#my brain likes to forget she is dead. i just go like yay !!! my beloved homie we hanging out as soon as i visit my hometown again !!!

[90sbee]

i was wondering why the news of that fan dying at taylor's concert in brazil was hitting me hard until i remembered. oh right i lost someone earlier this year when she was supposed to be seeing her fav band live. ofc i'm gonna be haunted once more lmao

[fakecrfan]

[Martin + Tapes] bro, what's the Eye gonna do when it figures out that Martin's gonna die of old age some day? I feel like it'd either A. "Oh shit!!! — wait, we got the Archivist all marked up? Good, great," and Jon would recite the ritual out of nowhere or B. Find a different way to preserve him a la book of the trapped dead or the coffin

Okay I could see this going one of three ways.

1: The Eye does have that realization, panics, and ends the world so that it can keep Martin and friends alive as one big happy polycule for the rest of eternity (until the End shows up and awkwardly clears its throat, at least). Or Surely Martin will be happy about it. Eventually. Any day now he’ll stop crying.

I am leaning away from this. Not because I don’t love it, but because I already wrote a whole thing about Martin being courted by the Eye in the apocalypse, and I don’t want to repeat myself too much. Plus I feel like the fanfic Beloved has already accomplished this sort of guilded cage angst better than I could, with Jon as the object, so I’d recommend anyone who wants to see more of this sort of thing to just go and read that and maybe wheedle @inklingofadream into giving us more of that sweet sweet Beholding/Jon content :D

2: The Eye doesn’t have the foresight to realize that Martin is going to Die Someday. Even after multiple kidnapping and death scares. Once the immediate threat of death is out of sight the Eye, like a distractible toddler, forgets completely about it in favor of going 😍 Martin! Martin, Martin, Martin!

And so Martin one day gets to slip away quietly in his sleep because the Eye is too much of a dumbass to prepare for future eventualities. The Web consoles its poor dumb sibling and tries not to laugh too hard.

3: My favorite one for this scenario: as you said, the Eye keeps Martin alive some other way. Not the book of trapped dead, I think, except as a last resort. Just--the situation goes on and Martin’s sanity gets whittled away. And then one day, (some time after Melanie has managed to quit?) he says something like “You guys are gonna make me go grey. You’re gonna drive me to an early grave.”

Jon looks at him unblinkingly. “No er won’t,” he says. “We won’t let you die. At all.”

And then Martin realizes that he hasn’t aged. That people have mistaken him for 19 for years. That he hasn’t gotten a single new spot on his skin since he got a job at the Institute.

Martin tries to blind himself, then.

(cw: attempted suicide, self injury, non-consensual restraint, denial of bodily autonomy, attempted manipulation, and slight (?) non-consensual body modification of the ‘‘protective, not allowed to be Injured” variety.)

Martin is pinned down before he can get his hands on a sharp object. But by now he’s gotten a lot better at playing them. So instead of trying to fight he just goes limp, forces all thoughts of escaping or dying out of his mind and looks up at Jon with the biggest eyes and goes Oh, you guys are right, thank you for stopping me. I’m not going to blind myself, that would be awful! Can you let me go now?🥺

“Eh, I don’t know,” Sasha says. “He’s opening his eyes a fraction wider the way he does when he’s trying to manipulate us.”

😅 Whaaaat, no. Definitely not! I was just scared for a second. Anyway, my arms are all itchy are you going to hold me down forever? 😭 That’s so mean you guys are so cruel sometimes! 🥺

“Well,” Tim says uncomfortably. “It would be really mean to hold him down too long...”

Martin gives the most Convincing lip wibble and starts to tear up, and then they let him go. He doesn’t make an immediate move to reach for something sharp, and lets them all hug him and hugs them back even! 🤗 Yay!

The next time, Martin gets close enough that he actually slices his temple before they wrestle the awl away.

This time they actually tie him down to a chair while they pace around and try to figure out what to do. Martin schools his expression and thoughts into the perfect picture of remorse, even sheds a few tears and says he’s so sorry. The others are still too antsy to let him go so easily this time.

“But we can’t just tie him down forever,” Tim insists again. “It isn’t like that one fantasy he had back when he was 21 and he got really into yugioh abridged series fanfiction!”

