#my main save (out of like 5 saves i think? i'm very committed i'm on year 5 nd the others are still year 1) is just

[ratspider]

i think that once i have absolutely no upgrading goals left in stardew valley i'm going to divorce harvey and date everyone in the town till i probably eventually go back to harvey again and wipe his memory

[cosmerelists]

Renarin Ranks Starting Places For New Readers of the Cosmere Series

"Renarin ranks something" requested by @themoonstonechronicler :)

Fans often argue about where new readers should start in the Cosmere: which book is the best starting place? In this list, Renarin will rank various options. Because if any character can break the fourth wall, it's either Hoid (of course) or Renarin with his funky corrupted Future Sight.

[Contains Stormlight Spoilers through Rhythm of War!]

1. Way of Kings

"Starting with Way of Kings is like jumping into a 4 versus 1 Shardblade duel armed with a sword that screams when you touch it after a lifetime of not really being allowed to train in real combat scenarios due to your blood weakness. Will you be in over your head? Yes. Might the experience harm you? Very possibly. Will Kaladin's presence save you? Absolutely. Is it a bad idea? Objectively yes. BUT does this choice make you inherently cool? I think so. At least, I have no regrets."

...

"Make that very few regrets."

"I give this an 8/10."

2. Elantris

"Listen...I get it. You want to start from the beginning. Proceed chronologically. I think my cousin Jasnah would be inclined toward this. But speaking as a 'funky time guy,' as Adolin called me once, I have to say that the past doesn't necessarily predict the future and uh...this one just might be a little tough to start with. In my opinion."

"4/10."

3. Tress of the Emerald Sea

"I think...I think I like Wit. Mostly. There was that one time he tried to make everyone think I was hooking up with, like, multiple women at once, which was...weird. But he also made fun of me. Which does not sound good, but it meant he respected me in a Wit way. In any event, this book is like sitting and listening to Wit for hours. Is it good if that is the first thing you ever do? Maybe? The little rat is cute."

"9/10."

4. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

"This one is Wit too. Just to get that out of the way. And I think it might be a little bit confusing for a first-time reader since it is clearly being told to a Rosharan, which is not something a new reader would understand."

"But on the other hand, it is maybe...refreshing to have a main character who hasn't yet realized what he's good at, and another main character who hasn't yet realized that not all aspects of her religion should restrict her as much as they do."

"So a confusing place to start, but not necessarily a bad one."

"6/10."

5. The Emperor's Soul

"This one is short! That might be good for someone who is looking for less of a commitment. Plus, it involves a lot of research into how things work, if that appeals to you. But I think the real benefit is that if someone is reading it to you, it would probably only take a few hours."

"10/10."

6. The Sunlit Man

"This book is like seeing into the future, since it is literally about the future. It's also very painful. Which, in my experience, the future often is. The future can be changed...but not in this case, because now it's written down. So I would say: start here at your own risk. On the other hand, it will probably seem less sad if you read it without any backstory. But it will make other things sadder later, trust me."

"3/10."

7. White Sand

"This one can be good if you're a man, since there are a lot of pictures. There are also a lot of words, of course, but if you're just starting out on the reading thing, then having the pictures would help a lot I'd imagine."

"6/10."

8. Warbreaker

"Speaking as someone who...well, I can't say that I deliberately make dramatic reveals, but I have been known to do things like scrawl warnings on a wall or appear suddenly from the shadows or, you know, stuff like that. So I might actually recommend reading this before you read our books, just so you can have those, 'Wait, it's YOU!' moments over and over again."

"Seriously, why did so many of those characters end up in our series?"

"I'm not answering the question, though. This one is standalone, and not too long, yet still manages to have a pretty big cast of characters and a bunch of storylines. It is like Sanderson training."

"8/10."

9. The Final Empire

"This is what everyone always tells you to do. Sometimes it can get frustrating when everyone is SO SURE that they know what's good for you, especially your dad, who won't listen when you tell him that you don't want to become an ardent even though he thinks it's the best. And you know what? In the end, I am a fighter, but also a scholar, since men can do both now. So sometimes what people say is good, but only when it happens in the way you want it to and...I think I lost the thread. Um. You can do what people tell you that you should do IF you want to. "

"If you start here, I imagine you'll like it. Sometimes what everyone tells you to do is a good idea...but only if it's what you want too."

"9/10."

10. The Alloy of Law

"Starting with Mistborn Era 2 is like bonding a corrupt spren. It's almost what everyone agrees is a good thing to do (start with Mistborn / bond a spren), only you're going about it in a...different way. But different is not necessarily bad! Yes, I have abilities that are maybe from Odium and that give me a maybe sacrilegious ability to foretell the future...but when given the chance, I immediately recommended my best friend do the same thing."

"Being different can be good. 7/10."

[happyk44]

Okay before I go into the ASPD thing, wanna do a quick summary of what I have so far:

Zeus/Jupiter: OCPD and Autism (based on being the god of law and order, and justice, as well as king of Olympus)

Poseidon: BPD and ASPD (based on the idea of a moody and volatile sea)

Neptune: SZPD and ASPD (based on the idea of an emotionless and uncaring sea)

Ares: IED and ASPD (self-explanatory)

Hades/Pluto and Thanatos/Mors: infertility, and, in rare cases, sterility (self-explanatory)

Hypnos/Somnus, Morpheus, and the Oneiroi/Somnia: Excessive daytime sleepiness, maladaptive daydreaming (self-explanatory, have also been thinking about STPD and DPDR)

Aphrodite/Venus and other similar deities: Hypersexuality, NPD, BPD and HPD (first one is self-explanatory, I'm still thinking about the other three and might do a separate post about them at some point, also considering Body Dysmorphia but I have to do some thinking on that one as well)

Hermes/Mercury: Kleptomania (self-explanatory)

Now! Onto the main point: propensity of Antisocial Personality Disorder in children of the sea and children of war.

First things first, please check out @neurosharky! He has a lot of good posts discussing his experience with ASPD, and I found them very helpful in framing understanding around the diagnostic criteria.

The DSM-5 describes, "Antisocial Personality Disorder is characterized by a pervasive pattern of disregard for consequences and for the rights of others." It can only be diagnosed in people 18 years and older, and patients must have evidence of a conduct disorder being present before 15. They must show three or more of the following symptoms:

Disregard of the law, typically indicates by repeatedly committing acts that are grounds for arrest

Being deceitful, indicated by lying repeatedly, using aliases, or conning other for personal gain or pleasure

Acting impulsively, or not planning ahead

Being easily provoked or aggressive, indicated by constantly getting into physical fights or assaulting others

Recklessly disregarding their safety or the safety of others

Consistently acting irresponsibly, indicated by quitting a job with no plans for another one or not paying bills

Not feeling remorse, indicated by indifference to or rationalization of hurting or mistreating others

(Side note: the diagnostic criteria is so... idk, something about the phrasing makes me laugh)

Personally, I don't think Percy has ASPD. From my interpretation of canon, I think he cares and thinks too much of people. Not to say that people with ASPD can't care or think of other people, but from a "disregards the rights of other people", I don't think Percy fits. He does rise to anger quickly, and doesn't think much of his own safety, imo, so there are traits there but that's likely more related to BPD.

Now - the ocean, Poseidon, Neptune, Amphitrite, other ocean gods out there, my beloveds, they can be angry uncaring beauties. As I've discussed before and mentioned above, in PJO canon, I interpret Poseidon as being representative of the moody, ever-changing sea, hence the BPD. He's clingy, demanding, quick to anger, volatile, emotional, dramatic.

In PJO, the Romans eschew the ocean, so Neptune, although we never see him in canon, comes across as the opposite. He's detached from society, doesn't care about the people who cross his waters, doesn't care if you live or die, little emotion, flat, bored - so SZPD.

Their destructive ways are different across these lines as well. Poseidon will drown you because you've pissed him off and Neptune will drown you because he doesn't care enough to save you, no matter how hard you pray.

How does ASPD play into this? Think about the commonalities in both representations of the ocean - it will kill you without thought. It is unapologetic. A moody ocean will hurt you, an uncaring ocean will hurt you. Another thing I've come across is that ASPD is a defense against being controlled. You can't control the ocean! It does what it wants, and fuck you for thinking you're in charge of the seas.

Additionally, in SZPD, while alexithymia is common, most people appear to feel anger much more strongly than other emotions. Which makes sense, imo, anger is a very strong emotion and easier, for me at least, to make sense of. In BPD and ASPD, being quick to anger is fairly common. BPD and ASPD share impulsivity as a symptom as well.

Low empathy and little to no emotion is also a shared trait in ASPD and SZPD, as well as a detachment from society. For SZPD, it typically appears as a detachment from emotional connection, relationships, and/or socialization. For ASPD, it's more of a detachment from social rules. People with SZPD are asocial, people with ASPD are... well, antisocial, lol. People often mistake the latter for the former, but asocial is a preference for solitude and antisocial is a disregard for the feelings and wellbeing of other people.

So that's the ocean. Some ideas of how the comorbidities may present:

Coral is a daughter of Neptune with extreme SZPD. She has little interest in societal rules, and little understanding of morality and ethics. However, she - as much as she can with her SZPD - cares for her mom, and thus does her best to follow the rules her mom has explained or laid out for her. She doesn't have much capacity for remorse or guilt, and will hurt people without much regard for them. However, she purposely avoids interacting with others and so rarely is the instigating cause.

Melpomene is a daughter of Neptune with more prominent ASPD traits and SZPD. She has less severe alexithymia, and is easily prone to anger. She doesn't start fights, but she doesn't back down from them. If you fuck with her, she'll fuck with you. She has a basic, albeit still small, sense of morality, but lacks a code of ethics and the motivation to adhere to it. She does not care about other people's safety and will abandon them to their doom. This overlaps with her SZPD because she finds emotional responses uncomfortable and stressful, so panic and distress in others turns her away. Her detachment from people leads her to lie and manipulate people, typically to make them go away (SZPD) or put them in harm's way for the fun of it , or as revenge due to seeing them as trying to control her (ASPD).

In a child of Poseidon with BPD traits, ASPD may present simultaneously with a fear of abandonment that causes them to react violently towards whatever or whoever they perceive is causing the abandonment. They may disregard that person's safety and rights in order to keep them close at hand (think kidnapping, or physical harm rendering them immobile and dependent). They can rationalize their actions away (I need you, you're not allowed leave me, etc etc). Splitting may provoke their anger issues. Intense emotional mood swings might cause them to instigate or pick fights, and impulsive behaviour can lead to breaking various laws and ignoring their own safety.

I don't think any personality disorder is mutually exclusive to one another. There might be some that are more uncommon to be comorbid with one another, but I've seen discussion that comorbidity between personality disorders (i.e. having more than one) is fairly common. And in doing research into various personality disorders, I've seen a lot of people say things like, "SZPD with OCPD traits" - situations where they don't meet the full qualification for the second personality disorder, those traits aren't intense enough to be considered considered/presumably, or the secondary traits appear to stem primarily from their initial personality disorder rather than being it's own thing. So there's that too.

So yeah, think of the ocean. The beautiful, uncontrollable, dangerous, salty ocean.

Now for Ares and his kids. I separate Ares from Mars because Mars is considered more disciplined than Ares, he was less of bloodlust god, more orderly and held in higher regard than his Greek counterpart, and I prefer to view him that way in PJO canon.

So IED (intermittent explosive disorder) and ASPD are fairly self-explanatory in regards to the god of war and bloodlust, a deity noted to personify brutality and savageness. But I'll detail some stuff anyway!

The first child of Ares we meet is Clarisse. And the first thing she does when we meet her is bully Percy. The second thing she, and other members of her cabin do, is try to injure him during the Capture the Flag game. Someone (Percy, I think, I don't have the book on hand) points out that they'll get trouble for hurting him and she just shrugs it off.

So that's: disregard of other people's safety, easily provoked, rationalizing away the mistreatment of others (he deserves it for humiliating her), acting impulsively and not planning ahead (did they think about what would happen if Percy were seriously injured as a new camper with minimal training? what if someone interrupted them before Percy blew up the river? what was the end goal to hurting him?), disregarding the camp rules

Now I think part of the reason ASPD is not diagnosed in people under 18 is because, like we see with Clarisse in canon, some people grow out of their behaviour. With her, and probably much of her cabin, their anger issues - which I believe is something they have a higher propensity for as well, and that they share it with their Roman half-siblings - causes them to bully and hurt others.

A lot of personality disorders develop from trauma, and we also know Clarisse was abused in some way by her dad (re: Sea of Monsters) so her reactions towards other people may stem from that. Before 18 their behaviour is typically diagnosed as a conduct disorder, to which I imagine treatment and intervention is attempted to hopefully avoid it continuing into ASPD by adulthood. According to some quick research, about 25% to 40% of children with a conduct disorder are typically diagnosed with ASPD in adulthood.

