#not sure if they're gonna be a recurring character yet...

[ecoustsaintmein]

Poolverine thoughts

So I've just returned from watching Deadpool and Wolverine for like...the 8th? 9th time now? And I have thoughts about how the filmmakers chose to portray the evolution of their relationship -- some of them may already have been pointed out by others on this site, but this is my attempt to summarise them!

Also mostly I'm putting myself in Logan's shoes and writing this from his perspective?

Spoilers below cut:

We know that Wade has always made comments about Logan, even from the first film eg 'whose balls do I have to fondle to get this movie made?'. He might sound like he hates the guy, but obviously there's respect there, and he showed it in a Wade way. We know that by the third film, Wade wants to matter. He wants to be an Avenger, and almost regretted that even the X-Men didn't even want him. He prooobably almost nearly gagged when he spoke in earnest about how Logan has always been viewed as the X-Man in his world, but the respect is there. (And perhaps that's why he doesn't 'hit on' Logan as much as compared to Cable, Colossus et al? And all the 'shippy' comments were made by other characters in the film eg: bartender 'are you gonna fuck or fight?' or Cassandra's 'you two are cute'?)

The song choices when Logan and Wade interact, from AC/DC's Hell's Bells when they fight for the first time (fair, because Logan doesn't know Wade that well yet), to Avril Lavigne's I'm With You ('Take me by the hand, take me somewhere new/I don't know who you are but I, I'm with you') when they're driving in the Odyssey, which again, quite apt? And 'also the line 'take me home' in the Avril Lavigne song, which probably reflects Logan not really knowing who Wade is but just -- going along with the ride, as if asking Wade, just take me home, find me a place for me to belong. The theme of home recurs again and again, which leads one to wonder why it's not so surprising that Logan did end up following Wade home in the end???' Plus, 'You're the one that I want' when they're having that heavy makeout sesh intimate fight scene in the Honda? Let's not even talk about the 'Like a Prayer' scene, which again. 'When you call my name, and it feels like home.' Again. Home.

Which then leads to Logan, who confessed to Cassandra that he 'turned away' when 'they called for him', and he didn't make that mistake again when Wade called out his name at the end. While Aretha Franklin's 'You're All I Need to Get By' plays in the background. Yep.

Let's not forget the fact that Logan, after the fight in the Odyssey (despite all the boohooing and ongoing alcoholic misery afterwards), picked up the photograph of Wade's 'world', and returned it to Wade. Man doesn't want to show or say it during the second and third act but he CARES. A LOT!

Logan repeating Wade's words, verbatim, twice! ('You didn't lie, you made an educated wish'), and 'I'm an X-Men. I'm the X-Men')

Logan telling Wade that he wished Wade would die alone, then ending up making sure that Wade wouldn't have to die alone.

Logan keeping the suit on him at all times, only to have it get destroyed at the climax of the film - which, sad, because yes it's the only thing that reminds him of the X-Men of his world, but it could also be an analogy of -- he needs to move on. And he did! He wanted to be free, and he told this as much to Cassandra, and he did become free, in the end!

On the subject of Cassandra, she promised Logan that she could 'silence everything'. The joke's on her, because Logan found himself trading peace (as silence), for peace (as a chaotic, loud motormouth). He found his home, and it's with Wade.

On the subject of peace and home -- Logan is pretty much an immortal being, and a lot of his issues may have stemmed from the trauma of losing people he cares about, or people who got close to him, even for like 5 seconds (evidenced by ALL THE X-MEN MOVIES). He carried that with him throughout this movie, with all the references of saving the world, saving Wade's world, getting home, etc etc -- the point being, he did it for Wade, in the end (never mind Wade's educated wish that the TVA would restore Logan's past). And despite doing it for Wade, Logan was rewarded by having Wade AND Laura in his life now; both pretty much people who can't die, as part of his family. At least he will always have them -- and isn't that freeing and peaceful enough???

Last but not least -- as a circular thing, I'm going back to my first point. Wade spent the whole movie wanted to matter. In the end, he finds out that he does matter -- not just to his 'old world', but also to Logan. And be it just mutual respect, which then blooms into friendship, fondness, maybe more -- the point is: Wade does matter. To Logan. A character he spent the previous two films talking about despite not featuring at all in those movies. How do I know this you ask? Yes, Logan wanted to sacrifice himself for Wade. But more importantly, he followed Wade home. And at the end, after multiple groans, and frowns, and curses, he SMILED! AND LAUGHED! At Wade's stupid jokes!

I'm probably reading too much into their relationship and how they were written, and maybe it wasn't even Ryan's intention, but goddamn Hugh and Ryan made their chemistry/friendship bleed onto the screen, no matter how they were initially written in the script.

[jennelikejennay]

In my watchthrough of second-tier TOS episodes (having watched the good ones first) I think a few loathed ones maybe aren't so bad?

Well, they're still bad. But they have more redeeming qualities than I thought.

Gonna talk about The Omega Glory, just in passing about Bread and Circuses (because that was pretty good), and about The Paradise Syndrome.

The Omega Glory

The Omega Glory is about 3/4 of a good episode. Basically, it's the plot of Insurrection: rogue Starfleet officer wants to break the Prime Directive because he thinks a primitive planet has the secret of immortality. And we get some good points about interfering with things we don't understand and the purpose of the prime directive. (Which, by season 2, exists a lot more than it did in season 1.) Plus, our heroes get the chance to show their worth by their resistance to this guy.

And then it takes a sharp left turn into absurdity. It's not enough for it to be a gentle Cold War metaphor. No, we need to write HI THIS IS ABOUT THE COLD WAR on its forehead and play the Star-Spangled Banner. The point being that you can't say "our side is better than their side because of our cherished founding principles" and then completely ignore the cherished founding principles to be a bigot. Which isn't a bad point but we don't need to be kicked in the face with it.

There's been a recurring theme (I'm not sure it's the first time it turned up, but this was the most pointed occasion) that development of other planets mirrors the development of Earth. Apparently it's a known scientific law: Hodgkins's law of Parallel Planet Development.

I thought this was pretty stupid. Why would planets all develop the same way? Why not jump between parallel universes if what you wanted to talk about was planets going in different directions from the same starting point? It's one thing to have themed planets, that's just a clever way to reuse whatever costumes they had lying around. But couldn't they just have an Earth-like planet, without having them actually have the paper Declaration of Independence lying around? It strains credibility and makes it look like history is some kind of inevitability instead of relying on thousands of factors and choices.

However, I'm not entirely sure I was right.

Bread and Circuses

This is a much better-appreciated episode, for good reason. It has some great Spock and Bones moments, Kirk showing his stubbornness strength of character, the crew loyally standing by to follow orders even though they know their captain is in trouble.

One brief off-topic moment: this guy is queer-coded, right? Extremely?

When he asks for Kirk to be sent to his room, Kirk gives a look that suggests to me he very much worries what this obviously gay Roman wants with him. But actually, he's given a nice meal and a female slave to obey his every whim. Which I think I will write a different post about sometime because it may be Kirk's most problematic moment. OR IS IT?

But anyway, it's another parallel Earth, Earth from a single point in history with one specific difference (the Roman empire never fell. No this does not make historical sense especially given they speak modern English). Yet again there is a twist ending where we realize an important parallel to Earth history and get a 2x4 sized moral lesson. But as this one is more of an afterthought, it didn't ruin the episode the way Omega Glory's ending did.

The Paradise Syndrome

Commonly reviled as one of the worst episodes, and yet....I kind of liked it?

I mean, yes, the stereotyped portrayal of Native Americans is a problem. It's positive, but in that weird idealizing way that media tends to be about Native Americans. The Chakotay problem, we could call it.

But all of the scenes that take place off the planet, between Spock and Bones, are great. Spock won't eat and won't sleep because he wants to save Kirk and all the people on the planet. Bones at first thinks he's being heartless, but he soon recognizes that Spock cares very deeply and made all of correct decisions. So let no one ever say Bones doesn't know how to be nice to Spock. He just usually does it when Kirk isn't in the scene, because Kirk isn't there to do it. He knows he's the guy on the spot and it's time to put the banter away.

This episode also has the first mind meld between Kirk and Spock! Spock struggles with it, saying Kirk's mind is "extremely dynamic." Okay, Spock, keep your fra'als in your pants.

But it was interesting, near the end, when Spock said that the Native Americans down on the planet weren't a perfect parallel of Earth development, they were actual Earth people taken from Earth by a species called "the Preservers," who scattered various human people all over the galaxy.

Bones says, "I'd wondered why there were so many humans around," and that's it, that's all we get on the Preservers. But if we assume this explains the other two episodes, I'm not so mad about it after all. A retcon when they realized they were doing it too much, or a trace of a long arc? Who knows. But I'm adopting it now: that old paper Constitution was stolen from Earth along with a bunch of Americans and Soviets and planted on the planet in The Omega Glory. Some Romans got planted on the planet in Bread and Circuses. It's not parallel development—it's branching development from a common source.

Why does this matter to me so much? I guess I just like things to make some amount of sense. It's always nice when they do. It doesn't redeem that obnoxious lecture on the Constitution or a planet of Native Americans thinking Kirk is a god, but it redeems a little bit the stupidity of those cultures existing at all.

[fluffytheocelot]

Hello it’s extremely late oops. Did not realize how long this thing would take (28 and a half hours apparently according to procreate lmao) but finally, here it is!

Carmen Week Day 8: La Femme Rouge

Holy crap that was a lot of characters! For day 8 I wanted to draw all the ways I've drawn/imagined Carmen over the last 5 years! There are many I didn't do for one reason or another, but it mainly boiled down to space lol. These 10 (11 including canon Carmen) are (most) of my favorites of my AUs :)

this turned out so cool im putting it in a frame when i get a chance lol

Info and solo drawings for each under the cut! it is. so long lol

as usual, i'll gladly answer asks about em :) i have plans to write a few for sure, but it's gonna be A While for them lol

Cat:

Both a Warriors AU and also just my "_____ as a cat" style!

This ones a lot less fleshed out so just bear with me lol. (ATM there might only be 2 clans, ACME and VILE, idk yet lol. idk what to name em either cos stickin "clan" on the end don't feel right XD)

In the Warriors AU, Sheeppaw grows up learning 2 contradictory versions of the Warrior Code: The true one from Shadowstalk, and the VILE version from older warriors. She gets made an apprentice a couple moons early, but is relegated only to camp duties until shes 6 moons old.

She trains alongside Cracklepaw, Tigerpaw, Molepaw, Goatpaw, and Silentpaw. At her first gathering she meets another apprentice, maybe a few moons older, from the other clan: Jewelpaw. The two hit it off and become good friends (and develop little mutual crushes). Sheeppaw also sneaks out and meets a kittypet: Player, who she also becomes very good friends with.

When her mentor, the deputy, Shadowstalk fails her on her final warrior assessment she pretty much has most of the same reaction as the show, just in the WC style.