Martin’s eye twitches a little at being reminded of that.

“Yes but we can’t let him blind himself and die either!” Sasha says. “That’s even worse! Remember: death--bad!”

Sasha points to a chart she made with various arguments about how death is the Worst. Points on it include “likelihood all Martin thoughts will stop after death: 100%” and “Research shows that after being dead no one can feel happy, because the part of the brain that makes the happy chemicals shuts off.” The others nod solemnly.

“We can’t let him go until we can be certain--”

“But he’s gotten too good at controlling his thoughts for us to ever be certain all of the time,” Jon says, distressed. “And he’s upset. He doesn’t like this. He’s going to cry.”

Martin is about to genuinely cry, but he also starts to play it up once they notice.

They keep arguing until Martin starts to doze off a bit. When they wake him up and tell him that they’ve come to a decision, he expects to be love bombed for a few days while they try to Convince him how wonderful it would be to live forever with them. He gets ready to play along, to (pretend to) open up about his fears and accept reassurance, to--

Goggles?

“So you can’t blind yourself when they’re on,” Elias, who came down at some point, says with a smug grin. (He’s the one who came up with the idea, so course he’s decided it’s Genius.)

“Oh,” Martin says. “Yeah, sure! That makes--sense?”

He looks at the goggles. He expects to find a lock or something on them, but no. Just regular motorcycle goggles. Kind of cool looking, because of course they’ve been selected according to his taste.

He bats away a thought about how easy it will be to just take them off. None of them seems to have noticed, so he lets out a sigh of relief.

“Excellent,” Elias says, smugly. “Will you do the honors then, Jon?”

Martin is about to protest he can put them on himself once they untie him. But Jon nervously steps forward and puts them on himself before he can. And that’s fine, they’re gonna let him go once he’s got them on so he can deal with that. They slip on comfortably, and Jon holds them there longer than he strictly has to.

“Right,” Martin says. “On now. Can you let--”

Then, he feels the goggles melt into his face.

It’s not painful. Not exactly. The point isn’t to torture him, after all. But he feels them burrowing into his skin and fuse into the bones on his face and it’s wrong, it’s wrong. He screams. He thrashes.

“Hold him tighter,” Elias instructs.

Martin can hear Jon make a distressed sob through the white hot terror that makes all of Martin’s senses turn to static. He feels more hands grab onto his head to quell his thrashing--probably Tim, he’s got a stronger hold than Sasha. Soon he can’t even move his head, just sob as he feels the things welded into his skull.

They do let him go afterwards, as promised. Martin’s out of his mind then. No thoughts, just get them off. He claws at his face and violently bangs his head against the walls and the floors.

“Don’t stop him,” Elias tells the others when they cry and reach out to stop him. “This is how he will understand.”

Because nothing will crack the goggles. They’re supernaturally reinforced. Martin beats that realization into himself, and then crumples on the floor breathless. The others swarm around him then. They hold his hands and gently stroke his hair.

“It’s okay.” Tim. That’s Tim. “We’re here with you.”

“It’s going to be so much better now.” Definitely Sasha. “Just think about all of the things you’ll get to see over the next century!”

“I’m sorry.” That’s Jon. Choked up and barely able to get the words out. “Martin--”

“We love you.”

Martin can’t tell who says that one, but it makes him snap and scream until he’s frothing at the mouth with rage. Because he’s finally too spent to stop himself from shouting all of the things he’s been keeping in. 

No you don’t! No you don’t!

[supercalime]

Axiom’s End Commentary

So, it’s been a while since my last book commentary, so here’s my big ass come back with Lindsay Ellis’ debut novel I didn’t know I would like at all “Axiom’s End”. Hope y’all enjoy some ramblings!

Part One: The Obelus Event

- I’m not even done with the first chapter yet but I got two things to say: Lindsay nailed the early 2000’s era and lm already hooked on the story so far

- It’s not a novel without some sprinkles of daddy issues, is it?

- I wonder if those website links actually work… would be fun if they did

- Dude, I’m so hooked on this story

- Hey, maybe the aliens aren’t bad, maybe they just want to teach Cora the newest dance craze of the universe, the intergalactwhip! (If you got this reference, I love you, let’s be friends!)