I think it would be really interesting if Clarisse didn't age out of her aggressive behaviour, and maintained ASPD traits into adulthood. I guess a neat concept would be Silena managing to sort of "soften" that side of her, and then, in BoTL, when she's caring for Chris, it's a moment of "I will be better for them". So she works hard to keep her traits at bay, because she wants to be a morally good person for these two people that she loves - even if she still is an amoral person.

It would be cool if she and Percy talked about it. I tend to view him as a fairly amoral person as well, ascribing to the moral view of the people he cares about (his mom, Grover, Annabeth). So maybe after a spar, she asks how it's so easy for him to be so stubborn about right or wrong and he's just, "Well, I love my mom and the idea of disappointing her fills me with a dread so intense I want to vomit and/or kill myself."

"Gods, that sounds like shit."

"Yeah, it's not the greatest."

"I can't imagine being afraid of disappointing someone. But... I guess I do like making Chris happy. He's got cute dimples, you know?"

"Focus on that. Would beating the shit out of some newbie punk make him happy? Would it show his dimples?"

"... probably not. Ugh. This shit is hard."

"But you can do it."

"Yeah, I fucking can. What, you think I'm a wimp? Can't tough out being a normal person for my boyfriend?"

"... Yes."

"I'm going to fucking kill you."

"Not if I kill you first."

So those are my thoughts on the propensity of developing ASPD or traits of ASPD in demigods. For Poseidon/Neptune, it represents the uncaring, angry, and remorseless nature of the ocean. For Ares, it represents the brutality and bloodthirstiness of war.

Again, if you have any thoughts on anything that you think the nature of certain gods may cause their kids to be predisposed to, feel free to hit me up with your thoughts! It's probably pretty obvious to the people who follow me (see my recent ramblings about the Roman trio and their dissociation and literally everything I've ever written about Jason being raised by wolves 😂), but I love analyzing shit like this!

[get-hamilton-on-your-side]

I've been seeing posts like these going around lately, and I don't want to start Discourse™️, but I do think it's an interesting conversation to be had.

OP mentions that this is a sentiment occurring in younger viewers, and I think there are lots of reasons for this response. I'm in my early twenties, and growing up, romance was pretty much guaranteed for any book/movie/TV series with a YA audience, even if it wasn't specifically in the romance genre. There were largely popular romance series, of course, (Twilight, The Selection, etc.), but romance was also integral to several series NOT centered around romance. The Series Which Shall Not Be Named ends in a hetero utopia, where basically every member of the original crew grows up, marries each other, and all have kids. Almost every main character of Rick Riordan's series experiences a committed romantic relationship, with the exception of Reyna, (although she's mostly a side character throughout HoO) and Meg (who is a god, and an actual child). The Hunger Games has fewer romantic pairings, but the marketing for those movies were very dedicated to the "love triangle" narrative between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale.

The dedication to establishing romantic relationships does appear somewhat differently for male/masculine and female/feminine coded characters well. For example, I've seen multiple series have a sort of "7th wheel syndrome" where one member of a friend group is made fun of and/or left out in some way because they're the only one not in a relationship. Shows like The Big Bang Theory majorly have this problem, where every character's main goal in life is to fall in love and have a family. In TBBT, Raj has major dating troubles and actually ends up settling for an arranged marriage because his friends are all married and he doesn't want to end up alone. Riordan's HoO series, once again, paints Leo as a tragic figure for being the only single person on the Argo II, but his self worth is finally in tact by the end of the series when he saves the day and gets the girl. Fez in That 70s Show is regularly made fun of for his inability to get a girl. It's not lost on me that many of the male characters in these situations are POC.

While male characters are set up with a last-minute shoehorned romance, female characters (particularly white women) are often given a love interest planned from the beginning. I love Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles but I was kind of dumbfounded by the end because every one of the 8 major characters ends the series in a committed relationship. Every single Disney princess up until 2012 had a prince (although, this has since changed---the only princess post-2012 with a prince is Anna).

And then, of course, you have the plethora of sitcoms that end with every character (or at least every main character) happily in a relationship. New Girl, Parks and Rec, Friends, The Office, The Good Place, Ghosts (US). Even shows like Phineas and Ferb assure the audience that the couples stay together when they're grown up. Almost every Marvel and DC superhero has a love interest, and most action heroes have a girl to save.

Don't get me wrong, I think many of the romances in the media I've talked about so far are good, well-written, and well-established. But based on the previous track-record of shoehorned romances, that is a concern I have about shows like Stranger Things (I won't talk much about The Bear because I haven't seen that show). Stranger Things has highlighted friendship as a major theme in the show, but as the characters have grown older, they've explored various romantic relationships as well. Many people online have already discussed how they fear relationships will be shoehorned in at the end of Season 5, since it is the final season. Ships like stancy, where it's clear that they wouldn't really work well together. I agree with Maya Hawke's sentiment about delving deeper into her friendships. It has been established that she has a crush on Vickie, but we've barely seen them together, and in a show that has to balance SO many different characters, I'm not sure it would serve the show well to put Robin in a romantic relationship. (There is, of course, another conversation to be had about how minority characters are presented in romantic relationships in media. Lesbian relationships are less commonly found in media and they can be really important to some viewers. My agreeing with Hawke is just my 2 cents as an ace lesbian. Other users have also mentioned that when it comes to The Bear, it can be harmful to perpetuate that a Black woman character shouldn't be in a relationship with the main white guy. I haven't seen the show and I myself am not Black, so I won't weigh in on that aspect, but it is another thing to consider in this conversation).

With romance so prevalent in media, it makes sense that our generation is taking a steep turn in the other direction. We've been shown all our lives that romance and sex trumps friendship in importance, but that's not how many of us actually live. Younger people are having sex less. I'm 22 and I'd say half of my friends are not currently in a romantic relationship, and many of them aren't looking for one. I know plenty of adults as well who are happily single, not looking for any more romance in their lives. Even the way people are experiencing romantic and sexual relationships is vastly different from what is shown on TV as there are more openly queer individuals, queer platonic relationships, and polyamory is becoming more prevalent.

I'm not an expert by any means, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. This is all based on my own observation and there is still a lot of media out there that don't have romance as a focal point, media like The Lord of the Rings, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Letterkenny, Bob's Burgers, Reservation Dogs, What We Do in the Shadows, Derry Girls. Shows like Doctor Who have characters in romantic relationships, but the romance is never placed above friendship with the Doctor. The amount of romance in a piece of media also relies on the genre it's in. I've mainly been discussing comedies, science fiction, and action, but other media such as horror, for example, treats romance and sexuality differently.

Still, showing romance, sex, and innuendo in media isn't counterculture, as is suggested by that second Twitter post. It's almost everywhere you look (and lots of kid shows/movies even include those kinds of jokes, as is shown by the amount of videos I've seen titled "I Didn't Get This Joke as a Kid.") I know we're on the internet so people don't care if they hurt other people's feelings, but acting like people who want a little less romance are immature or stupid can be hurtful. There's room for all different types of relationships.

TL;DR, I think a lot of people are just tired of media treating romance and sex as the most important relationship you can have with a person. We're not saying no media should have romance or sexuality or innuendo in it. It's just that as media diversifies, I think it's important to diversify the types of relationships highlighted as well. There's room for romance, sex, and friendship in media, and I don't think people should judge others for wanting positive representation of friendship.

[black-bentley]

TC tag game

Thanks for the tags, @spudodell and @renaultphile, sorry it's taken me so long to actually get to this!

Rules: Answer the questions and tag other TC fans!

1. "He would not fucking say that" only they did and it's canon. When/who?

Laurie to Andrew, at their first meeting:

"... I read somewhere once, Tchaikovsky was queer."

It just feels a bit... 0-100 at that point for someone as repressed as Laurie is.

2. Did they kiss in the study? Yes/no + why you are 100% correct about this.

I think they did, and it was very much a peck rather than anything more. And I think Ralph's main motivation for it was to try and shock Laurie into backing off to save him being (as he sees it) corrupted by their continued association.

It makes sense of both their reactions, for me - I can see Ralph semi-angrily planting one on him more or less out of nowhere and then, when Laurie is (understandably) startled, going, "Now you see what I mean..." and then just steamrolling over Laurie's attempt to talk about it.

3. Mandatory question about Ralph's alleged tattoos.

I can see him having got one or two early in his career when he wanted to fit in. But somewhere easily covered (and possibly where he can't easily see them himself?), as I think they'd offend his desire for order and tidiness otherwise.

4. 53 vs 59 edition: quote a line or paragraph that is better in the edition you like the least.

I've only got the '53 edition to hand at the moment, but I think the hand on the knee in the car was cut for the '59... I like that little moment, it's just very clear what's going on there in comparison to a lot of their other interactions around that time.

I do also love the "Don't insult my intelligence" exchange that @spudodell picked out, I love Laurie - who's inclined to take himself a bit seriously - already being comfortable enough with Ralph to tease him like he does <3

5. Which TC character would feel right at home here on tumblr dot com?

Ralph. He'd be reblogging posts about polar exploration left, right and centre. And he'd be incredibly into The Terror but would never admit it.

6. Tag yourself at Alec's birthday party.

I'm definitely the "is it a queer book?" guy.

7. Post a TC meme.

Not actually a meme, but it always makes me think of TC...

8. Easy to talk about who deserved better. Who deserved worse?

Possibly controversial - Alec. He doesn't seem to care about Sandy's feelings or respect him all that much, and strikes me as someone who likes being in a relationship so they've got company when they want it, but isn't all that interested in actually making a commitment himself.

9. You can break the fourth wall (at any point in the novel) and say a single sentence to our protagonist, Laurie Odell. What do you say?

I'd tell him not to dismiss Reg as abruptly as he does. That friendship could definitely have continued, because Reg clearly knew Laurie was queer and was determined to (albeit clumsily) make the point that he didn't view him differently because of it.

10. What's a question you have about TC? One you haven't found an answer for yet.

What was in Ralph's letter to Laurie, the one that was returned after Dunkirk?

I'm pretty sure everyone has already been tagged but if anyone hasn't, and wants to join in, then please do!

[leejeann]

I finally started watching Bungo Stray Dogs (after attempting to start like 4 times by watching the first ep then not going back lol) and 7 episodes I still can NOT get a read on the vibe of this show lmao

Off the top of my head: *inhale* Orphan kid was kicked out of the orphanage and told to die in a ditch. He's also running from a tiger? No wait, he IS the tiger?? and also shares a VA with Ryuji from Persona 5 (idk the voice just fits so well I had to mention it lol). This other dude wants to kill himself. He's silly as hell about it. They all have super powers! No wait one of them only thinks he has powers and everyone just rolls with it. This other dude's power makes a digital landscape around him which is kind of neat. He also has a sister and I will not elaborate. They're all really skilled and clever. A very capable detective agency! They're also all so dumb (affectionate). A bomb is going to explode and kill people if they can't find it. The outro music starts playing over that reveal and hilariously dilutes the tension. They save a woman from drowning in a warehouse but a bunch of guys die in a gas chamber. Some of the detectives tease one of the others for having a crush on the woman. She commits suicide by cop. There's a mafia that wants to kidnap and sell one of the main characters on the black market. One of the detectives used to work for the mafia. He is relentlessly shipped with one of the other mafia members (I assume), who I've seen SO much fan content of I could recognize him instantly despite not even getting to his introduction yet. I swear I've seen people talk about how heavy or complex some of the characters are. The second popular tag when I typed "bungo-" in the tags on this post was "bungo gay dogs."

I'm just here for the ride at this point. I've seen clips from later seasons and yet somehow feel like I still no nothing of where the plot goes. So far this show seems so silly and so dark all at once lol

[epersonae]

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @yerbamansa, thanks!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

169 😅 150 of which are for The Adventure Zone (I wrote a LOT of small fic for TAZ, and just a lot of TAZ fic in general)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

604,338, which remains absolutely wild to me. I hit the half-million mark this year.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently Our Flag Means Death, but previously The Adventure Zone, and I have one Star Trek (TOS movies) fic.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Sea of Love (Our Flag Means Death (TV)) (6,697 words)

Phoenix Fire (The Adventure Zone (Podcast)) (2,031 words)

Commit to the Bit (Our Flag Means Death (TV)) (2,471 words)

Dinner & Conversation (The Adventure Zone (Podcast)) (826 words)

I have begun to long for you (Our Flag Means Death (TV)) (4,185 words)

Yeah, ok, some fun reunion porn for the big fandom and a collab with two pretty popular writers for the small fandom make sense for that top two in particular.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to, especially since I don't get that many, and I love getting comments so much that I just want to share my appreciation. Sometimes the spoons are low, sometimes I don't know what to say except "thanks!" and if someone just commented on several chapters I might not do that for all of them.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Well, Phoenix Fire is the Worst Ending, aka the destruction of the entire universe, plus unbearably sad between the main characters, so yeah.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I do have quite a bit of fluffy fic (Commit to the Bit comes to mind, there's also a Fantasy Costco Kravitz/Taako that's very sweet), but I immediately thought of for the benefit of all the broken hearts, just because it takes an incredibly bittersweet ending of the fic it's fixing and says FUCK THAT, how can everyone get a happy ending instead?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've never gotten any, even managed to avoid the twitter wank that WFU got when I wrote fics of it! (long ago, I did get some vagueblogging about some stuff in my TAZ fic, but nothing ever addressed directly at me)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

That is where I started and why I started (my first smutty fic is pretty bad imho but it was popular, relatively speaking, because for a bit there it was the only unlocked smut for that pairing); my original rarepair was M/F bi4bi in a complicated polycule, and so there's some them+others works in there. (readers of for the benefit of all the broken hearts are nodding along like "ok this tracks") beyond that, I'm just going to say go look at my work.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Is for the benefit of all the broken hearts (and the rest of that series) a crossover??????? Like I'm legitimately staring into space thinking about the boundary line between modern AU and RPF and........ HUH.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

DO PEOPLE DO THAT

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

183 thousand words in a series: the only life you could save, with my beloved Ryn, when we were "just friends" - started as our attempt to co-write a reconciliation between Taako and Lucretia, and spun out into an entire timeline with themes spanning before the Stolen Century all the way into post-canon. Some pieces we wrote separately, much of it we wrote together. Even the last piece, which I published after Ryn died, includes a section that they wrote, about Taako trying to cope with Lucretia's death.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Probably Mulder/Scully lol, tho I don't know if I've ever read any fic of them????

