#originally i was gonna include the scenes i was talking about but. yknow.

[qcoded]

Belos, and the way he purposely appealed to The Collector: A TOH ANALYSIS.

I feel like one of the reasons that The Collector trusted Belos so much, was because he literally made himself appealing to them.

Despite the few scenes that they have, you can probably name a few of the aspects he changed around them. But one of the most apparent ones for me, was how Belos basically changed the way he spoke around them.

In a lot of the moments where they appeared together, he seemed to use a much more softer & sing-songy voice around them, as well as more simpler and 'friendlier' language. It's not even just with The Collector, through-out multiple times in the series he's changed his behaviour around individual people.

To name an example, let's start off with their initial meeting. Although Philip/Belos was speaking in an already soft tone of voice towards Luz and Lilith in Elsewhere and Elsewhen, it was much more calmer and monotone.

"Thank you for your kindness, crab maiden. Perhaps we were destined to meet."

Despite the obvious compliment, his words almost feel empty. There's no feeling of "thankfulness" behind them, just a pat to the shoulder and that's it. But that's the thing, even Lilith said it in the same scene. He just says everything a person wants to hear, and to Luz, just hearing his 'gratitude' through a sentence was enough to make her feel nice for assisting him so kindly.

However, when you look at when two of his scenes with the Collector, you can see Philip's shift in tone and behaviour.

Although he still had an almost blank expression, the very first thing he said when he unburied their plate and held it up was an almost playful, but simple "Found you", literally singing it out, around the end.

I feel like this is due to the fact that, Philip definitely knew The Collector was a child and made that subconcious switch in his words while speaking for them. It was made way more apparent when he was talking to their tablet and calling them these (objectively) silly names, at the same time looking endeared while speaking. Philip's face almost lit up as they called them 'a round boy'.

Like Lilith said, to Philip, he immediately started to speak like how you'd typically do with a child. Much more playful wording, and friendlier mannerisms even.

Although I believe at the start of their relationship that Belos treated The Collector more kindly to have them warm up to him, even later on you can still see this happening.

In the memory of Belos & The Collector in Hollow Mind, it's even more obvious than my previous examples. Belos & The Collector are quite literally playing a game, in this case Hide & Seek, with Belos being the one to start the whole interaction.

And again, when he's calling out for The Collector at the start he's using that playful, but gentle sing-songy voice. He's going along with their little game, because he's been doing this for *decades* now. Exactly what I mean when I say Belos appeals to them, he's giving into their childish nature and feeding onto it.

Likewise with his language, Belos changes it to make things sound more engaging to them. Although The Collector knew what was happening with the Day of Unity, with the way Belos was framing it, it was inevitable that they would just treat it so unseriously.

Ex: "You'll have your fun, on the Day of Unity" Like? Even though The Collector didn't even understand the concept of death, it was clear that they weren't fond of people just disappearing, like the titans. But Belos was literally treating the death of millions of witches like some fun game of hopscotch. Add that to the list of manipulation points!

Another example? Grimmwalkers.

The Collector was seen to view them as 'things', toys that he saw Belos just get rid of time and time again. And with the way he was framing it as them 'betraying' him, Collector probably just began to believe that and started viewing them like he did.

I think I delved into a completely different point with this scene, but long story short, Belos additionally uses his change of tone and language to further desensitize horrific situations to them. I would say even sugarcoat them in a way.

During King's tide, there's this one scene where King sees The Collector, and Belos is reassuring him. This one is a bit more different than the other scenes. Unlike the previous scenes I've talked about, instead of The Collector just acting playfully and seeming to trust Belos with what he says, they're actively doubting and complaining to him. And what does this come off as to Belos? A cranky child.

And like anyone dealing with a cranky child, he immediately deals with the situation as 'best as he can'.

First, he reassures and shuts down their doubts about being freed, telling them that it was *specifically* AFTER the draining spell that they'd be freed. And when The Collector doubted him once again, he essentially frames it as the child being the one in the 'wrong' here. They just have the be patient to get their reward after all, don't they? It's sorta like how a parent just tells their kid that "Oh, we'll be there soon, just wait!". Except that The Collector instead of waiting, will literally never get freed.

Basically, Belos is quite literally gaslighting them, in the sense that he's making them feel like they're acting out of order for a very reasonable doubt.

Additionally, he's also making them FEEL like an impatient with the way he's speaking and wording himself. Belos is portraying the whole thing as this being unfortunate for the both of them ('WE have to way for after the draining spell . . .'), and tell them to just have 'patience'.

In a fucked up way, this is probably how Belos disciplined them.

And this leads me to my next point. Like some sort of system of rewards and punishment, whenever The Collector was shown to actively say things that Belos didn't like, even if it was just for the moment, he altered the way he behaved and talked around the kid.

During Clouds in The Horizon, you can immediately notice the difference during the scene with these two. Even if there was the chance that Belos was already in a bad mood, and The Collector who was just making crude jokes for half of the time worsened everything, and there's a notable change in his wording and behavior. Belos is much more withdrawn, not even responding to the boys comments at certain times and giving them the silent treatment

Something I noticed even as I write this, was that in a sense this scene and the one from Hollow Mind parellel almost perfectly.

In Hollow Mind, when The Collector was joking about Belos lashing out at Hunter and turning into his monster form, Belos pretty much brushed it off and just took it as a chance to go "well, as long as he doesn't fuck around and find out, he'll be fine". Even when they were literally saying that the grimmwalkers were 'things', a mind that Belos just made them to torture them, the guy literally SMILED as if he was amused.

Meanwhile, Belos had a completely different reaction to practically the same comments, but in a different font.

Now, The Collector was making fun of him for his monster form, saying how he can't even keep it up anymore. In response, Belos just proceeds go punch the wall and just prove their point. As for the grimmwalkers, when they suggested that the man should make another one go play with, he just shut down them said they needed to 'deal' with this one.

There's a very clear difference here: In one scene, The Collector isn't directly mocking Belos, and the man is amused by their honestly horrific joking about such vile situations. In another, they're using those same situation and topics to make fun of Belos.

In short, Belos only seemed to excuse these comments when they weren't directly being negative towards *him*, and almost rewarded The Collector by continuing to speak to them in a friendly manner. Once they did, he almost retracted a 'priviledge'.

Because that's essentially what it was. A privilege that Belos gave them by just treating as 'nicely' as someone like him could get. And like any child too, they were blinded by it.

Again, bringing me into my next point.

When Belos betrayed The Collectoe, it was the exact moment when that privilege and everything else, was permanently revoked. At first you can see how Belos just watches as The Collector, like expected, excitedly talks and gushing about how they'll be able to play. Even after all these years, Belos really is freeing them. And they'll be able to play now!

Except they aren't.

Because immediately after, Belos shut down any hopes that they have of being freed with a simple "I'm afraid that's impossible".

At first, they're confused, hurriedly repeating Philip's promise, because sufely he couldn't have forgotten about it. But the man just brushes it off as an inconvenience, that he just didn't have any more Titan's Blood to free them.

And even as The Collector shouts and screams that Belos was a liar, unlike in the scene where he reassured them about their doubts, he doesn't have to do that anymore. Because there's no use in appealing to them anymore.

The kid was wringed dry of all their use to the man. And just like those grimmwalkers, like those witches, like everyone, Belos would leave them. Because in the end, they were also just a 'thing' for Belos.

And to add more insult to injury, it's not even like Belos just started acting all serious and mad like whenever he was upset with them. Opposite, even, because there was still using that sing-songy, playful tone to his voice speaking to them. In a sense, it was now The Collector's turn to be mocked. And it's not even like they could protest and throw one of their 'tantrum's', because Belos essentially just shut them up.

After dropping their plate down a bridge, just to add to open up that cut even more, Belos simply parted ways with them with a GOODBYE. Not even calling them by their name, giving them one last display of 'affection', or perhaps thanking them for their 'help' to Belos. Just a truly emotionless goodbye.

And, BELOS JUST WALKED AWAY AFTER THAT. Because truly, those decades meant nothing to him. The way he so eloquently phrashed and sang out everything to flatter the kid, going along with their silly games, and reassuring them– that was in the past now.

But here's the thing with that man. HE LITERALLY CANNOT STAY CONSISTENT. Belos cannot fucking commit to, and accept that his actions have consequences, because it was obvious he immediately regretted disregarding the kid once they were freed.

As my final point, let's take a lot at the infamous "splatter" scene.

You can literally see how Belos stepped away out of fear. Because unlike the shadow boy that just lived in his basement, that could only move around his walls at most, The Collector was now freed. And what does that mean? It means that Belos fucked up BIG time. Literally as they turn to look at him, that blank look on their face told that man everything he had to know.

And of course, he immediately retracts on literally every he said before, and begins trying to appeal to the kid by twisting around his intentions.

Belos was probably just hoping they'd be gaslighted enough to just run back into his arms and accept his words, but at that moment they weren't fooled like before. The Collector knew his true intentions, and no amount of sing-songy voices and empty compliments could change that.

This analysis is quite literally getting too long LOL, it was supposed to be super short. I was planning to also analyze the Raine scenes, and compare the scenes included to seperate belos scenes, but I'll end it on a short note.

TLDR; Belos purposely changed his tone of voice, language and overall behavior to appeal to The Collector. Essentially to manipulate, desensitize and gaslight the boy to a lot of horrific things. Even then, it backfired on him in the end.

[jennilah]

hi there!

please do share your thoughts on canon vs non canon (TO YOU) scenes from saw if you feel like it

this seems like a fun topic to explore 👁

i was thinking about this all day im gonna hella ramble too much

to reiterate and expand on what i kinda said in that post's tags: im genuinely cautious when it comes to the canonicity of deleted scenes and script changes for most things because, well, things dont get included in the final product for a reason sometimes.

trust me i know about deleted scenes. ive had months of work erased from existence because of deleted scenes. and sometimes it really was for the best

and im equally if not more skeptical of things like.. lore coming from outside sources. if its not in the original media, its questionable. film novelizations, game adaptions, spin-off comics, all that stuff is usually written by some third party with little to no input from the real writers. unless it gets some serious seal of approval and that shit actually gets referenced in the next film, then im like "ok im listening." Otherwise, i shrug it all off as maybe-canon side adventures until contradicted

THAT SAID

sometimessss those nuggets of lore or characterization from deleted scenes/iffy canon off-shoot material are sick af so we just kind of adopt it anyway!!! we all do it!!!

ALSO

FUCKIN. The goddamn Saw franchise makes me insane with the different cuts of each film so we basically choose our favorite canon already. so. its a bit loosey goosey here sometimes

ok first of all i KNOW im gonna forget things so imma just kind of list and describe what i can remember off the top of my head. i dont actually have things like the scripts memorized i only know some moments that get passed around between us little freaks like drugs

like this one

i dont care if this doesnt happen on-screen in Saw IV, it happens in my heart

and this little bit of characterization from all 3 goofballs here despite us not really seeing much of it in the film:

Strahm being a butthead just interrupting Perez and Hoffman having a nice little talk because he hates his ass so much

Hoffman being more of the annoying little flirt that i know he is in my heart

Perez being charmed by him, the two of them having a cute little bonding moment as acquaintances for a moment there, and then STRAHM AGAIN being a butthead

i love them. i LOVE THEM

its very important to me that Perez kind of liked Hoffman. it makes his betrayal hurt so much more

this whole moment. i love this. ough. as much as i loved this scene already, in my head i pretend the scene played out like this....

falls onto his ass

angel of death

my fucking goodness

also, i cant list off everything because theres so much its a little depressing, but there's a lot going on in the Saw 3D script that is tragically cool. they really leaned into Hoffman going off the deep end and i enjoyed that. and how grisly his scar was originally supposed to be, and the symbolism with his declining mental state. and his interactions with Lawrence being a little more fleshed out. its just kind of neat. i think the film would have been a bit stronger if they stuck closer to a few of their earlier ideas

edit: OH MY GOD HOW CAN I FORGET ABOUT DELETED FILMED SCENES LIKE THE ROCKSTAR MOMENT. THAT HAPPENED OK U CANNOT TELL ME OTHERWISE. and amanda is 100% haunted by what she did to Adam

and as for spin-offs that are absolutely not canon, this description of Hoffman from the video game from Tapp's POV is intriguing.

i love annoying and weird colleague Hoffman but i also really enjoy the idea of shy and weird colleague Hoffman.

also, boring cop Hoffman who wont bend the rules? that is so much more interesting than the hashtag brutality moment.

too bad this game is like. well. yknow. not very good. i dont think thats a controversial statement

but you know what IS good?

Saw the Musical

thats canon to me. no notes

[cyanide-sippy-cup]

Okay I'm gonna preface this post by saying I've never seen Primal before. I was just hanging out with my brother and we watched some shows together, like we usually do. And I was going to make a completely separate post until we got to the topic of this one.

Now I'm sure Primal fans have heard enough of this, so as a warning, just know this is me complaining about the finale. So instead of reading that for the umpteenth time, just enjoy the post I was originally gonna make.

Primal is a beautiful show with a lot of great themes. I've always thought the ability to tell a story with no dialogue was a showcase of a creator's skill, and this show embodies that so well.

Hey, so what the fuck was that. Maybe I'm missing context, since we only watched s2 ep6-10, but even my brother hated it, and I could tell that was just not a good conclusion.

Ep6 was a fantastic finale to a rivalry even I could tell had a lot of history. The birthing scene was great, it showcased how each of them cared for each other, whether it was Spear's excitement once he realized what was happening or Mira's little smiles as she watched from afar. That bit where they tried to get the eggs in the boat was very entertaining and I appreciate the personality Fang demonstrates through mere movements and expressions.