After witnessing a murder, she hightails it out of there and encounters the newly named Crackletail. Panicked, she hastily and vaguely tells him she saw something and needs to Leave.

She makes it to Players yard and lays low for a while, and he introduces her to the neighbor cats, a sibling pair named Zack and Ivy. The four brainstorm and Sheeppaw is renamed Carmen. They know they cant let VILE keep doing what they're doing. So rogue Carmen and her kittypet friends start figuring things out from behind the scenes.

Pirate Cat:

Exactly as it says, bipedal cat world. Black Sheep was dropped off at a random orphanage in England, with a small stuffed black sheep (where she got her name). Since everybody are cats, Black Sheep isn't that atypical of a name. Sorta a mix of normal people names and cat names.

She grows up there alongside her self-appointed older brother Graham. When she's about 10-11ish she meets the princess: Julia Argent. Childhood friends to lovers letsgoo (its a recurring theme in these lol. its cute i like it).

The two eventually get together (in secret, yay homophobia and also societal status) It doesn't help that Black Sheep had a habit of getting in trouble so she could see the princess her princess.

The two get caught one night, and Black Sheep is nearly executed for "corrupting royalty", but Julia manages to talk her father down from that. Instead, she is exiled. If she ever sets foot in the kingdom after dawn, she WILL be killed this time.

Julia visits one last time, and Black Sheep promises to return someday when she finds somewhere where they can be together freely. She gives Julia her stuffed sheep to look after while she's gone, and asks her to take care of Fuega while she's gone (on one of their sneak-outs, they found a baby dragon that Julia managed to convince her dad to let her keep). Julia gives her the triangle choker. yay tearful goodbyes ;-;

Black Sheep and Graham (because no way is he letting his little sister go into exile without him) go from place to place, stealing when they need to and end up accidentally stowing away on a VILE pirate ship.

VILE pirate training to avoid death, they escape. Graham appoints the newly named Carmen Sandiego captain of their little ship, and they also pick up Zack, Ivy, and Player along the way. Carmen becomes very well known around the globe: civilians/lower class people see her as a Robin Hood hero (correct), while most royals and nobles see her as nothing but a filthy pirate (incorrect).

A few years go by when suddenly the crew gets word that the King of England is trying to marry off his daughter, who has recently come of age. Cue panicked race home + childhood lover reunion.

Daughter of Poseidon (Carmen Sandiego and the Olympians):

Percy Jackson AU! Replace Percy with Carmen, Grover with Player, Annabeth with Julia, and switch/move around some plot points and that's about it lol. I keep telling myself I'll do some scene rewrites of this one so we'll see. Includes PJO and HOO acting as prequels for Carmen Sandiego. Def wanna do dome rewrites for the canon show for this AU too lol

Dino Squad:

I'm out here combining one obscure kids show with another lol. If you haven't seen it, Dino Squad is this early 2000s animated show about these 5 teenagers that get mutated and can turn into dinosaurs, and go around stopping the bad guy from turning everything into dinosaurs. (I think the entire series may be on youtube lol. its goofy but man i loved it as a kid. i wanted dino powers so bad)

This is basically a high school au but most of Team Red has dinosaur powers. :P

In this, Dr. Bellum is experimenting with bringing dinosaurs back, but instead of just cloning them, she figures out how to mutate already-existing organisms into others.

(in the OG dino squad, the bad guy IS a dinosaur that evolved into a human--long story--and believes everything should still be dinosaurs. hes technically right, tbf, if the meteor hadn't hit they prolly still WOULD be dinosaurs. why does bellum want dinosaurs? because she's Bellum and she Can lol)

Carmen Wolfe and her twin brother Graham (they're fraternal twins. why? bc i thought it would be funny. yes he still has his accent. its my world i do what i want) are raised by Carlotta and Dexter Wolfe in Kittery Point, Maine. Carlotta is a paleontologist/biologist and Dexter is a history and geography teacher at the high school. They do know of VILE and what Bellum was working on and have been monitoring it in secret from the kids.

Carmen and Julia are those friends that met bc they were both hiding under the slide in like. Preschool and just stayed friends lol. They're the kind of best friends that will just. Show Up. usually Julia at Carmen's house because "You have better snacks" also Julia's parents just Don't Like Carmen. (Why? idk bc i said so. idk they think she's a bad influence. she's really not lol) Literally Julia has like a spot on the couch and a table setting. She's basically the third twin these three have known each other essentially their entire lives.

Zack and Ivy joined the group in middle school, when Ivy had the same class as Carmen, Julia, and Gray. Zack joined via association. (Zack and Ivy, on the other hand are not twins. again. bc its funny. each sibling pair thought the other was like them. zack and ivy thought Carmen and Gray were just normal siblings, and Carmen and Gray thought Zack and Ivy were twins. Julia had to explain to all of them it was not the case lol)

Player is Carmen's online friend that the whole group includes. they all game together and he gets ALL the public school tea. hes about the same age as Zack, so about a year-ish younger than Carmen, Gray, Ivy, and Julia.

At the end of their freshman year, Carmen and Julia start dating. Their friends and Carmen's parents know, they keep it secret from everyone else. At the end of the summer everybody (aside from Player) go to the beach for one last day of freedom before school starts. They swim through the mutant goo, and over the next few days discover their powers.

Carlotta IDs each dino: Carmen is a (large/person sized) pyroraptor, Gray is a T. rex, Julia is a troodon, and I still cant decide on Zack and Ivy's dino forms lol. Carlotta and Dexter explain the whole VILE thing and the group just kinda simultaneously goes "welp guess we're superheroes now. cool"

so yea dealing w highschool and also mutant dinosaurs and superpowers. this ones fun bc they can just be stupid kids lol

The Last Wolf:

My werewolf AU. The one that started all this mess and my love for making AUs of this show. It was my first fanfic i ever wrote, and it is very near to my heart. it's also gotten out of hand and become a franchise at this point it's ridiculous. (Seriously i've got a prequel of her parents planned and also a series of shorts set in the universe) It's gonna be a long ride, boys. Hope people still like CS by the time it's done lol

A Thief's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse:

Zombie apocalypse AU! Talked about this one a bit for AU day, and also as of this post I have ~1k words written of the first chapter! I also have a bunch of the major plot points outlined too ;) I wouldn't expect anything soon tho lol.

She wears a wetsuit under the coat bc it's really hard to bite through, especially with rotten jaws. She's got some boots she probably scavenged or traded for, and of course: the Walkman she probably found looting some abandoned building. She collects cassettes to listen to. Gotta keep sane in the end of the world.

How is this one a literal apocalypse and its still more lighthearted than the one based on FNAF lol

Redd Wolf (Five Nights at Redd's):

FNAF AU. I've truly lost it lol. I have this one completely outlined, nothing written but a lot of things are VERY clear in my mind. This ones uh. a lot more intense than even Thief's Guide. It's FNAF. its immense violence and child death. Seriously, Carmen, Player, Gray, Ivy, Zack, and Julia all end up possessing animatronics at some point. It ends happily, but it is based off a horror thing so if that's not your thing b careful <3

its supposed to be more of a mystery that gets unraveled, but if anyone wants specifics of it u can drop an ask :) i only have animatronic designs for Carmen, Julia, and Gray so far tho. I have ideas for the others too.

This is one I wanna share with y'all at some point. its probably the shortest of the AUs I have outlined so far, so yk. maybe in this lifetime lol.

Carmen and the Age of Wonderbeasts:

Mega Jaguar Carmen. This ones more of a ~vibe~ than an actual plot but i like drawing mega jag carm :)

Plushie Dragon:

This one's not an AU, but actually based on doodles of these 2 plush dragons! Matching red/gold and blue/silver dragons named after carmen and julia lol. I'll get around to posting more drawings of em cause they're cute

the plushies <3 (they have spikes u just cant see em:

ik they look goofy i lov them anyways

Wings of Fire:

Wings of Fire AU! Carmen is a rainwing/skywing hybrid (rainwing dad, skywing mom) She can camoflauge, fly decently fast, and has a prehensile tail. She can't breathe fire or use typical venom, BUT she figures out her venom, while not face-melting by itself, IS in fact flammable. again, more of a ~vibe~ than a story and plot, but I like drawing dragons.

Canon Carmen:

She's front and center, the one that started all this.

Way back in 2019, the autism and ADHD departments in my brain came to an agreement: This show is the greatest show of all time.

It was the first fandom I actively contributed to/interacted with. (I still read fics from other fandoms before, but had never been active in a fandom) Like I mentioned with Last Wolf, I had never actually written fanfiction before, and definitely never posted it. I love writing and telling stories (and boy howdy do I have A Lot of stories rolling around my brain). between all of the AUs ive come up with, I've gotten to practice so much worldbuilding and characterization. English classes usually focused on expository stuff, with like. a brief fiction writing thing. So I've definitely gotten to stretch my creative writing muscles with this show, and hopefully I can put em to use on original projects someday <3

I fell in love with the first season, and got ridiculously excited for every new season and the interactive. (heck, i played every possible option for the interactive the day it came out, and binged every subsequent season the day they aired.)

This show has been a big part of my life the last five years, and the original show will always be special to me. It's the reason I started learning to draw people lol, I have a drawing of Carmen from 2020 that I'm still really proud of. It's hung on my bedroom wall to this day.

So thank you, Carmen Sandiego. For everything.

[gretchensinister]

Babylon 5 rewatch, S1 E21: Chrysalis

Okay let's get back into it after over a month!

Well if you're going to fight in public better wear a cape for it...

If I ever get stabbed for having important information, I'm going to make sure to not use any pronouns in my last words. It will be specific proper nouns ONLY. "They're gonna kill him." Man there's 250,000 people on Babylon 5

Oh hey it's that woman who's name I sadly forget because I didn't realize she was going to be a recurring character

Aw, Sinclair's proposal

Oh Lando, you haven't even BEGUN to offend gods yet

"After I while I might even come to enjoy it" and the "nibbled to death by cats" thing have stuck in my head for 30 years

MORDEN >:(

Watcha building Delenn? (And what did you ask Kosh 👀)

I find shady shipping/smuggling interesting on Babylon 5, because it's such a controlled/constructed environment, you can't just go a few miles down the coast. Like, presumably there has to be a lot of corruption in official channels to make it work. It just seems like there's more "chaos" for lack of a better word, on Babylon 5 than you'd think, given that it can't be approached or boarded without being tracked somehow.

"We're simply here to help." MORDEN

I didn't remember that Delenn got a Kosh reveal before her project, I wonder why/what it confirmed for her

More alienfuckery confirmed for G'Kar lol

Oh, that would be a lot of time in makeup. Love to see the extra effort.