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

One of my very first TAZ fics was a Hurley/Sloane backstory fic that was going to be basically a beat-for-beat retelling of The Fast and the Furious (oh, I guess that's also sort of a crossover?), but I only ever wrote the first chapter. I would love to write it at some point, because I think it would be fun as hell.

I'd also love to finish my TAZ Amnesty fic, sweetness follows, which is friends-to-lovers post-canon Minerva/Duck.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Character voice, I think. Possibly a stupid depth of canon knowledge for whatever the canon is, and I think I have a knack for figuring out how to reincorporate those details. Honestly, it's hard for me to say "oh these are my strengths and weaknesses", or at least today I'm having trouble pinning that down.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Punctuation Pokemon, or rather, my sentences do get very tangly. I find endings really tricky, I've done a lot of work thinking through how to stick the landing. (This is one of the ways in which Ryn continues to live in my head, because they could always spot when I hadn't quite made it.)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Alas my Spanish (high school and college) is too rusty to even try, and I don't know any other languages.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The Adventure Zone, although I wrote quite a bit of Agatha Christie pastiche in junior high, and a lot of Anne Rice influenced original fiction in high school and college.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I love a lot of my fic, it's fun to go back and look and say "oh that!", and The Reckoning Arrives is up there, of course, because I loved writing it, and it saved my life. ("she's survived the impossible before" got me out of my marriage and 2 years later got me through the hospital. "you're here, so be here" got me through what came after that.)

But it does have to be for the benefit of all the broken hearts - she lives in my head, still, and I feel incredibly proud of all the work I put into it, the technical work, the emotional work.

---

Not tagging anybody, but PLEASE! if you feel like talking about your writing, do it!

[plasmalink]

Asuka Spells Tier List (from a floor 9 player)

Because I can't find an Asuka discord, and barely hear about people talking about the character, I'm putting myself out here to talk about his spells.

warning! long ass text ahead!!!!

S - Mana regen is by far the best spell. It gives you so much more leeway on offense and defense, and easily pays for itself. This is the main reason to go into Test Case 3 IMO. Lets you regain resources just by playing defensively without needing to commit to recovering mana. Green cubes are also fantastic in neutral, usually forcing your opponent to block or commit to something huge. Gives you a moment to breathe, and it catches people way more than I'd expect. Auto Import is also huge, the other half of exodia (the former being regen) that allows you to just go NUTS with your spells. However, it fucks with my muscle memory not needing to redraw spells, meaning I frequently cast a spell, then discard the spell I just got. Oops.

A - All of these are really close. Blue cube is just a really nice, fast projectile that establishes a threat. Accipiter metron is great both if your opponent does or does not read your spells, either threatening or surprising an overhead. The bounce is huge too, giving you plenty of time to confirm into a full combo. I don't think many other characters have fast grounded overheads into full combo. Screamer just WINS round start. There's enough in TC1 to be somewhat consistent about it, too. It's also fantastic at just catching the opponent pressing buttons, or low airdashes, not even mentioning its guard crush. Fire cubes are great, but their levelling system makes them a little bit awkward to use at times. Still, a consistent level 4 or 5 fire cubes would make S tier easy. Terra metron is actually like, way better in the air? Even though it's no longer a low, it just hits at such a weird angle and distance that nobody expects, also with a nice pop-up. Works great on the ground too, but you already have your e-sports 2D in a similar niche, though with less reward. Electric cube I find is a bit worse than the speedy blue cube, but not by much. Fantastic if you're already in a combo, but it losing to a single hit or projectile makes it slightly sad in neutral. Mana discount is store brand mana regen. Similar end result, but while Mana Regen lets you take your time, get you out of mana-less state faster, and even works while you're getting comboed, discount only does anything when you are casting spells. Nice if you've already gotten a solid footing, but sometimes doesn't help.

B - Restock is nice. It's saved my ass quite a few times when I had no meter and no spells. It's also sat on my spell bar doing nothing because I have other spells I don't need to refill (Or worse, I have like two staves I can't find a moment to discard/cast). Tardus metron is mainly an Oki tool, but a very good one. The fact that it still dies in one hit or projectile gives it limited neutral use, but it certainly does lock down an opponent. Also fun when you have a staff down. Teleport is pretty situational, and I think 4 is too many copies of it in TC3. I don't like having more than two in hand at once. It raises Arpeggio and itself both a full tier when you have both, though. Great against people who don't read your spells. Boost zap is kind of a worse screamer? I rarely see it outside of level 1. Still, a worse screamer is still pretty nice. I think it's also possible to combo from midscreen? Though going fullscreen with screamer is also perfectly fine for Asuka. Arpeggio is undoubtedly cool as FUCK. However, it's slow and expensive (24% mana! That's 3 blue cubes!) to cast. Sampler is okay. Copy of the next spell you cast. Also fucks with my muscle memory like auto import. I wish it was in the same test case as Accipiter, it would be very funny for multiple overheads in a row. Aquila kind of sucks but it's also very nice to have, if that makes sense? Your only invincible move, metered or otherwise. Very nice against people who DO read your spells, as they might opt to forgo meaties on your wakeup unless they have a safejump.

C - It's hard to be mad at chaotic option, it does have some nice ass spells, but I'd also much rather just draw those spells in the first place rather than needing to cast this to draw them though. Suck staff is the funniest one, lets you perform the most heavily scaled combos known to man. One thing I'll say about all the staves though, it's annoying to have to actually cast them. They take about as much time as an electric cube, and sometimes my hand gets clogged with them and I need to manually discard them. Fast staff gives you some nice guard crushes, makes your pressure up close very nice and very annoying from afar. Slow staff is worse than fast staff, but it makes people freeze up when they see a wall of cubes, giving you plenty of time to get your shit in order and regenerate some mana. Nice after a burst. Instant mana, I don't like very much. The mana boost is appreciated, but leaving yourself without spells sucks. 53% mana on an otherwise empty hand isn't bad though. Use it when you have 50 meter to go into full order. Random import does address my issue of being stuck with 2 staffs and a teleport in your hand, but the fact that it doesn't import on empty slots hurts it.

D - Repel staff, meh. Don't like it much. Still kind of funny though Down staff: Has that instant overhead with Jump D, but I still struggle to find much use. Up staff: boing! good against may maybe? Or anyone else who really likes jump-ins?

Alright, that's the list. Any other Asuka players, feel free to light me up.

[deltaengineering]

Spring Anime 2023: It builds character

Yuri is my Job!

I really wanted to like this one. As a noted Marimite enjoyer, as much as I like the stilted, abstract and operatic vibe of Class S, I also always felt that it's also a prime avenue for metafiction that takes a closer look at how bizarre that setting really is when looked at from outside. So this show about a bunch of girls that have to act out Class S gayfabe in a themed cafe seemed to have limitless potential.

There's only two problems with Watayuri: The first one is that it's not that show. It does not really engage with its setting much and is mostly interested in just being straightforward heightened yuri drama. This seems to be a case of the Re:Zeros or Mob Psychos: The writer is intimately familiar with the tropes, but isn't really interested in actually engaging with them beyond surface level, so they just wrote essentially Another One Of Those with a few jokes.

So that's a disappointment, but since this genre is so rare in anime I'd still have gladly taken it if it was good. But... it's not. Not only is it not Metamite, it's not even a bad Marimite; It's more like a bad Citrus. Drama like this requires really good characters, and all the characters in Watayuri are gimmicky and shallow: Hime's base characteristic is that she puts up a fake personality, which is treated with all the nuance an isekai writer exhibits when they make their main character OP via giving them a cheat skill, and she has just forgotten than Yano used to be her best friend. All other drama derives from this bad idea, so none of it really works. I could go through the entire cast but this review is already too long, so suffice it to say, if they seem interesting that only lasts as long as it takes for their drama to arrive.

It's really a shame, because even with these simplistic, unlikeable characters you could have made an entertaining, (early) Kaguya-ish comedy — which is why the few instances where they do exactly that save the show from being worthless. But still, having to admit the best episode in the entire thing is the one where the new uniforms make Yano's breasts look too big really points out the problem here. 5/10

Skip and Loafer

Skip and Loafer does raise a profound question: Can a show be so much of a 6/10 that it becomes a 5/10? I'm honestly surprised how little I enjoyed this show, because there's nothing really obviously wrong with it: it's lighthearted, cute, amusing, relatable, etc., and I've enjoyed many a banal Kiraralike in the past. But in the end, I think the reason is that there really isn't anything substantive to Skip and Loafer. It's bland and inoffensive to a fault and devoid of anything even remotely edgy. It's not funny enough to work as a comedy, it's not a romance because it really doesn't commit to that, and we'll get to the "drama".

The only really driving factor (and the show's biggest asset, as it were) is Mitsumi's tryhard but good-natured personality, and that can only get the show so far, especially since all the character development she gets is to become more normal and boring. As an aside that doesn't really fit anywhere else: I also really dislike hearing the clipped, stilted way Kurosawa delivers her lines in this show, which is weird because she's usually a very good actress. Shima is just boring from the start and has no chemistry with Mitsumi, and when he imports some contrived crazy ex drama into the show at the end it's eyerollingly stupid, but hey, that's as close to "something happening" as the show ever gets. Not that it matters with how inconsequential it is. The supporting cast is generally mildly amusing, but they're just sort of there and don't offer anything meaningful besides their presence.

Sure, none of those issues are close to dealbreakers, but what's lacking is a deal in the first place. I can understand why someone would like the show and I would not recommend against it, but it's just way too shallow. Even for me. 5/10

Jigokuraku

If you want to know what's bad about Jigokuraku, here it is: Glacial pacing, an intense amount of jargonbabble, flashbacks in the middle of fights everywhere, running commentary by bystanders on everything that happens, random powerups galore, and no ending.

However, I would assume that nobody saw the first episode and went away thinking "oh boy, sure hope this isn't an extra edgy shounen fighting manga". It most definitely is what it is, but with expectations duly adjusted, Jigokuraku is... fine, actually. It's got cool visuals, good production values, a fantastic OP (if nothing else, the show's a good excuse to listen to that song once a week), and most importantly really good characters for a show like this. None of them are particularly deep, but when they're just there to:

Be mammals,

Fight ALL the time,

Have the purpose to flip out and kill people,

I'm already content if they're more interesting than the ISO standard Shounen Jump (i.e., Dragonball Z) cast. It's just fun seeing Sagiri fret over whether she's really good enough at beheading people, or Gabimaru doing everything for a wife that may or may not exist, or Yuzuriha getting out her... well, let's stop this here. This show is cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet. 6/10

Otaku Edomae Elf

I was pretty skeptical of this one at the beginning, because self-serving otaku jokes tend to get very old and also because the author uses RPG Elves as a shortcut to "immortal ancient being", which isn't a sign of high ambitions, especially nowadays. And while the elf part doesn't really matter one way or the other, the majority of the show is indeed Elda being a nerd and doing nerd things. It's not a large majority though, and the rest of the show provides an interesting thematic framework to hang the jokes on. The real core of the show is the odd couple relationship between Koito and Elda, with the former desperately wanting to be an adult while the latter has been around for practically forever while still being completely immature. It's very cute and sweet, and it's even better in the occasional moments where it becomes bittersweet because both of them are well aware of the only way this can end up. Skip and Loafer take note: you don't have to have much, but you have to have something.