- Oh shit! They made her forget her family????

Part Two: Billions of Flesh-Eating Aliens

- Just the sheer idea of being under control is chilling. This book is increasing my anxiety yall

- I’ve been noticing a few repetitions in the writing, nothing too distracting, but still noticeable (not saying I could do any better, I’m not writing any books to be published any time soon)

- Cora please do not touch the may or may be not dead alien corpse

- Oh my god! Shut up about “consume”!

- How the turn tables! The alien is afraid of the humans!

- Cora is queer! And it’s normalized queerness! We love to see it!

- The dynamic between Cora and Ampersand is giving me huge Hiccup and Toothless vibes and I kinda love it too much

- Please don’t remind me bush was president, I was having such a good day

- She said the thing! She said “the whole plate”! I giggled and I don’t even care if that’s cringe!

- Just realized that I also been pronouncing nils’ name wrong

- Was that a weird “better call Sal” reference or just an unfortunate coincidence?

- I kinda love that Cora keeps comparing people to actors

Part Three: The Great Filter

- I sense that mr park is a possible love interest, let’s see if that’s true

- Take a shot every time the word myriad is used. You’ll get alcohol poisoning

- I think Ampersand just did a little Wi-Fi foreshadowing

- This whole pandemic talk is so topical it like, hurts. What a weird coincidence

- Esperas just yeeted Cora like she’s nothing! I’m very invested

- I don’t know why but this whole bush thing weirds me out a bit. I get that sci-fi needs to be a little grounded in reality but it could have been a heightened reality based on our world

- What? They just… arrested Luciana????

- I know this is fiction, but I still find it hard to believe that dr sev just managed to translate the alien language so easily

- Damn, big revelations, also we finally got the meaning for the title of the novel, nice

- Fuck! Ampersand! It was you?! All this time! I feel so bad for Cora

- The genome is honestly terrifying

- Ampersand is back! Yay!

- Luciana! Hooray!!!

- Yikes Cora, that last line was ice cold

Part Four: Beloved

- Completely unrelated to the story but I gotta vent. I’m not a book snob in any way but I’m so annoyed how the spine of this paperback was obliterated during these two weeks I’ve been reading it

- I. Just. Ripped. A. Page. Of. The. Book. On. Accident. I wanna scream

- Okay, grieving over, back to the story

- I’m still confused about the alien world but now it’s too late lol

- The memory thing is cool tho

- Look, i love “girl bonds with monster trope” as much as anyone but I’m starting to get a little weirded out with how Cora has been phrasing her affection for a few pages now

- BELOVED???? What is going onnnnnnn???

- Oh ok. Got it. I’m glad it wasn’t going where my brain first went

- The phrase “it was as though” is used so much this entire book it could be in a bingo card

- What the hell did obelus just inject into her?

- Of course it’s not that easy to kill obelus, what was I thinking

- I hate how obelus can see right through ampersand. I’m scared, for real

- THE KAVEH CAMEO!!! Y’all have no idea how happy finally reading Kaveh’s name made me. For context: I listen to Lindsay Ellis and Kaveh Taherian’s podcast “Musicalsplaining”, so I’m fangirling hard right now

- Call me naive, idc, I was hoping Nils wasn’t just a shitbag

- Oh shit! Cefo was bonded to them too!

- He called her “dear one”! That’s cute. Well, as cute as an alien and girl dynamic can be lol

- HE FUSION BONDED WITH HER WITHOUT HER KNOWLEDGE??? AND SHES OK WITH THAT???

- I can’t believe it ended on that note. I don’t even know what to feel

In conclusion:

[nayialovecat]

Hi :) Could you rank the characters of SATIM, from the one you like the most to the one you like the least and tell us why? I love lists :p

My first list! Yay!

Gosh... it's very hard question. I don't like telling kids that one of them is less liked than the other, lol. I'm not able to choose which of the two very liked characters I like more, but I can certainly group them all collectively into several groups with different levels of liking…

The order in these groups will be rather random…

I don't know what determinant should be to assign them... Because there is a difference between the characters I like and the characters that I consider successful making. I think I'll bet on the former, so don't be surprised what categories the characters I'm really proud of end up in.

.

First category: Beloved characters!