The "him" they're going to kill has to be the Earth President, right? What with the unnumbered PPG

Well. That is one way to "take care of" a military outpost

Oh and the security forces ARE corrupted hey

Sinclair: Dealing with Garibaldi missing, then Delenn shows up with the triluminary "it's time to learn about the most mysterious incident in your past RIGHT NOW" That's just how it is on Babylon 5

I like G'Kar immediately recognizing that there's another force at play now

Seeing the president's ship explode on live TV--what had been comparable to that in 1994? I don't know what kind of awful "this changes everything" moments had been televised by then; I'm of the age where it made me think of 9/11.

Oh whatever is going on with Delenn does not sound good

The Centauri government thinks Lando did this somehow in secret??? Many people are sticking their fingers in their ears and covering their eyes.

Kosh feeling talkative today, I see

Ah yes. The chrysalis.

I feel like this is a major turning point in G'Kar's characterization

And THAT was a Season Finale!

[branzinos]

What’s your opinion on the new episodes?

rusty, but that was by their own admission in the entertainment round table. the pacing felt weird and charas felt oc because they were trying to set up a bunch of stuff at the expense of real character moments. Abbott has had a bit of a pacing problem since S2 - see how the legendary school stuff felt like it was leading to something big, and then was resolved in a single episode that wasn't even the finale - and already struggles with giving the full ensemble something to do - Barb and Jacob in particular felt really overlooked this ep - so I'm not sure why they needed to add THREE new recurrings unless its to fill out scenes that are Janine away from Abbott later in the season, because already two of those new charas feel superfluous. they were just standing there echoing lol. I also feel like they were so busy setting up bowling pins that there weren't a lot of jokes which also made it feel more sluggish than normal, but I'm hopeful that returning back to 22min will mean the next episodes are sharper. at the roundtable the cast unanimosuly said the library episode in the middle of the season was one their favourite to film so that bodes well.

the Ava side plot would have been fine as a one episode gag but in this two parter felt like a bit of a waste of time because it disappeared halfway through - though the dancing was funny. not sure how much I like the dismissal of her getting back into education though, it cheapens the growth the had in the previous season.

like everyone else I'm extremely relieved they broke up Melissa and Gary because they simply never set that up for us to have any positive connection with him, half the mentions of him off screen were about him being dismissive of Melissa, so I'm glad they let her set a boundary and keep it, it was a nice tie in to her relationship with Joe and gave her a bit more depth. like I don't care if they pair her up with someone, I'm not one of those people who is anti her dating a guy over a woman, but it at least needs to be someone in her own fucking league and that the story actually makes us hear about what a good partner they are (or a shit partner as long as the plot ESTABLISHES they are shit instead of trying to make us like someone who has given us no reason to). even if it's just off screen mentions like Gerald with Barbara - give us a reason to be invested in the relationship if you're gonna attempt an engagement scene, guys.

the way they're handling Janine and Gregory still seems right, it's season 3 of a planned 7 season show and it would be way too early to establish them as a steady couple, thematically that's the payoff near the end of the series like every other sitcom. it made sense that they're still approaching each other like nervous deer after the way Franklin Institute went, they're both still tender about it because it's still unresolved and they were both very vulnerable. they're still figuring things out and like Sheryl repeatedly says, they both need some therapy lol. they're very clearly endgame but it still needs more time and work for the payoff to feel earned and the show isn't at that point in the story yet.

anyway that new guy is Hans Frozen from Shein

[mllemaenad]

The Magnus Protocol: Rolling with It

Well – the show is on the cusp of a mid-season break, so it is absolutely time for someone to do something rash and foolhardy. This will almost certainly lead to a frustrating cliffhanger next week, because that's how pacing works. I look forward to Sam, Alice and Gwen all screwing up royally on their respective excursions.

That said, I genuinely don't believe that sticking your head in the sand is an approach that works. It's all very well to say a person should stay clear of the supernatural, but there's nothing in that that guarantees that the supernatural will go along with that plan. Something quite clearly happened to Sam at The Magnus Institute. Providing he is cautious about it, working out what that was is probably a good idea. But Sam doesn't feel cautious.

It's interesting how traditional this one was, and yet how different – because it's in the differences that you can see how this world works.

This is a bona fide Magnus Institute statement read by, at least insofar as how it sounds, the Archivist himself. And, like others before him, the statement giver has turned up to get the Magnus Institute to deal with his weird supernatural problem.

But the thing is – in The Magnus Archives the statements were always about the people. Oh, there were plenty of weird artefacts in them, but the storyteller themselves was always the point of the whole thing. It was the terror of the individual that The Magnus Institute actively sought, and it was following the interconnecting threads of the various recurring characters that led John to his conclusions.

But The Magnus Institute: Manchester does not care about the people. It cares about the stuff.

There is a very distinct difference between this:

Archivist Statement of Nathan Watts, regarding an encounter on Old Fishmarket Close, Edinburgh. Original statement given April 22nd 2012. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. – The Magnus Archives: Anglerfish

And this:

Chester Statement and Research assessment for artefact CD137 - Sam What the hell? Chester Magnus Institute – Manchester. Private and confidential. Viability as subject – none Viability as agent – low Viability as catalyst – medium. Recommend referral to Catalytics for Enrichment applicability assessment. – The Magnus Protocol: Rolling with It

The statement giver is nameless, you can only infer he's probably male from an offhand remark:

Chester/Unknown Statement Giver And that brings us about up to date. They're yours now, and I never want to see them again. Don't get me wrong, it’s a blow but I’m just not the right guy to carry them. – The Magnus Protocol: Roll with It

And that's hardly definitive. The Magnus Institute is interested in him only insofar as his experience illustrates what the dice can do. And it intends to take these dice, enhance them in some way, and then use them to cause something. Their use twists fate in some sense – so you can see the logic up to a point. If you're trying to make something particular happen, you might be able to use the dice to do that.

But what the hell were they doing? Specifically, what the hell were they doing to those children?

It's been a thread, all the way through, that distance from people in The Magnus Protocol. The way the cases are gathered, without the knowledge or consent of the people to whom these things happened, the barrier between the protagonists and the stories as Chester, Norris and Augustus are the ones who actually read them ... and now this. The Magnus Institute was looking for "supernaturally active items", not people who had had supernatural experiences.

RedCanary also found an object in The Magnus Institute:

Chester/RedCanary Re: Magnus Institute Ruins By RedCanary on Saturday April 23 2022 12:17pm The photos from the spelunk seem properly gone, but I did find an old wooden thing with a bunch of similar symbols on. Some kinda empty box, not really sure what for, though. Gonna see if I can get the light right for a decent pic. Edit: No dice, I’m afraid. Must be something up with my phone camera. Really not helping the whole paranoia thing either. Anyone know anything about photographic distortion? Gonna see if I can borrow my dad’s SLR tomorrow. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

That didn't feel especially noteworthy at the time: The Magnus Institute always did have some weird crap in Artefact Storage. But I keep thinking about Mary Keay:

Mary Keay Often, during my studies, my mother would talk to me of the amazing arcane relics at your Institute. I’m sure you can imagine my disappointment when I finally got a look at the collection of mediocrity that you call your “Artefact Storage.” – The Magnus Archives: First Edition

Mary was ... quite a piece of work, obviously, and there's no doubt that some of the things in Artefact Storage were very dangerous indeed. But it does seem that The Magnus Institute of that universe only collected supernatural objects incidentally: usually because a statement giver happened to bring one in.

But here – well, the artefacts are the point. And RedCanary took one away. And – heh – "no dice". I wonder if that box ever held dice. I wonder if they had still come up snake eyes.

The rest of the point of the piece seems to be about the nature of choice. That's always been a question, of course:

Archivist/Annabelle Cane Of course, that’s not the real crux of the free will question that’s bothering you at the moment, is it? I think that one probably comes down to whether or not you’re choosing to continue reading this statement out loud. You didn’t mean to, did you? No, I’m sure you told Basira and Melanie that you were going to glance over it and report back; perhaps they asked you if you were going to record, and you shook your head: maybe later. That sounds like the sort of thing you’d say. But think about it, John; when’s the last time you were able to read a statement quietly to yourself without instinctively hitting record and speaking it aloud? Is it just instinct, habit? Or is it a compulsion, a string pulled by the Ceaseless Watcher or the Mother of Puppets? – The Magnus Archives: Weaver

You can say the characters are making free choices, sure. But if an evil god (for want of a better term) is leaning on you, that constrains your choices. If your access to pertinent information is limited, that constrains your choices. If you're in the presence of a hypnotic artefact, that constrains your choices.

The statement giver is clearly compelled, at least up to a point. He knows, and Gary knew before him, that rolling the dice was likely a fatal idea. But they both did it anyway. So did all the random people he presented with the dice.

But at the same time, there are hints of a gambling habit that was present before he took ownership to the dice:

Chester/Unknown Statement Giver It’s been a while since I played the tables but I’ve used enough dice to know they were too heavy… And there was something else too. From that point on I own those dice. And I know it. – The Magnus Protocol: Rolling with it

And he clearly took to the damn things in a way that Gary did not. Gary clearly rolled the dice and had both very good luck and very bad. And at a certain point he decided to make them this arsehole's problem (and as badly as that ended for him, I can see why). But our anonymous statement-giver was committed to becoming a dark agent of fate.

Chester/Unknown Statement Giver I started to enjoy that more than the luck. I was rolling for myself less and less, focusing more on being some mysterious stranger. I even began dressing for the part: I got hold of this long dark coat, a wide-brimmed hat, grew a proper goatee, the works. – The Magnus Protocol: Rolling with it

It's funny that he didn't like D&D, given how quickly he took to LARP-ing.

But there are other questions about compulsion, too. Nobody but Gary was hurt? Not true. What about the truck driver, whose life was likely ruined by this event? Were they compelled by the dice to fall asleep, or to plough into that building, even though they'd never touched the dice?

Sam clearly gets a prod toward a Magnus Institute-related case when he's muttering about giving him – but he's also pretty clearly committed, whatever he says to Celia. And he is explicitly in the middle of the world's longest and weirdest application process as he's having this conversation. Maybe Sam's being leaned on, a little, but he's not resisting it.

And then there's Teddy. It's not that anything he says is impossible, of course. It's just an odd string of luck. He gets that job just long enough to be replaced by Sam and Celia, and then it's gone again. And then he's back in Alice's orbit. Teddy's not around the OIAR any more than that truck driver was around the dice. But does he still fall under its influence?

"Gerry Keay's" behaviour in the previous episode was definitely odd, but at the time it was a little difficult to tell whether he was overdoing an act … or if he was actually like that, for some reason. I'm more inclined to think the latter, now. I'm more inclined to think something's leaning on him.

And last, but not at all least, is Sam's questionnaire. Sure, "Why?" might be the weirdest part in the generic sense, but this:

Celia Please list your earliest four negative memories associated with school or an equivalent childhood educational institution, then rate each from zero to seven with zero being neutral and seven being traumatic. – The Magnus Protocol: Rolling with it

It's an odd bit of luck, right, that Sam's paperwork lands on a question to which he is bound to have an interesting answer?