It of course helps that Edomae Elf (the name that I prefer, for obvious reasons) is well made; It's very expressive and has good comedic timing, which are the key factors for a sitcom like this. I'll also note the OP; it goes unreasonably hard and is possibly even better than Jigokuraku's. And even if otaku jokes are a low-hanging fruit, the show usually does a good job with them. The exactly one (1) legally obligated history lesson per half-episode feels a bit too forced though. And that's pretty much it with this anime, it's not the most ambitious but it's very charming and moderately thoughtful, even if its structure is holding it back somewhat. 7/10

Heavenly Delusion

Very rarely do we get a TV anime where the main artistic impulse just seems to be "we don't give a fuck what you think, lol", but here it is: Heavenly Delusion is mostly just wild. Sure, postapocalyptic roadmovies aren't exactly a new idea, but I usually like them, so that's a good start, and this one in particular comes with an interesting setting and a bunch of great characters. But what really elevates Heavenly Delusion is its command of tone, or in particular, its ability to run circles around tone issues. This show can snap from comedy to drama to mystery to action to horror unpredictably and quickly, and it's a marvel that any of this works at all, but on top of that it has a fondness for exceedingly touchy subjects and each episode could probably come with its own unique set of trigger warnings. It really reminds me of a Fire Force without the shounen bullshit, and that's high praise.

Clearly the writer has a lot of skill, but the anime direction and production takes it to the next level. Heavenly Delusion has great direction and movie-level production values throughout, and then does flexes like getting a bunch of KyoAni guys in to make a mawkish KyoAni episode that's better than anything KoyAni has made in years, and later getting a bunch of TRIGGER guys in to make a wacky TRIGGER episode that's better than anything TRIGGER has done in years. Ya love to see it.

But given all the hairy stuff this show attempts, it can't have a 100% success rate, right? And no, it does not always succeed. It's not even a surprise that it happens, it's rather a surprise it only happens so late, at the ending – where it hurts the most. For starters, it doesn't really have an ending. That's to be expected from an ongoing and long manga, but it's still a bummer. But more critically, said abrupt stoppage happens right after one of the grimmest arcs in the show. This is sadly the one point where the tone falls apart; they didn't want to end on a down note, but it just doesn't work to go from ultra rape o'clock to "our fun adventure continues, bye :D" in one and a half scenes. The show has dealt with heavy material before and it has proven it can pull off the swerve off, but in that instance it just runs out of air time before it can actually do it. So while it's unreasonable to expect the show to be several times as long as it is, it would at least have sorely needed one more episode to uncompress its ending. I guess that if you consistently play with fire, you get burnt eventually, but at least there were pretty lights. A second season would be much appreciated. 8/10

The Witch from Mercury

Back when G-Witch started its break, I said that "all they have to do was not mess with a good thing". Obviously, they messed with a good thing and Sulemio cuteness was replaced with them both suffering alone for the majority of the second half. So now what? The plot in this second half is best described as "messy". Notably, it's lacking in throughline: First it's all about opaque machinations and corporate backstabbing, then lol jk that doesn't matter and everyone pulls a Death Star out of their ass, and then that gets resolved with the Power of Love™ and vague Newtype mysticism. Gundams gonna Gundam, I suppose. Towards the end it also obviously runs out of time, and everything needs to happen very quickly, yet it still keeps on piling on subplots for various reasons — be it corporate franchise mandates like "we made a Schwarzette toy, now deal with it somehow", some thing that was set up ages ago that now has to pay off somehow no matter what (like Notrette's whole deal) or just the pure mechanics of shuffling pieces into place for something that never needed to be this complicated in the first place.

However, despite this large-scale jank G-Witch still ends up a very good show purely based on its writing detail. It doesn't really matter all that much that scenes barely fit together and are jammed against each other without connective tissue when the scenes themselves almost always deliver on their own terms. In particular, G-Witch consistently has great character moments no matter how weird the route to get to them is. That dumb Lauda subplot that's only there to sell HG Schwarzettes? Its true payoff is the best Felsi moment in the show when she just walks in and aborts the misbegotten plot tumor. Was it really worth it making a whole "Guel stumbles into Iron-Blooded Orphans" episode when the show desperately needed more time to wrap up its main plot? Maybe not, but Guel getting told by random ass mercenaries that he needs to man the fuck up before him doing exactly that is just an extremely satisfying moment no matter what.

And while the epilogue is a bit flat on the plot side, it has to be said that while cheesy as hell it takes the time to send every character off properly and gives everyone a happy ending (Sulemio paying off in the end isn't much of a surprise since I don't think that Ookouichi wants to spend the rest of his life in the witness protection program). That is pretty much the show in a nutshell, ultimately it's less well constructed than it sh/c-ould have been and it's held back by being a Gundam show after all, but it's always entertaining, and that is what matters the most. 8/10

Insomniacs After School

While I don't know why I dislike Skip and Loafer, I am also not quite sure why I love this show so much. The concept takes some suspension of dislike right away, because I am extremely skeptical of "sadboi stumbles into magical girlfriend that's prefect but only compatible with him in this one specific random way". But boy, once it gets rolling it nails the whole "first love, also big seishun energy" in a rare form that we haven't seen since Tsuki ga Kirei. It's all in the characters once again, and Ganta in particular is exceptionally well constructed. He seems whiny and self-centered at first, but as it turns out, yeah, he's supposed to be like that (his first big character development milestone is him realizing that other people have problems too and that his woe-is-me attitude isn't helpful), plus he has a very understandable reason. He still has that attitude, but now we know he can't help it. It's the rare case of "relatable" and "backstory drama" done right - the drama is there, but it's in the past, can be established in a tiny amount of time and doesn't suck the enjoyment out of the present. And then you can drag it up and swiftly deal with it when the story calls for it — The point is not to have maximum drama onscreen, but to motivate the characters. Magari has this going too (even if I think she still ends up being a bit too "perfect" for my taste, to be honest), and even Yui, someone we know almost nothing about, ends up feeling unique and well rounded, so I think it's fair to say that Skip and Loafer's lacking characters are just a skill issue. Add to that a more one-note but enjoyable supporting cast, and you have a banger of feelgood, wholesome and yes, monumentally cheesy puppy love about a bunch of cute dorks that you can't help but grin about. The production values don't always quite hold up, but who cares when it knows what it wants to be and goes all in when it needs to, and yes, it does have as satisfying and ending as you can expect from one of these. Grand fromage avec compétence is probably not the palate cleanser for everyone, but it's my blog so skill with it. 9/10

[mejomonster]

I have branched off from Yakuza games and am now playing Judgement

1 this game is so fucking pretty

2 Ryu ga gotoku games are like. 1/3 fun weird do what you want slice of life 1/3 serious deadly angst crime drama 1/3 cutscenesssss (the movies so many movies and I'm used to kingdom hearts level cutscenes but damn rgg games feel like I'm Playing a yakuza TV show sometimes for both good and bad)

3 Yagami wears skinny jeans I'm calling him a millennial (although he may be Gen x and older than me? Depends how much younger he is than kiryu I guess o3o) I just think it's funny I'm playing this adult private detective in a white undershirt a leather jacket and skinny jeans he just looks like me in college lmao. U roll up to the yakuza family who paid ur lawyer degree and can commit crimes while ur fucking Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright who accidentally got a real serial killer acquitted and u look like a bisexual college disaster. Congrats. Ur really rocking A Specific Vibe my dude. Nothing like Kiryus "I'm wearing my 80s suit forever or else a Hawaiian flower shirt" vibe but definitely A Distinct one. It makes Yagami feel way more modern but like... My age group modern rather than the gen z modern kid who probably just turned 18 when this came out

4 Yagami. I'm a gay shdjfj I'm sorry death note did this to me. It's beyond hilarious to me he's got a same last name as Light Yagami thank FUCK this Yagami is an ex lawyer and now private eye. If he'd have been yet another cop I would've well. Dreaded his potential as anything but evil frankly. Even Date, Kiryus bro, quit the force to be a journalist (at least for a while).

5 finally a return to form in the sense there's MULTIPLE CUTE MEN ON SCREEN. Yakuza 0, Kiwami 1, Kiwami 2 all basically gave u hot leads and hot bad guys. Basically if a fucker was hot and not ur best friend then he was gonna be the main villain. Then I played Yakuza 7 Like a Dragon and for the most part very few hotties (saeko, tianyou, the guy with white hair, and maybe ichiban if you happen to like that kinda guy but if u didn't think kiryu was eyecandy then ichiban isnt really either). I'm glad there's now like at least 1 cutie on screen again at all times. Cause I can be shallow sometimes. Djdjf also the pick for Yagamis coworker ex yakuza guy is like nishiki eye candy compared to the kiryu/ichiban variety (which I love with my whole heart but it's not oogle type). His coworker is like akiyama or Tachibana or majima design wise. It's <3 and with a flowery kiryu type shirt but long sleeved and silky

6 I am still reeling that ur basically playing Phoenix Wright if he fucked up and saved a serial killer. But still impressive u know, to win as a defense attorney in Japan with that 99.9 conviction rate (also kudos to the game saying it immediately). I wonder if Yagami has his own Edgeworth? (God but not shinitani his sempai nooo not him he's introduced to early! Tho... u could argue he's his lawyer rival kinda).

7 playing all evening I still haven't found any side missions? I hope this game still has side stories??

8 I actually love the detective portions which I imagine annoyed some people but I love being a little fucking detective figuring stuff out it's why I love Devil Summoner Raidou game and mystery shows and novels and its just fun to me puts a little spice on a murder mystery story shdhd in yakuza games kiryu just hears a bitch dies, now I get to go figure out if the fucker actually killed someone. It's fun to be in like a random outsiders shoes while functionally the same opening to Yakuza 0 happens where kiryu doesn't kill a guy but is suspected. Except instead of playing the suspect, u play the outsider trying to figure out who's actually dropping ppl dead in kamurocho. It's a nice fresh perspective shift on a pretty common plot occurrence in the yakuza games.

[herlenebwriter]

[REVIEW] SHATTER ME (BOOK #1)

AUTHOR: Tahereh Mafi

GENRE: YA, Dystopian, Romance, Thriller

𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: ★✰☆☆☆ - 1.75 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀

───※ ·𓁹· ※───

𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪

I tend to not have great expectations for very hyped, very popular books, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I had little to none for this one.

But what I surely didn't expect was having to sit through several chapters of:

•fifty shades of purple prose,

•barely followable internal monologue,

•ridiculous metaphors,

•numbers written in digits,

•interesting non-use of punctuation,

•exhausting recurring repetitions

•and an overwhelming amount of crossed out sentences.

The first 20-something chapters at least were quite literally packed with the aforementioned things. Going through it was almost draining – and I don't mind purple prose. I was rather under the impression that the author was trying so hard to write in a unique way and... well, they tried too hard.

⚠️Now, before anyone comes at me, I know this was the author's stylistic choice aimed to portray a mentally unstable, scared, mistreated, neglected and isolated main character in a 1st person POV. Trust me, I know, and I respect it. Actually, I think it was a great idea! But not quite as greatly executed. Probably just wasn't my cup of tea.

The plot is overall enjoyable, but it's kinda all over the place. The point is lost among the pretentious writing style and romantic sequences. More than 50% of this book bored me to death or caused a crippling "wtf" moment in my brain. The last dozen of chapters was good though. Saved the book from a cold one-star rating.

Characters are as deep as cardboard. No offense to cardboard.

I felt like none of them except the FMC made any progress at all. Not even the love interest that accompanies her throughout the entire book. The antagonist gives me the chills, and not in a positive, intriguing way. He's just insufferable, delusional and a creep.

Other characters are either narrative devices or foil. No mind of their own, let alone characterization. I felt absolutely nothing.

The dystopian worldbuilding is scattered and crushed under the overdose of romance and making out, not to mention it's shamelessly ripped off by dystopians classics.

I didn't dislike this book entirely.

But it's sad that whenever I think about it, all that comes to mind is what it could have been.

Not gonna lie, DNF-ing this book looked tempting for a while. But I still pushed through. I think I deserve a little medal for practicing my commitment.

I'm confident enough I'm going to pick up the next in the series. Maybe to answer some of my questions (hopefully!) or in the hope it'll be better than this one.

If you're still here, hi!! My name is Herlene, I'm a writer working on a fantasy series called "Chronia Chronicles" with my friend @callme-ayu, but I like reading a lot! Consider accompanying me in my first reviewing journey(!!) on this platform that scares me shitless I'm so excited about!!!

Warning: Themes of SA mentioned in the STORY section.

𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗬 - ★★★☆☆ 3/5 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀

The story at its core revolves around our female protagonist, Juliette Ferrars, a girl whose touch can kill, in her journey from self loathing to self acceptance. Just that, and it would've been amazing. In fact, if you ask me, that should've been the main focus of the book. Mind you, should've.

Tl;dr: Almost the entirety of the story bored me or I just disliked. The last chapters were good. I feel like the author missed the point of the book with all the romance overload.

↓↓↓

According to the synopsis, the book I was about to read on the blissful day I picked it up should have been a YA dystopian novel about a teenage girl finding her true strenght in a world on the brink of collapse. I said, "Perfect! Introducing teens to the dystopian genre with a self growth plot is absolutely hip!"

Boy I was wrong.

The booktok/bookstagram discussions that made this book popular tended to focus on the romance, but I brushed it off as book girlies obsessiong over attractive characters and making a big deal out of a romance subplot.

They were right.

This is not a dystopia with a touch of romance, this is a romance with a touch of dystopia.

