#nothing bad about kids or characters having kids

[pparacxosm]

okay so.

hi lol

the rumours are true, they didn’t want me to return to tumblr but God did. did you guys think i was dead, be honest. how did you think it happened? tiger mauling? did you think i, like, rose to the occasion with the tiger? like did i put up a fight, in your mind? let me know i’m serious

anyway yes. hey all.

happy holidays, happy early new year, and happy belated *checks notes* CEO assassination?

i guess you’re wondering where i’ve been (hadestown reference for all who have the ears to listen; who’s heard the west end recording btw? good right??) and, too, why i left.

concisely, things were a little tough. things are still a little tough. but so persists the body, whether fond thereof or not ! and anyway if i was successful and well adjusted then i wouldn’t be able to write fanfics centred around pathetically hapless young adult main characters so really you guys are very supportive of my potential gap year next year, right? you are, aren’t you? please tell my mom.

i’ve been up to some stuff. i flunked my first year. i ghosted my therapist (shoutout georgia, that was my bad). i proceeded to be admitted into outpatient treatment. trigger warning? you can fill in the blanks. i watched west side story with my little brother on four separate occasions, not kidding. i held space for the lyrics of defying gravity. i missed you all. lots and lots. please don’t think i didn’t.

i’m still not totally well, but i’m alive and i’m happy to be back and do y’all still give a fuck about challengers?? be fr.

because i do !

in fact i have something for you, if you want it. the haters want to say i’m not an art girl sooooo bad. you will be dealt with.

but BEFORE any of that !! i want to know what i’ve missed. please tell me !!! is everyone still here?? did anyone have a baby? did you name it challengers ??

seriously do tell

i am accepting any and all news and, most importantly, any and all recs !!

any writing posted in the last 2 months that moved you, that flayed your heart, that made you shut your phone off at the dinner table, puhleaseee let me know

and that includes your own stuff !! save your shame for the vicar !!! i want all the self-promo, i will take it as a personal offence if no one recommends something of their own to me !!!!

i’ll post the thing i’m working on either tomorrow or sunday (holy day, which is actually pretty topical, you’ll see), but in the meantime i just wanna spend some time reading and interacting with some good shit so nothing is off limits !!

also once again i missed you.

really i did.

and i really really appreciate anyone missing me back

i love you guys, and i love tashi duncan, and i love mike faist. (but if i speak on the josh o’connor developments.. yeah let’s keep it cordial.)

[arcaneconfessions]

I hate that the memes about Vi being worse after a situationship compared to growing up in prison are somehow correct.

When I first saw it in the trailer I was like, this is clearly a cumulative thing. As she said she spent all those years starving, abused and freezing simply on the hope that Powder survived, so she has absolutely nothing left when Powder is dead and Caitlyn abandoned her, it’s just all that catching up. It’s not that she could stand all those years in prison and not last a break up.

but then they made the most idiotic choice of centring her breakdown entirely on Caitlyn- she is the only one that haunts her and nobody else when I know damn well Vi has other regrets and there’s so much more to her character. You can’t even make the argument that those other regrets are implied, because they aren’t - we are literally within her head. She’s constantly trying to drown out the noise (of Caitlyn) via drinking/fighting and it’s not working.

How about her family? Failing to fulfil Vander’s dying wish to take care of Powder? The last they saw, Jinx was trying to kill herself using Vi (“Go on”/“I’m glad it’s you”/ actively saying no and not moving off the table when Isha gets in the way of her death/“no, no this isn’t how it’s supposed to go”- in reference to her surviving) so what’s her thoughts on that and Isha?

how about some reflection on last season where she told Jayce to stfu and continue because one dead kid is more than worth putting an end to Silco?

How about her becoming an enforcer? The same people that abused her and murdered her parents? Now she was one of them, using brutality that she was a victim of since she was a child, willing to use the same poison gas that arose because of Piltover’s exploitation of Zaun within the streets- again told to her by Vander. (And don’t give me bs about it not being that bad when Viktor’s terminal illness is caused by it YEARS LATER, we are shown in s1 that CHILDREN work in those factories and with chembarons, we are also shown how bad the grey is in that music video). When Jinx brought it up, all she says is that she’s done blaming herself for Jinx’s mistakes- but those aren’t Jinx’s mistakes, those are her own. Does she recognise this?

Vi in s1 had opinions about “scraping together coins whilst [Pilover] has plenty”, the Lanes being her streets, wanting respect, growing up feeling less than them and wanting that to change etc. She’s super happy to be eating Jericho’s food, parkouring and correcting Cait’s assumptions. So does she still hold these opinions in s2? What changed if she doesn’t? Her entire thing was being Vander-mini with feeling/being responsible for the lanes/her family. How about now? How does she feel about anything?

I adore Vi and seeing her reduced to “Emo lesbian can’t get over her situationship” is awful. I’m not talking about the jokes, but in canon how things she should have strong feelings about are entirely ignored for her feelings about Caitlyn. Her trauma isn’t properly explored at all, a music video where she’s only upset about Caitlyn is so unfair to her.

.

[lsargeantsgirl]

Who Is Your Best Friend?

pairing: Logan Sargeant x Williams driver reader

word count: 1.9k (whew)

warning: james vowles; angst; y/n used

character sorta based off of me

“y/n, the media team needs you by the end of the day,” James (ewww) said as you left his office from a meeting. 

“Okay. Bye,”

After you did the simulator a couple of times, setting your record, you went to the media room. The media intern saw you and waved you to the filming room. You sat down as she started the camera and she gave you the mini mic. 

“Ok, welcome, we are going to rapid-fire questions, then edit it with Logan’s answers.”

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” you said giddily.

“You ready,” you nodded, “ok, first one, what's your name.”

“y/n l/n,”

“Number?”

“78,”

“Birthday?”

“(your birthday)” “Favorite singer,”

“Taylor Swift”

“What’s Logan’s favorite singer?”

“I don’t know”

“Favorite Taylor song,”

“Hits different,”

“Logan’s”

“You belong with me,”

“Hometown”

“(your hometown)”

“Best friend”

“Logan,” you briefly thought of how much your friendship with Logan meant to you.

