to it's multifunctional, uhhh, function. Black guitar is Aether- some of y'all call it Quintessence but c'mon, Aether is easier to spell... Honestly I don't know where it is "Dew" for the Fire Ghoul guitarist came from, but it's stuck so much that I myself refer to it as Dew. And there are other names you might here, but I think the fandom has made these up for era-specifics, which I don't get, but you do you, as the kids say.

I myself, too, am very much Nameless, but was bestowed the nickname of "Special" by Imperator and Nihil themselves! They used to really like me, eheheehheehehehh...

Is this at all what you were lookin' for????

[davestriderascend]

the homestuck reread, pt 6

ive finished it. the main comic, anyway. theres still all the bonus content to slog through and the postcanon stuff, but i finished the main comic, and you know what? i think thats a feat enough all on its own. so heres the recap of the end, from act 6 act 6, on.

heres the previous recap, and heres the first one if youre new.

act 6 act 6s intermissions and subacts works according to similar rules as act 6 acts 1-5. the acts are short and all about homosuck (excepting the last one), while the intermissions are where literally everything else is happening. that said,

Act 6 Act 6 Act 1

this is the beginning of homosuck. its just, absolutely classic homosuck. at the end, caliborn corrupts the game file, creating the glitches that plague most of the a6a6 intermissions. homosuck is, of course, fucking hilarious and meta and the stupid art style lives rent free in my brain and i find myself drawing in it constantly. basically, i had a good time. theres not much else to say.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 1

we pick up where we last left off with the introduction of grimbark jade, crockertier jane, and hics plot. the kids have been split up among the planets, and roxy and jake are in jail. john is struggling to control his retcon powers, and hops around time and space mucking things up, while jade tries to chase him down. this is where the big character selection screens and unclickable characters joke really gets going.

Act 6 Act 6 Act 2

this is the section of homosuck where john teleports himself into the narrative and bitches a lot about how much it sucks.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 2

this is where things start building up to game over. aranea inserts herself into the narrative. jake goes ultra hope mode. jade dies. jake dies, but gets better. terezi beats the shit out of gamzee. jade joins callie in the furthest ring, and jane might too? idk. tbh, intermissions 1-3 kind of blend for me. which is obviously bc theyre a part of one big overarching narrative.

Act 6 Act 6 Act 3

this is the part of homosuck with the animes. this also may have had some kind of impact on how i doodled growing up. this is also the part where john beats caliborn up. the act ends with the game over animation, which leads directly into the following intermission with no real clear separation between them.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 3

this is the part where everyone dies. well, the intermission as its marked on the hs map is literally just condy killing aranea, mostly, but the game over animation leading up to it kills everybody. john is the sole survivor.

The Characters

i think here, therefore, is where i must give my final thoughts on the pre-retcon versions of characters. dave and karkat are a lot closer than i remembered- i thought we as a fandom kind of made that shit up? but they are, in fact, besties. jakes crybaby breakdown in these three intermissions is.... well theres a lot to unpack around jakes ideas of masculinity and how hes sexualized and smarter people than me have done it, so i probably wont. otherwise idk that i have like, super coherent thoughts that are worth getting into.

on the whole, the pre-retcon versions are more dysfunctional, more insecure, and more toxic in their relationships. they dont spend as much time with each other as they mean to, they dont look out for each other as much as they wish they had, and theyre all so insecure all the time about everything, especially the meteor crew.

Act 6 Act 6 Act 4

caliborns tablet is broken, and so hes back to his shitty straight line doodles. the whole act is literally just him bitching and moaning about how hard his life is as a pitiable little guy.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 4

this is the one where terezi tells john how to go back in time and fix everything. roxy and john both make deals with their denizens to survive, which means that all other versions of john and roxy will die in every other timeline. roxy has a funeral for rose, vriska and meenah start dating and sort of give up on all of their plans, and terezi and john pitchflirt a lot. this is also the act where jane and jade hang out w calliope and talk about what happened before they woke up w her.

The Characters

something i thought was worth noting is that in this intermission, both jade and jane confess that grimbark and crockertier essentially removed their consciences and allowed them to follow through on thoughts or desires they usually wouldnt express- meaning a lot of the nasty things they say are their actual feelings, deep down. theyre both really ashamed of it all, particularly because they meant the things they said. i think reviewing these sections of hs will be really important for character analysis relating to the two of them.

we also learn that roxy just like. really likes funerals, for some reason. it feels like a mirror of dave, and daves interest in dead things.

Act 6 Act 6 Act 5

this is the claymation homosuck, that tells the story of the juju said to defeath le and how le came to be. this is also where that big stupid animation involving illuminati and le's timeilne comes from.

i remember when homestuck ended that whole juju thing was like, the BIGGEST plothole left behind that made everyone nuts. how did they get in the juju??? DID they defeat le??? how did they get to a point where they could do that?? when tf did they all go back in time and fight caliborn like that??? the epilogue tried to answer these questions, but with how much success is largely up for debate.