Sammy is definitely here, I don't need to explain why? I omit the fact that his character is quite modeled on myself (and it is quite common that the creator secretly loves to adore himself). But seriously. I love almost every Sammy I meet. This love has no rational explanation, it just exists.

Jack will definitely be in this category too - I love this warm dumpling, his character and the way he combines his pacifist, introverted nature with being Sammy's friend.

I will surprise you, but I'll also assign Bertrum to this category. It's so much fun that when I first saw him in gameplay I had such a "wtf, what is it, what kind of bullshit, why they screwed up the game so much by adding some carousel with a human face". Currently, I cry when I have to go through Chapter 4 and fight him :c He's one of my favorite BATIM characters, along with Sammy - and that's why in the SATIM version he’s simply brilliant! You will love him! Unfortunately, he'll not appear until the second series...

Probably no one will be surprised that Jose Klondike will land my beloved characters - I love the guy, although you don't know why yet. But you'll find out. You'll find out quickly, ‘cause the number of strips with him grows and grows, so I'll be putting them here and there. I am proud of this OC - his history, his determination, his character and approach to life. As if I was in the Workshop as an inky being - I would like to be exactly that character...

Bernard - you don't know him, but he is high in my heart. It’s my way of showing that weaker doesn't always mean weak ;)

After much thought, I decided that Bendy also belongs to this category. I have too much weakness for tragic characters - and Bendy is even a model tragic character (as you will see at the beginning of the second series, when there will be a little more of his backstory).

Gosh, how could I forget to put my favorite three descendants of Sammy and Bendy in this category? This trio is delightful together and separately. I'm so crazy about them lately! Sammy Jr, Henry Jr and Bendy Jr are my favourites :)

.

Second category: I like these guys very much!

Here will be most of my OC with Cleaner in the lead. It's amazing how the character that arose as an explanation for my laziness/lacks quickly evolved into one of the more liked by me (though still has, and likely will have, relatively little airtime).

Barman must also be here. This guy stole my heart - and it was at the design stage, which is why he got such a unique design (I spent a lot of time on him). I like a stereotypical barman - that's why I just had to throw such a character into SATIM as soon as it turned out that they had a bar there.

All Strikers also land in this category - as the only species of members of the Butcher Gang. Well, how can you not love this cutie? In the SATIM version, most Strikers are sensitive, polite, have a strong sense of justice and, above all, tend to be innocent despite being horrific, murderous abomination. And they are the most sociable of the three.

Movie Club as a whole will also be included in this category, although I don't like all of its members equally. However, as a group character - I like them a lot, my favourite is Sara (probably that's why she got the most time in drawn stripes so far) and Simon (you don't know him yet, that's the one that was dead on the previous strip with this group), also Wallace (first one you met in comic). I like them, although their early appearance upsets my plans for Bendy a bit... but whatever.

Surprisingly - Twisted Alice will also land here. I did not expect that the character I didn't like in game, which I reluctantly drew and who was supposed to be in the comic as little as possible, 'cause I didn't want her in my story - will turn out to be so interesting and quite... cool. I mean, she's a cold, murderous bitch, yes - but I like her backstory, present character and behavior so much (I'm talking about SATIM - in the game she is still an annoying, cold bitch that I hate).

.

Third category: I just like these.

Here is Brody. Yes. Just here. He is my first OC and I'm really proud of him. Very, very proud. He’s the most polished, I like him - but at the same time (identifying with Sammy) I don’t approve of some of his behaviors and beliefs. Which does not allow me to like him as much as, for example, Barman.

John Dot will land here as well. I like this guy. For someone who was not meant to have any major role, he has grown to become Sammy's religious advisor and is generally quite a funny character.

Fisher, who is my least liked member of the Butcher Gang in the game, ends up in second place here - thanks to the past of one of them (the whole two-piece strip will be about that). The Fishers in SATIM are the "brains" of the Gang. They are the smartest, most cunning and insidious.

Wally Franks - he is and for a long time he will be one of the most enigmatic characters of this comic, but from these narrow premises and traces of its operation it can be seen that he is at least interesting. There will be more about him in the second series, and he will play a more important role at the turn of the third and fourth series. You'll see.