And Gwen – it sounds as though she's been sent out to visit some kind of incredibly irritating 90s television star (I want to strangle the man from the name "Prank Tank" alone). She is to deliver him a name and address, just as Sam previously received a name and address. The coincidence, however, lies most in the children.

What was playing on TV when Sam, Gerry and the unknown others were in The Magnus Institute?

[feuqueerfire]

Love Sea + Special Live Blogging

I was pretty invested in Prapai/Sky in Love In The Air even when I was frustrated by their storyline, so I'm really curious to see how this show is for them. I know bits and pieces of this show (writer with a writer's block, puppy Fort..., a side GL that everybody was annoyed with and that apparently didn't get resolution?) and I'm curious to see how it goes, I think I've seen generally good reception even if people think the story's a bit of a mess.

I'm watching this right now because I have a week of iQiyi free VIP, though I'm sure that I'll have to just note the timestamps of NC scenes and watch those later, not trying to watch it all on the subway lol

Ep 1 (Aug 22) - Chapter 1: Love Begins with the Flick of a Pen

watching their inital interaction like :D ^-^

oh, Ja! I didn't know he was in this, is it a cameo or a recurring side character?

lmao crying at the nong trying to relay his P'Mut's coolness to Tongrak

but also I hope so badly that Mut is younger than Rak by a couple years plsssss I know in LITA Prapai was older than Sky but I feel like their dynamic would be even more delicious if the age gap is like their irl one

Mut is known and beloved across the island

ahh they're really leaning into the cat Rak thing. and we've got dog Mut coming up hehe

oh yeah, I also heard something about the skin tone comments, especially in the earlier episodes. (though it seems like it's meant to be funny/satire and not actually serious here)

The Vi and Mook beginning shenanigans are kinda cute, sad to know that they apparently don't get resolved and aren't well-liked

ah, Rak's gotta have sex to write about sex lol

a dramatic reaction to Mut going into the water early on in the series to hint at trauma but also to get the couple close even though they're not in their relationship journey to do it on their own yet. but yknow what? it worked on me. they're cute

After watching this episode, I must say... how tragic to me that Peat's surgery changed some key features of his face that make him look quite different (to me at least) because I really like Peat's face and look here. At least we'll always have his face in LITA and here (glad he didn't get it done before this show). but maybe that's just me because I've seen other people talk about how it was money well spent lol

the cinematography is so pretty, gorgeous island and beach, I wish I could go to Thailand bruh. and I'm giddy watching FortPeat-MutRak, they're so good as a pair fr.

Ep 2 (Aug 23) - Chapter 2: Echoes Across the Endless Blue

I watched the sex scene before going to sleep last night because I was like I'm gonna have to skip this when watching the episode on my commute to work, might as well watch it now. However, I only watched a few minutes of this on my commute, so I didn't even get to the NC scene to skip it.

I stopped around the time Rak started sucking on Mut's finger lol

As usual, I'm kinda disgusted by all this licking and tongue but somehow I can handle a lot more with this pair than in general

Fort looks sooo cute at Mut being all confused and annoyed about sitting on Rak's bed instead of having sex while Rak writes

Unfortunately I am nothing if not an enjoyer of someone making their crush run around and do errands and chores for them so I like VieMook for now, even though Vee is rude and entitled and thoughtless - that kinda comes with this trope territory. I'm more worried about them apparently not getting resolved by the end

The money and buying Mut think is a repeating theme

Woof!

the forehead kiss from Vie didn't actually do anything for me hm

not this lmfao. and Mut being dense like "what hurts?"

ah, Mut's estranged from his father, disowned since he was 15 years old. His dad has a boat but it looks like a regular-looking boat, not a rich ppl one

Palm calls Mut Phi just in a general familiar way right? Not actual familial way.

Why did Rak jump off to do diving without informing Mut when just a day or two ago he got scared when Mut jumped off the boat without telling him... smh

oh, in this trauma flashback where he's consoling his crying pregnant friend, Rak/Peats looks like Sky a lot

I think Fort reminds me a little tiny bit of Park Gunwook

[Linguistics] Mut -> Rak: Khun. Rak about himself with Mut: Chan. Rak -> Mut: Nai

Ep 3 (Aug 24)

I like learning more about the rumours Vie faces as a female lead and how she’s faking being unaware of them + how she was doing the “oh don’t you know I’m a fragile female lead” schtick with Mook

Oh, Rak has an older sister

and his dad is hanging around presumably for money

rude as fuck Rak omg though I get he doesn't wanna do whatever Mut's planning

not the paid boyfriendship while on the island

fake dating girlfriends? well not right now it seems but maybe in the future

"Possessive of my owner too. In case you didn't know" is so akldsfjlkasdfjlk;ajdsf l;kjasdf

a little coral education

ah, Vie's forcing the fake gf thing on Mook. rip. "rumoured to be boobing my way to the top" is so funny though

Vie saying "I'm not bi" and Mook probably thinking she's straight but just has fake gf but Vie likely means she's a lesbian

environmentalist Mut

"If I'm a good boy, could you use your mouth on me next time?" i'm sooaklsdfjalksdjf

omg why is the "stay on the island" convo so good and like emotional considering we're on ep 3. it reveals so much about the characters though, the way Rak's desperate to be asked and Mut's so afraid of asking

not Mut crying omg

aw, Rak has to go even though he said he'd stay

I'm nervous about them going back to the city because people said they liked the island episodes but not the city ones. hmm

Ep 4 (Aug 24) - Ch 4: From Seaside to Skyline

"If you can't bear to say goodbye, just buy and take the guy with you" lol

they really are doing the money and sex thing hmm

poor Mook lmfao they can't stop talking about fucking, these menaces. i'm torn between she's too naive/prudish vs you actually shouldn't have to hear about your boss's sex life at work

a whole contract goddamn and the clause of it ending whenever Rak wants which like yknow obviously it should end when either party wants but there should be like a "but you still get living expenses for 1 more month afterward to sort yourself out/figure out new income" or whatever

I can't read Mut right now. is he annoyed? frustrated? feels disrespected? still into it?

sugar daddy sugar baby i would actually be cringing so hard usually but yknow what... here it's somehow ok even though it's (purposefully?) a little uncomfortable

I don't fully understand their relationship because the asking to stay and island stuff was so full of emotion but now it's like contracts and money and also apparently Only Sex No Feelings (from Rak at least)

Vie/Mook are cute here

Ep 5 (Aug 25)

the thing with the making your crush run around doing errands thing is that there’s supposed to be a breaking point where the person actually listens to their crush’s complaints and hurts or whatever. whereas it's ep 5 and Vie is still ordering Mook around

damn, so much drama with Prin. and apparently everybody in their family is obsessed with men lol. it was actually an interesting argument because Prin was clearly getting to Rak and somehow... Rak and Prin are similar?

ah, the changing room talk is good

Ep 6 (Aug 25/26)

more of Ram’s backstory and Mut’s understanding

I like it when the supposed “top” and “bottom” in different ships are friends (Kom and Mut) bc it sometimes feels like only the semes can be friends with each other and the ukes with each other lol

aw pouty jealous babies lol

childish fight lolll

Rak going to Vie after the fight is so cute. he knows that Mut caring about him feels fucking fantastic and that he’s also got too much of an ego to say sorry

Vie needs to just grow a backbone and decide to confess to Mook or smth because there’s gotta be a limit to the manipulation smh

Meena is so funny lol

damn, is Mut supposed to tell little child Meena that Rak paid for Mut's company?

finally the blowjob that Mut's been asking for for like 3? eps already. also Rak putting Mut's hand on his head multiple times was killing me omg

oh that's crazy, face fucking in my thai bl

oh, Vie speaks French?

Ep 7 (Aug 27)

I have no patience for the Prin drama

oh Boss and Noeul cameo

can’t they see that Rak’s glass is full while the glass in front of Prin is empty and it’d be difficult for Rak to reach for it?

The Boy Next World is a novel within Love Sea? ah, so Boss Noeul are also actors within this show who will be adapting TBNW as well as in real life (they’re filming right now i think?)

9-10 years age diff? lol i thought like 4-5

Ep 8 (Aug 27)

“That’s fiction. This is real life. Don’t mix them up.” Mame @ us lol

Prin and Rak’s dad teaming up how annoying

So Meena’s 13 (she really gives like 9/10), Mut is 20-21, Rak is ~30

we literally have “practicing lines” + kiss for acting trope for the lesbians oh my god. and you’re telling me they don’t get resolved after this kiss? are you kidding. also i feel like people were doing too much with the “they’re so annoying i skip the gl side plot” bc we’ve def had worse/more boring/more annoying side BL couples but alsoooo I don't understand this couple and why Vie hasn't already come clean/confessed/apologized for making Mook do all the things.

yeah Mut going along to have a chat with the dad was indeed a waste of your time and you shouldn’t have done it

the dad killed some Uncle Doctor???

Ep 9 (Aug 28)

oh my iQiyi VIP is over (~12 hours ago) but my downloaded episodes are still here? I should’ve downloaded more stuff if I’d known.

I was finding typing out Uncle Doctor a bit funny but once I heard them say Na Maw, it reminded me that in Bangla too I might call somebody Daktar-Auntie/Dentist-Uncle etc lol

nooo Rak begging on his knees in front of his dad for Mut

Kwon doesn’t seem to think that he dad actually killed Doctor Uncle but rather just took credit of an accident the doctor was in

oh yes I’ve seen multiple gifsets of Mut beating the shit of the dad after the contract is torn. “You took off my collar, are you ready to face me?”

it’s November now and apparently Mut’s been here for a couple months

Ep 10 (Aug 28)

I can watch my downloaded thing even after ~20 hours later.

bit over 1h20 minutes

Ah, they’ve gotta deal with this being a whole contract thing and Rak not being ready to face his feelings

It’s a little satisfying to see Mut be harsh with Rak at the beach after he’s just taken so many insults from Rak

I took a break and have ~25 minutes left and I think it's been a day since my VIP expired and I can't access the downloads anymore.

cute enough ending

Overall:

Mahasamut and Park Gunwook are not the same, they don't have the same personalities, but some of Mut's puppy behaviours and general mannerisms... also his age gap relationship with an older person... cute round face with built body... oh man.

Anyway.

A fine enough show, I think the dynamic and characters were interesting and the show/relationships threads were good for the main couple, especially the class difference rich/poor conversations and how their dynamic evolved. I think my SkyPrapai might still be my preferred FortPeat roles, which again makes no sense, but this one was a welcome addition, especially because during LITA I kept thinking Sky should've been the older one while Pai was supposed to be a younger puppy. On that note, thank you forever for all the puppy/dog Mut.