Act 6 Act 6 Intermission 5

vriskagram. this is the part with all of those reunion conversations, with the plans to take out the bosses, with the sprite prototypings, with meenah and (vriska)s breakup, with tavros assembling an army, with the pre retcon terezi and vriska finding each other in the afterlife, with caliborn approaching his denizen, with jade, jane, and callie finding alt callie and waking up (callie coming back to life), and with the kids splitting off into groups to finally take on the bosses. everything right up until collide is right here.

The Characters

i have to comment on this. post-retcon, the kids are so much more... mellowed out. theyre in healthier, stable relationships, theyve matured a lot, they talk through their problems, and the nature of the act in general is such that the jokes take a backseat to genuine feelings and reunions and elaborating on relationships weve been waiting to see the payoffs for for ages. its setting up for closure, and it makes the following act hit so much harder for sure.

in retrospect, i think this is probably part of the reason so many people were averse to the epilogues. i genuinely dont think the tone of the epilogues is significantly different from early hoemstuck, its classically hussie in a way that i never questioned reading it for the first time, possibly bc in addition to reading hs i had in fact also read ps, jb, and bq, so id just been exposed to more of it. i also revisited logs a lot, and i think most people didnt. instead, their last and strongest memories of hs was this incredibly sincere, sweet act, which is really a MASSIVE outlier.

anyway, things that i thought were of note: jake hates crowds. not only is he really uncomfortable, but roxy backs this up by commenting on how reluctant he was to spend time w the whole group in their session, and john makes a similar comment about jades gpa liking his space so much that he moved to an island.

dave tells dirk that he hasnt told anyone else about his bro and never would, including karkat by name. he feels that dirk is the only one he really can talk to about it, and the only reason he spoke to dirk about it in the first place is bc dirks existence is just uniquely distressing enough to trigger a breakdown where he blurts it out. also on the topic of dave, i think dave first mentions paleontology pre-retcon, rather uncertainly, as something he could have gotten into but never did, to the point where hes not even sure if paleontology is the right word to describe his interest. as the comic goes on, he seems to become more confident in asserting that he wouldve liked to become a paleontologist.

callie, terezi, and jade all struggle with feelings of insecurity and worthlessness, either because they feel that they have no purpose, because they feel empty somehow, or because they feel secondary to an alternate self.

despite dvekat """""officially"""""" getting together in post-canon content, theyre alluded to being together in this act, with terezi and vriska stating that theyve settled into some kind of quadrant, japrose saying karkat has a matesprit, and daves intense aversion to answering any questions about romance, suggesting that he may be in a relationship and too embarrassed to talk about it. theres room for debate, i guess, but it really read to me like they were already together and just quiet asf about it.

anyway my favorite conversation in this act is by far the one between roxy, rose, and kanaya, and rather than even say shit about any of them i am just going to insist that you (by which i mean future me, probably) give it a reread bc its the best.

Act 6 Act 6 Act 6

collide. easily my FAVORITE flash animation in homestuck. i actually still have my old shirt that has the collide frame of dad punching through the brick, though its so full of holes ill have to repurpose it now. the rest of the act is everyone meeting up post battle and getting ready to receive the reward. ngl this act made me legit cry its just. SO good. the fraymotifs are awesome and the battle feels difficult and long without being boring, and there are so many genuine moments of emotional sincerity mixed in with punchy, exciting scenes. its just great, and the art is fantastic. i have a new pfp locked and loaded, believe it.

Act 7

act 7 is a single animation wherein alt calliope blows up the green sun, the universe tadpole becomes a frog, vriska and the ghost army unleash the second weapon, caliborn defeats his denizen and gains his le powers, wv and pm toss the rings in a volcano, and we get a preview of how earth c has developed.

the animation in this act is gorgeous. god, its so fucking stunning. the movement is so smooth, and the particle effects were really impressive. also, the tadpole was so cute.

Credits/Snapchat

theyre fucking cute. there isnt much to say, because there isnt much there. the last little plot mess with jane and the moon exploding has never made sense to me and likely never will. i get headaches trying to figure out why hussie released these if they wanted to also release the epilogues, given that they directly contradict each other more often than not. moving on.

Final Albums

during all of this time, no albums were released. however, directly after the end of hs, three were.

Collide

collide was previously my favorite album. what can i say? the music goes hard. yes its just the songs that are in the collide animation, but who cares, and also go fuck yourself. i am a really big fan of oppa toby style and just how fucking. fundamentally toby it is, god. however, heir of grief is literally my favorite homestuck song in existence period. its so bittersweet and yet the sound is so full and and the ups and downs of it are just really potent. plus, guitar is my favorite instrument and i really like the guitar in this :)

Act 7

its literally just the singular song used for the act 7 animation. i mean, its a good song. but it is literally just one song. weird that they gave it its own album tbh.