The 3-parter was downright beautiful. I love prison break episodes, for one, and I love reunions, so I enjoyed it quite a bit. The Egyptian ship was a gorgeous design, and it did such a good job at showing you the passage of time through small details, like the montage and the growth of the jaguar. In both of these episodes, the final battles were very exciting and fitting to the stakes they presented.

Now notably, what these episodes did not portray was the idea that Spear is lonely. If anything, it does the opposite. It shows how close they all are, how much they love each other and how far they are willing to go to take care of one another. But in the finale, the main idea is that Spear is suddenly super sad and alone. Now this is fine. I think it should have been set up directly beforehand for a smoother transition but sure, I can still get behind this. Again, I'm probably missing context.

The beginning of the finale is really cool. I liked the different origin flashbacks, clearly setting up the stakes and what this fight means to them. I liked the small details, like Fang dropping her kids next to Spear while she went searching. I liked Mira reuniting with her people, including old friends like the lady with the axe wound. And I even enjoyed the demonstration of Spear's loneliness through the cave drawings.

But then the Chieftain shows up. I thought the setup to this in the previous eps was awesome. This is gonna be a really cool final fight against an old foe, maybe lead into the big bad of the Satan-looking fella. And the beginning of the fight was really cool. It was clear that they were overpowered, leaving you wondering how they were gonna overcome this. You know, the stakes are high, Mira's village has history with this guy, their lives are at stake once more. I'm thinking maybe they're gonna get the help of the locals to take him down. But nah. Spear just tackles him and then he gets dragged back to hell for no reason.

But at this point, I still don't realize it's the finale. I was talking with my brother about how this is probably gonna leave lasting scars or maybe Spear'll even die, maybe they'll have to bring him back. And then Fang roared and I was like "okay yeah, something like that". But again, nah. That's just Fang's legitimate reaction to the permadeath of the main protagonist.

But yknow, he groans and is like "Mira" and then she looks at the little mural. And I thought she was gonna grab his hand and maybe they were gonna do the prayer together again in a nice little romantic moment or something but NOPE. Mira really just said "imma help you get off one last nut before you die". Like HUH?? And then before you can even wrap your mind around that BAM! Timeskip. The babies are grown up, their daughter is there, and then the credits. Like I get she wanted to continue his legacy and culture or whatever but it came at just the weirdest time.

Like ???? I have to assume some shit went down behind the scenes before this episode cause what the fuck was that. And like, I have no issue with the timeskip as a concept. I get it, you have one more episode, you might as well end it with something hopeful. But that combined with everything else was just... bad. It all felt so rushed and I felt immense disappointment towards a show I don't even have any relationship with.

[nitw]

give us the forbidden mlp fandom lore

the whole twilightlicious thing. it all started when tara strong, VA of twilight, made a tweet saying “i’m the T to the W I L I G H T and ain’t no other pony troll it down like me, i’m twilightlicious” as a parody of fergalicious. she later recorded herself singing this, which a popular musician and animator in the fandom, blackgryph0n, animated with twilight. this spawned SOOOOOO many parodies and even made other voice actors on the show join in

speaking og blackgryph0n: michelle creber, voice of apple bloom, is a friend of him and they’ve collaborated on many different musical projects, including mlp fansongs!

before the first equestria girls movie came out, there was a rumor floating around that flash sentry was gonna be named brad

there’s a scene in s3e2 “the crystal empire part 2″ where shining armor picks up cadance and fucking THROWS HER while standing on his hindlegs. this became a meme for a hot minute and even spawned a parody flash game called “cadance toss”

it was also somewhat of an inside-joke in the fandom that shining armor loved corndogs???? i genuinely don’t know where this started. there was a popular abridged series on youtube called “friendship is witchcraft” that joked about it, but i don’t know if that’s the origin or not

john de lancie, voice of discord, was asked to sign a piece of fanart of discord and celestia at bronycon, but he loudly exclaimed that he thought discord’s blue wing looked like a penis and started laughing

yknow that old series of animated shorts, llamas with hats?? someone made an mlp parody of the first episode with lyra and bonbon. YEARS LATER, in episode 100 of the show “slice of life” that focuses entirely on the background pony cast, lyra says “you know those expensive oats that you saved for a special occasion? i cooked them up and ate them” which is a direct reference to llamas/ponies with hats

probably one of the most well-known and influential animators in the fandom was “jan animations”. he made mlp fan animations that looked even better quality than the show itself, which unfortunately led to almost all of his work getting copyright sniped :( he even collaborated with a bunch of the mlp crew, it’s so unfair and i miss his videos a lot

fallout equestria, a fanfiction which is pretty much the plot of the fallout video games but with ponies, has irl hardcover prints. all of it.

THE #SAVEDERPY CAMPAIGN. i dont even wanna talk abt it

[fatal-rewrites-warriors]

Here's some questions you can distract yourself from your cold from:

When writing Greystripe, especially the way he makes decisions, do you tend to struggle a lot? And if so, is there anything that helps you get in his head more?

From what we've seen so far, are there any scenes you wrote on accident? As in, you didnt plan for or intend for them to happen, but the plot brought you towards in the end despite that?

Do you have any major inspirational works that you think influenced this rewrite at all? And as a similar question, how would you feel if you were listed as someone's inspiration to do their own rewrite or write their own series?

1. Greystripe I find easy to write he's like. idk he's a pretty simple dude, after the simple pleasures in life! i guess his kind of stupid is a stupid i have trouble relating to, but idk when i think about how i just wanna feel good in the moment and nt think about the consequences? that shit's relatable as fuck i love instant gratification and that feeds a lot into Greystripe's thoughts and motives

2. the vast majority of the windclan plot in rising storm happened by accident ngl kdgjfh up to and including some of the stuff in the climax which,,obviously i can't talk about but now you know lol also Brick in general being more relevant was a complete accident i did not intend that back when i introduced them in book 1 originally they were just gonna be a fun cameo but then i was like "oh but what if they and princess were littermates" and it spiralled from there

3. oh definitely. the warriors redux was kind of the initial "actually i wanna do that too, but in my own way" push towards starting the rewrite. a lot of the general vibes of the rewrite however, esp the magic, are inspired by Elfquest and Beasts of Burden .o.

and i'm utterly honoured whenever anyone says that i've inspired them. i think besides having fun, inspiring others to be creative is prolly my number one goal when i do anything creative, rewrite or otherwise. i just want there to be more art in the world yknow

[ketchup-monthly]

Sanders Sides D&D 2

Ooh fresh take: Jan is virge’s patron and that’s why there’s beef

Also: Jan is some sort of fae related being

Jan: i need you to do something for me Virgil: no Janus: that's not how this works!! Virgil: watch me :P

Okay so I was thinking of Patton as a cleric cuz ooh healer however, Patton as a Druid makes me so happy

I want logan to have Rage

(Also that could tie nicely in an arc about Logan learning to accept feelings)

but barbarian logan is going to be a scholar again and is gonna be smort

bc hes logan. he cant be not smart

Oh I figured he’d be the bbeg that eventually joins the party (hurt/comfort baybee!)(Remus)

he was the bbeg but then joined the party as a bardbarian or just a bard

plus, actual bard who accidentally casts vicious mockery instead of bardic inspiration

Side note: please include a scene where Remus attempts to seduce the dragon

also with this second au, i can start them at like level 5 so people can multiclass

Pat as cleric/druid

gasp logan as artificer/barbarian

janus sorcerer/rogue

because basically everything but alchemist would work well with barbarian, but alchemist feels very Logan

bc mad scientist being actually mad

alchemist logan making an experimental potion and going "here im not sure what this does but im sure its fine! someone drink it"

Remus does it voluntarily, but Logan usually tries to get Roman to drink it

Virgil will occasionally drink it when he's on his last legs and is just like.....100% done with the party

remus as a wild magic path barbarian and just fucking teleporting or doing something equally ridiculous whenever he rages

Oh my god Remus with rage would be a force to be reckoned with

You gotta describe the first time he goes into a rage really dramatically

obviously virgil is trying to "escape" his patron, Janus (really just do whatever he says to not do out of spite)

Eldritch knight roman

Feywild warlock virgil

hey so in the second d&d au, should roman and remus be actual full siblings but like remus went darkside and like romans just trying to get back at him for putting a dark stain on the family name

hey hey hey what about warforged Logan? (essentially a robot)(so like "i dont feel anything" becoming real)

okay hear me out. elf roman and elf base simic hybrid remus. so like maybe the reason remus went darkside was experimentation? so like. hes elf but special

FALLEN AASIMAR VIRGIL

virgil just transforming in the middle of a combat scenario and like his eyes turn into black pits and flightless skeletal wings appear on his back and like everyone near him has to make a charisma check and like he deals extra necrotic damage

Pat is the one human stuck in a band of misfits

so with it, roman would be a full elf, and remus would be an elf that has tentacles bc octopus

So robot logan

i meant literally he doesnt feel anything

like he has all the emotions, but he doesnt physically feel the need to like eat or sleep or stuff like that

he just.....he pretend he don't have the feelings.....but he do.....he feel so much and he hides it all in his littol mechanical heart <3

plus......if he warforged, then like.....AC huge

he stands in front of friends.....he protecc...."no, i don't have feelings, i am physically incapable of affection" but he do!! he do! he take hits for them because he do!! he care so much

Bro he spouts all this and then he uses a reaction to dive in front of someone and everyone’s just like oh

LIKE ROMAN STILL BEING MEAN TO LO BC HE THINKS HE DOESNT HAVE FEELINGS BECAUSE HE DOESNT HAVE A HEART BUT HE DOES

hey hey everyone needs to grow

and logan standing up for himself and other people stepping in and saying no stop thats not right

plus if canon wont give me roman facing the consequences of his actions towards Logan......

but also Roman learning how to properly handle his own emotions and how he interacts with others

logan who doesn't view himself as anything more than a machine to be useful to others

the party giving logan love and affection until he slowly learns his own worth as a person

Roman and Logan not getting along (maybe Roman has a Lore reason to distrust Warforged, maybe not) and slowly learning to trust each other

when Logan is feeling real down or having some issue, Roman actually comes through to help him, showing how far both characters have come

Okay yes but also can we please give Roman more confidence than canon? Like I’m sooooo sick of low self esteem being played for laughs or just being really really sad

this boy is going on a mission and will slap his brother upside the head and tell him to shut tf up remus youre not a monster just come back home and he will do it alone if need be

OKAY SO WHAT IF HE ORIGINALLY WENT ON THE QUEST JUST TO STOP REMUS ONCE AND FOR ALL BC ROMAN THOUGHT HE WAS A MONSTER, BUT ALONG THE WAY, AND AFTER LOGAN, HE CAME TO REALIZE THAT NO, JUST BECAUSE REMUS (AND LOGAN) ARE DIFFERENT, THEY ARENT MONSTERS, JUST DIFFERENT

AND LIKE IN THE FINAL PUSH TO MAKE REMUS JOIN BACK WITH HIS BROTHER, ROMAN IS PROJECTING HIS OWN FEELINGS ONTO REMUS AND EVERYONE IS LIKE WOW BRO YOU GOOD THERE, BUT ITS A BIG MOMENT FOR LOGAN, ROMAN, AND REMUS

im unsure as to how, but it happened when he was an older teen/young adult. a simic scientist either picked him (read: kidnapped), or remus volunteered (potentially to escape court life, unaware what exactly the experiment was going to do to him physically

bc also, remus and roman are royalty

so like. how best to get at the nobes/royalty/rich famous people than by turning their kid into a monster

wait, wait, wait, because i'm lowkey a sucker for this trope, but i'm not sure if it fits Remus: the experiments left him with some fairly significant physical pain/uncontrolled magical reactions. through some combo of trying to deal with that and trying find a cure for his pain, he keeps like....absolutely wrecking random towns on accident but also deliberately wrecking certain places looking for either a) vengeance on the guy(s) responsible or b) someone who can make the pain stop

SO LIKE. WILD MAGIC BARBARIAN DOING WEIRD SHIT TO HIM WHENEVER HE RAGES

AND LOGAN COULD MAYBE HELP WITH THE PAIN AND SHIT

BC ALCHEMY

Yknow, for simplification purposes, we could say the True Bbeg just gave Remus lycanthropy and Remus hasn’t managed to control it yet

lycanthropy but simic shit?

Mr. I-Don't-Have-Feelings sees the poor dude in pain and also Roman in emotional pain from seeing his brother in pain and is absolutely like "i must resolve this like right now, immediately" because he definitely doesn't hate seeing his friend suffering, or his friend's brother whom he's just met

he definitely doesn't relate at all to the idea of someone else shaping your body and absolutely does not sympathize with Remus's plight

i was thinking the grappling thing and either manta glide or the ability to breathe underwater for the simic stuff, but like he doesnt have control over the tentacles yet?

Manta glide seems like we could have fun battle scenes

he just jumps off a cliff to avoid mushy talk/dealing with his actions/roman

Roman: Remus just because you're a monster and though i wish i was an only child-- Remus, jumping off a cliff: byyeeeeee Patton: Roman, look what you did! Virgil: dammit jan what did you do? Janus: why do you think i had anything to do with that? im a fae, not a genie Logan, thinking: what an asshole. i wish i could do that

oh my god Logan always being tired mentally bc he cant sleep

Oh my gosh I love that. So Remus got kidnapped super young, (from royal family) they never found him, as a result Roman had to grow up super fast (side effect: lowkey inconsiderate and forgets to ask for others input). Meanwhile, Remus was experimented on by True Bbeg and came out with some trauma and super cool additives

yep! chronic pain and ptsd and all sorts of other shit!

so like, simic hybrids are usually created when they're adults. but what if the true bbeg decided to go younger to see what would happen, and thats why remus has chronic pain and stuff

he was still growing when his genes were spliced, so hes dealing with growth plates shifting and his body maturing and puberty and body changes and stuff

Pat is going to have a lighthearted story. Im saying that now. Hes the one without all the baggage

Sure, but his parents have to lowkey be the really kind people who are surprisingly always down for violence

everyone: multiple crises Pat: y'all need help Pat: love and affection in spades for his little band of misfits

Patton (which I think would be pretty simple, honestly he might just see danger and jump in and suddenly everyone in the party has Feelings)

Logan

Mhm. So how did he grow up? Was he just poof created? Wait

What if he was created by the king?