“Favorite hobby”

“Arts and crafts”

“Ok that’s it,” she says, stopping the camera.

“Noice, that was fun, I like that game.”

“Thank you, see you tomorrow, bye,” she said walking out of the room with you. As you rounded the corner into the hallway, you ran directly into Logan. 

“Hey, did you just do the media thing they wanted us for?”

“Yeah, it shouldn’t take you too long,” you informed him.

“Ok, nice, have a good day, see you tomorrow,” he said, smiling gently at you before walking away.

Your heart was beating out of your throat. Logan always made your thoughts go crazy. His accent always made you smile. He always, to you, more than your friend, you. You had issues with trusting people when you were a kid so when you met Logan you emotionally bonded to him. You hoped that Logan thought of you as highly as you did him.

A couple of weeks later when you were scrolling on your social medias, you saw the video of the rapid-fire questions. You watched, laughing at yourself and Logan. When the best friend question came up, your heart sank as you saw Logan answer without a beat Oscar. You thought he would be different because he was your best friend. It turns out he was just another one you thought was your friend but he didn’t reciprocate. 

Later that day, your high school friend came over to your apartment. You were gossiping and catching up on life when she brought up Logan. Your mood soured; she noticed.

“What’s with that face? Are you and Logan no longer friends?” she asked hesitantly.

“No, No, we are, I think.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought he was my best friend, but he without any hesitation said Oscar. And I know he’s known Oscar for way longer than me but I feel like we’re closer than them. I don’t know what to do because if I stay acting like nothing happened then I will feel bad and sad but if I ignore him then he might feel bad,” you said fast.

“Oh ok, I thought something unforgivable happened between you two. But maybe you should just talk to him,” you shot her a glare, “or let him bring it up when you ignore him.”

“I think I’ll just try to forget and try not to get closer to him. But if he brings it up then I’ll talk about it.”

Turns out you didn’t do very well at trying to forget about it. You thought about it every single time you saw Logan. It was like a nagging guiltiness you felt when he would talk to you with his cute American accent and his radiant smile. He made you feel guilty without actually doing anything.

“Y/n, the media team wants us to make a video. I think we should go bother the people interviewing down there.”

“Ok, you can do it if you want,” you said flippantly. You were distracted by a text your friend had sent you. Logan snatched your phone from your hands and started reading the texts. 

“Oooh, y/n has a crush, on whooo,” he says with a schoolboy tone. You tried taking your phone back but Logan kept holding it over his head. You were shorter than him so it wasn’t easy trying your phone back. 

“Logan, give me my phone back,” you said.

“Tell me who your crush is first.”

“Logan, no.”

“Tell me.”

He kept holding your phone higher than you could reach. The only way you could get your phone back was risky and very inappropriate to do because it's what needs to be done. You ‘lowered’ your defenses. You nut-tapped him and when he bent down in reflex. When his defenses were lowered, you took back your phone and walked away. 

TIME SKIP

The door to the room you were in opened, and Logan came into your driver's room after a while. “Sooo, are you gonna tell me who you were texting about,” he said after flopping onto your couch.

“No, why are you here?” you said while working on some homework because you were a college student while being an F1 driver. Yes, it was hard but you were so close to graduation. 

“Media still wants that video.”

“Do you want to make a TikTok or what?” you ask.

“Ehh, I don’t know, we should post the video of you physically harassing me.” You slowly turn around and if looks could kill you would be in jail for murder.

“Logan, if you post that, I will personally push you off the track and then hit you again. I would not care if James kills me but I will kill you,” You said while Logan just sat smiling at you. 

“You look if you were my type, hot mad,” Logan said, now he was lying fully across the couch with his hands behind his head. He had that grin that always made you guilty. 

You stood up and walked over to Logan. You bent down to his level and your eyes bore into his. Unbeknownst to Logan, your heart rate was so high it would put anyone into a heart attack. You gripped his chin as his smile faded.

“Logan Hunter Sargeant, I will kill you if you post that even in a conversation with your bestie Oscar. If you continue to ask me who that was, I will do things you don’t want to know to you.” 

Logan grabbed you and pulled you into himself, laughing. “Baby, you don’t scare me.” He had you on his chest. “Seems like I scare you.” He could feel your heart beating out of your chest.

“The only reason I would be scared of you is because of your stupidity. It takes a special kind of stupid,” you said pushing up on his chest with your knee between his legs. You moved it a bit higher so you were essentially kneeing him in the nuts. You could see when he started to be in pain. “, to think you scare me.  But Americans are known to be stupid.”

You got off Logan and went back to doing your homework. You didn’t see when Logan slipped out but you felt his eyes on you before he left.

TIME SKIP

You were standing on the balcony in the paddock in Singapore. You were breathing in the fresh air. You had been overwhelmed with the end of the season. You were glad to end it but you were also sad your second season was over. 

Logan joined you on the patio to tell you that the media still wanted that video. Unbeknownst to you he was already in the making of that video. 

“It is so peaceful out here. It would be a shame if something disrupted the peacefulness.”

“Logan, you already ruined it by coming out here.”

“Oh, really, I thought I was helping you enjoy the view and the experience.”

“Well, you weren’t. You just made me so much anxious. Thanks for that.”

Logan pulled something out of his pocket. He messed with it for a second raised his arm and threw whatever it was. He ducked below the edge of the balcony. The people below were in the middle of an interview when the, now apparent to you, paper airplane hit them.

They all turned their heads to you. You were a deer caught in the headlights. Frozen in fear, they turned the camera towards you. You turned to Logan who was crouched down beside you and kicked him. 

“Logan, you idiot. Why did you throw that at them.”

“To them, I didn’t throw it.”

You kicked him again, turned, and stormed into your driver's room. When you opened your computer you saw an email from James. The only line in the email was ‘Get into my office now.’ You knew what he was going to say. You prepared yourself for what he was going to say. 

You slipped into his office. James looked up from his computer.

“Y/n, why did you throw a paper airplane at the Haas people in the interview?” he said, angered.

“I didn’t do that. If ask your favorite little American driver, he’ll say I threw it but I didn’t.”

“I’m not punishing you but if you do it again, I will,” he threatened.