Unlike most people who were so over the side-GL, I was actually quite into Vie/Mook (esp because they have some tropes I enjoy, such as celeb/non-celeb and one person makes their crush do chores/errands) and kept hoping for... something to happen, for their dynamic to progress. Was there a scene of them making up cut in the last episode or something?? They didn't get a proper ending, which is sad. Vie was also such a good friend to Rak, I don't know why she was such a terror with Mook and then never progressed past it.

Loved Meena, what a cutie.

The drama of it was... okay, I guess. I get why Rak's father was such a menace (greedy bastard) but why was Prin doing all that beyond just jealousy? I do agree with the general consensus that the island episodes were better.

I keep debating 6 or 6.5 but I'll go with 6 for now because the show's writing was wobbly at some places + I didn't really get brainworms.

Rating: 6/10

Special (Aug 29)

So are Vie and Mook just supposedly dating now? Or like what?

wait, it's so fun that Rak's the one trying to do the "ooh can I get a little kiss" thing because in BL dynamics, I'd expect Mut to be the one pulling that while Rak's like noooo as if they don't fuck on the regular

It's cute to see Rak try hard with the speaking his feelings + doing things for Mut like making breakfast. a reciprocal relationship

Vie and Mook are so cute when they're clear about this being flirting or whatever

gorgeous, gorgeous girls of the world

more dog references

I'm gonna ignore Vie saying that about Mook drinking. their kiss is good though, their ep 10 kiss was also good

I love whiny4whiny when Rak's whining about wanting AC when camping vs Mut's whining that it'll ruin the experience

A cute special overall. It's about Rak and Mut's progress and lives together in the future and how they've met each other in the middle rather than random drama. Vie and Mook are cute too, it makes me sad that their story wasn't given a proper conclusion in the original series. Also, I wanna go on vacation so bad.

Rating: 6/10

[an-aura-about-you]

oh I'm marathoning today because it's Handbook for Mortals Chapter 4:

when we last left our hero, Scheherazade had literally run into her other love interest Jackson Not-Rathbone (the book character's name is Milsap, but that's like. does it matter?) who is here to guide her on a tour of the theater that she's been here for a week and apparently still hasn't seen. we're not gonna see this tour, by the way. we're skipping immediately to something else.

on to Chapter 4: The Empress

-we start with Zade telling us that she's had some kind of premonition of the future. we don't know what the details of this premonition ARE, we're just gonna have to trust that she's had one.

-"I don't ask for them." I mean, yeah. that's how these kind of premonitions work. otherwise you would actively be practicing some kind of divination, right?

-she says she's getting this premonition only a few minutes before it happens, as if destiny only just changed paths due to someone's decision. but that doesn't make sense considering the decision isn't really made until after this point.

-she's also like, "I have no proof that this is how it works but I'm pretty sure it's correct." again, the choice that affects what happens hasn't been made yet, proving her wrong.

-the absolute ego it must take to be able to sincerely say, "my choices always seemed to be able to make a positive change to something that could have been tragic," as if Zade's choice to work for her daddy's show hasn't already made at least three people's lives (Mac, Zeb, and Sofia) more difficult for no reason.

-Mac either can't hear Zade or is choosing to ignore her. either is plausible but I'm leaning towards the latter.

-Mac's reaction when Zade finally gets him to turn around is, "Damn it, Zade! What?" so I stand by what I said. he could hear her and was trying to get away.

-after Mac says that everybody gets the occasional feeling that something is wrong but that people trust in that too much and forget facts, Zade says, "Well, I get them, and mine are never unfounded, okay?" because surely, surely that will convince him.

-Zade describes Mac as looking like he either wants to yell at Zade some more or push her in the pool. adding this to the tally of violent thoughts.

-we finally get some info on Zade's actual premonition: some piece of equipment is going to malfunction and someone is going to fall. it took 7 pages into the chapter to get this when it should have been in the first paragraph.

-so I know what's going to happen since I'm not going in blind, which is why I'm going to take a moment to set the scene for you guys. Zade tells us that she's climbed up to her spot and that Riley and Sofia are behind her on the catwalk. this is all we're given. we are not told exactly what spot Zade is on. we only know Riley and Sofia are behind her on the catwalk. this could mean either Zade is also on the catwalk and Riley and Sofia are behind her or there is a catwalk behind whatever spot Zade is standing on and Riley and Sofia are on that catwalk.

-Sofia and Riley are arguing about Sofia's safety harness, which Sofia complains is really uncomfortable. I feel like this is very unfair to Sofia since, y'know, people can complain about things and point out things are uncomfortable while still doing them. but also Zade has her safety harness on and is not complaining about it being uncomfortable. I know safety harnesses are designed for safety first, but this still feels weird to me. like, this can't be a recurring argument because Sofia would have been fired ages ago, claim on the boss's dick be damned. seems more likely to me they're not fitting her properly into her harness because while they care about doing their jobs they don't care about her comfort.

-ok it's specified that everyone's on the same platform, which means Riley and Sofia are behind Zade and on the same level. that's going to make this next bit baffling.

-the platform starts moving and Sofia falls off. but even though they started at the same level, Zade is apparently able to push Sofia as she falls past her in order to change Sofia's trajectory to the pool. which, if Zade was able to reach out and push Sofia, why didn't she try to grab her? she says she wouldn't be able to grab her but she was able to push her? and why push her when she could have done her magic sparkle thing to liquify the stage like in her high dive trick? you know, the high dive trick the entire theater company knows she can do?

and with how they're positioned, the only way I can picture Zade being able to push Sofia is if she had pushed Sofia off the platform herself Showgirls style. and you know what? I wouldn't be surprised if Sofia comes to that same conclusion in some version of this story where she's an actual fully realized character. to her this would mean Zade doesn't just want her job; she wants her dead.

-(this book would be so much better if it just went full Showgirls)

-so. Sofia falls about fifty feet, smacks into the pool, loses consciousness, stops breathing, Zade is successfully able to revive her with CPR, and when the paramedics look her over she DOESN'T have broken ribs from the CPR (something I'm surprised Sarem doesn't want to explain about since she felt the need to explain that Zade knows CPR because she was a lifeguard one summer,) there's no concern about her basically drowning or worry that there's still water in her lungs, and the sum total of her damage is a concussion, some injury that only requires a couple of stitches, a bruised tailbone, and a hurt ego.

if this book was actually well written, this would be the foreshadowing that Sofia is also a witch and just hasn't tapped into her powers yet because they are instead manifesting as rapid healing.

-literally nobody cares that Sofia nearly died. they don't even fill out an incident report. they're more concerned about Riley and telling him it's not his fault when I'd argue that yes it is actually partly his fault since he was the rigger staffed to make sure this didn't happen. but no, Sofia has to have ALL the blame. talk about adding insult to injury.

-even Zade is distracted from literally performing CPR on Sofia because she's paying attention to what's going on with Riley.

-"I'm sure she'll be fine," Mac says about Sofia as if Zade isn't STILL performing CPR on her. she doesn't regain consciousness until AFTER Mac says that.

-you remember back in Chapter 2 when Mac's defining characteristic and the reason he and Zade nearly came to blows is because he's responsible for the safety of everyone in the show? yeah. good times.

-Sofia comes to, Zade holds her and tells her everything's going to be okay, and then the paramedics come. I want you to keep this in mind. in fact, I'm going to write it down exactly as it is in the book on page 78:

Sofia began to cough and spit up water. I turned her over on her side. "Sofia, you're going to be okay. Just keep breathing." I held her as she coughed. I know when someone is close to death it helps them to feel comfort from another person--even someone they may not really like. I could already feel that everything was going to be okay. When the paramedics showed up with stretchers and took over, I was happy to be able to step out of the way.

-Zade is telling herself that she and Riley couldn't have done anything differently in that situation but yes they could have. Riley could have just put Sofia's safety harness on her argument be damned. Zade could have done her high dive trick so she wouldn't have to push Sofia. Zade could have grabbed Sofia even though she seems convinced she couldn't.

-thinking of that, even if Zade didn't want to use her high dive trick, she didn't have ANY other magic she could have used to save Sofia? Sofia possibly dying was worth it to keep the fact that you can do the magics a secret? a secret that you put on display for all 200 employees of the theater company?

-by the way, Sarem tried to defend this scene in the comments when Jenny Trout wrote about it on her blog. she straight up claimed that performers have died on stage but the Vegas attitude is The Show Must Go On. (performers have unfortunately died in some of these shows, but the usual response when this happens is to close the show for a period of time and do a thorough check of what went wrong to avoid future tragedy.) good to know Sarem is just as callous as her characters.

-we get another italics scene where we follow a conversation between Mac and Tad about what just happened and how Zade tried to tell Mac about her premonition before. it's basically the song and dance we've been getting throughout the book that I've been downplaying: all the guys except Mac really like Zade, Tad is now teasing Mac about liking Zade because he had caught him peeping on her before, that sort of thing. but what's jarring is that Zade inserts herself in this part. when the narrative talks about how Mac is dismissive about Zade's premonition, we get Zade in the first person saying, "I wondered if he was angry at me--or just angry that I had been right." girl, you're not in this scene! go away!

-oh yeah, Tad wants to make a mean joke to Sofia about how Zade the scene stealer saved her life. Mac tells him to wait until Sofia feels better so it has more impact. so, they're joking about taunting a person who nearly died to their face that the person they don't like saved their life.

-there's also this gross running joke established here where Tad's like, "If I Wasn't A Married Man," about Zade. a reminder that Tad is the proxy for real life actor Thomas Ian Nicholas.

-nice try Sarem but I'm not reading the lyrics in your songfic. if I wanted to listen to Aimee Mann I would just go do that.

-she also acts like Aimee Mann is super obscure? and like, I don't listen to her but I've at least heard of her before reading this book or watching any reviews about this book. come back to me about semi-obscure tastes when you get into the Mechanisms. or Jeff Wayne. or the Charlatans. or Prophunter. (ok that last one's cheating, that's my neighbor's grandson's band. see I can do it too, Sarem!)

-this is such a waste because the catwalk incident is the sort of thing that SHOULD be a turning point in Zade and Sofia's relationship but it's used as a turning point for Zade and Mac's relationship. and the fact that it's coming in the fifth chapter out of 22 (remembering Chapter 0 in our count) it's just too early for that with either relationship.

-Zade takes a moment to tell us she's noticed how good Mac is at his job of being technical director. right after we nearly saw someone die on his watch.

-Zade decides to bring up the argument about her trick and Mac basically accepts defeat but says the reason he had been fighting tooth and nail about it is because he doesn't want what happened to Sofia happening to her. so this is how we're using Sofia's near-death experience, huh? but at least it's enough to get it through Zade's dummy head that because of the magics Mac doesn't understand what it would look like if her trick was going wrong.

-let's add one to the tally of casually bigoted language. we had the g slur back in the foreword and now we have smoke signals.