To make up for remuss disappearance

wait, wait....angst......he was created to fight (hence the barbarian stuff) but alchemy is his real passion

wait so like. a second son???

hes there to replace remus?

Yea! (But like in a sympathetic grief way) But that causes a bit of a complex in Roman and ergo Roman and Logan have a bit of a beef

okay so like. hes there to be a companion for roman, and like take remus' place, even though hes not actually in line for the throne?

LOGAN AS A KNIGHT

and just......the conflict of being created for a specific purpose (plus being, you know, robot and technically incapable of deviated from said purpose) vs the fact that he actually does have independent consciousness and like....wants to live life for himself

the parents made Logan a barbarian in hopes that him and Roman would be safe

okay. so logan was created by the king with the sole purpose to take remus' place as romans brother/companion, and to be his like guard? protector? and fight, but logan wants to be an alchemist and study shit

wait, wait, wait.....thinks about Asimov's Laws

he.....his first operative is protect (specifically protect Roman)

oh man. so hes literally just a shield

his second level operative is just like.....care for Roman's emotional well-being, but he doesn't really know emotions because he was kinda just spawned and nobody told him how

and he just....kind of....lets Roman treat him like garbage and take all his grief out on him because he's staunchly in denial of both having feelings or knowing how they work

Anyway Yea so Logan created by royal family in place of Remus which created angst between the two “brothers” and identity issues in Logan. Their arcs are learning how to healthily process emotions plus Roman apology and Logan commits to alchemy

So big question: why did virge make a deal?

Tricked

he gave janus his name

and instead of janus like killing him or whatever the fae do to people who break the rules of dealing with the fae, jan was like. hey. i'll give you magic, but do what i say

Janus is lawful neutral, but leans towards being selfish

hes self serving, but he has a strong set of morals and rules he follows

Tho I want to Virgil to also not be pushover so let’s say loophole happened and Jan has to stay with virge (hence why Jan is a part of the party)

okay so a couple of the rules are dont give a fae your true name and don't try to figure out their true name

So

what if virgil accidentally gave up part of his true name, and got stuck in the deal, but then figured out janus' true name

so in the same vein that janus had control over virgil, virgil now has more control over janus

he still gets his magic from janus, so he cant break free completely, but virgil has more freedom and can occasionally tell janus what to do or when to shove it

there should a running gag where virge can explain how he learned Jan’s true name but Jan can make something loudly censor him every time

(he learned his name bc once he heard janus practicing his evil genius voice and talking to himself in the mirror and janus said his true name)

so maybe janus sent virgil on the quest to protect a town or stop something related to remus, but virgil dragged him along

he might just be trying to protect a town thats close to a ley line, or something fae-related, and they just happen upon the whole thing

janus is selfish. but lawful vs chaotic is where he comes through, in morals vs doing whatever. janus has a strong set of loyalties to the fae, and to himself

so like....Remus is just too close to Jan's stuff and he wants to take him down

Virgil is just like....exhausted and said "fine, but if i gotta do this, you're coming, too"

or at least figure out a way to protect his place, even if it doesnt mean fully taking out remus. just moving him would work for jan

Janus: virgilllllllllll hes going to mess up my magic storage locker Virgil: Jan, its empty Janus: but its mine

Yea. Remus attacks a city away from the fae: Jan: Yknow I’m gonna sit this one out Virge: oh no you don’t, get up

Or

Janus vs Janice

so his real name is Janus, but Virgil calls him Janice

Virgil: This is Janice Janice: with a “U-S” Virgil: mhm, sure Jan

I'm a big fan of just like any of the old theory name being various aliases for Jan

Damien, Dante, Ethan, Declan, etc, etc

[jrueships]

What wips do you have rn 👀 elaborate pspspspsp

Too many wips.. thats what I have rn.. too many...

WJBFJEBF so the ones I'm most focusing on rn is the spiderman! Donovan/royce au!! So far I wrote the whole exposition and I'm working on the 'enticing incident' LMFAO it's upgraded from my last summary so I have more to write because I'm insane but yeah! It's the one I want done the most but I'm also gonna go on a trip with my buds to this place without wifi for like? Four days so 😭 I might have to finish it there and wait forever until I can post it! And I'm still unsure about the ending!!! THE STRUGGLE

a shorter fic I have in mind still is the russell waiting for kd at a table for two but he never shows up fic! I just really like writing russell widjsbf but not much action happens there! Many just dialogue and a lot of pg fashion/life roasting from Russell's inner dialogue. He's very judgemental of people who give off douchebag frat bro vibes but can't help but feel intrigued by them JABFJWB oh and he makes fun of pg simping for gold diggers

The fics I have written partly but put back in the burner are my donovan/jaylen fic, marcus/giannis, pg/kawhi jealousy fic, pg/kawhi sm*t fic, pg/kawhi space au, and john/trae patroclus and Achilles au! Mainly because they're super long and I get nervous about writing them too much and wasting all my muse on one thing, so I get scared and back off 😭 but I'll tell u the basic summary of them!!

💙 donovan/jaylen fic is based off the idea of donovan going grocery shopping and getting all mad at the thought of the clippers LMFAO. Basically he's at a grocery store getting flowers for his sports medicine doctor for always putting up with his bullshit (never wanting to sit down and relax so he can actually heal. Playing through the pain). But as he shops, he keeps finding the simplest shit that reminds him of the clippers. Like he sees a claw machine and thinks about Kawhi and how collected that guy is, just chillin in the upper stands, while his team is facing a possible defeat. Donny gets all frustrated because like?? He can't just do that? Just sit back and chill while his team is playing without him? Donny HAS to help, has to GET OUT THERE!! kawhi Doesn't... but kawhi is the one who won a championship. And donovan starts doubting his leadership skills and if he's really good for his team.. if he let them down by being Too pushy and Too in their faces.

+ and then when he's getting a cute card to go with the flowers, he spots one that says "you're the man!!" And he thinks about terance Mann and his great game against them, how proud pg, basically his mentor, was of him. And it makes donovan think about his loss and how he couldn't get that same pride out of Dwyane Wade.

Overall, everything makes him feel useless af and he almost kicks a shelf out of anger. But he calms himself down and goes back to the flowers because he actually only got this little dinky green plant still struggling to bloom? He got it for himself because he felt bad for it LMAO but he still needs to get flowers for his sports medicine doctor. He's goes back to the flower section and who does he see? JAYLEN BROWN all gussied up in his depression fit LMFAO.. but they both are. Jaylen and him try to joke but they're both tired and awkward so it sucks IABDKSBD they basically just ask what the other is doing there. Jaylen is just traveling rn because he got nothin else to do IWBDKS but he bought Deuce a souvenir gift! And he asks Donovan if he can help him put it in his trunk (but really he doesn't need donovan's help. He can pick the toy up himself. He just knows that Donovan is too stubborn to accept help when he needs it but he'll always try helping others out! So he wants donny to think he's helping jaylen but in reality jaylen is trying to help HIm because at the car he invites Donovan to go meet up at a hotel with him where they kiss and have sad *** to make themselves feel better WKBFKSBX) that's basically it!!!! I have literally everything written but the *** scene they're literally my weakness.. I love the emotions they make but I hate.. describing the actions it takes to make them?? Idk I just feel cheesy writing it? It's very tedious and boring to actually crank my brain for a synonym to 'moan' because I'm tired of using that word but it's the only word that really applies to that situation without sounding weird, yknow?? Just very tedious

💙💙💙 OK so marcus/giannis idk bro like... it's just taking so long IWBKENF idk what to say except giannis makes a ton of small jokes at marcus

💙💙 OK so pg/kawhi jealousy fic... BASICALLY the plot is LeBron hosts some big rich guy party for the NBA because I need a reason to write all these people that live far apart interacting together OKAY??? But anyways it takes place after 2020 lakers winning the championship! Pg convince the clippers to come or else they'll look bad for being the only team not coming and they media will have a field day with them, so the clippers join the party. Basically everyone who later team up in 2021 are talking to eachother LMFAO like James hardon+kyrie+kd are talking while russell westbrook and beal are bonding over dance moves with a jealous John wall pouting in the corner. Obligatory Marcus and giannis interactions because I can. Kyle and demar are laughing together. It's all goood until LeBron waltzes over with his weird ass feet and starts talking to kawhi. Hes being all Handsome and Strong and lowkey flexing his win. Its starting to make pg suspicious so he keeps intruding upon the conversation. His inner dialogue is basically a ton of lebron hate KABFKWB. LeBron sometimes comments back to pg but ends up kinda tuning him outta the conversation and sly dissing him to kawhi like "how does it feel talking to someone who doesn't hit the side of the backboard lol"

Pg is starting to get nervous because he's trying to compete against LEBRON over who's the better teammate for kawhi.. and with his current playoff history.. he's not gonna win. He keeps trying to get kawhi out of the conversation, but lebron keeps drawing him back in and pg ends up giving up or he risks looking like an overbearing girlfriend.. So he slinks off in hopes of distracting himself. Originally, pg thought KAWHI would be the one standing all alone awkwardly in the room with no one to talk to, but it's slowly becoming HIM who's the lonely one LMFAO. He tries joining in bradley and Russ's conversation because HEY!! Everybody leaves russ! Russ must be SUUUPER lonely and DESPERATE for someone to talk to him‼ especially when his old ex durant is out there plotting with his two hydra heads!! paul thought, anyways, but finds out russ is actually having the time of his life clowning around with beal !! That just makes pg even more envious and he walks away with zero satisfaction of feeling superior JABDJSB he tries talking to John wall like "this party fuckin sucks bro" but John kinda barks at him and pg gives up. He tries talking to marcus and giannis but that was a mistake because the two smartiest smartasses in the room start roasting him together so he's shunned back to pretending like he's getting 700 thirsty women in his dms, AKA pretending like he got a text on his phone while he leans alone on a wall LMFAO. After glancing up periodically (and casually) to see if kawhi is still talking to lebron, he later gives up on playing popular and goes to hide in the bathroom like a fucking loser WHDJBFJEBD in summary he kinda broods and steams about how much he hates lebron and how he's 'so much better than him' and he's just thinking of petty insults against him to try and convince the kawhi in his mind not to leave him for lebron. He gets really mad and punches a mirror, but thank God lebron is playing bass boosted music so no one at the party hears it.

But, demar ends up knocking on the door. He needs to shit. So pg is like.. what do I do with this broken mirror and my bleeding hand.. so he tries to keep demar out and they banter and eventually demar notices its kinda weird for pg to be huddled up in the bathroom instead of partying.. he must be getting high or smthin. So he's like "that's fucking stupid. He can go get high in one of lebrons 700 rooms. Why The bathroom." So he just opens the door LANKDN and sees The Scene.

At first he's like "are u paying for that.." to which pg responds with "uhhh. I tripped and hit my head on it" (while clutching a bleeding fist) but then he realizes OHHH pg must be ... OH is he.. no.. he can't be limp wristed... blah blah they end up bonding over their funny situations: demar being jealous of kawhi and feeling like kyle thinks he sucks because of him. Pg being jealous of lebron and feeling like kawhi thinks he sucks because of him. Blah blah it's a bittersweet ending pg becomes a little less of a jerk blah blah I haven't finished it because I'm stupid and WEAK

💙💙💙💙 pg/kawhi space au is just too long I have to be in the mood to write it or I end up dismissing good details I could have included if i wasn't in such a burnt out mind!

💙💙💙 pg/kawhi sm*t fic I gotta be in the mood to detail the h*rny right 😭😭

💙💙💙 john/trae patroclus and Achilles is mainly just an idea but with no plot!

But yeah!!! Those are SOME of my wips!! This post is really long tho so I'll just shout out those!!!@ thank u for the interest tho that's so cute 😭😭😭 it helps me write more when I have a plot lined up to look off of and remember ideas so this is really helpful to me too!!! I'll be shocked if u read this far tbh!! But anyways THANK U ALWAYS FOR THE ASKS, ANON!!!!!

[astrologista]

jason stop dying

ooooook i just watched ditf. it was PRETTY GOOD.... i only wish there was MOOORE! watching this REALLY brought me back to 2011 times to see it and i think they did a good job with most of the character design and animations insofar as matching it to the original. (maybe i’m totally wrong but i thought it looked good for the most part... also i just really love these character designs in particular). obviously the budget is not what it would be on a feature, so there are a LOT of places where animation gets recycled and many still frames. some parts are basically a slideshow lol. but i only sort of came to that realization awhile after watching, so i think they did a fairly good job of masking this... ymmv

so let’s get into it!!! 

SPOILERS a-head! do not read until you’ve watched it because i’ll spoil everything

now obviously the thing to be aware of if you are not is the fact that this adaptation is not a panel-by-panel adaptation of the original death in the family comic. all references to jason’s mother (save one mention of her dying of illness) are completely removed, they go to bosnia instead of africa, and the circumstances around jason leaving are also heavily altered to fit the new narrative. this adaptation does slot perfectly into the universe established by the under the red hood animated movie from 2011 though, without which one would be pretty confused when watching this. it’s kind of a mystery as to why they didn’t just package this with utrh and release the entire thing as a collectors edition. instead they package it with like 4 or 5 unrelated dc showcase shorts which makes absolutely 0 sense but go off i guess. anyway

i liked that they took the time to adapt the scene from the original ditf where bruce is talking to alfred about jason! (i do not like that alfred didn’t get any lines. bad choice). tbh i can’t understand why they bothered showing us alfred, barbara and dick if they weren’t gonna give them any lines..... like come on........??