Vol 10

MY NEW. FAVORITE. ALBUM. there is not a single solitary miss on here. reading through the track commentary, its obvious that this album was created to be an ode to the end of homestuck, to show how far weve really come. it remixes so many classics, and for many of the artists who worked on this album, it was a chance to revisit stuff theyd done before and show how much theyd grown since they started out. every single song is so full, moving and beautiful and breathtaking. its the most polished album by far. i dont think i can pick a favorite song because theyre all so good. the album also wraps up in the most perfect and bittersweet way, and its just. ugh. this was such a perfect way to end.

Final Thoughts

it holds up. i mean, yeah, it has its fucking problems. however, hussie manages to capture the feelings of being a teen growing up on the internet so fucking well, and no one, ever, has written young girls like hussie has. i cannot think of a single comparable female cast in anything. there are so many really potent and genuinely touching moments alongside so many hysterical ones, and you know? i think we really forget how ahead of its time hs was in terms of gay rep.

hs was the first time i ever saw a gay couple get together in media. it was the first time i ever saw two guys kiss. it was the first time i ever saw a nonbinary character! rose and kanaya started flirting in the first few acts, and they not only survived until the end, but got married and raised an entire generation of kids. never before had i ever found myself shipping a queer couple that became canon. so its always gonna hold a special place in my heart, really.

but yeah, against all odds, i actually really enjoyed my reread. there were some rough moments, in terms of like, major bigotry hussie has and wrote in, but overwhelmingly its easy to remember why this had such a stranglehold on my life for like. idk, five fucking years? more?

my opinions have shifted around some, though, as ive gotten older.

i think, on my first read, my favorites list wouldve looked like this:

the kids: dave was my favorite, unequivocally. i think ive mentioned this before, but i imprinted on him instantly like a baby bird. i was inexplicably obsessed with davesprite and abro, also, to the point where i liked them even more. i think dirk and his splinters were favorites of mine mostly just because i viewed them as dave 2, the sequel. i liked john a lot while reading, but lost interest as the comic went on (i regained that interest much later). i always liked rose and roxy, but a large portion of that was due to their relationship to the striders.

the trolls: i imprinted on vriska instantly. she felt like the answer to the rep id been searching for my whole life. there has never been another female character like her, and there may never be again. i have always loved her and i will defend her to the death, however, after finishing my read, i never did engage w much fancontent. sollux was another early favorite of mine, though he was in hs so little that my passion sort of faded with enough time. karkat, conversely, grew on me progressively, starting as a character i was indifferent about and becoming probably my favorite troll. i was pretty attached to eridan, and violently outgrew a brief gamzee apologism phase. i liked kanaya, but she grew on me even more with time, as did aradia. equius i discovered a sudden passion for years after reading the comic for the first time.

dancestors/ancestors/guardians: ugh. ugh. i dont even remember my favorite dancestor. i dont wanna think about it. i was really fixated on them but moreso than liked them i think i just hated everything everyone had to say about them and had to be right always. my favorite ancestors were psii, dualscar, and the sufferer, and i dont want to even talk about the shipping i was up to. my favorite guardians were very obviously the bros. goes w/o saying.

carapacians: i thought droog was the coolest mc member for some reason, and itchy and crowbar were my favorite felt members. could NOT tell you why. ar and wv were my favorite exiles. i think i just thought ars little outfit was sick. i dont have toe xplain why i liked wv, everyone likes him.

pesterlogs: i recall once claiming that The convo between hal and dirk was my favorite. i also know i was a very big fan of anything erisol said ever (and sollux, similarly). however, i dont think i had one.

ships: i was a really hardcore drkjake shipper (all splinters included) while i was reading, which branched into an interest in johndve with enough time. i got big into just about every combination of eridan, sollux, karkat, and dave (sprites included), except solkt, and eventually i got rlly into aradve, dvejake, and jhnhal/johndrk. i am censoring to keep myself out of the tags. i think, in most recent years (prior to my reread), my faves were eridve, dvekat, and jhnhal?

current fave list, post reread:

kids: rose. rose rose rose. i adore her so much. roxy is a close second. there was a moment where i prefered jake over roxy, in those really early a6 acts, but she came right back in strong and reminded me why i adored her so much. hal is also very high up there. not dirk- just hal, because all of his conversations are literally so funny. john is great and i love him, my feelings about him really havent changed at all. the striders on a whole were a lot less interesting to me on my reread, though, and now theyre the characters im mostly just invested in for their connection to the lalondes. ive conquered whatever toxic masculinity i was battling when i first read hs and come out loving wizards. feminism wins.

trolls: vriska remains the og. she is still iconic. no one is doing it like her. i wont suffer argument. sollux is also still fucking incredible. my feelings about both of them havent changed in the slightest. kanaya was one of my faves this reread, and i think i really just didnt appreciate her the first time. she has such a great dry wit, and there are so many really cute, very touching moments with her. i think other than those three, i have discovered a new love and respect for equius and nepeta. i am still probably not normal about eridan. karkat, like the striders, was less interesting to me this go around. i still like them, dont get me wrong, just not as passionately as before.