Tom ends up here instead of in the next category only because of his complicated relationship with Sammy, which I would describe in one word as "frenemies". And I really like the idea of ​​communicating with writing board like Wile E. Coyote.

I have a problem with Elena. When I came up with her, she seemed like a great character to me, with the passage of time (and the creation of other OCs) she began to seem a bit... dull. I think I'll have to think about her a bit and maybe change her - maybe not. She doesn't appear until the last series, so I have a lot of time. But I still like the way she speaks to people and her strange relationship with Sammy (she's sort of like his apprentice, only the object of fanaticism has a different one).

.

Fourth category: Not liked, but not disliked.

Sorry, Henry. In my opinion, Henry is a well-written character, his nature fits so much to him, etc. But somehow I don't know how to liked him. In places it irritates me as much as Sammy. What I like the most about him is that he doesn't cause any problems with colouring and strips with more of him mean less work for me.

Boris - you don't know him yet (he has appeared in the background of one frame throughout the comic so far), so I have no way to relate, but let me put it this way... Boris is the perfect Boris, that super-copy Joey dreamed of. He is friendly, obliging, somewhat cowardly, but overall a great buddy. And like any ideal character - he's boring. Just boring. I prefer dramatic characters, with a past, with problems or at least an interesting, aggressive or funny character.

Allison lands here too. I don't like her in the game and maybe that's why in my comic she came out like this... I won't say that she lacks character or claw, but... not intriguing. This may change, but for the moment she is a character whose role is to be a "strong independent woman" and she has no other role. I think many people will like her because of that. Me not very much. I just don't like this type of character.

I almost forgot about poor Piper. This is a character that leaves me cold. In every Gang, he is more of a taunt object or a servant at everyone's beck and call (in Polish we say: "przynieś, podaj pozamiataj" - I think it should be translate as "bring, serve, sweep"). But for consolation I made Pipers the most various (different hairstyles, clothes, length of the wooden prosthesis).

.

Fifth category: I hate this one.

Joey. I created a motherfucker that I hate. But I must admit, this motherfucker is well done, you will see...

.

I guess I haven't overlooked anyone, and even included a few characters that have yet to appear. However, if I missed someone, please ask :)

[mintjamsblog]

The Gospel of Alfie Solomons: Part I

Written by Steven Knight. Transcribed from a recording by Tom Hardy.

You see the idea I fucking hate the most, right, is that everything starts off perfect and then it gets worse. That is demonstrably not fucking true. Some things are just born bad. Some people are born with no intention to do anything good on this earth and they carry out their plan to deceive and cheat and rob and desanctify all that is holy just because that is the way that they were born, that is how they are, that is what they do. Relentless, relentlessly. Their creed runs thus…

If I can I will rob you, if I must I will kill you, if you let me I will fuck you, when I’ve fucked you I will leave you. 

My father, Alfred Solomons Senior, was such a man with such a creed. He was a dispenser, a dispenser of semen to the gullible and the bewildered, a maker of bastards on a scale unseen since Genghis fucking Khan; a barbarian for whom every empty womb was Rome. He planted the seeds but he did not tend the gardens. He stayed only long enough to piss on the compost and behead the roses to sell in Summers Town in the market there. With his stolen roses in his pockets he would leap the garden gate, leaving behind only the scent of rum, marzipan, tobacco and Portugal Water which he did, he sold out of his suitcase, right, at 6 pence a bottle. At least that is what I’ve been told. Yeah, someone fucking told ‘cause all I ever saw of him was his fucking hat. It was hanging on a wall on a nail above the sink where my mother washed other people’s laundry. That hat was a holy relic, size eight and a half, made in Luton, where the hat makers go insane on the fumes of their trade and leave little messages sewn under the hat bands. The message in my father’s hat was this:

This hat, right, is a kettle in which to boil up your wicked dreams and make a soup of your soul.

It is a hat that actually I wear to this day, it still smells of Portugal Water; when I wear it the schemes and proposals come out of the darkness as if seeping out of the felt and the leather that is stained with his erotic sweat.

My mother washed bedsheets, my father was a fucking hat. No kisses, no bedtime stories just parcels of sheets to deliver to the hotels and the brothels of Camden Town for nothing more than flatbread and a pinch from the priest who would then open up his robes when I passed. And from that I drew my dark and accurate conclusions on religion.