“I didn’t do it in the first place but I won’t let Logan do it again.”

He nodded, dismissing you. You walked to Logan’s driver's room.

You went into his room without knocking. “Logan, I swear to God, go tell James that you threw that paper airplane at them and it wasn’t me.”

“Hello to you,”

“Logan,” you said walking closer to him, not realizing he was shirtless.

“This is the first time you have talked to me without me starting the conversation in like two months. I like it when other people start conversations with me and I don’t start it.”

“Logan, you weren’t worth my time,” you professed.

“Worth your time?”

“Have you ever had someone who you thought was your best friend say that they don’t think that you are their best friend? No, you probably haven’t because no one would want to be your friend,” you said raising your voice.

“Is that why you ignored me for all this time? I didn’t say you when they asked who my best friend was?”

“Yes, I thought you were my best friend. But obviously, you don’t think the same.”

“Yeah, you aren’t my best friend, because I don’t see you as a friend,” the color drained from your face as you lowered your head.

“Okay, never mind. Let’s forget this ever happened,” you said as your voice was shaking. Slowly turning around to leave.

He walks behind you to the door. You open the door and he reaches over your shoulder to close it. He forcibly turned you around, pushing you against the door. “I don’t see you as a friend. I see you as a woman who I hope is attracted to me as much as I am to her.” 

He stares into your eyes, “what?” you ask.

“I like you, maybe even love you,” he said with adoration. 

“Logan,” you said breathlessly confused, “what, you like like me?”

“Yeah, if we were in elementary school,” he cracked a smile which you reflected, “then, yeah, I like like you.” 

“I like like you too,” you whispered.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah, if you say I’m your best friend.”

“You are my best friend,” He said giggly as he kissed you.

Author's Note

Thank you to everyone who liked my other posts. love you

[absolutebl]

BL Announced for 2025 - PART 1

Ones we have dates for:

The Boy Next World

1/5 Thai iQIYI trailer

Is this the backstory of Cirrus & Phugun from TharnType 2 or just the same names? Regardless this is BossNoeul in a multiverse "slip through time" kinda thing but it's Mame + high concept so we in for a bumpy ride.

When it Rains it Pours

1/9 Japan MBS

Convoluted story about a man in a relationship who is sexually unfulfilled and his friend who is in love with him, who accidentally become secret confidants.

Impression of Youth

1/15 Taiwan

Exclusive Love

2/14 Taiwan Line

Shy aspiring singer inherits funeral business and a sexy mortician to go with.

Top Form

3/25 Thai WeTV

Adaptation of a Japanese manga. Boom (Chains of Heart) opposite Smart (Don't Say No). Actor recognized as the "The Sexiest Man of the Year" has his first-place position usurped by young newcomer. But while he sees them as rivals, turns out the new kid has other ideas.

My Sweetheart Jom

4/25 Thai YouTube

Saint is back in a BL? Who knew that would ever happen? When he gets tangled up with a mafia boss's son's girlfriend and ends up in a scuffle, young Yothin needs to find a safe place. Instead of sending him overseas, his father decides to send him to the countryside! There, he stays in Bang Pho under the care of subdistrict headman, a close friend of his father. He's also under the watchful eye of the village headman who happens to be the subdistrict headman's grandson and is overseeing his probation. As Yothin spends more time with Jomkhwan, his perception of the village headman begins gradually to change.

ANNOUNCED FOR 2025

No date as yet, alphabetical order.

8Hours

Thai

Season 2 of 4 Minutes.

A Dog and A Plane

Thai trailer

A prissy gay flight attendant in a push-pull relationship with an EMT dude-bro. Characters are a bit throwback to PeteKao (no bad thing) not to mention the looming shadow of What the Duck? (bad thing). But the side couple is the always appealing MarcPoon. Okay GMMTV, surprise me, I'm game. And you know TayNew are my OG GMMTV pair du jour.

Allure of the Siren

Thai trailer

Bitter rivals, Dao and Chaisai, are reluctantly thrust into an unprecedented partnership as they embark on a relentless quest to locate missing strippers.

Be My Soulmate

Thai

Star Hunter is putting MosBank back in uni. Engineering student shacks up with a judo jock, sexual tension is high but nothing changes until one of them becomes single.

Boys in Love

Thai trailer

Our only true high school BL from GMMTV and it's fresh faces for the youths and old favs for the teachers. It's milk teeth Make it Right and that is perfectly fine with me! I like lotte milk. Also DIMPLES! Yay! I suspect they're using this one to test some new pairs for future seasons. Like a Project 101 Thai BL.

(Honestly I just invented an amazing reality TV for you GMMTV, you're welcome.)

Burnout Syndrome

Thai trailer

GMMTV doing edgy is never a good thing IMHO, and in this one they're handling sex work. *shakes head* However, Not Me is the noted exception and this is that same pair with the same director. So I'm curious if not wild about the content. That said, I'm delighted to see Gun with someone else (Dew is a stunning choice, thank you Casting) even if only for a love triangle moment. It's been a WHILE.

Cat for Cash

Thai trailer

Finally something fluffy with a pair I like from GMMTV 2025. Looks cute. I like cute. Yay for me! Adorable gay boys and cats. This one is basically made to be a tumblr comfort meme meets thirst trap. I see what you're doing GMMTV and I applaud you. Carry on.

Doctor's Mine

Thai YouTube trailer

Another try at adapting Gown & Gear. Couldn't possibly be worse than the first attempt.

Eyes On You

Thai trailer

Fight for You

Taiwan

Da Hei reluctantly takes on dangerous odd jobs to earn medical funds, unaware that his roommate Xiao Bai is secretly an operative sent by the intelligence agency to take them down.

Flavor of Us

Thai trailer

A critic inherits a restaurant and his mother's debt and to keep the inheritance he has to hire the chef he hates.

Flirt Milk

Thai trailer

Originally slated for 2023, now entirely recast. The facial hair is KILLING me.

Friend to Fan

Thai WeTV trailer

Goddess Bless You From Death

Thai trailer

PavelPooh are back. Thup, a young man with extraordinary senses, is drawn into investigating a mysterious murder case involving brutally mutilated bodies found in the forest alongside the more rational thinker Singha.