dancestors/ancestors/guardians: my favorite guardian is johns dad (and also janes, bc theyre like, the same person). johns relationship w his dad is just so important to me. i couldnt give LESS of a shit about the ancestors. ive outgrown it. im different. im better now. but unofrtunately, kankri is...... sighs. probably my favorite dancestor now. hes just. so fucking funny. pray for me.

carapacians: jack is the best, period. dunno how i ever thought differently. cd is probably my second fav mc member now, just cuz hes a funny little dude. crowbar is my fave felt member bc hes the only interesting one, ig? but i dont care that much. wv is my favorite exile.

pesterlogs: every single convo between hal and jake was my new favorite for a long time, basically, up until that roxy rose and kanaya convo came up out of the blue and smashed that to pieces. definitely my favorite. its like, the perfect culmination of all of the things i love about all of them, all in one place. however, honorary mentions go to vriskas speech about being a hero, which has lived in my brain rent free since the first time i read it, and also probably The conversation between dirk and hal, bc lets be real it is pretty sick.

collide is my favorite flash animation by far, heir of grief is my favorite song, and vol 10 is my favorite album, as ive mentioned

ships: i am now an insanely hardcore haljke fan. that is most of whats come out of this tbh. i still think eridve is hilarious for no real reason i can explain, and halqius rules. arquius<>davepeta i also have strong feelings about suddenly. pay absolutely no attention to the fact that these are 75% hal ships he is just really shippable ok. butyeah mostly when ive freshly read something iactually. dont care that much about ships? that tends to come later, with too much time spent in the fandom. im sure ill be obsessive about some roxy or rose ship in a year from now

but yeah i think. those are all of my thoughts for now!! and i will just continue to chug my way through the bonus content, and probably make recaps about those eventually. if you read all of these thanks for coming along on this wild little ride. i am genuinely SHOCKED i finished the main comic in less than a month. and relieved, also.

[tsuraiwrites]

weekly fic roundup

I’m an even more avid fic reader than writer, so trying to share some of the fics I’ve enjoyed this past week. mostly long fic.

ASOIAF & Solo Leveling

Breaking News: Westeros Lord Marries Stranger? What You Read Will Shock You! — tywin lannister/sung jin-woo wip

A story where Sung Jinwoo is a S rank hunter who's still busy clearing gates on Earth and taking care of his sister but has also (accidentally and unknowingly) gotten himself engaged to a certain blonde lord on another planet.

BNHA

Oracle — midoriya izuku/shinsou hitoshi wip

In which Izuku's quirk allows him to remember his past life and it becomes his driving force to become a hero and mend the mistakes of the people from his past.

Dragon Age

Someone Else — gen (so far) wip

Canon takes a brick in the face by the name of Carver Hawke.

Or: The “modern character in Thedas” trope done a liiiittle differently. Maker have mercy on us all.

Or: I can’t find a fic where the transmigrated modern character in Thedas actually massively changes canon from DAO to DAI, so I write it myself.

MDZS 江山如有待 | It Seems the Hills and Rivers Have Been Waiting — jiang cheng/ofc wip

Fan Dingxiang cultivates the swole path. Jiang Cheng doesn't know how to handle that.

pine branches swaying in time — jiang cheng/multi wip

The second time Jiang Cheng lives, he is not born as the sect heir.

The Sandman

Giving Sanctuary — dream/hob gadling wip

In 1689, Hob Gadling and Dream meet once more, after Hob has lost everything. That night, their meeting goes on longer than expected when the conversation turns to what it means to live, to lose, and to be the fathers of dead sons. Unable to bear the thought of sending a man who so echoes Dream's own grief back into the night alone, Dream breaks his own rule and invites Hob to stay with him for a time, at least until he can get back on his feet.

The story of two grief-stricken, divorced, and widowed fathers to sons they lost too young truly seeing one another and there, at their lowest point, doing their best to put themselves and each other back together.

Stranger Things

Chronomancy for Beginners — steddie wip

Bleeding out in Dustin’s arms, Eddie’s more or less made peace with the fact he’s dying. The last thing he expects is to wake up in his seventeen-year-old body on the day Will Byers goes missing. If this is real and Eddie hasn’t had a total psychotic break, maybe he can prevent a whole bunch of bad shit from happening.

Too bad no one took the time to fill Eddie in on the finer details of what the fuck’s been going on in Hawkins since November 1983.

Also, 1983 Steve Harrington kind of sucks.

The Witcher

The End Is Where We Start — duny/pavetta wip

Ciri can't accept defeat, so she gives herself a second chance in the way that only Ciri could.

Everyone else is just trying to keep up.

[angrypedestrian]

I won't ask you to provide elaborate commentary on these or quote song lyrics or anything bc you're already debasing yourself enough (feel free if you want though, by all means. I mean, I'd love it). But look. Zach. I need that whole top 10, babey

Lol so funny story my top ten is actually mostly the new wonder years record, plus Silk Chiffon, a deep cut track from that one Relient K record everyone knows, and my number one, Loved You a Little by The Maine featuring Adam Lazzara peak doing whatever his deal is now, because it is so goddamn catchy it wormed its way into my brain like a parasite.