Here lies my only short-lived expectation.

But let's move on. A good 92% of the plot cringed me in ways I didn't believe possible, but also somehow managed to keep me hooked and slightly curious of what might happen. It wasn't good, but neither all bad.

Juliette Ferrars is on the brink of going completely bananas because of touch starvation and lack of human interaction, when they assign her a new, suspiciously-male-presenting, attractive cellmate: Adam Kent.

The insta love + childhood friends to lovers combo between Juliette and Adam is just not it. Insta love with a lot of denial due to unfit circumstances? Could do, but this kind of desperate love at first sight is plain annoying. We spend a ridicolous chunk of chapters witnessing Juliette being weirdly obsessed with his eyes.

“His eyes are 2 buckets of rainwater: deep, fresh, clear.”

And... a bird?

“There will be a bird today. It will be white with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head. It will fly.”

You have no idea how many times she goes on about this bird. In my wildest hopes it would've signified something like freedom, something like the mockingjay in the Hunger Games which symbolized defiance against oppression.

Well, this recurring imagery is never thoroughly addressed or explained any further for the entire duration of the book, aside from revealing Adam has it tattoed on his macho-man muscles, so I'll probably never know.

The two instant-noodle lovers leave the asylum "thanks" to Warner, the antagonist, head of sector 45, attractive, barely an adult, and a mythic, insufferable bitch.

He's obsessed with Juliette and her murderous ability, so he wants to possess her. He brings her to his headquarters (basically a prison with commodities) and puts her through cruel tribulations for another big chunk of the story. For kind of no reason other than... being eViL??

He has clear mother and anger issues, enjoys inflicting pain to others and assert his dominance, with a pinch of delusional and psychotic tendencies. But he's completely smitten with her, so it's okay...? Apparently??

Yes, he's the only real other possibility of romance for Juliette other than Cardboard Guy and I feel like throwing up whenever she admits finding him hot. And obsessing over his eyes, too.

The only chance of conflict between J and A (where she feels betrayed because he's a Big Bad Re-establishment soldier and whines internally) is resolved in a matter of paragraphs and she obsesses over his eyes and muscles all over again.

Oh yeah, turns out he can touch her! And of course we'll never know why!!

What's important is that they can smooch under the shower (after she was put through reliving her traumatic experience by Warner) and plan their escape at whatever chance possible. When Warner isn't being a psycho bitch who shoots people at a whim and tortures/ogles a poor mentally unstable 17-year-old girl, to be clear.

Fast forward to their escape, they beat Warner way too easily, he whines to Juliette not to leave, like a pathetic delusional idiot, and grabs her ankle. He doesn't die.

Good grief. We're never gonna get rid of him.

Adam and Juliette smooch while running from loaded guns and lose their tracks by entering a nuclear field, which conveniently reacts by neutralizing the tracking serum in Adam's body, find a conveniently placed shed with a conveniently stolen tank inside. They smooch some more, Juliette broods about the way Warner desperately called her name and wonders why he's able to touch her, and then they depart.

Whenever they make out, which is awfully frequent, Adam and Juliette have the power to warp the flow of time and slow the pacing of the story down to absolute boredom. UGHHH.

They take shelter in an apartment where Adam's brother James lives.

It's overall a much appreciated, short lived semblance of a normal cozy little life, but it abruptly comes to an end when Kenji, one of Adam's comrades, appears at their door wounded. They let him in and he starts being utterly irritating for at least two chapters, in a forcibly comic-relief kind of way.

It basically cycles this way: Kenji flirts with Juliette, Juliette dismisses him, Adam wants to kill him. All over again. In the most annoying way.

Fortunately Warner's soldiers find them and put an end to this unbearable charade. They run for their lives.

But THIS is where it finally gets better!! This is what saved the book from a one-star rating!! The part that finally managed to keep me on the edge of my seat!!

It happens around chapter 38-40 out of 50. This means over 50% of this book I found lame as hell, but kept reading. Don't I deserve a medal or something for committing til the end?!? /hj

During this part we finally witness Juliette showing her claws and shooting Warner, who by the way literally ASSAULTS HER (this is something I can never forgive like I noticed many others do). This scene was gut wrenching and really made me feel on edge. I was a little put off by Juliette having a positive reaction to his kisses, but I decided to interpret it as having involuntary physical reactions to SA, though aware it's still assault, as may happen to assault victims. To save what's left of my sanity.

Anyway, she girlbosses all the remaining time, punching through steel (literally! it was so cool but I wish it was explained better), saving Adam Cardboard Kent, stealing and driving a car (with no experience and being so bad she aggravates Adam's injuries, which was fun and adorable in a way).

The Omega Point plot twist was very nice, too. Juliette finally has some character development, starting to see her lethal touch as a power she can use for good and not a curse that completely ruins her life.

I wish her development was more gradual instead of blooming late and all at once. Still, it happened (better late than never!) and was satisfying to read.

Now she's ready to fight with the resistance of Omega Point! Loved this finale!

Things are changing, but this time I’m not afraid. This time I know who I am. This time I’ve made the right choice and I’m fighting for the right team. I feel safe. Confident.

Excited, even.

Because this time?

I’m ready.

Conclusions: I was hit with the realization that this last dozen of chapters represented what I would have liked to see in a YA dystopian novel. A girl always treated as a menace realizing her true potential by finding a place where she's accepted and she can put her powers to good use. The romance with Adam fell flat and flavourless, and the most part of the book revolved around it, with some ripped off worldbuilding scattered around it (I'll get to that). Not to add that it's honestly kind of disheartening that the only other option until now is the twisted guy who re-enacted her traumatic experience.

If this book had been more centered on Juliette's evolution and less on her romances, would its point have stood out better?

𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗦 - ★☆☆☆☆ 1/5 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀

What can I say? There were a only a few prominent characters and none of them developed over the course of the story.

Unless you're James Joyce and you've decided to write Dubliners, the one principle of modern prose is that a character should reach the end of the story DIFFERENT from they way they were at the start. All of the trials that they face in-between are the reason why they change into something new.

Only one out of these characters reaches the end slightly changed. And that character is

•Juliette Ferrars

Starts out as a scrawny, socially awkward and mentally unstable 17-year-old. Neglected, mistreated and ultimately abandoned throughout all her life because of her lethal ability, it is understandable why she hasn't been able to develop the security we like to see in a female protagonist; on the contrary, she has only ever learned to despise herself as the monster everyone perceived her as. Especially after the traumatic experience of unwillingly killing a child.

She's extremely touch starved and internally conflicted because of the contrasting nature of her power and her needs. Maybe that's the reason why she clings to Adam in an unhealthy way. He's both the only person who can touch her and the only person who ever saw something good in her. For the most part of the story, she's dependent on him and his every little reaction. She needs to be wherever he is, otherwise she feels like dying or panics.

For example, when they reach Omega Point and the healers bring Adam in on a stretcher, she suffers a panic attack because she HAS to know where they're taking him and HAS to be with him at all times.

Only towards the end she shows some guts and self confidence, which was disappointingly fueled by needing to save Adam rather than herself, and only at the very end she finally accepts herself with her power.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I try to tell him. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” But he’s not listening and I’m wondering when I became a motivational speaker. When I made the switch from hating myself to accepting myself. When it became okay for me to choose my own life.”

But the crucial thing she doesn't grow out of, is her codependency from Adam. If we consider this, she never actually had any real change, and her evolution is only on a superficial level. She changes her mindset about her ability and finds a new born purpose into fighting the Re-establishment, but still depends on Adam to feel like she deserves to live.

Speaking of Juliette, what is her power all about?? From what I could gather: if she touches a person skin to skin, she quickly drains the life force out of them; but if she wears clothes over her body or someone touches her without skin contact, nothing happens. Which begs the question: what was the fuss all about?? She was dangerous, sure, but even her own parents were afraid of her and refused to touch her, while it was THAT easy.

It is hinted that she can use the life she absorbed to augment her strenght (when she smashes through concrete and plexiglass and steel), but since she can't control it, it only happens when she's feeling strongly about something. But when she smashes through steel to save Adam, she hadn't touched anybody in days other than him, who's immune.

She's the only one able to break the bond with her victim, but somehow Kenji manages to break free when she touches him during a panic attack.

Her powes are never explained clearly or even consistently represented, but I hope in the second book my questions will be answered!

•Adam Kent (aka Cardboard Cutout)

Plain at the beginning, plain at the end. Hasn't got the faintest hint of development throughout the whole book. A cardboard cutout would have deeper personality.

There's literally nothing special about him apart from adoring Juliette, praising Juliette, loving Juliette, fussing over Juliette, having blue eyes, tightening his jaw and combing a hand through his hair. Oh yeah, and being tatted and muscular.

He never really had a personality or purpose other than being Juliette's faithful standard partner and I feel like this is the main reason why people, including me, disliked him or never felt connected or anything to him.

But hey! At least he's not a crazy bastard like

•Warner

The most unbearable disgusting motherfucking villain I've ever had the chance to read. Everything about him was either irritating or discomforting.

He's a disgusting mush of red flags slapped on a young attractive face and a mellifluous way of speaking. Wattpad material man.

And the worst thing, the worst thing is that the author herself bends over backwards to support him. He's her damn favorite character and she wants him to end up with Juliette, and IT SHOWS.

Let me just list some of the red flags I remember:

🚩Is obsessed with Juliette

🚩Treats her like his possession

🚩Doesn't care about her opinion

🚩Is delusional

🚩 Everything has to go his way or else, it's giving rich kid mentality

🚩Clads her in skimpy dresses like a damn Barbie

🚩Ogles her every time he has a chance

🚩Made her touch one of his own soldiers and nearly kill him to satisfy his morbid curiosity

🚩Always tried to encourage the worst and most twisted side of her, finding pleasure in convincing her to embrace monstrosity and violence, and all of that to feel less lonely?

🚩Wants her to touch him because he wants to know what it feels like TO DIE?!? This is more like concerning btw. The only thing that makes me mad is that, he didn't know he was immune when asking for that, so he would willingly burden her conscience with another death. That's just twisted. I don't see the love or care in that.

🚩Made her relive the trauma of killing a child by locking her up in a spiky torture chamber and having her try to save a toddler with her bare hands, resulting in nearly killing it three times and traumatizing her all over again!!

🚩Killed a man in cold blood in front of her to show dominance and power

🚩Was on his way to torture the only person she cared about

🚩SA'd her!!! What are we even arguing about?!?

Positive traits:

✅Is handsome

✅Is young

✅Is certainly more interesting than Cardboard Cutout and Random Comic Relief

✅Didn't assault Juliette in her sleep

✅Fed her real food

✅Did something even measly attractive so he's excused of all his shit

I'm not into dark romances and it shows. My standards are too high. Or are everyone's too low?

Anyway, there is nothing in the world that can make me forgive him. I don't know what's worse, him or Adam. I already know the author wants to have him end up with Juliette, it's pretty clear. She even made him conveniently immune to her touch!! And the booktok discussion is all about those two, so...

•James Kent

(literally so unimportant I can't even find arts of him)

Adorable baby who's just here to show there's still hope for this rotten world and give Adam a figment of purpose and personality other than Juliette.

It's not like he has any personality of his own other than being cheeky or adorable and having nightmares. He's cute though and managed to give me some rest among the pitiful worldbuilding situation and Adam and Juliette constantly making out.

•Kenji Kishimoto (aka Random Comic Relief)

Comic relief character. Was painfully irritating upon his introduction, but I started liking him more towards the end.

His dialogues are standard chill guy character, but I wouldn't mind if he avoided saying "bro" 843837 times in a sentence. Or talking about the MC as if she isn't there.

The other characters were foil. Nothing particularly remarkable.

𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗟𝗗𝗕𝗨𝗜𝗟𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗚 - ★★☆☆☆ 2/5 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀

Pollution, corruption and hyper exploitation of our resources finally took a toll on our world when the cattle gets sick and dies, birds go extinct, crops wither, the clouds change colour and the seasons are all over the place! Starving is all the rage these days on Earth! But do not fret, the Re-establishment is going to take control and make everything all right again!

Except they only took control by leveraging on the fear of people. Basically conquered the entire world and divided it in sectors. Kept the resources to themselves to live an opulent life, while said people either starve or carry out logorating work. Food is chemically made in labs and has zero taste or nutritional values. Anyone not acting like a robot is locked up or killed by the Big Bad Government™.

Standard grey-coloured dystopian worldbuilding based on elevating existing issues of our time to the point of no return, and by that raising some awareness. Good job, author!

Too bad it's barely visible under the romance.

And it's a rip-off of "1984" by George Orwell and "Fahreneit 451" by Ray Bradbury. Making a new, government-friendly, limited English language which has to be spoken all over the world (God forbid linguistic diversity) and burning down books? Yeah. Heard of it.

“They’re destroying everything,” Adam says, and his voice is suddenly a solemn sound in the silence. “All the books, every artifact, every remnant of human history. They’re saying it’s the only way to fix things. They say we need to start fresh. They say we can’t make the same mistakes of previous generations.”