So, Alfie Solomons Junior grew untended and wild, a stem with hardly a root sticking up like a skinny cock out of the gutter so every nasty little Christian kid walking by their nasty little Christian school with their gropey old Christian masters could kick it down and stomp on it and shout, “it was you lot who killed Jesus so have that in your belly and have that in your face and see it as charity. We’re not nailing you up like you did our Lord.” 

But every time I got stomped down I fucking stomped back up again, mate. I survived out of spite and instead of learning how to fight I learned how to put right the wrongs done unto me tenfold, a hundred…a thousandfold, yay, unto the fucking stars, right, by using the bit of my body that God had cleverly put inside a strong bone box so the kicks and the digs could not reach it. The bit of me that is my brain. With the help of the alchemy of my Portugal Water hat in the strong bone box I process the schemes and solutions the mad hatters of Luton and my father had put there; my brain a factory producing schemes and solutions dodges and speculations ways around and ways to undermine, a trickle at night and a flood in the day when I unlock my bakery and smell the aroma of secrets and sit and begin the process of accumulation. 

I am the Chairman of Alfie Solomons’ Aerated Bread Company, Bonny Street, Camden Town to be precise. My two Vice Chairmen are Mr Threat and Mr Violence and the former I prefer but, but, the latter is necessary to support the former because without violence there is no threat and without threat there is no accumulation, without accumulation well there’s just no fucking point, mate.

As a baker I occasionally sell bread. As a bookmaker I occasionally let the fastest horse win. As a landlord I occasionally have a roof fixed. But mostly I find it is quicker and it is easier to deal with the complainant, right, rather than deal with the complaint. From all of this you are drawing your conclusions.

Alfie Solomons, begat from a bad man, beguiled by a hat band, became a bad man. Inspires bad men to do bad things in bad ways to good people who have bad, bad luck – but is good enough to at least admit he is a fucking bad, bad man. 

But consider this, right, in all my years as a baker in Camden Town I have overseen, I have organised or otherwise been responsible for the deaths, right, of thirty-five fucking men. All of whom, I’ll have you know, attend my dreams each night in various disguises, in irregular order, with no pattern or logic to it but with the consequence that I wake up each morning in sheets that, they have to be wrung out from sweat, right, by my maid, Edna, who it should be noted I have never had an evil thought about in fifteen years because when she washes my sweat from the sheets she reminds me of my poor mother, now residing in hell and washing the robes of satan himself.

So, thirty-five men, thirty-five times, I am a bad man. But here is where mathematics comes to my rescue. Logic rides in like an accountant on a penny farthing just in time to make proof of mitigation before moral bankruptcy is officially declared, yeah. Here is, here is what logic puts forward in my defence. In France, right, Passchendaele for example, take one day, one hour, one fucking second, I am standing, right in the uncultivated mud, a stem with hardly a root. In my hands I have an artillery shell. It is the size and weight of a newborn baby, a little bastard made in Birmingham – sharp nose the colour of the morning sky. And in that one second, right, one fucking second of one day of one month of four years, in that one second I feed that baby to the upturned mortar barrel, arse first, I turn, I put my fingers in my ears and boom I send my baby into the morning sky to do the only job it was ever, ever intended to do. Two seconds later another boom and there, in the mud, over there, lie thirty-six men. Brown bread. The thirty-six killed by the solider, right, are just as dead, right, as the thirty-five killed by the baker, but the thirty-six, they do not attend my dreams and are not there in God’s ledger counting the good against the bad. I was given a medal for the thirty-six but I took a bullet from the Peaky Blinders for the thirty-five. So. 

Therefore, my beloved congregation, I will leave you with this conclusion, right. There is no good and there is no bad, that is categorical, in this world beyond the calculations of powerful men, right, who shift the definition according to their own selfish schemes of accumulation. The only things that are categorical are life and death. For argument’s sake we’ll say life is good and death is bad … purely, purely for argument’s sake. Which means, which means my father was fucking right, mate, you dispense your semen, you piss on the compost, you deadhead the fucking roses, leave the garden gate, take what you’ve stolen to market and you sell it at a reasonable price leaving behind only your hat and the scent of your fucking wares mate. That is the creed of Alfie Solomons.