Dare You to Death

Thai trailer

JoongDunk as police investigators in a mystery suspense thriller. Yes, I'm in. This is it. This it the one I wanted to instantly watch. Even though their's 20 BLs airing right now.

Head 2 Head

Thai trailer

The Boo kids are back. I don't love this pair (I find their chemistry and acting awkward) or the main trope (E2L) but I do like the new sides and their trope (2nd chance is a fav of mine). So this one will depend on whether those are full side dishes or just crumbs.

I Promise I Will Come Back

Thai-Taiwanese colab

Stars 2 Thai actors and the Taiwanese identical twins from H3, that's mostly intended to be a tourism advert for the Thai countryside.

I'm The Most Beautiful Count

Thai trailer

Not long after famous actor Prince came out as queer and rose to the top of the entertainment industry, he wakes up in the body of a good-looking noble in the Thongburi Kingdom of the past.

Interminable

October? Thai YouTube

BillyBabe are back in a reincarnation historical.

Khemjira AKA Spirit Reborn

Thai YouTube trailer

Was 2024 officially moved to 2025. Supposedly the scariest BL ever. Khem is born cursed. A daughter would be safe but a son dies at 20 so Khem’s mother cleverly gives him a girl’s name, Khemjira “forever safe.” But Knem is baout to turn 20 and he doesn't think it's working so he seeks the help of a curse-breaker, turns out to be his great love from a previous life.

Knock Out aka Knockout

Thai WeTV trailer

A low quality less fun and funny version of Wandee Goodday.

Got too long for tumblr find Part 2 here.

(source)

This post is static and not updated. All information is to the best of my ability at the very end of 2024. Not responsible for changes, cancellations etc...

[itsbenedict]

Did anyone else play Cluefinders as a kid? They were these edutainment point-and-click adventures, sort of... Indiana Jones by way of Scooby-Doo? These were my jam back in the day, and I went back to them to see how they held up.

And the answer is... uh, there's a surprising range of quality!

Basic Cluefinders knowledge:

The Cluefinders are a group of mystery-solving teens, who, uh. It's not entirely clear how they find clients, but they're apparently world-renowned for it.

Joni, the redhead with the glasses, is the leader. She is spunky and belligerent and likes to punch problems until they're not problems.

Owen, the green shirt kid, is Shaggy. He talks in surfer dude slang and likes to eat. He's just Shaggy.

Leslie is Velma. Just Velma. That's kind of it. She uses big words and knows about science and things.

Santiago is also there. He has a phone? I think his trait is that he has a phone.

Laptrap is the mascot character and the game's menu. He is a hovering robot turtle thingy. His job is to be scared of things and complain about them. Both entirely reasonable reactions to the things that are happening! He is nonetheless treated as an embarrassing wet blanket and deserves better.

3rd Grade is weirdly the best one, I think? And the first one they made, indicating that the budget dried up at some point. It's this kind of mystery about an evil dragon that's been terrorizing a magic jungle full of living plants and talking monkeys and stuff, and it's got like 20 different educational minigames that teach and test various skills. The writing is like, very stupid and for-kids, but not offensively so. It all comes together with a twist villain that they foreshadow pretty well over the course of the game.

And there's musical numbers!

Fun stuff! I was kind of surprised by how well it held up. The others... did not, as much.

The fourth grade one is... bad. It has this structure where there's just four minigames, and you have to do them over and over and over and over again to get enough "Cairoglyphs" to proceed. Proceed how? An old man decrypts them and tells you clues. What clues? Don't even worry about it. Once you get enough of those, we switch to a second phase of the game that's also doing four minigames over and over and over again, this time to get gems to get past way too many doors in an ancient temple. It drags things out so much.

And the rest of it is... truly bizarre. Everyone's drawn totally off-model. It's narrated by a talking dog with a Brooklyn accent who's treated like a core member of the group despite never showing up again, and concerns... uh, a plot by an evil egyptologist to resurrect Set and take over the world? Maybe? It's very weird and loosely-sketched. Like... nothing connects.

The badguy is a comically extreme Dan Backslide ne'er-do-well, and he's the only part of the game that's any fun. I love him. He does not have a motive. He does not have a reason to kidnap "the professor" who the player's stated goal is to save. The professor appears to only exist for this guy to gloat to about how evil he is to. He dies almost immediately upon realizing his ultimate ambition when the evil god he resurrects predictably fails to recognize the authority of his summoner. Could not be more stereotypical, but the voice actor is clearly having the time of his life and the energy is infectious.

The rest, though... The Cluefinders' connection to this kidnapped professor is something it has no interest in describing, apparently banking on the audience's willingness to accept that they must just be walking in on an episode of a show whose background was established earlier (it wasn't).

It's hard to even describe how silly the climax of this one is. You... collect gemstones from talking mice on behalf of a sinister cat, who lets you into a temple where various ancient Egyptian gods congratulate you on being so smart and give you entirely useless superpowers.

Joni gets "bravery" (a costume change, she was already brave), Leslie gets "intelligence" (a costume change, she was already the Smart One), Owen gets flight (a costume change, useful precisely Never for any of the puzzles that involve finding a way to cross over a pit), and Santiago gets "strength" (a costume change, useful precisely never for any of the puzzles that involve finding a way past a heavy stone door). Then, in short order, you arrive at the villain's lair somehow, too late to stop his evil plan! But then, you do anyway! By, uh...

...you, um... it all happens in a cutscene, and I couldn't follow the mechanics of it at all, but there was some kind of mechanism in the temple? And they had Santiago lift up some pillars? And this somehow resulted in Set falling into a bottomless pit and that's the end?

I... I dunno, man. I dunno what happened here.

The 5th Grade one is pretty wild. There's like, a floating island that eats people? It collects castaways from across various time periods, somehow, and shlorps them down into some bottomless pits that appear out of nowhere, and you gotta figure out what's up.