This trivia is recounted by Adam in the cell to horrify Juliette a little. Never brought up again and obviously never shown in the world around them.

Because they never really set foot in the outside world and interact with anyone of the common folk, who might be the only ones influenced by these changes. They're either isolated, or on the privileged military grounds, or in the rebellion headquarters. It never really affects them.

Lore is thrown here and there by Juliette completely changing her internal monologue language register, like the Lorax possessed her or something. Or by indirectly reported speech of other characters. No show, too much tell.

I wish it had a greater role in the story, rather than providing mere background.

𝗪𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 - ★✩✩✩✩ 1/5 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀

Last but not least, the borderline purple prose! The only part of this book I outright disliked and the reason for my almost-DNF.

Tl;dr: purple prose so bad it might as well be baroque poetry

It's packed with metaphors so forced they just look ridiculous. Sometimes they don't even make sense. Baroque poets would like to welcome author into their circle, but thank goodness they're dead!

Allow me to provide some examples:

Forever. “I don’t know.” A mechanical sound creaks/groans/cranks in the distance. My life is 4 walls of missed opportunities poured into concrete molds.

(...huh?)

I only know now that the scientists are wrong.

The world is flat.

(...flat earthers representation?)

(cont'd) I know because I was tossed right off the edge and I’ve been trying to hold on for 17 years. I’ve been trying to climb back up for 17 years but it’s nearly impossible to beat gravity when no one is willing to give you a hand.

(wait until she hears of the pac-man theory)

His lips soften into a smile that cracks apart my spine.

(girl are you okay???)

I blink 1,000 times in the blackness. “You have to take them off.”

(this is not a metaphor but it doesn't make any sense either way)

These words are vomit.

This shaky pen is my esophagus.

This sheet of paper is my porcelain bowl.

WHAT???? THIS IS JUST DISGUSTING I JUST PICTURED IT UGHHH NO. like i get what you're trying to say but THIS IS JUST NOT IT

I always wonder about raindrops.

I wonder about how they’re always falling down, tripping over their own feet, breaking their legs and forgetting their parachutes as they tumble right out of the sky toward an uncertain end. It’s like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn’t seem to care where the contents fall, doesn’t seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground, that they shatter when they fall to the floor, that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors.

I am a raindrop.

And here, YES again I get what she's trying to say, but the comparison is ridicolous. Raindrops "tripping over their own feet"? "breaking their legs"?? Two entire paragraphs to say she feels abandoned?

I don't know... it just feels unnecessarily full of these metaphors for literally nothing at times. She uses a different set of metaphors to describe Adam's eyes and later Warner's, or every little thing she sees. Maybe I'd even find it beautiful, if it weren't so frequent and uhh... weird.

The numbers written as numbers are a book pet peeve mine. Dates, big numbers, that's fine. But if you know how to spell the word "four" why would you write "4"? Did anyone even edit this???

In one of these, she uses SLASHES?!?!? THIS IS NOT EVEN STYLISTIC

Punctuation is almost completely absent in the flow of thought sequences, making them even harder to follow than they already are. Also, they mostly happen whenever Juliette receives male attention or panics. Both of which happen frequently throughout the book.

Luckily, these things somehow gradually decreased after the first twenty-ish chapters, when Juliette leaves the asylum. So it was more bearable to read until the end.

----

Congratulatuons! You've reached the end of my first lenghty dissection of Shatter Me! This is the first of a series of popular booktok books I want to read for the sake of knowledge. If you liked long, honest reviews with a vein of sarcasm, consider following me on social media!

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[wynsbackagain]

Things BHUS Did Better Than BHUK (IMO)

(Spoilers for both versions of Being Human.) This post isn't meant to start any kind of fandom war. It's just my biased opinions.

1: Aidan and Rebecca actually face consequences for Bernie being turned.

I remember watching that story arc in the original and thinking how Mitchell's decision to try and "save" Bernie made no sense given his stance on vampirism, and how it also made no sense that Bernie and his mom basically walked off into the sunset with no follow-up. Bernie would have likely ended up killing his mom and so on, and aside from vague implications, the choice never comes back on Mitchell.

In the US version, it of course crosses Aidan's mind to go that route, but he decides against it for the same reason he didn't save Cara. It is Rebecca who then turns Bernie in a misguided attempt to please Aidan, and while her stupidity tests my willing suspension of disbelief a little, what happens next actually makes more sense within the narrative.

Regardless of whether or not Bernie had actually killed those bullies, he was still going to be dangerous and difficult to manage. And while it was nasty trick Bishop pulled on Aidan, tricking him into killing what was essentially his and Rebecca's son, Aidan ended up making the right decision anyway.

2: Josh never cheats on Nora as a fully in-control, human. When his wolf slips up with another wolf in season 4, for one thing, HE wasn't in total control, and for another, he actually faced consequences for it. It was relevant to the narrative.

In the BBC version George is human when he has sex with Daisy. The scene served no purpose in the story and made George look like a giant *sshat. And once again, it was a bad decision that was given no consequences.

3: Ray doesn't attempt to SA Sally, only to have Josh say "I bet she loved it." (I would have just LOVED to see how Aidan would have responded to something like that though.)

4: Aidan's relationship with Sally is more satisfying than Mitchell's relationship with Annie. Not their FRIENDSHIP. Their relationship when they hook up. It also didn't involve Sally having to possess anyone to enjoy being with him.

5: Aidan doesn't really have a Box-Tunnle-moment in the main story, while we're supposed to be sympathizing with him. The closest thing I can think of to it was the two girls he fed to Henry. And even that isn't the same. Aidan was acting out of desperation and love, and it went as wrong as it did by accident. He didn't INTEND to kill them.

Mitchell and Daisy were acting out of vengeance and tribalism, and probably a little sadism; they committed a terrorist attack basically.

There were plenty of times Aidan made mistakes or got caught up in situations where he had no choice but to go along. IE: When he was working with Suren. But his slips-ups were always due to addiction, desperation, or love/loyalty. He never massacred a train full of innocent people all in one go for no real reason. To be clear, I'm not talking about his past, just about the events of the series.

6: (This one requires some setup.) I was going to say that Aidan got to move on as a spirit and be happy while Mitchell didn't. Apparently though, this isn't true. Annie is told sometime after everyone else is killed off, that "they are waiting" for her, implying that George, Nina and Mitchell have all gotten to move on. But this is one of the biggest problems I have with UK version: poorly handled departure of actors/characters from the cast.

If I'm not mistaken, Aidan Turner left to do The Hobbit, hence Mitchell being killed off. But due to the fact that Mitchell was my favorite character and I knew they were trying to replace EVERYBODY, I stopped watching the show after Mitchell was written out. Why did I stop? because very few shows can survive such a massive overhaul of the cast when it's already so well established. And I simply didn't care about the new people. And so I didn't know that sometime down the line it would be revealed, in seemingly vague terms, that things went good for the characters they killed off.

In the U.S. version, yes, the journey towards the ending was a little clumsy, but it was still immediately happy (albeit bitter-sweet), and there was no cheap attempt to keep the hit series going without its established characters.

And like I said, yeah, some of the details WERE poorly handled. But these things likely unfolded the way they did due to financial snags the production had hit probably around season 3. Had all things gone according to plan, there would have been 5 seasons, with a bigger budget, and things could have been better. But things happened, and everyone realized that if they had tried to squeeze out a 5th season under their current circumstances, it would have been bad. So they decided to go out "on a high note" while they had the ability. They DIDN'T try to stick around to milk a series they could no longer make a quality product out of. They didn't jerk their fanbase around.

So yeah, I missed a detail due to not having watched the full UK series. But I'm going to go ahead and blame the BBC for that, because once you get me to care about characters, killing them off and trying to replace them, expecting me to want to stick around for the new people, is just wrongheaded. And what I like about the US version is that they didn't do that.

[withered--s0uls]

Adds to list of ideas

Hmmmm. It getting Daytime so they're stuck with them for the time being

We get a range of

- IC!Uzi after the two Ns arrive being like "welcome back also hi" - proceeds to take Ray from Rexim and announcing she's putting the baby to sleep. Then when she's done with that she locks herself in her workspace bc she got work to catch up on after watching 8 Kids by herself.

- GD!N probably picking up on her quickly barricading herself after his arrival so god forbid he now thinks she hates him

- the kids proceeding to try and bother him with a ton of questions (trying to find out the differences and similarities between their dad and Beanies dad)

- "Guess which kid was not named by Uzi"(IC!N pointing at the 4 code related kids, 3 are named after guns.) "Why did you pick Raven?"(GD!N) "Egg."(Raven) --- alternate ending being "Why did you pick Beanie?" "Fair enough"

- Raven getting put into "timeout" (thrown over their dads shoulder like a bag of potatoes) for actually trying to bite GD!N and probably scaring the shit out of him with the damn Solver teeth (even if they're filed down it's still kinda obvious)

- Circling back to Ic!Uzi, my homegirl overworked herself until her battery is on a whopping 3%. She leaves the workspace and kinda just collapses bc her battery hits 0% (Ic!N being like "not again")

- Rexim, due to not really using his visor optics as eyes, coincidentally looking as if he's staring straight at GD!Uzi before like GD!Nuzi take note of the fact his headband optics are the only ones actually in use Idk I think it'd be funny bc he does kinda just look like he's staring at random shit to people who don't know about his broken main camera

- Annika being made to apologize after saying GD!N looks mentally ill, he says its fine (spoiler alert: it isn't, she made it very obvious to him that he isnt hiding stuff well)

Now, should I be nice and have it be IC!Ns day off so GD!N isn't left alone with a bunch of kids or should I be an ass and have the poor mentally ill man somehow deal with the kids of IC!Nuzi whilst IC!Uzi is passed out and recharging and IC!N is off at work.

I mean the three Teens at least can look after themselves and probably would help (to various degrees of actual helpfulness) before & after school. But that still leaves him with 3 Toddlers/Pre-Schoolers and a Baby he doesn't know a lot about on top of his own daughter, one of the toddlers/Pre-Schoolers being dead set on pouncing him like a cat and biting him and another trying to act mature and like an adult and failing horribly bc she's like 5.

It would be kinda funny if he had to watch them and then when Ic!N comes back from work GD!N is like "what do you MEAN you run a Daycare on top of this?!" Bc like if Ic!N isn't there to keep his kids insanity in check then their curiosity and unhingedness will get the better of them.

(I just accidentally deleted a whole paragraph I'll go commit a murder)

Like? Without their dad keeping the kids I'm check we get

- Orita having inherited Uzis unhinged side, so one moment she will be sweet like N in Canonverse, the next she will smile wildly with hollowed optics and will talk about the time she chopped off her bodies original worker forearms to replace them with self made DD forearms. Even worse she might ask if GD!N wants to see the weapons she built from scratch (only for her 5yo adopted sister to be like "You aren't allowed to pull out your weapons without your mom or dad or V present!")

- Raven probably actually biting him when he's distracted and then after proceeding to cover him in stickers like Orita & they did to Beanie. Except Raven doesn't ask GD!N first, they just suddenly do it (it's even the glitter stickers, someone save GD!N from the IC!Kids) -- note them actually continuously trying to bite him (without breaking metal notably!) as they are around him more and then covering him in stickers technically means they like him so 😭 that's a win ig? (If they didn't like him theyd not hesitate to break metal)

- Rexim blasting music whilst doing his homework, how does his mom not wake up? Robo-Fod knows how. Probably her body being in forceful shutdown until she's fully recharged

- Annika saying whatever comes to mind without thinking (she accidentally says stuff she shouldn't again)

- Olivia and Zagi being the only ones not causing problems despite being literally 5-6 years old. Olivia trying to act mature and Zagi just following their dads order of "behave and be nice to the other N" Zagi probably brings him a dog plushy or something if they notice him being stressed from having 8 kids running around (Typically how they help their parents with stress is cuddles, but they don't know if GD!N is comfortable with that so they just give him a plushy)

- Ray is a baby the worst he can do is cry because he wants to be held

Eventually at least Raven would get all their energy out of their system and fall asleep, the IC toddlers/pre-schoolers *do* still take Naps because like, Raven is a ball of chaos, Zagi is just constantly slightly eepy & Olivia finds comfort in it.

- Also whenever IC!Uzi does wake up and IC!N does kinda just pull her aside and tell her he picked up on GD!N seemingly beating himself up (IC!N may suck at math but at least he can read body language) I feel some awkward exchange happens where she's just like "I like didn't want to make you uncomfortable or upset simply by being around. Idk I thought it'd probably mess with your head" like IC!Khan when she was younger got visibly upset seeing other families with kids where both parents are still around so that kinda made her come the the conclusion that ESPECIALLY with her being an alternate version of GD!Ns dead wife he probably would be upset seeing her and god forbid seeing her and IC!N being affectionate with each other like the moments she is around him pre passing out it's kinda obvious she is trying to act different from how she'd normally act, mainly with her hands like twitching towards her partner but then pulling back. She over the years did become way more comfortable with pda and actually started initiating it more often.