So in the interest of giving you the nu metal content you crave, I will list numbers 18-28, which seems to better encapsulate the truth and breadth of music I allowed myself to experience this year.

18. Deftones - Be Quiet and Drive Actually good song I have no shame in enjoying! Deftones fucking rule, and I went through a big phase of actually digging into their discography this year. I've always been a fan of the big songs everyone knows, but never really explored them further. I'm glad I finally did! 19. Puddle of Mudd - Blurry The guitar lines and tones in this song light up my brain like nothing else in the 20+ years it has been around. I HATE how much I love listening to this song. It is atrocious, it is incredible, it should never have existed, but I can't say I'm mad that it does. 20. Sublime - Seed Thank u Tony Hawk Underground, the biggest game changer there ever was 21. Wonder Years - Cardinals II One of the best songs they've ever written tbh 22. Chevelle - Send the Pain Below I hear that opening riff and I turn feral. THE GUITAR TONE. 23. Coheed and Cambria - Beautiful Losers You get it. 24. Sublime - Jailhouse Much like Deftones, I never really gave Sublime a shot outside of their singles, so I dug into their discography this year too, and it's not nearly as good as Deftones obviously, but damn the self-titled slaps. 25. The 1975 - I'm In Love With You Matty Healy is one of the most insufferable people on the planet, he also writes some of catchiest songs i've ever heard. it's awful 26. Three Days Grace - I Hate Everything About You Again, the guitar tone on the main riff!!!! I fucking lose my mind!!! 27. All American Rejects - Swing, Swing 28. Sublime - April 29, 1992 If you want to know how this happened, please see my playlist titled "my k hole of shame"

[vergess]

(reposted because??? tumblr ate or deleted the first post???)

So. Lots of pain meds at the moment, so this is a little bit nonsensical, but, I have been playing the newly released video game I was a teenage exocolonist (available on steam, not linked because tag visibility) while I am laid up in bed.

Lots of opinions, basically all positive. There’s a specific thing I want to talk about in more detail, but this post got too long so I will just link a future post on the gender politics of nature, nurture, and future as presented by the twins Dys and Tang.

So instead here’s my Most Recommendable Qualities (mostly free of spoilers):

Native linux compatibility:

you know how I am about that. I cannot believe I’ve become the very linux guy I so hated when I was working retail…

Upsettingly beautiful art

2D gaming is my first love but man the medium has come a long way since needing a flashlight to play pokemon. Sometimes I forget how far, and then games like this pop up with the gorgeous art and expressive characters, and I inevitably find myself wondering why the “”“"mainstream”“”“ video game market (in as much as such exists these days) focused so obsessively on photo realistic 3D when inevitably a well directed art style is what matters most.

The backgrounds and environments in the game are all extremely lush, with a gorgeous, colorful style that if I had become an art critic instead of a writing critic I would probably have better terminology to describe. Like, uh. Water colors or some shit. Stained glass. It’s all very luminous fuck dude I don’t know, the closest I’m going to get here is to write a poem and I’m not going to write a poem where the fuckign developers might see it. I need to be sober for that.

Characters:

I’m a character driven asshole, we all know this. It’s why I read so much fanfiction and play so much melodramatic fantasy and spend several hours of my life openly sobbing about a single fucking issue of Sandman. So, you’ll understand when I say, "people keep recommending me dating sims and I keep bouncing off of them because the characters never Do A Thing,” what my major criticism of a lot of Large Cast Of Dateable Character games is.

None of those issues arise here. I’ve played a few runs now, making a conscious decision on each to focus on a specific character. One. SIngular. Except, the thing is, you can’t do that. Not in the sense that the game won’t “let” you. You could certainly just dump all of your time into skills and one character. And the timeline of the game would change to reflect your isolationism.

Characters you don’t interact with during runs have their own “autonomous” storylines written, and each divergence your player character makes has its impacts meticulous tracked to create different character experiences every time, even as each character holds very tight to a narrow set of repeating traits. This only further emphasizes the fundamental strangeness of the player character, as the only one capable of being fundamentally different across timelines.

Also all the dateables are just, oh god, SO cute. And, by the time they are capable of fucking, very fuckable. Extremely attractive designs. Honestly everyone is super cute. The whole cast is magnificently designed. And that includes…

Monsters & World Building:

First of all, let’s get the important personal opinions out of the way. I think I would fuck the antagonist….uh….commander, whatever his title is. He looks like a fucked up centaur and I’m into that. There are also Adequate Amounts Of Tentacles. If you’ve known me long, you know that is a high bar, but the game clears it admirably and with diversity!