HOW INTENSE BRUCE LOOKS WHEN HE FINDS JASON IN SARAJEVO and just. grabs him lol. hes smad :)

ok so one two skip a few and we get to the first branch. instead of calling 1-900 we now get to choose whether jason lives or dies. there are 7 possible endings i think i got em all so let’s see what we got here.

“Hush” Route - Robin cheats death

hgrgdggr. i definitely think this is one of the more interesting endings, if not the most interesting one. this is also the only ending in which both bruce and jason survive the bombing. bruce is still too late, but this time jason barely clings to life and survives. as a hurt/comfort fan i was 100% on this shit from the word go but then jason? runs away from home lmao lmao i thought that was SO funny because 1) hes super messed up, how is he able to just literally run out the house that is SO funny to me and 2) implying that bruce would ever not be keeping an eye on him after that is just, lmao. it’s so zany. i call this the “hush” route because of the bandages but there are no other references to hush so ok. that’s fair. so anyway jason is now angsty for loosely explained reasons but the most fun part is yet to come.

when talia showed up, i really thought / was terrified for a second that they were gonna bring up certain “events” regarding damian’s parentage / who damian’s father is but then she mentioned bruce and i was like OH THANK GOD WE CAN STILL GO TO HEAVEN. i am so so grateful to the writers for NOT going there. cuz it was damn close ok. im not sure what the implication of this route is in terms of talia, jason and damian being a family unit but i want to believe talia sees jason as a son and damian’s brother (which is how she refers to him, damian’s brother) and not... yknow. i mean. jason raising a baby is kind of like a baby raising a baby...

no actually the reality of this scene is really dfuckin interesting like. they actually go with the “birth of the demon” (forget if it was birth of the demon or bride of the demon. one of those.) explanation for damian and that is something i’ve NEVER seen adapted so whoever wrote this can have a cookie and i kNOW this is something a certain someone will appreciate :)

not only that but the implications? are interesting? so talia’s claim is she miscarried so bruce won’t have to “choose” between damian and jason and idk if she’s supposed to be all on the-up-and-up in this universe but. i’m sitting here like GIRL YOU DON’T GOTTA DO THIS HE HAS A PRIVATE JET HAVEN’T YOU HEARD OF SHARED CUSTODY and BETTER YET HE HAS A MANSION JUST GO ON MAURY AND GET THIS SORTED OUT RIGHT NOWwwww

i’m also LAUGHING at the implications of jason thinking theres anywhere on earth that he’s going to go and hide damian’s existence from bruce. because you already know he’s just going to be tearing the planet apart looking for jason so this is actually hilarious. imagine he finds jason in one piece and also a baby. his baby. he’d be like (@ talia) “OMG WHY WOULD YOU THINK I WOULDN’T WANT THEM BOTH u are tearing me apart talia......” BUT THEN HE WOULD BE SO FREAKING HAPPY BECAUSE HE HAS TWO ALIVE SONS AND HE THOUGHT THEY WERE BOTH DEAD / (lost to crime)!!!

please lord imagine all of jason’s angst probably just originating from the fact that he has a brain injury that hasn’t fully healed and the trauma of going through all those surgeries probably gave him a lot of fear / paranoia about bruce and associating him with the joker because his neural pathways are all messed up but after he leaves he starts slowly healing back and regaining some of his lost sanity and thats when he realizes he misses bruce so much... but hes also raising his child... and every day it gets more difficult for him not to just take damian and bring him home and i ;v;

anyway i thought this route, while it had a few inconsistencies in it, was really freaking interesting and it gave me feels and plot bunnies and is probably the one i want to write about the MOST despite the fact that baby damian looks like a character from one of those web flash games in this lol

“True” End - Jason Dies

now if you select that jason dies the route basically defaults to the canon of under the red hood and the fact that utrh does not come packaged with this movie is a rather mystifying choice to me as i don’t think this adaptation would stand on its own very well. like you need quite a bit of background to really get anything out of watching this on its own, which is probably why it’s classified as a “short” and not as its own movie.

instead of showing all of utrh, it seems they took the opportunity to give a ~30 minute recap of utrh with basically entirely reused animation but they allow bruce to sort of. give his dvd commentary over it.

the biggest feeling i have on this is that it’s sad that they had to waste 30 minutes like this that could’ve been used to do something new and much more interesting, but honestly i’m not mad. it seems kind of obvious that this choice was probably made for budget and/or runtime reasons because a short does not get the same budget set aside as a full length feature film does. so they basically took the option of recycling 30 minutes of animation from the movie and dubbing new audio over it.

in evangelion they ran out of budget and that’s why the last two episodes consist of nothing more than still pencil drawings and frames while the characters engage in philosophical debates concerning the nature of reality and human connection. and i really enjoyed that. and for the same reasons, i also really enjoyed this.

i enjoyed seeing the clark kent of this universe. i enjoyed that he was basically out on a date with bruce. i enjoyed that bruce was willing to open up for once and tell clark all of what happened with jason. but what really makes this segment shine bright are bruce greenwood’s line reads. there are SO MANY good line reads in here. and i LOVED how many times he said the word “son”. very wholesome. the way he describes how he felt during the final fight with jason? probs my favorite FUCKING part.

and then him and clark joking together about contingency plans and then they’re going to work together to find jason and i ;_; this is probably the closest thing to a “good” ending but as a continuation of utrh i thought it worked really well. i really want to believe that bruce and clark did find jason in this route and that there was some closure in the end even though we didn’t get to see it.

including clark in this was DEFINITELY the right move as well, considering that he played a rather large role in the original ditf so it’s a welcome nod.

The rest of the branches exist under a separate option where Bruce makes it in time to save Jason from the warehouse... but Bruce dies......... :O

let me tell you bout it... bruce’s fucking DEATH SCENE i don’t know WHAT my man bruce greenwood is on, but the freaking LINE READS in this dialogue had me making INHUMAN NOISES. LIKE NOT ONLY WAS THE DIALOGUE GOOD, NOT ONLY DID HE SAY “I LOVE YOU, SON”, but this man is just an amazing actor. not just voice actor, but actor. he really really really really gave it the most i don’t know how else to say it....... it was very very well done and punched me sideways in the heart and i haven’t recovered and i’m not going to recover. and

ok so once we get past that.... scene.... u have to choose whether you’re going to catch the joker or kill the joker. bruce asks jason to promise not to kill the joker but technically jason doesn’t promise so........

Let’s start by choosing to kill the Joker. Jason attends Bruce’s funeral and various members of the Justice League show up to talk with him and just generally hang out. He has Alfred, Dick and Barbara as his support system, but Jason has some other plans.

This leads to a scene in a cafe where Jason meets with a man who... something something Killing Joke, flashlight, more Barbara being used as a plot device when she deserves better, Jason kills the Joker with a butter knife.

Once you do this you can choose to surrender to the police, or retaliate and escape.

Jailbird Ending

basically if you surrender to the police jason ends up in prison where he can actually attack even more criminals so.... ya

If you retaliate and escape instead you go to the Red Robin route where Jason becomes a vigilante who kills people much like the Red Hood and you get a further choice in a fight with Two Face where you can control how Harvey’s coin lands. 

Tim Ending!

If you choose the coin to land clean face up, the thing rewards you by having Tim show up and I forgot what happened (wasn’t really paying attention lol) because i was so focused on TIM!

Prolly they felt sorry for him what with Jason stealing what is essentially his outfit (ok I know it was Jason’s first, but Tim made it cool) so they let a little baby tim have an appearance :) he’s very smol

I guess in this ending Jason gets reintegrated with the family somehow and Tim becomes “Bat-kid” which is hilarious to me but you know what it’s cute. CUTE.

The one ending where the coin lands scarred side up

i honestly forget what happens if you choose to have the coin land scarred side up but let me just say this is a FUCKED route to take, not only have you had jason survive and bruce die, you’ve now chosen to kill the joker against bruce’s dying wish, you’ve chosen to attack the police, and at the end of that you really are gonna choose harvey’s coin to be scarred face up???? choosing this made me feel like a DICK because here i am supporting jason’s whole fall to madness and villainy thing the way it wants me to and now he’s gonna die HERE? i hate it here.

interestingly enough he doesn’t actually die in this route. he ends up at home with barbara and dick while dealing with the fact that he killed the joker but the route ends with jason saying “i promise” so i guess this is supposed to be kinda sad. im so confused lol ok

So that is all the options if you choose to kill the joker, I believe. You can also make the choice to just catch him instead of killing him but amazingly enough, those routes are even more FUCKED up. 

If you do this option Jason goes home, mourns Bruce with Dick, Barbara and Alfred, and becomes Red Hood BUT with a twist, he’s entirely on a bloodless operation in line with Bruce’s wishes. OR.... IS HE?

Things then follow the events of UTRH until the scene on the bridge with the van and the guys. Jason finally confronts Joker, who reveals the truth. 

Apparently in this route Jason has actually been killing and decapitating his victims just like in the original movie, but he’s repressed it so as to not even realize to himself that he’s doing it.

that is FUCKED. also. i wanna cry because jason doing all of that stuff but not even realizing it ;------; jason blocking it out, because he wanted to honor bruce’s wishes for him not to kill anyone ;______; but he’s doing it anyway ;_____; he’s actually hearing voices telling him to kill ;____; like it’s a very cheap twist in a sense and also really quite cruel but.... damn, son.

There is a branch here where you can choose to spare or kill the Joker at this point (UNDERTALE???) but from what I can tell it seems to be totally meaningless what choice you pick because you end up at the exact same point either way, I think there’s a small variation in what happens after you make the choice but after that they just coalesce back together into the following two endings. Which seems incredibly cheap to me, I mean making a choice like that should alter Jason’s path completely but, it doesn’t! So... ooook....

Either way Jason ends up on the Wayne building and Talia shows up with a re-animated Bruce from the pit. Here’s another fun blast from the 2011 past with more gratuitous Grant Morrison dreck, remember that shit? Well, they’re gonna jam it down your throat here, too.

The reanimated Bruce is the Zur En Arrh Bruce and he’s already dead so this is all meaningless but basically Jason fights him and you get to choose whether everybody lives or dies.

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Lives!

if you pick this, jason actually gets the re-animated bruce back to the batcave and they lock him up down there because he’s still pit-mad and the prognosis is not great. but i’m not sure what they expected, he is the zur-en-arrh guy so I don’t think he’s getting better. 

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Dies!

pretty much there’s an explosion and all three of them die and that’s it

I think that should be all the possible endings there are.

By the way the different ways in which black mask dies in this was actually a fairly clever running gag lollll. let that mf burn we don’t need no water.

overall there are a couple of things i would have done to SIGNIFICANTLY improve this adaptation beyond some of the obvious ones.

- the fact that all of the branching options are branched exclusively under the “jason lives and bruce dies” branch is a huge wasted opportunity. imo this is the most egregious problem with this, i was really looking for a more balanced tree / explanation of different things. i am probably super biased though being a fic writer and used to fic, we’re the ones making huge ass trees every day lol.

- the fact that there is no “good” ending here is something i kind of expected but given the context of this is lackluster. i sort of get it though because granted, the original ditf ends in an unresolved manner but it’s distinctly unsatisfying here. i secretly wanted an ending where bruce, like, figures out about the different endings and hacks reality to try to find a good ending where jason lives and everything is fine lmao. like a bat mite ending.

- i was disappointed in a sense that the narrative given in here is so basically simplistic? maybe i’ve been spoiled by games like 999 and undertale where shit gets messy and that’s not what this is supposed to be but when i play something with multiple endings in this day and age, at least play with the concept a little bit and connect some of the branches together narratively. use different devices. i was also hoping some of the choices would be a little bit meatier like you could choose to “forgive bruce” or something cool like that lol. but it looks like the majority of choices have to do with who lives or dies. and i felt like they couldve been a bit more creative with that ya know? being able to control harvey’s coin was a GREAT example of having some more fun with this.

- it is a huge missed opportunity not to have a “secret ending” on something like this. like where. the fuck. is my secret ending for completing everything. come on. and in a similar vein there should’ve been at least something in terms of bruce and jason interacting in a “true ending”. even if very brief. the closest thing to an ending this has is the “jason died” route and then the ending where he’s talking to clark which i feel like was a REALLY nice good optimistic ending as far as this goes, but it comes off as kind of disappointing i guess

there were SO many interesting nuggets locked into this thing though. i can’t deny it bugs me how many wasted opportunities there were with how they chose to structure things but i guess it’s the best you can do with limited runtime. i thought it was really well done though, makes an interesting companion piece to the original utrh, and is definitely something that i will be re-watching again soon!! overall i give it a 7/10 and some parts an 8/10+!

[rhydium]

Info dumbo about the StarFinite story?

aright u asked for it anon GET READY [cracks knuckles] this is gonna be long so obligatory cut in 3, 2........