The writing is like... weirdly... I wouldn't call it good, but the writers put their actual-writer hats on for it. There's one minigame that's like a reading comprehension thing, where there's all these lore journal entries from various survivors ruminating on their situation (and they're broken up into paragraphs and scrambled so you have to put them in the right order for the entry to make sense), and you get this kind of background on the culture clash of castaways from different time periods banding together to avoid being eaten by the island (and ultimately failing).

Gameplay's pretty bad, though. 3rd Grade had 20 different minigames, 4th Grade generously had 13, and this one's got eight. In terms of reusing content by making you do the same thing over and over to bypass arbitrary obstacles, it's one of the worst offenders.

There is this guy, though:

There's a minigame where... god, it's such an off-the-wall justification for the minigame, but- it's a geography minigame about reading maps and stuff. There'll be various cities or states or countries on a map, and you start at one and need to reach another target one, and you have a bunch of rules written down like "don't pass through Illinois" or "you must cross the Mississippi river twice", and then use a limited number of options to chart a path from point A to point B that satisfies all the conditions. Kind of fun, honestly.

But this guy- the fluff for it is that he's the notorious Cryptile Thief. He stole everyone's cryptiles, and to keep them safe, he threw them into, uh...

...this small grove of piranha plants. He knows how to get them back, because he knows some safe paths through the evil flytrap cluster, somehow. But he wrote down his paths in code, basically, in the form of those constrained maps. No explanation is given for how he mapped real-world geography problems to flytrap-safe loot routes, but supposedly it Just Works. Problem is, he got locked up by the villagers for stealing everyone's cryptiles, and can't get out.

(No, it is not explained why in the world the villagers had a bunch of cryptiles and why they valued them or what he was trying to accomplish by stealing them.)

But then while he was in the stocks the ground opened up and slowly devoured all the other villagers one by one, including the ones with the fucking key, so unless someone goes and saves them, he'll be stuck here forever. It's kind of grim! It's unclear how the time-warping aspect works, and how long this guy's actually been here. Is he immortal and he's been here for three hundred years, or did all this happen yesterday? He acts like it was yesterday, but there's also a crazy old man castaway who acts like it's been decades at least.

Anyway, 6th Grade was, if I recall correctly, about an underground army of sentient mutant plants plotting an invasion of the surface world, but this was apparently when they discovered 3D graphics and did a lot of experimental bullshit under the hood that no longer works on modern computers. It kept crashing on room transitions when it was trying to do fancy 3D effects. Womp womp.

The only other one of these I played (besides some sort of... weird day planner software that wasn't really a game) was Math Adventures, which I remember being my favorite as a kid but I couldn't tell you why. It was based around this logic cube thing, where- after completing minigames for villagers- you'd get clues that would let you eliminate possible culprits, until you got down to one and could corner them.

Culprits of what? There's this remote Himalayan village where the village's treasures have all been mysteriously stolen. Somehow the Cluefinders get wind of this and go to solve it, and then... you play eight minigames over and over again.

Structurally, it's very weird. You corner the culprit, and invariably it's one of the minigame host NPCs who just says "okay, yes, I took this thing and hid it here, but it's because I was being threatened by the yeti! So we're cool, right?" and then the village chief goes yeah, "we're cool, we're not going to have you face any consequences for this." (If they went to jail, how could you play their minigame fifteen more times?) Repeat, yes, fifteen times, until you've recovered all eight treasures. Yes. There's duplicates of these priceless unique treasures, for no apparent reason. I think they designed it around eight and then decided to double it to pad it out???

Some of the minigames are cool and challenging, like the one where ice blocks fall from a conveyor belt and you have to form them into valid math equations. Others are...

...a really shoddily-implemented breakout clone where you have to catch numbers to solve equations, but the game can only handle three numbers onscreen at once so actually being good at breakout is actively disadvantageous because breaking too many blocks at once just breaks blocks. Or... uh... the second one there, where, um... hese blobs of purple goo with numbers on them come down a track, and you need to shoot them at these shelves to splat the right numbers into place based on the graph to the left. It gets insanely hard later in the game, because there'll be three rows of shelves and three graphs and the graphs will stop conveniently locking to the marked numbers so you have to try and eyeball whether that line on the line graph which bends between 20 and 30 is doing so at 26 or 27. If you ever get one wrong you instafail and have to reset. Ugh.

(Why is this happening in a library? What are we accomplishing? How does any of it help this woman remember a clue to the mystery? Not one second of thought is spared for these questions.)

Anyway the ultimate culprit was the only NPC who doesn't have a minigame and only shows up in the opening cutscene to loudly blame the stolen treasures on the yeti and insist that everyone give up on finding them. This was not even surprising to me when I was eleven years old. Very lame.

I never had any of the rest of them! I'm kinda curious to play them and see what I was missing, even though I kind of don't expect any of them to have been good.

Anyone else remember these things? Or know what was going on with the one with the scary clown rollercoaster or the evil toy store?

[autisticrosewilson]

So do you guys actually think that Jason's entire story, relationship to the others, and philosophy amounts to him being a rebellious teen who wants his dad's attention? Like are you 100% serious? I thought you were joking about that but too many of you are saying it with your whole chest.

And what the fuck is this "Bruce antagonizing Jason is fanon!" Shit I've been seeing? You guys are aware that a parent can love their kid and still be a shit parent right? I know you guys don't want to fathom the thought that maybe your blorbo might also occasionally have to face responsibility for consistently endangering children but let's not start being delusional now.

Bruce does love his kids, that doesn't mean that he hasn't hurt them. And I'd also argue that for the most part he feels in the right for it, and he's said multiple times that he believes it's for their own good, so you can't even argue that he's sorry about it. It's okay for you guys to admit that your PERSONAL INTERPRETATION of the character wouldn't do that but don't sit here and pretend that it's not a facet of the source.

[serpentface]

Oh yeah I meant to ask, to what extent does social paranoia/self-surveillance/Complexes/etc. affect Janeys & Brakul’s relationship, or their attitudes toward one another/themselves? I remember something written about them not engaging in penetrative sex in relation to Wardi taboos on bodily integrity, which, if not just happening to coincide with personal preference, sounds potentially pretty fraught. (Maybe excessively paranoid, but I want to clarify that this isn’t necessarily a Horny Question)

Not a horny question but as usual my answer is going to be excessively long and detailed so get ready.