The alien fauna are all very FUCKING COOL. There’s a bit of throwaway dialogue from An Adult (your dad?) that talks about expecting the planet’s ecosystem to be ‘more alien’ than it is, and I respect the space program’s attempt a tpreparedness but for me, the whole uhhhhhh. Situation. With regards to the alien animals is PLENTY alien, and SO satisfying.

If you’ve ever been like, “god, I wish someone who wasn’t orson scott card would do all the cool shit they did in fucking speaker for the dead” then by GOD is this the game for you.

Accessibility:

The content warnings are extremely detailed. I reviewed them all, and having seen several of the ones I was most worried about, I feel they accurately described the situations without spoiling them. I did end up upsetting myself rather badly with one thing which happened, but it is hardly the developer’s fault that I misunderstood the context in which the “teenage pregnancy” CW would apply. I personally want to specify that (IN THE ROUTES I HAVE SO FAR PLAYED) the pregnancy is a very wanted, safe, and cherished.

The game players very well on controller, which is a must for me. There are a handful of UI elements that I have not yet been able to access by controller, but I think this is more a factor of my being bad at remembering buttons than the game’s design. If you have a mouse, that will solve the issue entirely. My GF speaks highly of the keyboard and mouse gameplay.

Turning off screen distortions and weather effects generally made the game very visually understandable for me, with large, clear iconography. If you have significant visual impairments, I don’t know if this is a good game to play. Picking up items on the ground can be tricky in some cases and there’s nothing for eg a high contrast or greyscale mode if you need that kind of thing.

Stability.

It’s easy to forget that near-launch properties are supposed to be complete games that function well. This game is very complete (VERY, INTRICATELY, COMPLETE) and very stable. With as complicated as the sets of cause-effect-timelines are, I expected it to be much easier to create minor paradoxes in dialogue.

So far, the only time events have seemed to happen slightly out of sequence due to relationship progression or what ever else, was when I made a conscious effort to be as obnoxious as possible at one point just to see if I could make it misbehave.

I haven’t been able to make it crash from within the game so far. I’m hardly a Q.A. tester anymore, but I do tend to be pretty aggressive to my games, so I feel confident in saying it’ll run steady for you if you get it.

Politics etc:

The queerness is all very excellent, super queer in very believable ways, especially given the cultural aspects of the worldbuilding. Characters behave queerly outside of just all being bi-for-the-player. The trans characters were all extremely appealing to me with strong characterization that included but did not obsess over their genders. There are at least 2 trans teens in the player character’s peer group and 2 trans adults of very different ages and character types, and there’s even a cute little intergenerational trans solidarity bit you can get sometimes. In addition, of course, to the ridiculously complete gender personalization.

You would not believe how many games forget that “bro” and “cowgirl” are gendered terms, but this one remembers.

The racial politics are, from my perspective, adequate to not interfere with my gameplay experience. The human characters do consistently refer to the environment and native animals in very colonialist terms but they’re literally colonizing the planet so…. The point is, there is not a native people being eradicated, though there are… territory wars(? I guess.) with both wild animals and antagonist peoples.

If you’re particularly sensitive to colonial narratives, handle with care, but I felt the writing in the routes I’ve seen so far handled most of the issues well. Plus I mean. THe title. Is “teenage exocolonist” like. I think the whole “colonialism is a major narrative theme” ituation should be made clear by that.

In terms of the human diversity it’s pleasingly broad. There are characters of all ages, builds, complexions, races, personality types. There’s a massive range of disabilities both physical and mental, as well as plenty of fun sci fi accomodations.

I mean just among the dateables I can remember top of the head, theres:

ambiguously asian twins who really said Autism Has Two Genders,

ambiguously brown fat girl with developmental disability,

ambiguously brown Gym Bro (derogatory) who is, and this is true, literally named 'ambiguously brown

ambiguously white farmboy who has clearly been eating his space wheaties and also helps invent space cannabis with your dad

unambiguously black girl who looks the autism twins dead in the eye and said 'no autism has one gender and is me’

unambiguously white tomboy who goes full samus

A dog (human)

Hatsune Miku (gender neutral)

Venom (twink)

There’s something here for everyone, all of these characters are super fascinating concepts honestly. I know I keep harping on that but it’s true so there.

Scenario writing:

It’s a bit difficult to separate the player character writing from the scenario writing for reasons that rapidly become clear in the game. Both are very good, though, so that’s fine. The writing is just really very good.

The variations on the timeline that you are able to uncover through repeated play are fascinatingly diverse even as certain events remain immutable, and the whole thing really plays with the concept of time travel and the other-self so beautifully. Really one of my very favourite explorations of the topic already, and I’ve only seen… IDK 4 endings along 2 routes? And there’s 29 endings???

It’s very good. The point is that it’s very good you should go play it.

It’s on steam. It’s app 1148760 on steam and it’s very good, it’s definitely worth more than what they’re charging. I mean have you seen what a $60 console game looks like these days, and then this is like. $25 and SO very much.