...1!

so the uh, the au! the story!! w/e yall wanna call it! full disclaimer, i only began working on this whole thing a while ago, but it's totally taken over my fukn brain. like, we're talking big hyperfixation hrs. am i cringe for being this invested in my own content? yes? cool i do not Care >:3€

i should also throw it out there real quick that i am kin w/ infinite, n this is actually one of my two canons (both of which are my own aus lmfao wow). i didn't go into it expecting it to be but sfsfsgdfs here we are ig!! for that reason it's got extra importance to me n this definitely contributes to the euphoria i get from it!! it's a lil odd writing ur own canon,,? but i kinda just go w/ the flow!

the au n, the story that i will start Eventually, revolves around infinite n starline (obvi) n it's honestly just ... the tl;dr is big healing momence n, what's this? uh oh sisters !!! they are falling in love 😳😳😳

uhhhh so infinite is an android, made by eggman. that's like, the most notable canon divergence here! super important context to have. i've got a whole big theory on the possibility of sega originally intending infinite to be an artificial being (which i explored in the works for my Other canon too), stemming from not only the scene in forces wherein infinite comments on sonic's "data", but a line of dialogue from tails in one of the last stages of the game where he Literally Says "so this is where eggman built infinite". that ... i mean. that contrasts w/ episode shadow pretty hard don't it?? would explain why that dlc was so rushed, n the comic too. ANYWAY adsfsfs um that's a seperate ramblepost. yeah!!!

they are also agender n use they/them (primarily) as well as he/him!! so i'll be refering to them w/ those pronouns!

after the war, infinite is taken in by the resistance n, instead of being dismantled, they're basically given a chance to rehabilitate themselves. it's agreed that they won't be reprogrammed, as despite the potential risks, it feels wrong to do so; like a violation of their free will, individuality n thinking. if infinite is to be a good person, it's not gonna be bc other ppl recreated their entire personality, it's gonna be bc it's what they themselves truly want. robot ethics idk man!! u can't tell me that sonic n co wouldn't offer this to infinite if they offered it to metal in IDW,,,, i am Standing By This!!!

it's, yknow, a bit rocky, at first. infinite has to really fight the urge to return to eggman (something they already tried once, before the resistance found them; they were cast out). it's a struggle against what they were built to do, against giving into unhealthy familiarity over facing a, while healthier, unfamiliarity. new faces, a new life, turning their back on their mission n creator, it's like, a lot.

they work for/with the sonic crew, rebuilding the world they tore down as deemed fitting justice, being closely monitored for a bit as a natural precaution. as it becomes apparent infinite truly no longer has any ambition to harm others (they don't have much ambition for anything, really), they're then granted more freedom, n start taking on more important missions!! it at least gives them something to do, keeps them occupied. they have issues with dissociation, unreality, whether they're truly a real person bc, well, android. feeling purposeless, n a lack of worth, especially. a need to prove themselves. heavy stuff. i'll kinda go into that a bit more in a sec. their work grounds them, if only temporarily.

n soooooo... IDW comic stuff happens. metal virus time. starline gets kicked out of the empire.

now, as the comics are ongoing, n as this is already an au, there's gonna be divergence, n i must admit i haven't planned out all that yet. there's a lot i have to consider!! infinite being w the resistance/restoration is a big game changer ... tho i Do believe that they were absent, likely on a far out mission during most of the chaos. eggman doesn't know abt them, nor does starline or anyone else other than the sonic crew; n some civilians that recognise them.

i'm not 100% sure of Exactly when it happens, but i think it's just after bad guys, that infinite is sent to locate n bring in starline. it doesn't prove too difficult. there's a whole, starline realising "oh fuck it's you???", some bickering n, the two don't hit it off right away. they're both kinda like. not mentally stable ddgddgdds,,,

so uh. starline ends up essentially going thru the same sorta shit as infinite. careful watch, rebuilding, all that jazz, making sure he can be trusted. he's like... very very lost, quite like infinite is. the world has kinda calmed down, in the meanwhile.

it's at this point i'm gonna go ahead n drop a bit of a ramble i subjected my friends to a while ago, to articulate the way i see the two, n their dynamic together!! i was considering making this it's own post a while ago!

analysing their characters a bit... let's look at starline. Like. so we have this, in bad guys, which SENT ME tbfh;

i feel like it's the moment that triggers starline onto the path he is rn canonically,,, he's clearly like. rly mad n bitter. the core of this?? he wants his work n his efforts to be acknowledged.

he's big angry. still kind of in denial at this stage. he has himself obsessed w/ the idea of making eggman see him as Worthy, that if he just tries hard enough, that'll happen. he's dependent on eggman's validation, n i mean, it's no surprise; he's followed him a Long Time by the sounds of it.

then in the recent issue, hold the fuck up, bc we got, This;

god. my god it's all comin together now homies. this???? this right here??? it is the CLASSIC "i have to do this to prove i'm strong n powerful n smart n worthy n should be respected please Give Me Acknowledgement" ..... n who else is Like That? can u see where im going w/ this?

i think most ppl are aware of infinite's character being extremely indicative of self worth/esteem issues n the need to prove themself, right?? the extreme adversity, repulsion, perhaps even fear toward the idea of being weak. the compulsion to prove otherwise, to show their strength, to become powerful, to conquer to make a point. their theme exudes this same energy as their behaviour in-game; an aggressive attitude, trying to assert themself, while if u rly listen...? the lyrics are actually really sad in places. it reeks of cover up, although composition wise, a v interesting thing to note is a lot of the more telling lyrics are prominent while some of the affirming ones are in the background. indicative of a desire to have their true feelings be heard but caught in a vicious loop?

okay okay that's yet Another different analysis. AHEM.

not to get deep on main (oh who the hell am i kidding that's the point of this entire thing) but i think starline has issues w/ his worth in a similar way to infinite. they both seem to have this need to Prove something, whether it's to others or themselves, n get caught in a toxic spiral of doing worse n worse things for Some kind of validation or acknowledgement. they'll go to really big lengths chasing that, n both of them ultimately sought validation in the wrong place n wrong way.

this is a big part of my starfinite dynamic,, n so, what happens, as they get closer n open up??? we have them BOTH realising together that they don't have to do fuck all to prove anything to anyone. they don't need to do all this to show they're strong n smart n worth something, not to anyone else OR themselves. they're enough as they are. they bond over that shared feeling that they have to do xyz, to prove themselves, n that desire to just finally be acknowledged n appreciated n help each other thru it. to help each other understand that other ppls approval, or lack thereof, doesn't define them, their strength, intelligence, and worthiness.

i feel like they have an interesting parallel between them in like... the above could be taken as a general analysis, but to go more in depth on this au specifically?? ...

starline followed eggman for presumably a long time n it no doubt left him feeling a heavy and deep regret for all that time wasted n spent on an unhealthy path. infinite kinda teaches him that what matters is what he's doing Now n also reminds him that if none of it happened, starline wouldn't have learnt a lot of the serious skills he has. n while starline still feels bad, he also realises himself that, he likely never would have crossed infinite's path if none of it happened. for that reason, he wouldn't take it back.

infinite has only been recently made, on the other hand. they haven't really existed long, yet, but so far their experiences haven't been very positive n it can be .... discouraging. starline sorta, shows infinite their limited experiences w/ the world are a very tiny fraction of what's out there, n things can absolutely change, yes, including for the better; that's the essence of life, a neverending, constant flow of change.

it's a big tale of moving on n letting go, honestly; made easier as they're doing it together. n as they heal n grow, well... these bitches gay. sfshshdgds like, ig that's putting it p bluntly but!! they start to trust each other, understand each other more. as they get to truly know who the other is, they both start developing The Feelings. they're both pretty oblivious n the reveal is totally unknown so far!! yeah, i know, bummer. i suck. boo. adafsfsds however i can say there will be lots of content in the making!! if that soothes the soul! i've got of ideas i hope to bring to life.

ofc there's still a lot of more specific things i haven't covered here so! if y'all want more juice hmu w/ more focused questions but !! this is the overview n i hope it was a decent read now that gave some uhhh! Cool Insight! yea!!! ✌

[odyssiaca]

i said i was gonna do it, so here i am! i am writing this on the fly, making it up as i go along so who knows how long it will be! who knows. 

i have finally played every route in fe3h, including the dlc- currently im making my way through the new game+ and screaming because this is my life now apparently. this isn’t really a deep and meaningful essay just... my experience playing the game and all the routes. 

( pls note i played on casual and normal for my original playthrough because i am a wimp. for ng+ im still playing casual but this time im playing on hard. )

this is the order in which i played the routes + dlc: verdant wind, azure moon, cindered shadows, silver snow and crimson flower. 

right! so!! let’s start!

White Clouds: the first twelve chapters are obviously pretty same-y, which is fine, except when you’re playing 4 times in a row. i liked the fact that the goddess tower was unique for every route and character you were trying to get s support with. there were some unique aspects to the different house, ie. judith, arundel, rodrigue, finding out about dimitri and edelgard. but other than that i did get pretty bored when it came around to doing it... again. and idk just, like i said the reveals obviously weren’t as shocking the 4 time around but like, they were still enjoyable, which is good at least!

Verdant Wind: this route is... eh. it’s the first one i did because dear god i am in love with claude. the route in and of itself is probably one of the weakest ngl. there were things that didn’t make sense in the context of the route and unlike azure moon and crimson flower it didn’t feel unique (given that this route and silver snow are.... IDENTICAL. except the final bosses) the final boss was dope and i am obsessed with God Shattering Star, but other than that? meh. i liked it at first because it was my first one and yknow, claude. but now it’s just idk, it’s lacking. and i’m gonna be honest: i don’t like most of the class. i like claude, hilda, marianne and lysithea. that is it. the others are just overbearing or kinda boring. lorenz i just, i can’t get over his design, i know he’s a deep character but i dislike most of his c supports, i hate his hair and the way he talks. ignatz and raphael are forgettable. i know they’re also very deep characters but their surface levels make me not want to go into their characters. and just. fuck leonie, i’m sorry i just cannot handle her. she’s overbearing, annoying, thinks that because jeralt trained her she’s better than everyone??? GOD. her supports with hilda are cute, and i like her post-timeskip design but otherwise she’s one of my least favourite characters in the game. im sorry. (edit: okay im revising this because it was late at night and perhaps i was a bit harsh. i dont actually mind the characters i mentioned that much, in fact they can be quite funny, however, i still prefer characters from the other houses more.) so my verdict of this route is that i did enjoy it, i liked the cutscenes and the timeskip designs but it’s still only my second favourite. 8/10.

Azure Moon: look. i’m just saying, this route? is the best. hands down, it’s absolutely amazing. it has it’s flaws, and it’s very different from the other routes and is also very much the most fire emblem like route but that’s okay. this route is devastating, heartbreaking, really fucking sad. and that just draws me in. when i first did the route i was gonna marry mercedes because i am gay and love her but the character of dimitri is just so incredibly well done- before and after the timeskip. i like the fact that there’s essence behind his character, meaning. i actually found this route to be kinda hard in places (cornelia for example and also edelgard) and it’s also very unique. i like the way the two factions of faerghus and adrestia interact, and also the way the alliance is just dragged into it. ( claude doesn’t die which is good!!!!) in the other routes you only really see dimitri as this crazed character but in azure moon you find out WHY and yes, that is good. the characters are all very unique and i like them all they all have their own stories and characteristics that make them as unique at the route. the cutscenes and stills are, beautifully done and truly heartbreaking. and just. AH. i adore this route more than i have any right to, on the whole it’s my favourite. 10/10.

Cindered Shadows: this isn’t really a route, but that’s okay, im sure you guys don’t mind. i love the ashen wolves, they’re amazing. the story is... weak. because it doesn’t fit into the actual plot at all and that annoys me. aelfric is a character i dislike immensely but maybe that was the point? i find the explanations in the route to be its downfall, because it clashes with what we already know in the game. sitri is pretty and im glad we get a tiny bit more byleth and sitri backstory but otherwise the characters and abyss are it’s saving grace. 6/10.

Silver Snow: im gonna go ahead and say it: fuck this route. it’s verdant wind but with seteth instead of claude. it’s verdant wind but bad and boring. it’s dull and unnecessary. i had really high hopes for this route because it’s the church! i dont like the church but a route with them could be very interesting! it was not! it lacked personality, it lacked uniqueness. i don’t particularly like most of the characters and basically just used the students and fuuuuuck the final boss. the only reason i did this route was because i wanted to romance yuri but also edelgard.  2/10 would not play again.

Crimson Flower: ... ... ... WHERE ARE THE CUTSCENES!!!! where is the reunion scene between byleth and edelgard, why is it all stills!!!!!! WHY IS IT SHORTER THAN THE OTHERS!!!! WHY. the story in this route is actually very interesting, and well thought out. but the aforementioned points are what make me want to ram my head into a wall. idk why they thought to give silver snow cutscenes and not this route but it was stupid. i do like the way the portrayed the church and rhea though. as the villains they technically are. i like the characters a lot, they’re all great, and i love the angst!!! the way you get to choose if you want to spare or kill your children whom you love. ( i spared claude and lysithea because i am weak. ) but its just. the vibe of the route is ruined by the lack of cutscenes and thats dumb ik but it is what it is. and also it did NOT need to be shorter, there was no reason for it to be as short as it was. 5/10.

so in order we have: 

Azure Moon

Verdant Wind

Cindered Shadows

Crimson Flower

Silver Snow

i enjoyed the game a lot, the writing was beautiful and the characterization was also really good. but some of the characters and routes were just. weak. very very weak. 

idk what else to say so imma leave it here i guess!! pls feel free to debate with me, i’d like that a lot. 

[fishoutofcamelot]

(for the ask thing) any book/tv show/movie/song recommendations?

BRO! I heckin got you man! Now, I’m gonna skip the song and book recommendation bit because that sorta thing isn’t really my scene. BUT! In terms of TV? My rec list is like a mile long. I’m gonna include a read-more line, actually. 