Anyway yeahhhh it’s pretty fraught. The bottom line is that they love each other and are also mad horny about it with only a limited number of outlets, which only adds stress to an already stressful situation. They are fully aware that they love each other and there's no 'no homo'ing their way out of this one, but ARE kind of in denial about there being a sexual component to their relationship (which is partly bolstered by the Wardi view on sexuality only considering Full Penetration to actually be 'sex', and they aren't doing that, sooooo....).

With regards to paranoia/self surveillance....

Both of them share a fairly equal concern about status and honor. They are both fully in agreement that many aspects of their relationship have to be secret and that both need to uphold a normative life for high status individuals. The threat of public shaming is a very real concern, and they have killed people over it (duels over slander and impugned honor are legal in some contexts, Brakul extralegally beat a guy to death for it once).

Brakul personally most concerned about other people, and is compelled to avoid doing anything in public that could even be construed as romantic in nature. Wardi cultural norms permit men to be physically affectionate with male friends (kissing on the cheek is a common greeting) but Brakul is pretty hardline Bro Do Not Even Touch Me In Public. He has very few compunctions about anything done in private so long as he doesn't specifically feel emasculated by it.

Janeys is heavily religious and strongly concerned about curses and spiritual pollution (all believers in this faith share this basic tendency, but it tends to be of more pressing psychological concern to the upper classes via impact on social status and honor). His core personal concerns are on the spiritual end of things- belief in curses and spiritual pollution is a very real motivating factor in this culture. Anything he does that is conventionally understood as emasculating or spiritually violating, he has to rationalize and self-justify away.

There’s a tendency among the upper class to imagine the Commoner having a poor, uneducated, and superficial understanding of the religion, and philosophical debates on the nuances of religion is considered an ideal leisure pastime among the educated upper class. So part of Janeys’ self-justification cycle is usually like “I am very smart and knowledgeable, and now that I’m thinking about it the idea that [xyz gay as shit behavior] is spiritually polluting is superstition of the common rabble and missing all the Subtle Nuances”.

It’s kind of like Janeys will laboriously mental gymnastics his way through his various concerns and eventually be like “I Have Discovered That Giving Blowjobs Is Not Spiritually Polluting, (And In Fact Is Very Masculine???) I Will Analyze This Further” and Brakul is like “Ok cool not polluting okay awesome that’s great ok let’s go let's go letsgoletsgoletsgo”

This is a long, slow process. They have been in a relationship where they both want to fuck each other stupid for over a decade without any of that happening, instead just very slowly escalating while being very frustrated about it the whole time.

Sworn brotherhoods such as theirs are upheld by an annual ritual involving bloodletting (the palms are cut, blood drained into wine and mutually imbibed, other stuff happens). It’s a lengthy ceremony and partly supervised by a priest. The first escalation is they started doing this like, monthly on their own. It feels intimate and scratches an itch for physical and psychological closeness.

This escalated into performing a ‘’’condensed’’’ version of the ritual, which is really just them sitting around and cutting each other with a razor and licking up the blood (while perhaps half-assedly reciting the associated prayers). The underlying factor is they always need to have some excuse that does not ‘shame’ them- in this case, they have decided that their frequent exchange of blood keeps their bond soooo strong and powerful and that they're like, the best sworn brothers ever.

This blood shit is UNQUESTIONABLY sexual for them and is a physical outlet for sexual frustration. And it does eventually escalate to them finally getting off (‘weird blood shit’ was their first base, ‘doing weird blood shit and frantically dry humping to completion and then not talking about it’ was their second, ‘kissing on the mouth’ was like, 6th)

This all was worsened by the genius decision of having Brakul knock up Hibrides, who is Janeys’ wife. Janeys has no attraction to women (and also probable fertility issues) so he never succeeded himself. She had passed the expected childbearing age and is utterly miserable in this relationship and was kinda like “uhhh if you won’t let me fucking DIVORCE YOUR ASS you’d better figure something out because you’re shaming ME”, and since sworn brothers effectively ‘share’ wives (IN THEORY this is just a commitment to support your brothers’ wife and children in the case of his death) they came to an agreement that this was NOT Janeys being cuckolded and shamed, as long as no one else finds out.

The lingering after effects of this decision are one of the primary strains on their relationship on a whole number of levels, one of which is Janeys now being intensely jealous of Hibrides for ‘getting to’ fuck Brakul, and that she has had a form of closeness with him that Janeys can never have (not even just the sex but like, conception itself). The feeling of having a metaphysical bond with someone who he sees as stronger than himself makes him feel more secure, and the sense that someone has gotten in the way of that and experienced something 'deeper' is very distressing for him. Brakul also kind of wants to be a father and really, really, really wants a relationship with his bastard children (something which both Janeys and Hibrides prevent him from doing) which really wears on him.

On a personal level, Janeys swings between feeling smugly justified about everything (he's only hiding it because everyone around him is stupid and wouldn't get The Nuances) and like, Oh God I've fucked up so bad I am shamed beyond recognition. Why did you let me do this to myself, this is your fault, you made me like this, etc etc etc. (This is especially the case when he suffers any unusual misfortune, seeing it as signs of a curse).

Brakul can usually weather this out (and is also very good at logically assuaging his concerns), but it's very draining on him. He shares the core belief in spiritual pollution, but he doesn't share the experience of actually Feeling dirty or shamed by things only they know about. They get into a lot of fights (not necessarily explicitly about all this, but it's an underlying tension) and Brakul often just deals with it by up and leaving for days on end until Janeys is miserable enough to not be upset. Brakul also has some alcohol abuse issues and could be diagnosed with clinical depression (not entirely because of this, but it doesn't help).

Another bottom line is just like, after over a decade in vehement denial that they are fucking each other, the notion of 'actually fucking each other' has kind of an outsized weight to it. Objectively (BY WARDI CULTURAL STANDARDS) they have ENTIRELY and thoroughly shamed each other and are riddled with spiritual pollution, and taking it up the ass couldn't make it any worse so might as well. But they haven't quite got there.

So yeah this is kind of all over the place but I think this answers the question???????