-I'm. not sure how I feel about the characters referring to their motorcycles as crotch rockets.

-Zade gets all offended with Mac calling her Magi Girl. not because it's a weeb thing today but because it's apparently legit insulting in real magic user circles. again, you WANT the normies to do crap like this because then it's easier to keep your secret under wraps!

-this is the part of the book when Zade finally tells us that her name is short for Scheherazade as well as the framing device for the 1001 Nights for dummies. she leaves out the bit when the whole reason the Sultan has been taking a new bride every night is because he had been cuckolded and the whole reason he DOESN'T go through with the last part in his game of Wed Bed Behead with Scheherazade is because she captivated him with her stories long enough for him to realize hey, she HASN'T cheated on him in like three years! apparently Zade finds the story romantic, which gives you an idea of her (or Sarem's) reading comprehension.

-she also tells us her middle name is Esther, which tracks since there are certain common elements in the story of Scheherazade and the story of Esther. this seems like the perfect time to mention Zade is Jewish, but the book doesn't do that here. really? not even gonna namedrop Purim? even my dumb goy ass knows about Purim. eh, maybe I should be nice and count this as foreshadowing that she's Jewish? but that also kinda doesn't work because the book of Esther is in the Christian Bible.

-when Mac points out that's a lot of name to live up to, Zade's like, "I'm not trying to live up to anything." with how little has been going on in the story, we can tell. but also that's really clumsy for an author to do, naming their character with such a clear and obvious thread for the trajectory of that character's story and just. not doing it. it's the name equivalent of a Chekhov's Gun. it's like the opposite of the way the self-proclaimed terf queen named her characters.

-I actually find the fact that Mac's legal name is Clark Kent way more palatable than the mess that is Scheherazade Esther Holder.

-Jackson comes out to see Zade after Mac leaves and almost immediately makes a joke at Sofia's expense. the more this book tries to make me hate Sofia, the more I'm rooting for her. like seriously, the only person who gives even close to a shit about Sofia right now is Zade and she actually out loud tells Jackson that she's glad that Sofia's all right "for Riley's sake." to hell with all y'all.

-ok, go back and look up at what I wrote down for what immediately happened after Sofia regained consciousness. I want you to hold that in your head.

you got it?

are you sure?

okay, good.

here's what Zade is saying now on page 96 recounting what happened:

I started thinking about how Sofia had freaked out and pushed me away as I was saving her life--and her instant blame for it even being my fault.

BITCH.

WHERE?????

WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU CHANGING YOUR STORY ALL OF A SUDDEN?

also that was me. I'M the one saying it makes logical sense for it to be your fault. if Sofia was supposed to say that, you SHOULD have had her saying it ABOUT TWENTY PAGES AGO.

and this is basically where the chapter ends with just the last little flair of Jackson telling Zade she's really amazing. I know we toss the phrase mary sue around a lot but this IS some legit mary sue buttering up.

god, I'm gonna have to go watch Caleb Joseph's video where he writes a sequel for this. also I'd just recommend watching his stuff in general because he's a funny booktuber and his proposal for Handbook for Mortals 2 is legit funny AND clever.

[refriedrambles]

I figured Miyuki out! (For the Being Fired plot, she's likely gonna be very different in Cloning) It has ripples and implications on almost everything!

Also two Sporks. One goes by Spore and the other Pork, but both their pak IDs say Spork (and Pork eventually goes by it solely). I haven't figured out what happened to Spore yet maybe he went into hiding, maybe he's dead. I actually hadn't thought about it at all but there are so many possibilities.

Dude all of this makes my recurring shit for Miyuki and Spork make sense and it had absolutely no connection to those ideas. Like what??? This might actually work for Cloning's plot too

Okay so what happens with Spore has a huge impact on a lot a shit too

Going back to his other half, I'm gonna go with the angle that Spork and the Tallest knew each other. While he liked them, maybe saw them as his favorites, they didn't like him all that much. Likely bordering on hatred at times. He's just too much of an ass. I love it

Now I need to figure out where Announcer's allegiances lay. They're probably the same. I think? Maybe? I guess I just never wonder why he and Zee have beef. Did they used to be on good terms?

Miyuki dies out of nowhere and it fucks almost everyone's shit up dude. She gotta this presence looming over everything

WAIT WAIT WAIT

I had another idea! Can't even touch on this here though it's too important. This brings everything into the fold!

Mostly I've got like two big strings of events going on at this point. I need to tie them together still and make sure it ties into everyone's arcs. But I do like that they are almost all caused directly by someone's actions with in the story

I think this is making Spore my favorite aside from the main three

Need to strengthen Skoodge's role tho. Like the Tallest (all four) and Lords have huge effects because of their positions. And Zim has huge effects cause his a walking natural disaster. But the other characters need a similar sorta sway. They need to matter

What's Tenn's effect on the plot? It's not the war with Meekrob, that's the Tallest.

What's Zee's affect? I've got at least one solid idea, but aside from that? Her standing up for Red doesn't help his confidence or undo the trauma.

Collectively all six of them help Purple out of his situation, but he wouldn't have been in it at all if it wasn't for Zim and Red.

Skoodge is one of the main three. What's he do aside from conquer Blorch?

I refuse to demote him

[stormyoceans]

Hiiiii, i am curious to know what do you think the last twilight will tackle in regards to the characters of mork and day? and what is something you want to see?

[TAKES OUT HER MANIFESTATION LIST] SO HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU HAVE ANON

no im just kidding.. i mean not about my manifestation list that could take hours to go through, that's very real, but im not gonna keep you here for that long ;;;;;; anyway, if we're talking about overarching themes that i think are gonna be in the show, there are actually some recurring ones that p'aof likes to put in his series and that i am pretty sure he's going to further explore with day and mork, such as:

money and social class difference;

family conflict and emancipation;

failed dreams and trauma;

moving on from the past and embracing the future;

taking responsibility for your actions;

communication and self-expression;

the concept of home.

i could honestly spend hours talking about each and every one of these, how they were depicted in p'aof's other series and how i think we're gonna see them being portrayed in last twilight, but this would get way too long, so to try to sum it up i'll just say that most of these are built on dichotomies: past vs future, traditionalism vs modernity, societal expectations vs the concept of self, it's not just the main love interests coming from two different worlds and colliding with each other that bring these contrasts to the story, but it's every relationship between all the different characters. we know that mork and day meeting each other is gonna change their lives forever, the two of them embarking on a journey that will help them regain their self-confidence and faith in the future, but this will also force changes on everyone around them. it's hard to talk about this since we don't know much about mork, but one thing im sure we're gonna get, for example, is a major conflict between day and his family when it comes to his disability and what is best for him

i have yet to mention disability as one of the themes that the show is gonna explore because i think it kinda goes without saying, but at the same time i want to point out that, in particular, i feel like they're really gonna delve into what being a queer person with disability is like and the importance of having the support of a community. maybe it's just a coincidence, but i find it curious that during the pride event in this week's episode of be my favorite we got this particular shot:

not sure if the nod to last twilight is intentional or if im just delusional, but i do believe we're gonna get to see this in the show

ANYWAY. im rambling way too much and idk if any of this makes sense ;;;;;; as for something i want to see.. uuuhhhh [looks for something in her list that she hasn't talked about yet] i don't necessarily want mork to go back to school and gain a higher degree because while i think education is important im not the biggest fan of how a person's value is measured only by how 'book smart' they are, however i do want him to realize his own potential and for day to be the one to push him into dreaming and wanting something for himself again, even if it's just.. idk getting a bigger garage or changing career completely and opening a restaurant or whatever

[idleglowingpixels]

HEY HELLO HI, I HATH RETURNETETH \(OoO)/ AND WITH AN UPDATE! (probably not one you all expect tho)

Unfortunately I have a teensy bit of bad news, but for good reason, let me explain:

TL;DR, the job I had gotten in February around XYY Chapter 1's release didn't really work out. And I only just started a new one this week, so it's been pretty hectic in my personal life lol, not gonna go into detail but sometimes it just be like that! XD

But because of that, I haven't had the chance to really give Chapter 5 a proper overview & edit, which every other currently released chapter has gotten and deserves imo, so Chapter 5's gonna be a bit delayed. :'(

At LATEST it'll be held until June 14th, but I have this Saturday off of work, so I'm gonna make sure I dedicate time to going over it and making sure it's how I want it to be. If you want to know why this particular chapter is gonna take a second, read the next few paragraphs at your own discretion.

Also, if this is your first exposure to my fic from the great beyond that is Tumblr, you can check out the first 4 chapters of XXY here!

(SPOILER ALERT) This chapter introduces some new characters, including two of the updated 2016 reboot villains, who I want to make sure I introduce properly. I have the tag "Updated 2016 reboot villains" or something like that on the fic and I PRAY that wasn't a turn-away for people! Most of them are minor characters, who are one-offs for an arc of chapters, but there's one or two that recur as antagonists.

A lot of older fans reading the fic might not recognize them, think they're OCs, or do know them but not fondly (XD), and I hope the changes I make to them will have readers a bit more hyped about them. In earlier drafts of the story, I wasn't going to use any of the 2016 characters, but it's a teen AU for the Puffs/Ruffs, I try not to make OCs if I don't have to, and all of the other baddies are older in age --I'd imagine some of them got other stuff going on 11 years after the events of the original show HAHAH!

I scrolled through the fan wiki as well as recalled a couple from my attempts at watching the reboot, found some newer baddies I liked conceptually and took a peek at some of their episodes, and found ✨ POTENTIAL ✨ XDDD (Also shout-out to Shadow Streak's videos covering every episode of the reboot, I still have yet to watch every single one, bless him :'D XD)

The newer characters all have general-to-major changes from the reboot, but their main character gimmicks remain intact. They're also completely separate from the way they're written in the reboot, practically different characters haha (Given I'd never write characters the way the reboot did lol, it had its moments but they were few & far between). (END SPOILER ALERT)

It's a pretty long chapter tho, and considering it's in Boom's POV I'm happy I could give him a big chapter length since he's one of the more difficult POVs for me to write (aka not one of the Reds LMAO they're so easy for me to write for dgvvdfvdcsc).

Big apologies for not dropping it tonight or updating sooner! I didn't think the new job would tire me out so much, and I've been doing a ton of unrelated things in the background that have kept me busy as a bee. :')

Like I said, the latest this chapter will release is next Wednesday on the 14th, but may release sooner depending on my time schedule. This will not affect updates for Chapters 6 & 7, which will still be released on the 7ths of July and August respectively.

Thanks for all of your support 🙏 See you soon, stay hydrated, and have a wonderful day or night!

[my-whumpy-little-heart]

Persistence - 8

No BTHB prompt for this part. Find the masterlist for this series here, or the previous part linked in the first line.