BBC Merlin: You know I had to put this on the list. But the fact that you’re on my blog means you’ve probably watched this one, so I won’t go into detail about it. Available on Netflix

Mob Psycho 100: Just a cute, sweet story about a bunch of psychic kids trying to kill each other. A story with this much fighting has no right to be so wholesome. Mob is just a good boy, he doesn’t deserve all this! Fair warning, its messages about identity, self love, and growth WILL make you feel Emotions. Available on various anime pirating websites

Red vs Blue: The found family game is SO strong in this one. By far the best found family plot/dynamic I have ever and will ever experience. The characters are all so solid, yknow? Like it took me three rewatches to understand the plot, but I didn’t even care because I loved the characters SO MUCH. It’s also really, really funny (although some of the jokes have aged a bit poorly tbh). Basically about a bunch of space marines who goof off and accidentally dismantle corrupt governments along the way. Available on Youtube

Supernatural: Is it cringey? Yeah. Does the fandom suck? Also yeah. Is Destiel overrated? BIG yeah. But it’s got monsters, magic, family, and a plot that doesn’t revolve around romance - and really, what more could you ask for? And sure, a lot of people don’t really like the later seasons, but idk I actually prefer them. Season 15 has me THRIVING. I mean come on - character vs author?! Fighting the guy who literally wrote you into existence because he doesn’t want to give your story a happy ending?! Say what you will about Supernatural, but it’s one of the most imaginative shows I’ve ever seen. Available on Netflix

Avatar the Last Airbender: You like stellar animation, intricate worldbuilding/magicbuilding, and a perspective on war that is surprisingly mature for a kids show? Check it out. This show is without a doubt one of the best animated series of all time. Go on. Watch it. It’ll change your life. Available on Netflix

The Umbrella Academy: Time-travelling assassins. Superheroes. Ghosts. Talking monkeys. Murder mysteries. Baller soundtracks. This show will never give you what you expect. I don’t even think I could properly describe it to you. Available on Netflix

Detective Conan: An anime. It’s about a teen detective - think Nancy Drew but bloodier - who witnesses a crime and is fed an experimental poison in order to keep him from telling anyone. But instead of killing him, the poison turns him into a 6-year-old. So now he’s got to solve crimes and take down a criminal organization while in the body of a child. Naturally, shenanigans ensue. Fair warning, the main character becomes a bit of a Mary Sue in later episodes, but the first 300 or so are pretty fun. A few episodes are available on Netflix, but not any of the good ones. You’ll need an anime pirating website for that

Knives Out: My favourite movie ever, of all time. It’s a murder mystery that both subverts and pays homage to its parent genre in all the right places. It’s funny, it’s intelligent, and has a spectacular ending! Although I do wish the fandom would stop being so horny for Ransom, I mean he’s literally racist...No clue where you can find this tbh, I saw it in theatres

Derry Girls: Now I’m not normally a big fan of realistic fiction/sitcom stuff. Despite how funny they are, I’ve not even watched The Office or Parks and Rec because that normal daily life stuff just doesn’t peak my interest. And yet, somehow this story about a group of Irish high schoolers just has me enthralled. Very funny, very well-written, give it a watch. Available on Netflix

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: Another anime. Phenomenal animation? Check. Fascinating plot and characters? Check. Detailed magic system that gets my lore-obsessed heart fluttering? Big heckin check. So basically two kids try to use Fantasy Science to bring their mom back to life, only the experiment fails and has some pretty nasty consequences - one boy loses his arm and leg, while the other loses his entire body and has his soul bound to a suit of armour. Now they gotta go through government conspiracies, ethical dilemmas, and Daddy Issues to try and get their bodies back. Available on Netflix

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K: Yet another anime. I know, I know, I’m a nerd, get over it. This show doesn’t have a complex plot or even complex characters, tbh, but what it does have is some amazing humour. It’s extremely funny, and it’s also just a nice show to kick back and relax to. Basically this guy who’s so op that he could rewrite the laws of reality on a whim is stuck dealing with relationship drama in high school despite being very, very asexual and very, very tired. Mostly he just uses his powers to avoid people and eat junk food, which is honestly a mood. Available on Netflix

Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated: Honestly I’d recommend almost anything that’s Scooby Doo-related because that was my childhood obsession. I used to have like 20 of the movies on DVD before my mom gave them all away. To this day I still love Scooby Doo, and watch it whenever I get the chance. But if you ask any SD fan, they’ll probably tell you that Mystery Incorporated is the best, most intelligent, most creative installment in the franchise. And they’re right (although I do wish there was less relationship drama...) Available on Netflix

Evil Genius: This is a documentary series about the Collar Bomb Robbery. Now, despite what the above list might indicate, I actually watch a LOT of documentaries, and if I were here to recommend all of them then we would be here all day. Not really ‘funny’ like the other entries on this list, it’s actually rather tragic, but definitely a cerebral viewing experience. Available on Netflix

Screwball: Now this is a documentary that IS funny. It’s about drug scandals in baseball. But the dramatic scene re-enactments are done with child actors that are all wearing fake beards and pretending to be drug dealers. It’s not only a fascinating subject, but it’s got amazing editing and visuals that have me in awe. Available on Netflix

Behind the Curve: Yet another documentary. This one’s about the rise of the Flat Earth movement. You’ll spend most of the time on the verge of having a stroke because of how stupid it all is. Available on Netflix

The Movies That Made Us: Okay okay okay last documentary on the list I swear. This one’s exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a series talking about the behind-the-scenes production of iconic movies like Home Alone and Ghostbusters. I eagerly await the second season. Available on Netflix

Monster Factory: If you’re familiar with the McElroy brothers and their brand of humour, you’ll love this. Griffin and Justin team up to make the most disturbing avatars they can create using video game character creators. The origins of the Final Pam meme. If I had a shirt with a quote from Monster Factory on it, I’d die a happy man. Available on Youtube

Baman Piderman: The dumbest show I have ever watched, but it’s so adorable and stupid and I love it so much. It doesn’t really have a plot, but later episodes allude to the presence of one and I’m upset because there are so many mysteries/questions hinted at and we’ll never get answers because it’s been abandoned. PLEASE watch it. Available on Youtube

Stranger Things: Okay, season 2 was a bit of a let-down imo, but season 1 was ICONIC and the Scoops Troop subplot in season 3 deserved its own freakin spinoff. I’m not joking. I didn’t even like s3 all that much, but the only reason it’s my favourite is because the Scoops Troop plot was so great. People call this show ‘horror’ but I don’t think it’s scary enough for that, although it is admittedly kinda spooky. If you like 80s nostalgia and the horror aesthetic, then I’d give it a watch (Do it for Scoops Troop. Do it for Robin). Available on Netflix

Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart: Despite my overwhelming love for this film, I’ll be the first to admit it’s kinda mediocre. The plot is weird and the romance feels forced, but despite its flaws it manages to be one of my favourite movies. Mostly I just like it for the unique concept and beautiful ending. Also the music is off the par man. Probably because the writer/producer of the movie was the lead singer for a French band called Dionysus (what? I do my research). Available on Netflix

Wakfu: I haven’t seen past season 3, but so far it’s pretty good. You go in thinking it’s just a wholesome action/adventure show about a kid who can create portals - but then it just. Sucks you in. From its bopping theme song to its fantastic found family to the unique worldbuilding, you very quickly fall in love with it. It’s got a cool plot and also talking dragons, and it doesn’t get better than that. Available on Netflix

Mystery Skulls Animated: Technically not a TV show so much as it is a series of animated music videos with a plot, but I’ll be damned if this isn’t one of the greatest things of all time. It’s basically Scooby Doo but if Shaggy got possessed by a demon and killed Fred, causing Fred to become a ghost hellbent on revenge-killing Shaggy in return. And if Scooby was an ancient Japanese spirit that bit off Shaggy’s arm, forcing him to wear a metal prosthetic. Yeah, MSA is wild. It’s only got three videos out so far, with a fourth one coming out this October, but there’s already so much lore! Available on Youtube

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared: Ah yes, yet another cringey entry on this list. But you know what? Cringe culture is dead!!! And despite its fandom being...like that...DHMIS really is a cool show. Think if Sesame Street was like haunted or something. The episodes about creativity and telling time remain the most unsettling, imo. Definitely worth a watch. Available on Youtube

Inanimate Insanity: Oh boy. Am I seriously recommending you dip your little fingies into the object fandom? Yes. Yes I am. This show is so obscure it makes freakin Detective Conan look popular. At its core it’s a parody of Total Drama Island and Survivor but with anthropomorphized inanimate objects as characters (hence the name). Season 2 is actually really, really good and surprisingly competent. You just gotta get through season 1 first. Available on Youtube

The X-Files: Wow, a live action series on this list? Who woulda thought??? But seriously, this show is really fun. Memes and jokes aside, I love it. Scully and Mulder are fun characters with great chemistry (both platonic and romantic), the Lone Horsemen are hilarious, and every episode is a unique adventure into the most creative acid trips the human mind could conceive of. Phenomenal from start to finish (if you ignore the last season). I have no clue where you would watch this. Pirate it, probably

Buzzfeed Unsolved: Two idiots investigate cold cases and haunted locales while being utter dumbasses about it. You know the “hey demons it’s be ya boi” meme? That came from these guys. Available on Youtube

Kingdom: Ngl, I didn’t go into this expecting zombies. Or for it to take place during Korean feudalism, for that matter. But mediocre dubbing aside, this show has such a clever concept. It takes the zombie apocalypse genre and gives refreshing, unique twists to old tropes that they feel like something new. Seo-bi is my wife and she deserves all the love and appreciation in the world, and those are just Facts. Available on Netflix

My Hero Academia: Superhero high school anime. I personally am not a fan of later episodes/arcs, but the first three seasons are pretty dang good. Diverse, colourful ensemble cast that you easily grow to adore, interesting commentary on disability (although I’m not qualified to give any actual takes on that), and a school curriculum that makes me very, very concerned for the wellbeing of these children. Plus all the superpowers - aka ‘quirks’ - are super imaginative and, well, quirky! I just wish people would stop shipping the main character with his childhood bully...You’ll need to pirate this one too lmao

Danny Phantom: The highlight of this show is its ‘phandom’, because unlike someone (*cough* Butch Hartman), we’re not a bunch of cowards. It’s about a guy who messes around with his parents’ lab stuff and accidentally acquires the ability to die! Well, half-die. He can turn into a ghost and fight other ghosts. Although the show never explores the existential, traumatic fallout of being kinda-sorta-dead, the potential for something deep and emotional is there. Plus there is a LOT of accidental subtext for a Big LGBT+ Metaphor. So much so that the Trans Danny theory is basically canon. Uhhh not available on Netflix anymore so it’s time to whip out your pirate hat, matey

And there you have it! Like I said, I have a lot of TV recommendations. And I just KNOW I’m forgetting a ton, but this is already really long so we’ll have to cut off here. 

Thanks for the ask! <3

[dearophelia]

Lol duh. Gonna ask about Dropsonde.

I adore you. I’m gonna answer them all because I’m that person. Also includes 6-8 for @swaps55! Thank you both!! [dropsonde (singers in a lower choir remix)]

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

For the original? I think it was a half-baked scene that came to me while I was on vacation in Florida. I remember scribbling it down in a notebook and then going to town when I got back home. I threw a bunch of time-skips in there because, frankly, I didn’t want to write small children. I do not blame 2007 Sara for this. She was a wise human.

For the revamp? A cascading domino effect started in last October and resulted in my mental health going entirely sideways for eight solid months. Literally nothing was working to screw my head on straight again: not meds, not therapy, not yoga, not getting my sleep and food under control, literally nothing. I think it was around early June when I realized the hallucinations weren’t going away this time (and perhaps had never really left) and I hit the end of my rope. Luckily, my great pal Aly texted me out of the blue with the fact that she’d fallen face-first back down a Grey’s black hole. We got to talking about our various fics we’d both written, how nostalgic we were for them, and I re-opened the OneNote notebook I had for this. Started writing, didn’t look back.

I'm not gonna say that I’m stable again as a result (I’m really not), but I’ve written like 30k words in the last three weeks, which is the most I’ve written since August of last year, and it’s something to do and think about that isn’t pure doom and panic. It makes me happy, and makes me happy in a way that doesn’t include caveats or exceptions; there’s nothing else in my life right now that’s just happy. It’s helping.

2: What scene did you first put down?

For the original, it was the one at the beginning of (the original) chapter 2, where Addison’s finishing up Goodnight Moon for the nine-hundredth time. For the remix, it was the actual opener: where Addison finds someone else’s shoes in her apartment.

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

Later, when the snow has turned into rain and they've even managed a round three, Addison curls up against his chest, tangling their legs together. She smiles. She'd been using dead reckoning to make it out of her storms her entire life. Now she has a lighthouse.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

"Your storm is a natural disaster. It's chaotic and wild and unpredictable and often the only thing I can do is hang on. But that storm brought me you. That storm brought me love and a future I didn't see a path to." His fingers coast across her bare shoulders, mapping constellations out of freckles. "And if I'm the lighthouse in your storm, then I promise you to stay standing and lit, because I need you to know the way home from your storm, Ads. To me."

5: What part was hardest to write?

I remember the original sort of effortlessly flying out of my fingertips. What’s been challenging about the rewrite is filling in all the little gaps the original left; writing the spaces between the facts. Don’t get me wrong - that has been fun as hell, but also challenging because I have to remember the voices of these characters I haven’t checked in on in over a decade.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

IT’S MY WARM COMFY BLANKET UNIVERSE. It also...it does not have a plot. There are pieces of plot to it, but there’s not an overarching plot or anything. It’s not a mission, it’s not a rescue, it’s not anything that has plot-based structure. It’s just life. I hate plot, I hate it, it’s the worst. This lets me write shit in a world I like and not care about what happens next because life just be like that sometimes.

7: Where did the title come from?

2007 Sara was an idiot and really liked formatting her chaptered fics by snagging an album and making each chapter title a track on the album. Even if the album didn’t remotely fit (even better if it didn’t, because she thought she was such a musical snob. she was not. she was full of crap). “dropsonde” is an album by the trance group Biosphere (and I hate it. I think I hated it back then, too). It’s also a hurricane tracking tool. So that’s a weird legacy to have to work with.