[nadiajustbe]

@entanglementbroke

YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT AND YOU SHOULD SAY IT!!!

A little post about the parallels between Sophie and Howl and Justin and Suliman because I cannot be the only one seeing this

Fist of all — and I've already mentioned this in one of my older posts but it's worth mentioning again — Witch of the Waste is apparently rather repetitive in her plans, because she took Ben as "a bait to fetch Justin" the same way she has to get Sophie in order to catch Howl.

And the fact they were both very adamant about it: the loser Howell went to search for Sophie looking like a SCARECROW and Justin was arguing with his brother for month without changing the topic before he just RUN AWAY TO FIND BEN ANYWAY.

They say lovers are crazy, after all.

Second of all, whatever is happening here. I mean, I get it, Sophie is too happy too look away from her horrible husband but THESE TO GUYS DOING BASICALLY THE SAME THING THEY'RE DOING TEN STEPS AWAY FROM THEM? (Except they weren't holding hands, but well, there was no chance of happening anyway).

And the fact that there's no dialogue — all of these guys are basically just looking at one another in silence for some amount of time.

(I do not now how to comment this third quote. Besties seemed to be really happy to see eachother as this shaking hands-hugging stuff happened immediately after the horror that was Percival)

Third of all — and there's probably more but I'll stop on these one cause it needs context and one of my favs — this small moments in CITA hinting on both soldier's and the genie's real identities through Ben and Sophie accordingly.

This becomes even funnier when you remember that Howl and Justin were affected by the same kind of spell (although Justin's were lighter) and these two were a bit desperate to notice something familiar, anyway.

(Also I find it especially funny how Ben still stands on his take of knowing the solider even when Abdullah told him pretty clearly that's a random guy from Strangia. "Then he reminds me of someone who I know" HE LOOKS LIKE HE HAS BEEN THROUGH TEN WARS, HAS A DIFFERENT HAIRCUT, UNIFORM, HASN'T SHOWERED PROPERLY IN SOME TIME AND YOU LOOK AT HIM THROUGH DUSTY MIRROR?? These gives me Sophie's "what genie" vibes)

[skunkes]

biggest downside of not having many experiences or meeting many people is not having anything to feed into the art machine

[moeblob]

Ladd: but why would you kill me when I'm willing to kill for you?? Lass: omg you can't just say you'd kill someone, Ladd. that's murder and it's frowned upon.

(and then Ladd does kill for her but it's fine and part of the job)

[hauntingblue]

CAUSE THIS IS THRILLER (bark), THRILLER (bark) NIGHT

Usopp's outfit is so funny for reals

He got the whole squad laughing

Luffy enablers at it again.... (Robin.... I know.....)

The humor panels so far have been so good!!! God this arc is so funny

HE SAID IT‼️‼️

They look like birds 😭😭

It's just too good... luffy taking cerberus and zombies what can't he do

It's just banger after banger what can I say

Franky feeling for other people because of his guilt complex and sanji lying through his teeth and pulling out the women excuse to seem unaffected... yeah

Look at them.... look how they ate

Omg joyboy reference?? (No)

Sanji is rubbing off on usopp.... also chopper noticing that is sogeking's weapon akdhaksjak

ANOTHER SLAY!!!!!

Their priorities: I'm not strong enough, there isn't enough food, and nami isn't here

Franky going from wanting to kill brook for his jokes to making a joke like his after he hears his backstory... exactly (Robin was already enabling him before the backstory even fdagjsfha)

Sanji is altering his body and actually being on fire to communicate to us how fucking mad he is..... I need more of him going insane I do I do

My god what is he doing ALDJALAJALA

AHSAHAHQHAH THEY ARE THE SAME!!! naaah sanji wouldn't force a woman to be his wife

You cant see me but I am nodding my head in agreement over and over

You don't understand he altered his body to communicate to us how mad he is. He inploded himself and then reconstituted again. Those germa 66 genes are insane

You tell em usopp!!!! The first of many girls you've scared into defeat!!! Akdjqknql

Zoro zombie regressed to not trusting robin akdjaks he's still in there

ROBI-CHO SUPLEX??? HELL YEAAAAAH

There is zosa- [GUNSHOT GUNSHOT GUNSHOT GUNSHOT]

Super frapper gong.... he is doing combo shots with frobin... omg.... parents....

Everything is so fun I'm having such a good time reading.... and then zosan angst like damn I am being fed well here

[spotaus]

Hey i am back with a thought.

I know we already mentioned like. The future future plans concerning kids in the New Age storyline.

I was thinking. Who would carry/get the kid in the couples? (Yes this implies mpreg. If this aint your thing no worries you can just ignore everything else :3 )

As you mentioned before. Nightmare and error would most likely adopt.

Between dream and blue i think blue would end up carrying the kid. Dream would feel too locked up and locked down if he had to take it easy. Also. Let this man pamper Blue. He deserves that.

Ccino and Killer. Ccino wouldnt want kids for a LONG time and even just the idea would be slow going. But killer has his soul situation (is that also a situation in this story?) And he is a knight being out and about. Ccino is safely at home and would be the safer option. But they would need a long time before ccino would feel comfortable with the idea.

Horror and Crop. Crop. Hands down. Horror with his work and Crop has help on the farm. But i doubt thwy would get a kid because they have along distance relationship.

Cross and Lust it depends on who wants it more. I can see both being the one who does it mostly because i can see pros and cons for both sides.

Reaper, Geno and Dust. Only one option. Reaper. Dust doesnt have a healthy enough soul and that with his spell around it? No way he can carry a kid. Geno meanwhile only has a soulshard so he isnt healthy enough to carry a kid either. Leaving only Reaper as an option.

Okay that was it. :D

Haha! Omg I keep forgetting this is smth I can think about! Usually it's not my scene so it might not cone up much in-stiry but it IS how I picture the cast having kids in this one, so!!! We're diving in!!

Like u said, those boys are adopting hehe-

With Dream and Blue it's a bit hard, because I think that Dream would be really really worried about Blue the entire time. Like, terrified his magic would accidentally trigger the whole Twin thing. But, ultimately, yeah, probably Blue! Dream *would* get too restless, and Blue rlly does deserve to be pampered hehe- (I just think Blue would have to really really talk Dream into it. Dream does NOT want to be like his mother anymore.)