[sonderastrology]

🌙🌈✨Astrology Notes✨☄️🌟

*Based on things I’ve noticed about different placements as a Leo sun/Virgo moon/Capricorn rising... these notes may not resonate for everyone but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles baby* MADE BY SONDERASTROLOGY

🧿I see the people I’m close with more as their moon sign with a dash of their sun, almost as if the placements were reversed. This is because the moon sign is sort of hidden at first whereas the sun sign is the core energy. When you befriend or love someone, the moon sign (emotions, mental processes) is slowly uncovered and in my opinion, takes over the general energy of the sun. Of course, all signs, houses, and aspects are important... this is just the way I look at it idk.

🧿Everyone needs a best friend with the same rising sign as your moon sign... they just *get* you.

🧿Also having friends with the same mars sign as you is so important! They can hype you up like no other and vice versa.. your vibes just click.

🧿I’ve noticed that people with opposite sun signs but rising signs in the same element take AMAZING pictures together. For example; A Pisces sun w a Leo rising and a Virgo sun w a Sagittarius rising would make eachother look bomb in photos.

🧿Pisces, cancer, Virgo, and libra placements are proned to being stalked and hit on by weird men... I’ve seen it too many times, protect yourselves!!!

🧿People always tell me that they were intimidated by me at first or even “scared”, and that I give off a bitchy vibe. My placements that indicate this?Capricorn rising (Uranus, Neptune, Lilith in 1st house), Leo venus and Virgo moon in my 8th house, Scorpio MC, Scorpio and Pluto in my 11th house. Other placements that can have this effect: Aries, Scorpio, Aquarius, and Earth signs in personal planets/MC/Rising signs. Personal planets aspecting mars, Pluto, saturn, sometimes Neptune, and Lilith. Mars/Aries, Saturn/Capricorn Pluto/Scorpio in the 1st, 2nd, 7th, 10th, 11th house. 8th house placements and Chart Ruler in the 8th, 10th, and maybe 12th house. There’s definitely a whole lot more placements not just these.

🧿Aquarius/Air dominant people (esp mixed with fire) along with an array of other placements I’m sure, have a VERY hard time with forced structure and routine... it brings out their rebellious nature.My best friend from high school is an Aquarius Sun Gemini Moon (with an Aries mars), and she DESPISED going to school for 7 hours a day, she just couldn’t do it. She would skip school all the time and eventually enrolled in night school. Same went for my other friend who was a Sag sun Gemini moon, both of them would act TF out in class. They’d fight with teachers, the principle, other students... and I really believe it was due to the forced schedules and the power dynamic between teachers and students in high school. The Aquarius sun person is my best friend today, and she’s one of the smartest people I know. Just because you weren’t “good” at school does NOT mean you aren’t smart. Fuck the system is an air sign BRAND.

🧿I’ve noticed A LOT of Gemini sun, moon, and rising people have light shades of hair... mostly blonde or dirty blonde.

🧿I’ve met 4 people born on the 28th of the month and all of them are incredibly beautiful... no matter what sign. Same goes for July Leo’s although I’ve noticed that they’re more arrogant and self centered than August Leo’s who are more generous and outgoing

🧿Your Jupiter sign can help you work with law of attraction and manifestation more effectively. If you have Jupiter in an air sign, try manifesting things by; writing it down, saying it out loud, visualization, and meditation. If you have Jupiter in a fire sign; manifest under the sun, write out a plan even if it’s unrealistic. If you want money, hold even a penny or a dollar and act as if it’s the amount you want. Act as if everything you want is already yours. If you have Jupiter in an earth sign; manifest while doing yoga or on a walk. Manifest outside or read/listen to positive affirmations. Jupiter in a water sign; manifest using crystals and rocks with guidance from tarot. Manifest through the arts and hobbies; draw what you want or make a song. Something where you can use your creativity. *All of these methods for manifestation are effective for all of the signs I just think that certain ways can help certain signs more*

🧿Based off of people I’ve met, air risings aren’t as friendly and bubbly as you’d think they’d be when you first meet them. Even their vibe seems nervous and closed off at first; standing with arms crossed, shoulders inward, I dont know just sort of shy. Once they open up a bit more then their weird side comes out and they become more goofy and carefree. I think air signs of all placements struggle deeply with anxiety even though they are often portrayed as outgoing and quirky, which they are but a thin viel covers it. No matter what, air placements keep an open mind and I’ve always felt like I could be myself around them.

🧿Libra placements are known for disliking confrontational disputes but I’ve noticed that these are the same people to whisper nasty things under their breathe when you start to walk away from an argument... they have you whip back around like “do you have something to say?!”