Tag list (dm or ask to be added or removed): @whump-tr0pes, @burtlederp, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @doitforthewhump, @shameless-whumper, @endless-whump, @theycomeinthrees, @faewhump

CW: creepy whumper, painful wound cleaning, mild gore for brief description of stitches, stockholm syndrome-y vibes (but the whumpee is just delirious, not attached), pet whump mention (again, not actually)

“You’re gonna make such a good mage for me, aren’t you? Just for me, that’s right…”

Somewhere just beneath the surface Floyd desperately wanted to shake his head no no no a thousand times over, but he settled for dry heaving onto the floor next to him before blacking out.

Floyd opened his eyes and everything set in slowly. Arms pressed against him and the cuts all along his body, holding him against someone’s chest. The sharp haze of pain clouded his senses, the world a buzz of noise and color around him.

Eventually he felt the ground rise up to meet his back once again, and he must have passed out again. When he woke, he was being moved around from behind.

“Wha… what’re you doin’...?” Everything was still bleary, but it looked like there was another person in the room standing right in front of him.

“Trying to help you,” he recognized Percival’s voice in his ear, “Now sit up before I drag you by your hair.”

Drowsily, Floyd rolled over and started slowly pushing himself up, but lethargy still clung to his autonomy. He slumped back to the ground, trying to peel his eyes open long enough to see the world spin around him, but it was too little too late. Fingers reached and twisted in his hair, and sharp sparks of pain jolted him to his senses.

The grip tightened and shoved him into a sitting position, Percival’s hands coming around to grab Floyd’s upper arms, an iron grasp pulling him to sit upright.

He blinked in surprise, still dazed by the sudden movement, and noticed that there really was a second person in the room. Narrow, tired eyes looked back at him, glancing before--He? She? He really couldn’t tell--turned back to the table in the corner of the room. His stomach churned at the memory of being strapped to that same table not even a day ago, and he leaned unwittingly back into his captor’s chest.

“Hey, hey, none of that now. Casey’s gonna stitch up those cuts, and you’re going to hold still for them so they don’t mess anything up,” Percival chided, shifting him closer as Floyd tried harder to pull away.

“Nnh- I… what do you mean they? There’s only one pers’n here…” he muttered, finally stilling when he realized he was far too weak to get away.

“Yes. Casey is one person, they go by they, and it’s in your best interest to respect that, Benedict,” he hissed.

“Don’t bother,” came a bored voice above, slurred and careless as they turned away from the table with supplies in hand, “it’s not like your pet’s gonna understand the fine intricacies of human decency.” Casey chuckled quietly to themself as Percival’s face twisted.

“Hey, this one’s not a pet. He’s just a pet project I’ve taken, ah, special interest in.” He pulled a hand through Floyd’s hair as he said it, pulling back on greasy red curls so the boy looked up with a shiver.

Casey stood over him, a needle with some sort of thread in one hand and a bottle of ale in the other. They bent down and he eyed the bottle warily, thirst threatening to overtake him. Alcohol wouldn’t do much to rehydrate him, but to have any liquid at all would be a blessing.

“See that, darling? I saved some ale just for you.”

“Yeah, whatever. Hold it still; it’s not gonna like this,” they sighed, uncorking the ale and kneeling up to get a better look at Floyd’s body. He shivered, feeling bare under their critical gaze. He cringed when they peeled his pants back from dried blood and cuts, rolling them up to have better access.

They reached back for the ale as Percival held him carefully still, and only when it lowered towards his legs did he realize it wasn’t to drink. Casey tipped the bottle and translucent red streaks poured over his legs, mixing with darker, viscous fluid and sliding neatly into slices all the way down to the deep wounds in his heels.

It was a small, cool pressure like the saltwater, but then it was hot and steaming and sharp and overwhelming. He could feel every single pinprick of pain as alcohol flared and raged, as opposed to the hazy, deafening torment of salt. His muscles locked up at the awful sensation, shivering as he clenched his jaw and tried to swallow down a cry. The breathy whimper that came out made him wish he’d just screamed instead.

Floyd gasped deep, hitching breaths when it finally faded into a dull thrum up and down his leg. It was done, and he took his time to calm down before the stitching started. He could make it through this, and maybe mercifully pass out once it was over.

Casey’s hands wrapped around his ankles, and Percival’s around his shoulders, and he’d been spun around before he could protest. His back now faced out, and that left him staring forward into his captor. Agitated cuts on his legs pressed into the floor under him, but he couldn’t shift before he felt the unmistakable sensation of more liquid rolling down his injured back.

Before Floyd could even think, his hands were fisted in Percival’s shirt, head pressed to his chest, and eyes screwed shut as ale seeped quickly into the deepest wounds. This time he let himself shout when it sank in, writhing against the pain. Percival’s chest shook with laughter he couldn’t hear. His arms circled around Floyd’s back in an awful mockery of a hug, hands skimming over cuts and fingers with long, cracked nails pressing cruelly into them. He yelped and shivered every time, feeling them slip under his skin where he never should have been able to feel.

“You do know there’s no point in me cleaning its cuts if you just stick your dirty fingers right back in them afterwards, right?” Casey grumbled, busying themselves with threading the needle. Percival laughed again and moved his hands back up to massage at Floyd’s shoulders.

“Let up, Casey,” he clicked his silver tongue, waving them off, “didn’t you see him? The first hint of pain and he came to me to support him. I think it’s sweet.”

Floyd shivered uncomfortably, flushed with embarrassment and anger. Of course he used Percival to support himself; that freak was the one holding him in the first place. He didn’t have another option.

“...wish it wasn’t you,” he muttered, too scared to confront his captor with anything else he was thinking.

“Oh, Benedict, you poor thing,” Percival pouted maliciously, cupping Floyd’s chin in his hands and tilting it up to look him in the eyes. “There’s nobody else here who would even bother to hold you while you cry. Is seeing my face really such a price to pay?”

He averted his eyes in a silent concession.

“Then why didn’t you just say so in the first place?!” he exclaimed, the shift in his tone just startling enough to drag Floyd’s gaze back up to him. “I can do that for you, darling.”

Percival’s eyes flashed with hot, swirling magenta tones before he faded from vision. He… he turned invisible. That wasn’t what Floyd wanted at all.

“...alright, I’m just gonna start on the stitches so this doesn’t take forever. Hold it still,” they sighed, placing a light hand over one of the wider cuts and positioning the readied needle. Percival pushed his captive back against his chest, looping arms under his shoulders and nodded.

“Go on,” he gestured.

Face buried in his captor’s chest, he struggled to draw deep breaths before the needle slid in, tugging through the corner of a slice. It felt… wrong. It didn’t hurt so much as it tingled, sending his stomach fluttering at the sensation. He held his breath as the next stitch slipped through, slick now with his own blood, pulling sickeningly at skin as the last one tightened further.

Stitches painted a canvas across his back, moving on to another when they closed the first wound. Slowly, Floyd felt himself falling out. His tense muscles went limp, only jumping at occasional deep pricks of the needle, and he closed his eyes. If he imagined hard enough, he could almost pretend the sturdy frame he was curled up against wasn’t his captor, but Ray. The long strings of hair that tickled the back of his neck were Ray’s dark curls, and the sharp scent left on his shirt wasn’t vinegar, but the salty, sandy smell of everything Ray wore.

Slowly, his hands loosened from fists in Ray’s shirt, and wrapped around his midsection in an embrace that the recipient leaned eagerly into. He could hardly feel the needle sliding through his skin anymore, and focused more and more on the comfort of his captain, holding him close after this terrifying nightmare was over. Kind, and warm, and soothing, like a father to his son…

“Alright, that’s it. I could get the ones on its legs, but they’re small and I’m bored,” Casey said, pulling Floyd back to reality. He blinked, realizing that the man he was up against was visible once again and the illusion shattered. He had been hugging Percival,and burying himself in that awful vinegar scent, and feeling his arms around him. At the smug look on his tormentor’s face, Floyd let go of him as quickly as possible and scrambled as far away as his sluggish limbs could get him. He’d just willingly hugged the man who kidnapped and fucking tortured him, and imagined he was someone he admired.

Anger flashed in Percival’s eyes, and he flew forward kneeling right over Floyd and catching his shoulders to keep him from moving any further.

“Don’t. Tear. Your. Stitches.” he seethed. “Casey worked very hard to make sure you don’t bleed out or get very, very sick aside from what I’m going to do to you. So, if you ruined their work this quickly after getting it done, I’d be loath to let you get away without severe punishment.”

He left the threat hanging in the air, but Floyd nodded quickly, face still flaming. He didn’t need examples. He already had them bruised, cut, chafed, and slowly scarring across his body. He didn’t need any more. Percival smiled, dismissing Casey before he spoke.

“Perfect. How do you feel about a meal, then?”

Next part

[eyedelater]

golden kamuy fragments

here are many short thoughts that i want to put out there but not as individual posts

because that would be too many individual posts.

i like the idea that usami could be a prettyboy that people around him love if not for his feral nature and shit personality

boutarou charm point: letting his long hair fall onto your body in unpleasant ways

tsukishima charm point: face partially obscured by hat <3

wilk said, "i want asirpa to become someone who chooses the difficult and thorny path of her own will and tries to grasp happiness with her own two hands." (inspired) i should choose the difficult and thorny path of my own will…! noo but it's so thorny

we really really need more characters like sofia. big and not beautiful in the face and cool. big mom from one piece is big and not beautiful in the face but she's not cool. she's cringe.

if i ever suffer a grievous life-altering injury i hope it at least makes my character design more interesting like with tsurumi

kiroranke's wife and sons only got drawn once but that panel got copied and pasted like 3 times. his family has an entry in the golden kamuy fanbook and it's yet another copypaste of the same panel.

hijikata toshizou is always dealing fatal wounds to the abdomen. they're gonna die horribly, you know?

otonoshin's recurring shakashaka and nagakura's recurring watata are not that different. they should get along

kikuta mokutarou's name is probably mokutarou because moku means wood and his face looks like it was carved from wood. (checks the kanji) 杢 is the moku in his name. i thought it would just be 木, the usual kanji for wood, also pronounced moku, but 杢 apparently means woodworker, so that makes even more sense.

i love tsukishima so much. i'll never get tired of him. sometimes you just need to spend a whole lot of time thinking about a really unhappy little guy.

another thing the official translation did wrong is that they didn't let us know when koito was adding an extra A to the end of tsukishima's name. it's a habit of his to say "tsukishimaa!" and sometimes, he even says "tsukishimaaa!" that's a charm point, dammit! he's a whiny bitch! include that! EH scans included that. (raises 100th glass to EH scans)

probably a lot of ogata's attitude toward guns, starting from childhood, is like, "this makes killing so easy. if it's this easy, it can't be that wrong." and that attitude, combined with certain external factors in his life and what some might call a clear case of the dark triad, slowly ferments into the ogata we have today. that's a big part of why he can kill people without remorse: because it's so easy... and because no one is close enough to him to make him question his own viewpoints.