The revamp’s remix title comes from Leonard Cohen, because 2020 Sara is a pretentious asshole and owning it. Book of Mercy 1: In a transition so delicate it cannot be marked, the court is established on beams of golden symmetry, and once again I am a singer in the lower choirs, born fifty years ago to raise my voice this high and no higher.

That line gives me so much life and hope: I don’t have to try to sing higher. I don’t have to reach for other octaves, I don’t have to try to shove myself into a space that isn’t Sara-shaped, and in fact I should not. Because I was born to sing in this Sara-shaped choir and it would be insulting to myself and to the creators to insinuate that this Sara-shaped choir was not made for me. The space you inhabit is holy because it is yours. As much a reminder for me as it is for the characters.

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

I don’t think I grabbed anything from actual reality? I may have. Especially in the original prequel/second part/whatever we’re calling Shenzhou, when I was grasping at straws for ideas and wrote a few really random scenes just to fill up space.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Not of the fic itself, but this Rachel Montgomery is definitely the same Rachel Montgomery in gonna set your flag on fire. 

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

Because it was 2007, I was writing fic instead of doing homework, and Addison/Alex was very much about to become a thing after being teased for a whole fucking season. Missed opportunities: the goddamn ship. I’m still mad.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

It’s fun. It makes me happy. And I don’t care about what anyone thinks about it - there are no expectations, I’m not trying to live up to “oh god I hope it’s good enough for so-and-so” (which, yknow, is bullshit anyway, but is how my brain was working on gonna set your flag on fire). It’s completely free from strings. So I can do what I want. Who cares. 

12: What do you like least about this fic?

It’s real fuckin’ long and I’m real fuckin’ long-winded. I’m about 30k in and Rachel’s not even one yet. Hot yikes.

But, on the plus side, as part of the “who gives a shit, do what you want” mentality, I’ve broken out of the “oh god I have to write the other side of this, I have to keep x topic going.” No, no I really don’t. It’s an Addison story, it’s always been an Addison story, I just didn’t realize that 13 years ago. It’s an Addison story and everyone else is window dressing that can come and go as the sun requires it.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

oh boy, here have an eight-hour playlist

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

plot is overrated. write what you want.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

I learned how much I’ve improved as a writer in 13 years. Part of this experiment was to shut down the “you’re not a good writer, you suck, no one likes you, everyone’s just tolerating you” voice that has plagued me for my entire life and got a lot louder at the end of last year because of Reasons. That voice is still trying really hard, but it doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when I can point to a scene I wrote in 2007 and then the exact same scene written in 2020 and see just how much better it is now.

[writerseven]

i would love commentary on the ending conversation between jason and bruce from present if you're willing (sorry i tried sending the actual passage but tumblr kept rejecting my ask for some reason when i actually pasted it) love your fics!!!

Thank you!! yeah tumblr is a nightmare, but no worries about not pasting the section; this works too! I'll include it here myself

When he returns to his bedroom, Jason is finally sitting up, hair still rumbled and face imprinted with the pillow's creases. He looks around the room before squinting up at Bruce.

(gonna be real I just love the contrast of Big Scary Jason having pillow imprints on his face. also I just found another typo from doing this booo)

“Where's the kid?” he asks.

Bruce raises his eyebrows in judgment. “It's Monday. He's at school.”

Jason, as always, falters and then steels back up at the implied insult to his intelligence. “Yeah. Right.”

Before he can wake up enough to become irritable, Bruce glides over to him for a deep and forceful kiss. Jason catches up after a moment, grasping handfuls of Bruce's shirt to hold him close, and then shoving him away.

In terms of word choice/little micro writing decisions, describing that judgmental 'he's at school' took me a minute. Even though this fic is 100% Bruce's PoV I originally imagined that moment more from Jason's, where it's easier to just describe Bruce as judgmental and Jason as upset. Writing it in Bruce's PoV unlocks all the underlying motivation—Bruce knows he's being a condescending dick, doesn't even think Jason is stupid, and just figures the insecurity will put Jason on the defensive—and I wildly over-explained all of that when I first wrote it

(A consistent problem for me: I am always trying to talk myself down from explaining too much, and reminding myself I can trust readers to put things together themselves. That's also just a good writing tip in general! Trust your readers to pay attention!)

“Alfred kept breakfast warm for you,” Bruce says, belaying whatever Jason meant to say and redirecting to safer topics. “I think he mentioned showing you the remodels to the library when he returns, if you're up for it.”

Jason grunts, shifting off the bed. “I'm taking a shower.”

It's not a no. Practically the same as agreement.

OKAY so writing any given scene is a lot easier when I know what I'm trying to accomplish with it, and this scene was for two things. The first was just to sort of establish time moving forward and give a baseline for what everybody will be doing.

Lure to present all take place over the weekend with very few pauses left to the imagination between events, but I knew I was going to jump ahead a little bit going forward (and switch temporarily away from the Bruce/Jason/Tim trio with Dick's PoV), so I wanted to briefly establish that Jason is still at the manor even with Tim gone, and Bruce is probably using various little activities and excuses (and Alfred) to keep him around. It may just be me, and I definitely get far more intense about time lines than most people, but I knew it would bug me if I didn't give some indication of where Jason would be and why. He probably wouldn't stick around without the Tim-excuse on his own, thus Bruce guiding to safe topics like “Alfred wants to show you stuff!”

(also: “It's not a no. Practically the same as agreement.“ he’s just the WORST)

“Jason,” Bruce says, stopping him as he reaches the bathroom doorway. He's had a month to adjust to it, but the mere ability to speak his son's name again still fills some part of his heart long left empty. “Last night was...” Revelatory. A perfect gift.

“Thank you," he finishes. "I don't know what I'd do without you.”

(two typos ughhhhhhhhhhhh)

The second goal was making that extremely unsubtle parallel between Bruce's manipulations of Jason and of Tim with I don't know what I'd do without you. There have definitely been some parallels already, but I really liked making it super blatant. (Hey remember three seconds ago when I said I tend to over-explain? Whoops. Hopefully this one was merited and enjoyable.) It's a comment on how awful Bruce is, but also a little bit how lazy he's gotten—he doesn't even need to come up with anything else, because he just uses the exact same line on both.

...the embarrassing addition here is that the first version I posted left it unclear who said that last line, which I didn't realize until a commenter referred to it as Jason speaking. 😬  Tbh the idea of Jason already knowing exactly what Bruce was going to say was super cool and interesting and I straight up wondered if that be better and I should canon-ize it—but ultimately it just doesn't work with where I'm pushing the characters. Unfortunately for Jason, as aware as he is of Bruce's manipulative tendencies in general, he completely fails—or perhaps subconsciously refuses—to notice Bruce is using them on him too.

Subtler parallel: Jason's initial confusion at Tim being gone, having completely forgotten about the concept of school, lightly mirrors Tim in the previous fic thinking about how strange and distant “real life” felt. (Though Jason has the excuse of, you know, not having school and a “normal” life since he died)

That sort of calls back to one of my favorite parallels (though probably not as noticeable since it's between fics)—Jason noting in surrogate that everybody brushing their teeth together is the weirdest thing he's done, and then Tim noting in prevaricator that seeing Jason eat breakfast like a normal person is the weirdest thing he's seen. They're both SO USED to this ridiculously fucked up situation that mundane and calm events are what register as wrong.

And jumping back for one last thing:

He's had a month to adjust to it, but the mere ability to speak his son's name again still fills some part of his heart long left empty.

I wanted to remind everyone that Jason's return was very recent (because I know typical batfic picks up awhile after it) but more importantly, I wanted to make it clear that Bruce really does...care about Jason.

It's a shitty, manipulative, controlling kind of care, but he loves his son. I've read various sorta similar fics where it turns out Bruce never liked Jason (or even arranged his death!!!) and I wanted to take very much the opposite path here. imo it's more twisted and more compelling the less black and white things are. Bruce isn't a heartless monster who only wants to abuse his kids and doesn't care for them; Bruce is a horrible person who abuses his kids but still fully believes he loves them in his own way, and would absolutely protect them from any danger (except, yknow, the danger Bruce poses himself).

This commentary is way longer than the actual passage, but hopefully y'all liked reading it as much as I liked rambling. Thanks for the ask, anon!!!

[simmingkatie-writes]

Okay, it’s time to talk about this. I didn’t want to. But... it’s time.

I have lost so much of my ambition for Finding Ian. 

Honestly, there’s been a lot of turmoil behind the scenes that have just taken all of my joy and excitement for this story away. (More on that under the cut if you’re interested.)

Not to mention I love every single one of the characters and absolutely hate sending anyone home. 

I tried changing the writing style, and that worked.... for awhile. I tried switching to once a week posts, which also worked, again for awhile. 

I’m not gonna quit. Not by a long shot. I am, however, gonna switch to mostly telling this story through pictures. After the last of the solo dates are over (for fairness sake), we’re switching to mostly posed shots. I may add some captions back on like I had before, but not consistently. 

This story and the characters have such a special place in my heart, and I really hate that my joy for it has been taken away. But I tried really hard for a long time to get it back and that just isn’t happening the way I want it to. So I’m doing my best to listen to my heart and follow where the inspiration tells me to go.

This is also why I will never post a story again until it is complete.

Thanks for hanging in there, y’all. I’m sorry I’m an inconsistent dumpster fire lmao.

So, if you’ve clicked keep reading, you’re probably here for the tea. I shall deliver.

Idk how many of y’all remember @/cowconuts but I admired them (idk their pronouns, so I’m gonna stick with they/them) greatly. They helped me so much with cc making, and were all around a wonderful person. I brought them into my private discord server, and everything was going great. We were running through their simblreen maze, having tons of fun and they were helping us if we got stuck.

Then, the drama. Cow said something they shouldn’t have. Something rude, and thoughtless, for sure. But c’mon man, we’re all human. (Not to mention I’ve seen this word used countlessssss times on simblr since this incident) It was discussed and resolved within the discord.

But that, apparently, wasn’t enough. @/rosetintedsimmer, who created Fynn Duncan (a character who honestly, in the original outline of this story, was going to be one of the winners), took screenshots of my personal discord and used them to cancel Cow off of this hellsite. 

Then, when she was kicked from the discord for sharing screenshots (which is explicitly against the rules), she decided to call me out, and got really, really nasty. She tried to cancel me, too. I turned off anon and went dark for awhile.

I also removed Fynn from my story, and took a break from it. When I came back, I offered no explanation and I know that for my readers that came as a shock. But I was just so hurt and upset that I couldn’t then. Well, here it is now. 

But ever since then, every time I loaded into Finding Ian, I got anxiety. I moved their houses, hoping it would help, and it did a little. But I’m so scared that every time someone gets eliminated, their creator will get really mad. And I know that’s not the case, that’s what this game is about. But.... well, anxiety, yknow?

Anyways, if you read all this, now you know. I’m pretty sure all involved parties have left tumblr now (aside from myself, of course), which is the only reason I included names. (oh and the fact that if you went back and read, you’d know who created the character so...)

[patchdotexe]

yall i am on my second cup of coffee and blaring riders music, lets go on a misadventure together

and that misadventure is HOW GAME PLOTS HAPPEN IN CHAOSVERSE

holy shit the full version of High Flying Groove is really good. anyway

i dont have like.. everything planned out yet, but there’s some stuff i DO have planned that im really excited about and usually i just talk abt Forces but stuff happens in the previous games too, yall! go crazy aaa go stupid aaa

SADX & SA2 are still being worked out which is why i havent started writing yet but, SA2 does have some fun stuff in it? like Chris! haha whoops. Chris is a whole-ass adult in CV and helps Team Sonic out, and is up on the ARK when things go to shit. also he might get kidnapped instead of Amy as bait for when Sonic gets shot out into space? he’s also a man that makes a whole lot of mistakes. those mistakes include [drumroll] creating Sonic! well no that wasnt a mistake but not telling her until like literally during Cannon’s Core is. Sonic’s an artificially augmented hedgehog that was engineered to have higher aptitude for using the Chaos Emeralds, kinda using Project: Shadow as a baseline. she does not take this well! or well she gets over the actual backstory part bc she is not the type to give a fuck for long but finding out that a good amount of people in her life knew or suspected it and just outright hid it from her really Gets to her yknow also Shadow is... really weird in CV... they’re basically their own species and that species is “mobian hedgehog / black arms cyborg science hybrid” and they dont so much as get mistaken for Sonic as it is that Sonic is deliberately framed by GUN to cover up Shadow’s existence. Amy still needs glasses though. ilu amy also Shadow does actually die at the end, like they dont miraculously survive the fall theyre just... dead. but between SA2 and Heroes Eggman finds them and repairs them, and also creates the Shadow Androids to both figure out how Shadow, like, Works and also bc an army of Shadows sounds like a fantastic idea

i havent figured out a whole lot about Heroes yet but Neo Metal Sonic is actually pretty important as far as lore goes bc the liquid metal thing actually ends up becoming a setup for a WHOLE lot of stuff to happen! woo! also, after Heroes, Metal Sonic doesn’t get ditched and instead Tails takes them home! and they basically do that scene from IDW where Tails and Sonic like half-repair them and offer them the choice to stay, but instead of the hand-slap exit-stage-right thing Metal actually accepts! kind of. they still have a grudge against Sonic and try to beat her up a lot bc of their programming but Tails is working on fixing it and theyre friendly-ish to everybody else. Tails Receives A Friend

ShTH is SO incomplete but some important stuff happens in it! i mean, obviously Shadow is here. also at some point i found a route that makes the most coherent sense for Shadow’s character arc but i dont remember it offhand uhhh one of those important things im just realizing might make more sense to get moved to Colours bc uh, Colours is... something. Colours has a whole lotta stuff happen. the other important thing is Double is here now! Double used to live in Westopolis but then it got exploded, so he joined up with GUN to help fight against the Black Arms and was also p hostile towards Shadow. Shadow kicked his ass :,D this also led to a whole lotta stuff like Double meeting Vent later down the line and a lot of OC plotline setup