Killer and Ccino... let's go with a yes on Killer's soul situation, so Ccino would be their only option. But, like you said, it would be ages before they even thought about discussing the idea, let alone actually having a kid.

Ohhh yeah. I see Horror and Crop as the ones least likely to have kids (as u said, long Distance relationship, but also they just have to much on their plates? They're practical guys and focus on their work and existing families first. Plus, someone has to be the cool uncles to their nieces and nephews!) But definitely Crop. Especially because Horror is pretty low on natural magic as-is and even though his soul is healthy, his body might not even be able to form a firm ecto, let alone anything safe to harbor a forming soul. (Unlike Ccino, Horror was born that way, and the injury didn't help lmao-)

Cross and Lust? I think they'd both regularly get baby fever, but neither of then would be ready to settle down for a *while* in that way, so I think they'd push off the question until years later. Then when it comes up, they 'fight' over it. Insisting that they should carry- I think they'd end up choosing Cross though! As much as Lust seems like the more convenient option, as he's not a knight, Cross is just built different and insists that if anything goes wrong he wants to be the one it happens to. Which, ofc, leads to him doing training whilst in the early stages until someone (probably Killer or Dust) notices he's a little off and then Cross admits he's got a soulling. He did not expect to immediately get horrified looks (because they were fighting someone with a lil guy inside them, not because he has a lil guy) or to immediately get ushered out of training and to his room because??? Idiot??? What were you thinking??? Cross is the worst at staying off his duties, but his brother's have him covered, thank god-

And yep, put perfectly! Reaper is so genuinely the only option! It leads to some odd interactions, since Reaper can't exactly stop being King, but he manages shockingly well and has Geno there to help him (and probably later on Dust, since Night isn't about to leave Dust out of that due to work-) And. I like to think these three in particular have multiple kids perhaps, Kane and then another, and it's kinda a running joke that Reaper's the one hauling them around lmao- (Also very convenient! Because Reaper is the one with death magic in his soul, the kids are effectively immune to it! They were made from that stuff basically, so ofc they're fine!)

[livethrushit]

that last scene in the qaf finale was painful. we get a voiceover of michael talking about how some things should never change and the show decided that very much included brian. we then get him dancing in babylon to beat us over the head with the idea that nothing has changed at its core. but everything has in that moment. everything had changed for seasons. with everyone dancing "the way it should be" brian was the only one who didn't fit in that scene, yet there he was smack in the middle of it all

this wasn't growth, it wasn't poetic, it was a poorly written ending

[4esthetic-dissonance]

I'm working on a fic and was like 'how in the hell do you make LINGUANG JUN the least bit redeemable?'. I mean, /Linguang jun/ who tossed a developmentally four year old Mobei Jun to a pack of humans? The kid could have died. And then I saw a translation of the extras. It describes lgj as mbj's 'young uncle', says that he 'wasn't that much older than him (mbj)'. And I just- its a hell of a lot different, a Scar type tossing his nephew to the proverbial wolves than it is for a maybe dumb, maybe petty, maybe developmentally five or six year old to shove their annoying technically-nephew-who-in-age-and-context-is-more-like-a-brother-than-lgj's-actual-brother into a situation that the text implies was more frightening than actually /dangerous/. And that- well I can work with that.

[gus-dix]

2017 version of the little vampire was really boring but i enjoyed these two scenes, at least. yes those are direct redraws, the first scene really went like this, and they still had the gall to say those boys aren’t gay. sure...

do not erase the caption, use or rePOST my art (reblog ok)

[moonlitlex]

honestly i could write essay after essay about everything that made that finale bad. and i will. however comma i genuinely do not care about any of these characters enough to want to do that. i don't want to spend my time critiquing and analysing a show where all the characters are boring and the plot is all deus ex machina.

LIKE. WHO IS RUBY. WHO IS SHE. WHO FUCKING IS SHE.

she's done with the whole SEASON. she was in EVERY episode. and we literally don't know anything about her apart from the whole mom mystery thing which is all for the big reveal at the end anyway?

and i can talk about the ways in which that was unsatisfying and so on. but like what does that tell us about RUBY? what do we know about HER

and the answer is honestly very little. ruby is such a stock doctor who companion that it's just kind of boring. she gets a big mystery, because of fucking course she does, and who is she outside of that? nice?? sweet?? does as she's told?? (this one is fucking boring btw) kind of like the chibnall companions, she's whoever she needs to be for the situation at hand. the writers say ruby needs to be shocked by landing on a planet after 6 months of travelling with the doctor, so she is. she isn't a person. she has one desire, which is to find her mother, and the only reason she gets to have that is that rtd needs to set up whatever the fuck was going on with her mom for the finale. that's it.

and the doctor. like why should we care about this doctor specifically, outside of the fact that this is the character we have been following for the whole show? who is he??? like seriously who is he? he doesn't get any character development? what makes him different from other doctors? who the fuck is this guy????

i said earlier that ncuti's doctor is what you get when you throw all the doctors in a blender and i stand by that. he's definitely the doctor, but he's like an average of all the other doctors with nothing particularly unique or special about him. ruby is what you get when you throw all the companions in a blender. definitely a companion, with nothing unique or special about her either. much like chibnall's companions, all she gets to do is stand around and watch.

and the crucial missing factor is we don't get to see what they see in each other. which from the companion's perspective is still excusable because here's a dude with a spaceship time machine and that sounds kind of sick so lets go and travel with him is an understandable motivation. but what does he see in her? because there's always a moment where you can see the doctor sort of think, oh yeah, i should travel with this person.

but there isn't really this moment with ruby. it's kind of like with how thirteen meets her companions. she just sort of runs into them, and now they're stuck together. and ncuti does get to emote more than jodie, so at least you can see that ruby and the doctor do like each other, but their relationship isn't really fleshed out ever. and like i can buy ruby risking her life for him, because that is just sort of what happens on doctor who, but it's not based on anything. we don't see them develop this trust of each other. their relationship doesn't get developed. it just appears fully formed.