🧿I’ve seen this before and imo it’s true! Signs in the 8th house rule addictions... I saw someone post that having a water sign in the 8th house could indicate addictions to liquid, more specifically; caffeine and alcohol. Being addicted to something is in other words creating a bond with it- water signs are naturally bonded with liquid so it makes sense that their prone to being addicted to them. Water signs occupying the 8th house might always drink water or have water with them. Since the 8th house also rules finances to an extent, most of their money might go to coffee, drinks, beach vacations etc. For fire signs over the 8th house, they could be addicted and/or spend a lot of money on smoking, spicy foods, or anything that gives them a rush; rollercoasters, haunted houses, skydiving or even drugs like esctacy/cocaine... anything that gives them that thrill or lights a match in their stomach. Earth signs in the 8th house may be addicted to physical things; money, work, food, looks,... things that give them value or that call on their senses and ego. They could hoard/collect items such as coins, cars, beauty products, etc., or generational items passed down... due to bonding with things that they can bulid/see/show off overtime. They are very attached to the physical because as an earth sign it feeds their ego and value, like a tree growing in soil. Money could mostly go to eating, gambling, plastic surgery, materialistic stuff. They could be addicted to buying things and selling them for a higher price. Air signs occupying the 8th house could point to spending a lot of money on or being addicted to technology or all things ‘relevant’. These individuals might be addicted to their phones/social media and the attention they get from it. These people are always posting stories throughout the day or online shopping or even just browsing different apps. They’re addicted to getting information via books, the internet, and through talking to other people... oftentimes these individuals are very good at making money through the internet (depending on other placements ofc). They may spend a lot of money on books, new gadgets, music, tattoos and puzzles. These people are addicted to all things new! They have a thirst for knowledge and experiences and will seek it out effectively. 🧿When I look at a person’s birth chart, whatever gender, I especially pay close attention to their Mars sign and house. To me, Mars represents the overall energy and vibe a person gives off and the house placement is where it’s most naturally acted out. For example ; Aries Mars in the 6th house. Aries Mars person would give off a hyper, motivated, impulsive energy. Physically this could manifest as shaking their leg while sitting, quick movements,standing/walking instead of sitting down, gives off a more to the point and carefree attitude (keep in mind all of this is affected by many other aspects and placements in a chart). Being in the 6th house, ruling day to day routine, health, how we act at work, etc., this means that the Aries Mars characteristics are more prominent during work and day to day rituals (quicker to learn, effectively performing daily tasks, gets shit done, or they could get into arguments at work easily, constantly rush around, might be stubborn about seeing a doctor/health professional, might be more prone to getting headaches at work or in general) again, depending on the rest of the chart

[lancrewizzard]

After listening to my friend @taonpest and getting increasingly invested in Skeletor's apparent husband and adopted adult children in the New Adventures of He-Man, I decided to watch it for myself. I'm only six episodes in and went in with a strong pro-mutant bias, but even so I can't ignore the really, really uncomfortable undertones here.

I don't want to sound like one of those weirdos who declares every less than good kids' show is a harbinger of the end times, but I really need to talk about the subtle yet entrenched fascist themes in the narrative so far.

First of all, just in broad strokes the premise of the series is "We need to bring back the blond haired epitome of manhood from the glorious past to save our present from outsiders that are dehumanised by our culture" which is a big ole yikes. But that on its own would just be unfortunate framing of an otherwise really positive show. After all, the original 80s show was the softest, sweetest, be-kind-to-everyone-est thing on the planet.

But no, the sheer tonal whiplash of going from the OG cartoon to this one continues as we get a heaped serving of anti-intellectualism with the scientists being portrayed as incompetent bickering comic relief* and He-Man straight up says that they used to rely on science but now they have to use force to keep them safe when the recommission the spaceship in episode 2. Seeing the contrast between this and the way the military characters are all portrayed as conventionally attractive and good role models for the (fucking annoying) kid character is deeply uncomfortable.

The way the mutants are portrayed is also very weird. They're meant to be the bad guys, but mostly they seem to be victims of racism (and arguably ableism, but that's for another post) with an antagonistic relationship to the humans who are pretty much universally shown to be mutant-phobic. It isn't just the antagonism between two sides in a conflict either, since we see Sagitar, a member of another species, expressing bigotry towards mutants. "Mutant" itself is used as a pejorative by the protagonists so often that as a queer person I feel my stomach twist seeing that these are the people kids are expected to root for. Mutants are obviously an oppressed class and the only time they're framed as being "good" is when they side with humans, who are clearly a far more prosperous culture. Portraying an entire species as "just evil" is hardly new in SFF, but juxtaposing that with showing them to just be people with families and inner lives makes for some truly baffling narrative dissonance.

And I can't even begin with the whole plot point about the only human who wants peace with the mutants being used as a pawn by the antagonists and at the end of the episode explicitly says that he was wrong and foolish to think they could make peace.

The whole thing feels like it's leading up to a twist where He-Man finds out he's been in the wrong and the way to solve the conflict is through bringing equality to the different races, promoting tolerance, and not judging by appearances. The world seems too obviously at odds with its own framing for it to continue in the same vein for 60-odd episodes, and yet I'm told that it does.

Man isn't it a good job that this wasn't a show aimed at kids which could affect their future worldview thanks to poorly thought out story telling, isn't it :/

*at least I presume they're meant to be comedic, I just find them annoying.