Also I just whilst typing realized that IC!Nuzi are likely a good chunk older than GD!N just bc of picking a point in the timeline where they already have all kids lmao. Like the twins are 15. The twins were uploaded to their Untrained Networks between episodes 4 and 5 and in this AU a good amount of time passes between them.

Those mfs are between 35-40 if not older 💀tbf in my take on drone ages that's still very young for them bc I feel they have a lifespan longer than humans but still.

Anyways back to me taking another nap or something idk I'm rambling nonsense into the void

Oh look it's another GD crossover

Ghost Drone AU - @electrozeistyking

You already saw all this art but shhh HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

This originally started out with me just wanting to draw Beanie interacting with the Intertwined Codes Kids but then I added some extra stuff lol.

If you're a reader of Intertwined Codes, this kinda sorta spoils future stuff bc only the twins have been mentioned in the Draft/Teaser fic but oh well. You have been warned.

IC!Uzi wouldn't like actually meet GD!N bc they'd kinda decide that "hey, let's not have the widowed man see an alternate version of his wife that actually got live." simply out of respect kinda?? So she would stick around at home with the kids whilst IC!N goes out to look for Beanies Dad after their kids drag her to them lmao.

So yeah she doesn't necessarily know the extent of the mans depression, the kids just mentioned there only being a dad so she just specifically asks about GD!N in this doodle

IC!N would quickly pick up on GD!N not being completely okay, even without being told any details. So he probably would end up sitting him down to talk on their way back to the IC!Doorman families place, wanting to help if he can in any way. (He runs a Daycare and tries to also be a support to any parent that needs it, so I feel he out of habit would lean into trying to do that with GD!N)

More/The kids under the Cut otherwise the post looks so long rip

I will go over each of these one by one (can'tdo close ups bc 10 image limit, I'll reblog this in a second with the close ups.)

Left are the Code-Related Nuzi kids, right are the adopted ones.

Code related kids

Zagi:

Not much to say, I'm still working out their personality - they're maybe 2-3 years older than Beanie, so they aren't too far apart in age. :)

Orita:

She's the sibling who started the trend of putting stickers on her siblings, so she DEFINITELY would do the same with Beanie.

She also probably originally was going to show her how to build a weapon, but her parents promptly stopped that lmao .

She would think it's really cool that Beanie has a custom core icon & in general is completely customized from the start! She herself was originally put into a regular worker body (just with the tail and headband being custom made by her mom), she had to build the DD forearms herself. She also has a sticker of the DD icon on her core, covering the WD icon :3

Rexim:

At this point he has enough siblings to be past the "ew a little kid" phase, so luckily Beanie gets spared that. His main camera is damaged, he only really uses his headband optics to look around, so he would kinda just look as if he's staring past her a lot. But bc of the obvious cracks in his visor I feel she would pick up on the fact he's not actually ignoring her.

Also he definitely would just play music to her, because IC!Uzi kinda always has music on whilst working in her workspace he kinda picked up some of her taste in music (Hence he's playing the same song that Uzi is shown to have been listening to in Ep7)

Raven:

First up THANK YOU Zeisty for helping me brainstorm silly stuff for them. They're a little ball of chaos now and I love them.

Anyways.

They would join Orita in bedazzling Beanie, and then they'd start talking about bird facts and also try to get Beanie to talk about her interests.

(Their height difference isnt 100% accurate bc halfway through drawing this I changed the IC timeline, making Raven about the same age as Zagi instead of them being a teen, so I kinda had to manually try and semi-fit their heights lol)

Adopted Kids

Ray:

Nothing to say. He's a baby. Tho whilst I was outlining this one I had to giggle because of how big he is in Beanies hands. She's so tiny 😭💕 /affectionate

Annika:

Oh boy. Ann.

Annika is the eldest kid & was adopted a while before Zagi was coded / whilst the parents were organizing the code copies for Zagi

She does NOT know how to talk to other kids. Never did. It made her stick out at the orphanage wing because she just avoided everyone. And it is very chaotic when Olivia and Ray first show up, because Ann's only idea of talking to other Drones is "well you got to be relatable" so she brings up the siblings dead parents bc like, her code parents are dead too. Both pairs dying to DDs. So yeah she probably would be the first, if not only one, in the whole household to just bring up GD!Uzi. She would do it like it's nothing either.

IC!Uzi would promptly get her to stop and sit her down having a conversation about "what did N and I say about trying to connect on that topic?"

Like IC!Uzi would actually feel really bad about it despite Beanie not knowing her mom. Bc she herself obviously didn't remember IC!Nori growing up but still didn't like the topic.

Olivia:

Olivia, as I said, was greeted with the topic of dead parents by Annika as well. So she probably would kinda interfere when IC!Uzi goes to sit Ann down to talk.

She would feel the need to apologize for the older girls behavior (which Ann would apologize for herself later too ofc) and would try to get Beanie to go play something together whilst IC!Uzi sorts that whole situation out.

She's also the closest to Beanies age probably, just was forced to mature bc of what happened to her parents, despite being taken in by Nuzi shortly after. She still obviously acts like a kid tho when comfortable, so I feel she would kinda ease up around Beanie and actually act more like a 4-5 year old around her.

Bonus? Bonus!

Needless to say Beanie would return home covered in stickers & hairpins (Orita & Raven have more than enough of those, they'd just let Beanie keep some)

RIP GD!N having to get her out of those stickers once they're back home

Also, for the "*humming*" variation of the picture I blame @k1k0oftheworld. Kiko was in vc with me when I was talking about how Beanie would be covered in stickers when she gets home, and saw the doodles as well.

He proposed the following scenario after seeing Rexim show Beanie IC!Uzis playlist:

Beanie humming dead batteries song & GD!N having a breakdown bc it reminds him of GD!Uzi

I do not take accountability for this, I was going to spare the poor widowed man.

(I scrapped the idea of him not knowing ab the IC!Doorman family and him getting a mini heart attack when Beanie goes "I met Mom today" in favor of him and IC!N meeting & talking - I WANTED TO SPARE HIS POOR HEART)

@k1k0oftheworld you owe him money for a therapy session now /silly

Anyways that's it, I'll put the close ups in the reblog like I said 👍

[matan4il]

I have debated how to say this or even write it but I'm just giving in to try. Based on Max's interview and your recent anon on expectations I wanted to add my opinion no one asked for lol. But here's my thing as a long time viewer and pretty successful predictor.

I take all my clues from Oliver, he has in the past validated and acknowledged and even said he wouldn't promote if he thought it was baiting. He's very sensative to the fandom and the fact he is now leads me to believe that Buddie will be canon by the end of 5 or at least we will have a huge clue that yes its coming. Lets be real here Eddie clearly has PTSD and I don't think thats something we run over to start a relationship. But again, I think we will see it as heavily hinted if they arent already canon.

Now on to my worst case scenario. If the show really cant figure out how to write Buddie or isnt committing to it. I 100% believe that they are done with female LIs for both men. I imagine them actually being roommates for many reasons, either worried about Chris or heck saving money on rent. Have you seen LA prices. And its a cop out but I think for the remainder of the series we will have an ambiguous "platonic " family unit upgraded from S2 and S3. I get why people would be disappointed but I'm really at the point of leave women out of this and let me feel in the blanks if I have too. Give me their family time.

But again... take your clues from Oliver. He wouldn't tease if he didn't think that was the road we were headed.

Hi Nonnie! Thank you for the ask and big hugs!

Oooh, I won't lie, I was wondering whether I would get an ask about Max's interview. And yes, you're always welcome to throw your opinions at me! ;)

I have to admit I'm a bit torn. On the one hand, I do think it matters that Oli and Ryan indicated they're down with Buddie happening. And the change that Oli went through, from refusing to like Buddie stuff since it might be misleading, to liking Buddie edits and art again? It did give me hope he might know the direction these two are on and that it's the one we're all hoping for. On the other, he's also indicated recently he hasn't yet read the script for this season's finale. So... IDK. He might not know as much as we think he does. There might be something else influencing his decision to like Buddie stuff again. Maybe he just missed them, or he decided supporting the artists matters more? I really don't know. At the same time, he might also know the general direction for Buddie without knowing the specifics, like the 518 script, making my whole point moot. XD

If Buddie won't go canon, I can't see them both remaining single. Because 911 would probably want to re-affirm that they're straight by pairing them with female LI's, and also 'coz out of the main cast, they don't have that many single characters, and they can't let the only two be the single pink elephant in the room... However, they may let them be single and still more wrapped up in each other than in anyone else and raising Chris together for the show finale... But I agree with you, that if I can't have canon Buddie, I would take 'filling in the blanks.' If it helps, I think no matter what, the show will always dedicate some of its time to the Buddifer family unit. 911 has made it abundantly clear that romantic or platonic, that little family unit is precious to both the fans and the show.

As for the interview, I have to say that it doesn't scare me into "Buddie is def not going canon." At least not yet. Kristen didn't say Buddie is def not happening. She could have, but she didn't. In fact, she indicated the romantic possibility exists and nothing was ruled out. More than that, she could have implied reading Buddie as romantic is crazy, but instead she admitted it's a valid reading. Even when she claimed it's not how she wrote them, she didn't de-legitimize this option. Also, when stressing that Buddie are just good friends, she added it's where they're at right now. Which... canonically, that's accurate. Doesn't mean they always will be, and her phrasing clearly left the door open for them to be something more at some other point. Plus... these show runners said there was no need for a Buck Begins, then did one, and then said there was no need for Eddie to break down, and we know how that's going... I really am not yet panicking over this interview.

Lastly, Kristen saying she drew the guardianship bit from her mother's rl decision... except, I'm sure her mother was Very Normal about it, as in, she was probably being a responsible parent, taking possible scenarios into account, then sat her bestie down for a talk, explained that because she doesn't want her daughter to be raised by her parents she's asking her BFF to be the legal guardian and gave this woman as much time as she needed to decide on what to say. But is that what Kristen wrote for Buddie? No. Because she too knows there is nothing Very Normal about them. She wrote Eddie making the decision based on a real life-threatening event, with emotions running high, making his decision an emotional rather than a logical one, Buck saying he wished he could have died instead of Eddie (!!!) and then, THEN Eddie, in Very Not Normal fashion, makes the emotionally impactful decision to let Buck know he's been Chris' legal guardian for basically a year, not asking him about it before making the will change because they both knew Buck would not say no (and them verbally confirming this to each other). That makes it less about Eddie's reasonable decision and more about making sure that Buck was emotionally ok, as I've detailed here. But wait, that's not all! We know Eddie's parents suck and why they shouldn't raise Chris, but there's also Eddie's Tia Pepa, or his sisters... he dismisses them all, and more than that, he doesn't even bring them up as the reason he's made Buck Chris' guardian. He's not turning to his best friend 'coz his family sucks. By not going "X can't have Chris 'coz... so I need you to step in," it makes it clear Buck isn't Eddie's default. He's HIS CHOICE.

IDK, Kristen, is this really how you think things went down between your mom and her bestie when that agreement was reached? Yeah, me neither. There is Nothing Remotely Normal about this.

(Sorry for the length, thank you for the ask and please have a look at my ask tag if you're looking for another ask reply. xoxox)

[cconsultingdetective]

Damnatio memoriae

One of the things I appreciated the most about Pokémon Legends Arceus is that it made everything make sense now, and I'm especially talking about Pokémon Platinum. At least that's where my theories led me! They can obviously be completely wrong but I want to share them! There will be spoilers of the game

Up until BDSP all we knew about Giratina was that it was banished in the Distortion World due to its raging and rebellious nature but there isn't a single book or story talking about it in Canalave's library, therefore no one knows about Giratina. The million dollar question was: why is that? What happened? And a simple answer was that nobody ever got the chance to meet Giratina since it was banished not much after Arceus' creation of everything and never got the chance to show itself to the humankind other than a lucky 10 year old stepping in a place where the two opposite worlds collide.

However. There always has been a big but: what we know about Giratina is told to us by Cynthia in Pokémon Platinum, how does she know about its existence then? How is she able to guide us in the Distortion World? No doubt that she's a very committed archeologist but at that time it was such a mystery how she got this kind of information. You know where I'm getting at but before talking about our dear completely harmless merchant I wanted to point out the fact that Pokémon Legends Arceus tells us a story: Celestica.

It is now confirmed that Giratina actually made contact with humans long ago, and the Celestica Ruins are proof of that: there's a statue of each one of Arceus' children to which Celestica people prayed, they knew exactly how they looked like and what's more is that Giratina's statue is located in an apical spot, meaning that they loved it even more than the other two! It's pretty normal for them to do so since it actually was Giratina the one who gifted the 10 original Noble Pokémons to the humans (Zap Plate), saving them from a most certain extinction considering how weak people were compared to Pokémons.