it was the nikaidou twin with the leg wraps who hit sugimoto in the face with the rifle. i noticed during the nikaidous' first appearance that one was wearing leg wraps and one was wearing the leg guards that are not wraps, so i was going to use that to differentiate them and figure out if it was youhei or kouhei who hit sugimoto in the face with the rifle, which sugimoto himself wasn't sure about. and then i'd sound real smart. but by the time youhei got killed, it seems he and kouhei had taken their differential leg coverings off. even though i went to the trouble of remembering about the leg wraps for the duration of several chapters.

reading the raws is enlightening because japanese only uses punctuation sparingly (japanese doesn't Need punctuation in the first place) so when there is punctuation included, it's there with a strong purpose. like the first time nihei tetsuzou just shouts out "BONER!" as an exclamation, there's a rare exclamation point and it made me laugh

golden kamuy is good for your mental health because it exposes you to scenarios like seeing nihei tetsuzou's detailed face saying, "My boner is raging out of control," and you get to experience the resulting emotions in a safe, controlled situation. (the emotions involved vary from person to person.)

most middle school boys in america could do an edogai cosplay just by drawing two lines down their face because they already have the exact right haircut

it's my 4th read and i only just noticed that the stand-in fake nopperabou has had his tongue cut off… i mean, it makes sense given how he behaves (no words), but yeah, it's visibly apparent the first time he screams. never looked in there before.

i haven't looked at much kirakado fanart yet but it's occurring to me that there must be a scenario where kirawus is like "i can't believe i'm letting this guy rummage around in MY asshole…!"

when tsurumi was hasegawa, he liked big guns enough to have a machine gun hidden in his big camera, but when the big gun was being fired right next to him, he had a perfectly blank face instead of tsurumi's usual look of orgasmic bliss. that must be something he developed during his later military service and time on the battlefield.

when koito picks up tanigaki's gun and it's got a grenade trap under it… tsukishima protects koito by grabbing his head, by the face, with his big mitten. head. face. mitten. i had forgotten about that particular action. i really like the mitten to the face come here boy it's gonna explode. and then tsukishima gets his hat knocked off again :(

the kanji for sugimoto SAichi, uSAmi tokishige, and SAdo island (tsukishima's birthplace) are all the same SA. it's 佐. just a coincidence. 佐 means help.

the reason boutarou knocked shiraishi out of the way and took 3 bullets for him is because moments earlier, he recognized that he had finally taken a fatal amount of damage, and shiraishi was basically the only remaining person who could tell the world about him, as the pitiful remaining fragments of his dream.

i was wondering how commander koito's satsuma dialect would play into his communication as a big boss military man, like maybe some subordinates from different regions could have trouble understanding his commands? but in chapter 291/292 raws you can see that every single thing he yells is in kanji, no particles, no grammar. that must be the navy standard. so you don't really have to worry about dialect if you're not stringing any sentences together.

when you find a work that really strikes you, i think it's very important that you make sure that you are picking up what the author is putting down before you start engaging in fandom. sometimes it'll take more than one read or watch for that to happen. otherwise intra-fandom memes and headcanons could poison your mind with foolish misconceptions. (like what?) <- wikipedia-style annotation debunking myself

[tratserenoyreve]

on my list of genshin characters who i believe are likely to perish at one point in the plot, funnily kaeya is not one of them!

(musing and spoilers under the cut)

kaeya is more of like a walking chekhov's gun imo. one that we're pretty sure is gonna shoot eventually but i do think the game is purposefully trying to mislead people into double-guessing kaeya's motives so that he can pull a sick stunt later on and be like "ha ha i got you!" like a full fakeout where he acts like he's betrayed everyone but surprise he did that so he could get to the inner circle and sabotage things so everything's fine again.

kaeya ages like a regular human being and was able to grow up normally with his adoptive family from childhood. very unlike other khaenri'ahns suffering from the curse of immortality as dainsleif describes, a curse that also potentially is what has kept rhinedottir alive assuming she wasn't already some form of magical being. kaeya seems bogged down less by the weight of a curse and more by a family legacy, a grudge against the gods that destroyed their home. either he is a descendant of survivors from khaenri'ah or he was directly saved from the cataclysm by timey whimey shenanigans that plopped lil kiddo kaeya into the future. no matter which tho, he is very much faced with choosing to pursue revenge or living a life of ignorance in mondstadt with those who brought him in.

the themes of revenge and challenging decisions made by gods are recurring in genshin, so kaeya having to decide what he should fight for, if it's even fair for him to literally bear the sins of his father, fits snugly into that. i don't see him being in mortal peril. more just having to figure out where his loyalty lies and what he chooses to believe in.

my list of folks likely to die really isn't that surprising tho and probably in line with most others. from most to least likely i have:

1) albedo. he was made by rhinedottir, who also crafted durin the venomous skeletal dragon, the riftwolves, and probably other fun surprises we have yet to find. it's implied rhinedottir may have directed her creations to destroy things, and albedo's story quest has him musing on him eventually losing control and wondering if he can trust the traveler to stop him.

he also has a few profile snippets on feeling like there isn't enough time, which is odd coming from someone who has already lived for at least 400 years and been adopted by similarly extremely long-lived people. albedo mentions that he resonates with durin's remains, which is how he deduced that they're related. he also was able to piece together that rhinedottir tried several times to make a homunculus like himself, with more than one failing before him and consequently being discarded.

the reality of rhinedottir possibly being a big future main antagonist combined with albedo's storyline contemplating the fragility of life and the shadow of death looming over his history doesn't make it too big of a leap of logic to see him dying as a real potential.

2) venti. his entire image is built around martyrdom, that's why mondstadt has a church like it does. the death of the nameless bard in the uprising against decarabia put in motion a series of events where venti has already sacrificed a lot of himself. he may be the god of freedom, but he has next to none himself. his appearance is that of his deceased friend, he wishes for mondstadt to operate without him, and he has some concerning things to say about celestia.

"the water tastes foul" is a very concerning thing to hear about what is supposed to be the heavenly plane! there's also the fact that the abyss order's plans involve the use of an inverted stolen statue of barbatos. as one of the oldest remaining archons, venti has more insight into how the gods of teyvat have operated than anyone else the traveler has met yet. venti also seems aware of gods that pre-date celestia, naming some of the dragon lords in a webcomic. which were slain by phanes waaaayyyy before celestia touched down on teyvat.

venti knowing too much and being a bit too willing to guide the traveler towards shaking up the order of things on teyvat combined with his pre-disposition towards self-sacrifice lines him up for potentially being killed by either the abyss order or even celestia as the story goes on.

3) childe. dude's story quest is pretty much learning he's cutting his life short through use of a delusion. additional info from him goes on to discuss how he had been trapped in the abyss itself for a while and that violent experience really messed up his outlook on what life is. i don't have him on my team but his behavior screams "i am going to pick a fight with the wrong person one day and i will not regret it".

4) lisa. possibly. probably? she's been cursed and was confirmed by devs outside of the game as to having had her lifespan cut short for seeing something she shouldn't have. dunno if this means she'll pass away over the course of the story tho or if it'll be left as an impending inevitable eventuality.

there'll likely be more as the game releases more characters and info but for now these are ones with the most notable death flags i've seen.

[andcrsonn]

1-10 ( glee meme )

1) Favorite original club member?

Out of the original six, probably Kurt or Finn! I love both of their voices and they're both super entertaining.

2) Favorite character introduced in s2/3?

is this even a question my SON blaine of course

3) Favorite s4 newbie?

If I'm being honest I don't really have strong feelings about any of them, but honestly I like Jake. I know he's a stereotypical fuckboy but something about him is really charming, I love his voice and I love his character development!

4) Favorite s6 newbie?

I'm a bad fan who hasn't watched season 6 yet OOPS but based on the snippets I've seen I think I'm going to like Roderick a lot!

5) Favorite adult character?

Coach Beiste is a rockstar ♥♥

6) Favorite guest star?

TIE between Adam Lambert (not sure if he counts b/c he's more recurring) and Neil Patrick Harris!

7) Least favorite character(s)?

Honestly most of the adult women lol. April, Shelby, Terri. I can't even really explain why. I know I'm gonna get shit for this but Santana is not a favorite of mine... sorry

8) Character you’re indifferent about?

Artie, honestly. He's always been kind of bland, at least comparatively

9) Character you used to like but now dislike?

Schue. Lol I was in love with him for a while but now I just cringe and realize that HOLY SHIT he is...... not a great person. Like he tries but... oof

10) Character you used to dislike but now like?

Sue, I say cautiously. I like her for the most part, way more than I used to, but the whole Sue being invested in Klaine plot line makes me really uncomfortable if I'm being honest. Also Burt. I started watching the show with the pre-conception that he was a homophobe that didn't support Kurt but I was quickly proven wrong. 10/10 a heckin good dad

[offbrand-deltatraveler]

So, someone out there's probably wondering about how I said in that reblog that The Player is not yet open for Asks,

They will be eventually, after a certain World reaches her place in it

As well as many others. A few examples being Ralsei, Noelle, many breif appearances of Rouxls, etc.

I can't mention anyone else for spoiler reasons but Ralsei will be opened for Asks everytime he appears in a new Dark World. Including Villains

Noelle and anyone after her is yet to be determined

And Villains cannot receive Asks ever again once their Fountains are sealed

'Cause guess what?

This blog's got

✨Story✨

Story that's shaped by the people I RP with. And they're in the form of Worlds

Chronologically,

The RP I'm doing with @softie-artist-bf is World One

World Two is undetermined

World Three I can't talk about because Spoilers Dude, but I already know who I'm gonna do it with

World Four is the RP I was doing with @your-demon-gf but now it's with @ask-fnf-minus-starcatcher-cast

World Five and up are undetermined. And aren't opening yet as I wanna finish World One through Four before starting another

(There are a lotta Loose Ends I gotta tie up before that can happen)

And once they are opened I'm gonna stop predetermining who I RP with after World Six

The amount of Worlds there can be also aren't limited to 7. I just have most of the main characters' times of appearance planned

Not sure if I want all the classmates to appear, but I can say that Noelle and Berdly are gonna appear sooner or later and anyone who hates on Berdly is getting blocked and publically executed because fuck Berdly haters.

Also most Castle Town residents won't be appearing except for recurring main characters like Lancer or Spamton(This does not 100% mean Lancer or Spamton will appear in the future this is just an example)

(Or is it)

And I may also have The Dimensional Fun Gang revisit certain worlds to take a break every once in a while

But anyways yeah that's how this blog operates. It's surprisingly not just randomness all year 'round

(Note: None of the music featured on this blog is mine. They're either from the base game, AUs of Undertale/Deltarune, and if I really have to I'll use the OST of other games. But all the links come from the most original source of the songs I can find and I'll try my best not to spread around any reposts[Unless they're from the base game 'cause who doesn't know who Toby Fox is])