06 doesn’t happen. there’s some other unrelated adventure in Soleanna though but i dont have anything abt it planned out. Silver and Blaze might still show up there though! originally they were gonna get introduced in Forces but i think itd make more sense for them to have like, more history to them. they probably do the thing Archie/IDW Silver does where they hop back and forth in the timeline a few times trying to figure out what causes their future to go to pants, only for it to end up being bc of Forces so their timeline is FINALLY averted and they cant go back so they just. live here now. woo 

i mentioned Zero Gravity is important and here’s why: it’s the arc that introduces none other than ya boi SIK THE HEDGEHOG. although he’s going by SK back then! he’s, like, 14. the Babylon Rogues initially mistake King for Sonic so Jet gets all fighty, and then like near-immediately realizes his mistake but oops King is REALLY into having a rival now so he just. wont let it go. Team Advance also ends up with an Ark of the Cosmos! they might get one instead of Amy, i dunno, havent figured it out yet and i need to rewatch cutscenes. either way, Sik gets ahold of it in an attempt to prove himself to King bc King is an asshole, which gets them involved in the plot further beyond just “King really wants to race Jet” and Team Advance works together with both Team Sonic and the Babylon Rogues to stop Master Core: ABIS and the lightless dark etc etc. however shit kinda goes sideways during the ending in which like, theyre able to stop ABIS but have to figure out how to use the Arks to stop the black hole which is now A Thing and being A Problem, and Sik ends up in actual legit danger before Team Sonic & the Rogues are able to save the day (Team Advance is kinda busy trying to not die), theres a funny bit at the end with everyone safe and Sonic complaining abt what they just went through in a call-forward to Colours where she has to outrace ANOTHER black hole (and loses. oops) while meanwhile Sik is lurking around in the background and quietly makes the decision to leave Team Advance. this is also where Sik gets a really debilitating phobia of heights and weightlessness/falling :,) which comes back in Forces! bc Infinite is a douche. sorry Wayne

Unleashed is shaping up to be pretty fun so far! Chris is back and takes the place of Professor Pickle, bc after the complete disaster that was everything he did in SA2 he decided to settle down and become a university professor while also continuing his research into Chaos Energy on the side, hence him finding and studying the Gaia Manuscripts. him and Sonic also have a lot of tension between them still bc of what happened in Cannon’s Core but Chris is trying to make up for it and also hes able to explain why Sonic’s brand new form happens bc it’s a side-effect of the Chaos aptitude... thing speaking of characters getting swapped out: the Dark Gaia Phoenix isn’t a thing! instead one of Seven’s friends from before she joined Team Advance, Lynn, is in training to be Chu-nan’s Gaia Temple guardian but falls victim to DG’s corruption and Sonic has to fight him. i really need to do more with this guy. Chip exists and i love him. also the Gaia Colossus doesnt happen, instead Chip’s collar is like a power limiter thing and so Sonic takes it off and literally ends up fighting alongside an actual god in full-on god form against DG and i think that’s cool as hell. and also apparently something me and jorb came up with independently? its just really cool, yall. also Sonic keeps the collar as a bracelet. like it doesnt.. go away. she keeps it and hides it under her glove cuff. ALSO this isnt really like a major story alteration or anything, just a fun thing that i figured would make sense to happen in the leadup to Unleashed: Tails makes an AI! or rather he gives the Tornado-2 an AI and she later ends up getting moved to and living in his handheld computer NICOLE-style. her name is Ripley and i love her.

NOW WE GET TO COLOURS and Colours is. basically like 3 games stapled together! Colours, Lost World, and [drumroll] CHRONICLES. it is VERY rough rn but: Eggman finds out about the Wisps and about Colour Power and everybody goes on a big ol space adventure to stop him! in the middle of the chaos, the Mauraders show up and kidnap Knuckles + steal the Chaos Emeralds. initially Team Sonic thinks theyre working for Eggman (who has enlisted the help of Zavok, a Wisp hunter) but they just have really bad timing in CV, the Twilight Cage isn’t a thing: Nocturne just got launched into deep space, and the Mauraders have been living there since as like, basically space pirates? and didn’t even realize Mobius was their home planet, they just dropped by to snag the Chaos Emeralds, met Knuckles, and freaked out + kidnapped him bc “YOU’RE AN ECHIDNA, WHY ARE YOU AN ECHIDNA????” and there’s a whole thing with Ix wanting to invade Mobius and reclaim it + wipe out everything but he gets his ass suplexed and Shade joins up with Team Sonic to help with the main plot. also some of the Mauraders do return to Mobius and re-integrate into society but an amount of them stay in space because they enjoy being space pirates i guess. also Nocturne would take the place of Asteroid Coaster! and Lost Hex is here instead of Sweet Mountain. there’s not really a theme park thing though, just like a bunch of worlds Eggman invaded while hunting down Wisps. MEANWHILE IN THE MAIN PLOT the whole thing with Negative Colour Power happens and Sonic’s like “that’s fucked up!” and tries to put a stop to that, only for Tails to get captured and used as a test subject for the roboticization process that would later be used on Vent, Brooke, and Aile! Tails is able to sabotage it like in Lost World, but the most that does is stop him from being fully converted and Eggman overrides his free will and personality with Negative Colour and throws him at Sonic for baby fights to happen. Sonic is able to break through to him, but Tails has no idea how to turn himself back and is stuck as a cyborg for the forseeable future. ALSO ALSO the Blue Typhoon is a thing! and Chris is also here. and originally i was considering having the seedrians show up during ShTH but they might fit better here? i dunno! maybe a specific seedrian character shows up in ShTH and then shows up again here. ~Work In Progress~ and then the BIG THING which is Terminal Velocity and the ending! the “Tails gets kidnapped” thing happens during the leadup to Terminal Velocity, so like Sonic has just befriended Shade and are like YEAH LET’S DO IT TOGETHER and Tails gets kidnapped and they have to fight and etc. after what happened to Tails, Sonic isn’t willing to risk anyone else getting put into danger so she decides she can do the rest of the plot herself and shoves everybody into the Blue Typhoon (AKA NOW SHE HAS LIKE.. A BETTER REASON FOR THE ELEVATOR SCENE IN COLOURS.......) Sonic is able to take down Eggman’s Nega Wisp Armor, only for him to try and fire the Negative Colour beam anyway and for it to self-destruct like in the game. CUE YET ANOTHER FUCKING BLACK HOLE and Sonic having to outrun it and failing, only to get rescued by the Wisps canceling out the Negative Colour and the Blue Typhoon coming to the rescue so she’s not lost in orbit or anything. insert callback to Zero Gravity with Sonic wondering if she should put “outran a black hole twice” on her resume and Tails pointing out a) she doesn’t have a resume and b) she didn’t exactly outrun the second one

and then they go back to the planet as cool and blue as Sonic and the leadup to Forces happens!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[dedkake]

So. Here’s something about me. I’ve seen the Star Wars movies more times than I can count. I love them. Star Wars is part of my fandom life on the internet and part of my life IRL. BUT. TLJ happened. I saw TLJ once or twice in theaters, and that’s it.

I know there’s been a lot of meta on TLJ over the past few years, but I watched it again last night because my mom asked me--to prepare for tros. And now I have enough emotional distance to finally say things about it. feel free to ignore, as most of it is complaining.

Problems:

1. Pacing -- what the hell. That’s all I’m gonna say about that.

2. Holdo and Leia’s lesson for Poe. WHAT THE HELL. His problem, that he says out loud, multiple times, is that he just wants to KNOW what the plan is. Not that he wants to take over or change things. He literally just wants reassurance that they’re not all gonna die because they’re in a terrible situation and the leader he knows and trusts is in a coma--so can this new leader do something to show his team some respect and earn trust. Holdo is played off as SUCH A LEADER AND HERO but she’s NOT. Part of being a leader is yes, being able to see a solution and go for it even when the people around you don’t see it yet. But it’s also super important to give your team a vision for where you’re taking them. Inspire them into action, don’t just assume they’ll do whatever you say--definitely don’t do that right off the bat. And you need to recognize different personalities on your team and work with them all. Poe’s personality and problems are swept under the rug by Leia and Holdo with a smirk and a laugh, even though they are legitimate (like, tell me we have a plan not to die). They know he’s the type of guy to rush in and save the day and take over, so why not work with that instead of yelling at him and talking down to him and kicking him off the bridge??????? Seems like you’re setting yourself up for failure, ladies.

3. Kylo Ren is irredeemable -- which is a terrible message for star wars. The entire franchise is set up around the fact that Vader is redeemable. He went to the dark side because he wanted to save people and felt restricted by the Jedi Order. He wasn’t a bad person. Luke was able to convince him of that again. COOL. AMAZING. But now Kylo has done so much crap that one movie to redeem him would be like a slap to the face. He hasn’t earned it. We know nothing about his struggle, really, besides that one time he mistakenly thought Luke was gonna kill him so he killed a bunch of kids at his school and ran off to join an evil army that he learned about by secretly communicating with its leader (and isn’t THAT a heavy-handed message). That’s not enough for a redemption arc. It won’t be enough. And that SUCKS. 

4. Luke’s entire story. It’s just not Luke. I hate it.

5. Romantic love being used like That. Where did it come from? I’m sorry, according to this movie they’ve known each other for a handful of HOURS. Why does she have to kiss him in order to show the message of saving what you love??? Why is romance the best way to show that??????????? Also, she’s been working off her sister’s sacrifice the entire movie (yknow, a few HOURS) and that sacrifice was not romantically charged. Why does Rose’s have to be??????????? Maybe this is just a complaint of my aroace self, but it just came out of the blue and doesn’t jive with any of the other stories being told?

6. I still really honestly do not understand the first order. Its structure? Its purpose? How it came to be??? Like. I’m sure there’s lots of places I could go to get that info, but it’s not clear in the arc of the movies alone, so that’s not good enough.

7. The heavy-handed lesson on war profiteering. This was just not subtle at all. There was no nuance and it didn’t fit in with the other stories being told. Like. How hard would it be to weave this into the larger story in a more meaningful way?????????????? Example: They actually go work with this code breaker and in the course of working with him, find out that he knows so much about First Order tech because he helps (present tense!) design it. He’s in it for the money from both sides. Or, what if they needed a part for one of their own ships, not a code for First Order stuff, and they go to find their supplier and learn THEN about the money made from war and the fact that people profit off both sides??????? Idk man. Do better.

8. The heavy-handedness of all the lessons in this movie. What the hell? Protect what you love. Save lives instead of being a hero. Hope needs to be there even when you can’t see the light. Destroy stuff in order to start over fresh and strong. People make money off wars, the good side and the bad. Rich people are evil because they take advantage of kids and animals. What the hell? Why did we need to be slapped in the face with lines about all of this? Multiple times??? Are we just done building stories that teach us things through actions rather than words? It’s just all so shallow. Let me see these problems during this movie, let the characters see what happens when you don’t do those things, when you don’t recognize them--and then let them change because of it. Bad things happened to all the characters (still most mad about profiteering) and then someone just told them what they should learn from it, before the characters or the audience even had time to process what had happened.

9. The idea that rebellions need to be almost completely destroyed to start over. The idea that anything that isn’t working correctly needs to be completely destroyed in order to be fixed (Jedi order and resistance). I’m sorry. That’s not as hopeful as you think. I get cleansing fire stories. I do. They have their place. But on this scale? To wipe out hundreds or thousands of people in the resistance to finally get to a point where it can work?? This would make sense if the resistance was full of corruption, but that’s not shown AT ALL. Or it cold make sense if this was tied into the story of war profiteering, and all the parts of the rebellion that were being capitalized on were destroyed (i mean, they were, but that wasn’t shown--the people were shown). At least with the Jedi Order, they showed us that there was corruption and hubris and that things needed to be balanced out. What’s the balance found between a corrupt government killing all the people resisting it??????????? Don’t put these two stories on the same plane please. Terrible message, sorry.

10. The fact that Rey has like 0 training. It’s been pretty heavily laid on us in the entire Star Wars franchise that training is important and takes a long time. Even Luke trains for multiple movies in the original trilogy, and it’s seen as pretty hasty training. I understand that there’s a critique of the way the Jedi do things but -- is the lesson we really want to go with that anyone can wield this power untrained and without study????? Education, training, experience--those are all very important in gaining self-control and wisdom.

Things i liked and had not realized or forgotten:

1. The lesson that the way to defeat evil is to love and protect is cool. More than cool. It’s a great lesson. I have NO IDEA why it needs to be so heavy handed, either. And again, stop with the romantic love being the epitome of that.

2. Yoda’s force ghost convincing Luke to get his butt into gear and move on from protecting/living in the past. Luke was stuck, and Yoda was so Yoda to get him out of being stuck and it was lovely. Although, I’m not sure what’s served by not including a scene of Rey taking the books. Why did she do it? What was she thinking? Was it a hard choice for her? Was it Yoda and not Rey????

3. We need a legend. From the first moment of this story Rey is trying to become like what she thinks Luke is--the guy who saw good in everyone including Vader and defeated the Empire because of it. Which is AWESOME. What a cool idea, people trying to live up to their heroes to defeat evil empires. GREAT. Frustration again: after this movie, I don’t want her to succeed with Kylo. Which SUCKS because it’s my favorite thing about Star Wars. (can you get more iconic than throwing away your light saber in the middle of your final battle and saying that you’re not gonna fight anymore???????)

4. I just love Rey, Finn, and Poe. They are so GOOD. All of them.Every time they’re on screen, I’m so HAPPY.