But why is this statue broken now and nobody ever considered repairing it? Well, I think it was intentional, people chose to forget about Giratina because it can only bring nothing but destruction. Celestica one day simply disappeared, both people, name and constructions (Old Verse 5), how could this be? No population can be wiped out this fast normally, right? What I think is that Celestica people decided to play with fire a bit too much and probably completely misunderstood Giratina's intentions. It "gifted" humans with Pokémons not out of kindness or whatever, we know Giratina is extremely envious of the normal world where balance and peace reigns and it can only blame its father for that, Giratina used humans to get to fight its father (mmmh, this reminds me of a certain someone who uses the main character to get to Arceus👀 what a great parallelism) but still didn't want anything to do with them at all and the day they got a bit too close it just made them disappear, maybe with a space-time rift. We also know that someone survived this disaster *cough* *cough* Cogita *cough* *cough* and maybe others, and probably these survivors were the ones to destroy that infamous Giratina's statue, because such a disaster could never repeat itself again and not letting anyone know about its existence was the safest thing to do.

Giratina was a victim of damnatio memoriae (in case you don't know what that means it's a Latin phrase meaning "condemnation of memory" and it was a practice used since the Ancient Era and especially by ancient romans in which every document, inscription, whatever written proof of someone's existence was completely destroyed.)

But one day in Hisui a certain person, a descendant of Celestica people, with such an immense passion for archeology and myths to the point of dedicating his entire life to find the creator of everything to create a better world, did the homework so good to find out about Giratina and opened a new space-time rift: of course, I'm talking about Volo.

After the final battle Volo tells the main character that he's not willing to give up on his dream, whether it takes him years, decades or centuries, so I'm pretty sure he wrote down his studies for his descendants to have and that gets me to the starting point: Cynthia. That's the reason she knows about Giratina in a world where no one else knows about its existence! And as ironic as it sounds, Volo is technically the reason the main character is able to stop Cyrus, the man with almost his same plan, and save the world in Pokémon Platinum since it's thanks to Cynthia MC is able to safely get through the Distortion World.

So yes, everything makes sense now and I'll never stop saying how good the lore was in this game, please keep it up for the next games as well dear Game Freak🙏🏻

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

hi yes im still alive

DON’T MIND ME, I’M JUST--

HAVING A MOMENT TO PROCESS ALL THE LORE AND STORY CHAPTER 6 JUST DROPPED ON US, I CAN BARELY WRITE

AHHHHHHH, I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS 😭 kjdbbaufbiafafvoaybo LEMME PUT ON MY THINKING CAP AND THROW SOME STUFF OUT ASDYUBUASDLI;AGVUOQIB;VI You’ll understand why I used Leona’s face here even though it’s Idia and Ortho’s chapter after you read my thoughts--

***Chapter 6 (and other main story) spoilers below the cut!***

Okay, just to keep it simple, I’ll try to keep things in chronological order!

First is a bullet point list of my thoughts on chapter 6 so far, then all my questions and theories (mostly a biggish theory on Ace) are at the end of the post.

Expectation: Idia cowering in his room, Vil and Rook busting down his door using Epel as a battering ram, dead Ortho theory confirmed

Reality: SWAT TEAM RAID ON NRC, DORM LEADERS (sans Kalim) AND JAMIL GET KIDNAPPED

Admittedly, I’m disappointed to see that the injury Grim inflicted to MC was basically just a cat scratch and nothing more. I thought it would be a lot more impactful if MC had to deal with juggling the realization that Grim has betrayed their friendship and trust while also on the verge of death (or at least while being severely injured)... And given how MC reacted to the attack at the end of chapter 5, I would think whatever struck them was much more substantial than just a cat scratch. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say either the script got scrubbed by Disney, or the intent was that MC was still woozy from VDC / OB Vil, MC felt so betrayed that it shook them emotionally, or that MC was just that weak by default that they can’t defend themselves against cat claws.

Hey, Ramshackle’s finally getting renovated! Proceeds to immediately get destroyed again--

I feel like????????? They tried to retroactively explain why Neige won to try and mitigate the uproar over how VDC ended. There’s some dialogue between the VDC group about how they didn’t perform at their peak because of having just walked out of dealing with OB Vil, and how Neige’s fans were going to vote for him anyway because they resonated with his background. Honestly, I think they should have moved on from that sore spot instead of bringing it up again, even if how chapter 5 ended didn’t personally bother me.

BOOM, HERE COME THE TWST TERMINATORS--

NOT GONNA LIE, THOSE STYX GUYS LOOK HOT SO COOL

AAAAAAND IT’S KIDNAPPING MONTAGE TIME, KIDS

JOABSFHUPAUABDBADB CALM DOWN, RIDDLE??????? YOU’RE GOING TO COMMIT ARSON IN BROAD DAYLIGHT--

Okay, I know this chapter’s focused on Ignihyde and Grim, but the standout part to me (so far) has been the scene where Leona’s being kidnapped. Historically, Leona has not been a character that I like (excluding that one time I had to pretend to like him for a game). I feel like he’s one massive missed opportunity (he didn’t show up much in chapter 2, he’s pretty similar backstory-wise to his Disney counterpart compared to the other Dorm Leaders, he didn’t seem to learn anything or become a better person even a LITTLE after chapter 2, etc.). I’m not a fan of his lazy and arrogant attitude either (even if it is justified by his backstory). But here? THIS IS THE LEONA I ACTUALLY LIKE AND WANT TO SEE MORE OF. 

LIKE????? I CAN’T DESCRIBE TO YOU HOW MUCH I LIKE THIS SCENE???? Yeah, we have Leona fighting STYX at first, but as soon as he realizes who they are, he wises up and surrenders because he knows better than to resist arrest. AND NOT ONLY THAT, but he uses King’s Roar in a smart way--to turn the falling greenhouse glass panes into sand so they don’t hurt anyone nearby (namely him and Ruggie).

And after he turns himself in????? LEONA TELLS RUGGIE TO TAKE CARE OF SAVANACLAW FOR HIM!!! THIS is what a real leader would do. He looks after himself and his people, but he knows when to surrender, AND he leaves his “kingdom” (the dorm) in good hands while he’s away. THIS is the Leona I want to see.

AJBDUASHPFBUABFIABIYFBIPFAAFIAF I ALSO REALLY LIKE HIS SASS WHEN HE JUST THROWS HIS HANDS UP AND ASDBIASBIABAIODDAYOFAIPPADAIDB SAYS “I’ll go with you, but be careful while escorting me, okay? Despite my looks, I'm a precious prince. I’ll get sick/dizzy if you drive recklessly.” SARCASTIC SASSY SMARTASS??????? IF YOU HAD MORE LINES LIKE THIS, I’D LIKE YOU MORE

I love how Azul’s still talking about capitalism/how he can profit from Idia (apparently the Shrouds are like the TWST equivalent of Google??????) as he’s being escorted away by the agents?????? IF I WERE HIM, I’D BE PISSED OFF THAT THEY INTERRUPTED MY BOARD GAME????? At least let the man finish first--

Damn, everyone’s being tasered???????? And apparently all the STYX agents are equipped with anti-magic plates? I guess Bind the Heart can just eat shit then--

Lilia’s ringtone is cute, period.

CROWLEY CALLED STYX TO CAPTURE GRIM???? GRIM IS OFFICIALLY A SCP THAT NEEDS TO BE CONTAINED????

WAIT WHAT CROWLEY’S BEING KIDNAPPED TOO??????? Oh well, the school is probably safer in Trein’s hands anyway--

askhlbfbilhidbabbidasb RIDDLE WAKES UP POST KIDNAPPING AND HE’S USING LEONA AS A LAP PILLOW?????!

How does it feel to be held in a room against your will, Jamil? Yeah, don’t like a taste of your own medicine, do you?

OH HI IDIA, NICE YZMA MAD SCIENTIST GETUP YOU GOT THERE

Wait, what????? THAT’S IT?????? SERIOUSLY???????

MAN.

I have so many questions??????? Specifically about STYX and what they do, and how the Shrouds are tied into all of it.

So they say STYX is a specialized unit called in to quell serious Overblot cases. And if Crowley called them to deal with Grim... well, bad times ahead for Grim. STYX has also been studying Overblot for a long time, which is why (I think?) they captured Riddle, Leona, Azul, Jamil, and Vil. 

There’s been some allusions made between Grim and Stitch in a lot of fan art and fan theories I’ve seen, since their struggles have some parallels: that being them struggling to decide if they are “good” or “bad”. I don’t know if this was intentional on the part of the TWST writing team, but regardless, it’s a really good concept that plays into the themes of TWST itself. There’s no good, there’s no evil, no black and white--most of the characters we see may be BASED on villains, but that doesn’t MAKE them villains. They are good, and bad, in their own ways--and now Grim is dealing with that crisis as he fights to keep his sanity and avoid completely succumbing to Overblot.

Though Idia seems to be involved with STYX’s research, it doesn’t sound like he personally gave the order to retrieve those test subjects (or at the very least, he’s not happy about roughing up the test subjects), it sounds like the orders came from other people in the organization. His parents, perhaps?

They mention briefly that Idia’s parents are asking him to “come home”, so it must be for something urgent. Are they worried about his safety? But Idia’s lines at the end of chapter 5 lead me to think he is estranged from his family, since he straight up rejected a job offer linked to them (Olympus Corp is owned by the Jupiter family, and the Shrouds are a branch family of Jupier), and says something like “I’m not welcome anywhere”. Has Idia done something to disgrace him from the rest of the family? Or is it more of a self imposed/self inflicted statement, given that he always says he’s “cursed” and acts like he’s guilty of something that deserves scorn?

Why is Idia participating in STYX research, even if it means experimenting on his fellow students (and fellow board game enthusiast Azul)? People are speculating that he wants to use blots to fully revive Ortho (if dead Ortho theory is true), or that Idia actually has heroic intentions (he wants to know more about blots to prevent OBing from happening?), but at this point??? Literally anything could happen?!

In future parts, I’m guessing Pomefiore, MC, and Adeuce will team up to break Jamil and the Dorm Leaders (except Malleus, Malleus got left out again www) out? And HOPEFULLY we get to see Rook’s Unique Magic or at least more screen time, since I feel like he got so little in chapter 5... Another thing I��d like to see is Ace and/or Epel getting their Unique Magic, or at least starting to develop it. It’s really mostly Ace I want more details for.

A theory I’ve been holding onto for a long time is that Deuce getting his UM will spur Ace on to become jealous (since he has always seen Deuce as an idiot/”lesser” than him), and that will cause a rift in the friendship, or for Ace to throw himself into a dangerous situation to prove himself (he has done it before with Riddle)... and has his ass rescued again. This would make Ace even angrier, since he feels like everyone is treating him like a little kid or rubbing it in that he isn’t “as good” as they are. I don’t know where it would go from there (I’m sure TWST would get creative), but ultimately it would culminate in Ace making amends with everyone and rushing in to save them from either Grim or Idia OB.

I don’t think Ace would discover his UM in a similar manner as Deuce (Deuce had to embrace his own stubbornness and straightforwardness, but as the term “Unique” Magic implies, the way a magic develops and manifests is “unique” to the user). While Deuce has to learn to accept his own way of thinking, I believe Ace is already sure of his own way of thinking and has totally accepted it. I think what Ace has to deal with instead is coming to terms with his fickleness. We’ve seen him time and time again treating his loved ones kind of callously, from constantly bullying MC, Grim, and Deuce to ghosting his own girlfriend and flaking on people when they are counting on him to do a task.

The issue with Ace isn’t that he isn’t aware, it’s that he is aware and he seems to think this behavior is totally okay. He demonstrates little to no remorse in what he does and says, and he doesn’t seem to care about the consequences either (how many times does he get punished by Riddle, yet he keeps doing the same dumb things over and over?). Ace appears to operate under the mindset of always being in the right, or (if he’s in the wrong), he won’t really acknowledge it, or he will wave it off as “no big deal”--and I think that’s his greatest weakness.

In the scenario I described earlier, I mentioned that Ace’s jealousy will cause a wedge between him and his friends, and I think this will play into him realizing the error of his ways. When he has finally driven away all of the people that supported him, what will he have left? Nothing. Then maybe Ace suddenly finds himself relating to Idia, or to Grim, who have Overblotted and are in a similar emotional state as he is. Confused and lonely... and that energizes him to pitch in again, even if all he has is wind magic up his sleeve. Everyone could be shocked that Ace has returned, and in that moment, he could finally realize his true potential and unlock his Unique Magic!

(Maybe that’s too specific, but that’s a scenario that I’ve had playing in my head for a long time!)

... Buuuuut given that Ace has gotten little to no spotlight so far in chapter 6, I’m not sure if they’ll lean into him developing his UM yet (unless they pull a chapter 5 and really start addressing Ace in the latter half of the chapter like they did with Deuce). Seeing as chapter 6 is dealing with a lot of heavy topics (death, Grim lore, Overblot lore), I’m thinking maybe the TWST team will push off Ace’s UM development to chapter 7???? The only way I can see it happening in chapter 6 is if the chapter is SUPER long, or if the writing is REALLY good or really bad. 

Anyway, I’m keeping my fingers crossed!!! I’m so excited for the rest of chapter 6... I hope that we don’t have to wait too long for it!