A lame shepherd among nimble goats who nevertheless, at the stable doors, shall be counted and accumulated as lambs to my gentle slaughter. Because never forget this, right, Alfie Solomons is always waiting.

Listen to Tom Hardy’s performance here.

[rouzmary]

Game of Thrones - S8E3 - The Great War & Night King 

All in all, I'm happy with the episode, but did expect more death and certainly from major characters. 

However, try as you might to make us forget about Arya - I didn't. 

It stayed in the back of my mind from the moment Melisandre told Arya of the blue eyes and Arya run off. 

As the Night King walked to Bran and Jon couldn't get past the undead dragon, I kept waiting to see just how is Arya gonna arrive & what she's going to do. 

So, no surprise it was Arya, but certainly surprise at how it was executed. Me like it.

When the Dorthraki got wiped out...yeah, that was the first time I felt like...they’re all doomed, just how the hell could they possibly win? They’ll simply get overrun by the dead.

And then with all these smaller scenes which tugged on the strings...the storm, Drogon besieged by those undead, Arya running alone in the halls, Night King rising their fallen comrades...

But when the piano started playing...yeah, that’s when true feeling finally kicked in for me and I was thoroughly captivated, for a lack of a better word.

It added that final layer to make it...how to say it...to make you forget you’re breathing, who you are and all your concentration is on the screen and what is going on.

1st time we heard piano on GoT was when Cersei massacred all those people and now we heard piano again. That really managed to make it all sort of come through to you, to fully comprehend the scale of just what is going on. The death of it all and no hope is sight.

So yes, all in all, I’m happy with the episode. I wonder how it’ll all go down in the books.

I must say I’m surprised they managed to end the Great War in this episode. I fully expected to have some of it in the next episode as well. After all, Night King is/was the ultimate threat to all living.

 And while the episode was indeed magnificently filmed and executed...he really died? Sure, it was the end of the episode and dude got overconfident marching in to Bran with his generals like a boss...but this was THE threat.

Maybe it’s indeed cuz he got overconfident.

Plus, with Game of Thrones it’s expected to expect the unexpected.

I knew the main characters like Dany & Jon will survive cuz hello, we still have 4 episodes to go...but they really killed the Night King in this one. Huh.

Kind of hard to comprehend. 

I kind of expected Arya to go down with the Night King.

I think the episode and all that happened needs some time to settle down in my brain and then a rewatch is needed.

Now that the threat of the dead is forever gone...it’s time for the living to massacre each other again. ...Yay...

Well, no major character for whom I’d truly care for died. Didn’t shed a single tear. But did get breathless with anticipation, dread and just flat out feeling kind of...numb? from all that is going down. Numb in a good way, like...as I said...completely captivated.

Actually, me not crying and stuff isn’t all that surprising. I rarely get moved to tears or soooo surprised/shocked whatever.

lolz, when other people talk of how they cried or were so shocked at the events I’m like - why? what for? Sure, it was good...but not THAT good. You people have low standards and/or are simply way too easily moved.

I’m made of harder stuff. 

Ain’t gonna get to me so easily.

I do wonder if there’ll be people who cried in this episode. Though I’d seriously wonder why, cuz like I said - none of the beloved characters died...for me.

I liked the episode and it did manage at times to make me breathless.

And for all that the episode was an hour and a half, it certainly felt like just 5 minutes. Went by so fast or more like didn’t notice the time passing at all because not a moment felt lacking and it held my attention the whole time.

Now that the dead are gone, Cersei is all that’s left.

Kind of feels like with Night King dead this should be the end, but the story goes on.

It’s back to humans being stupid humans and killing each other over their greed. Well, greed on Cersei’s part. Jon & co are the good guys and just defending themselves XD

With Night King not managing to kill Jon & Dany I’d be kind of disappointed if Cersei managed to kill either or both of them them.

Like, not even Night King could kill them. Cersei certainly shouldn’t be able to either, but then again, the Night King did overestimate the living and got himself killed.

And since humans are indeed the worst, wouldn’t be actually that surprising if Cersei did kill them.

Just kinda tad disappointing.

But.

Where is Ghost?

He’d better be alive.