#part of me is like i won't bother putting this in main tags because not much happens but tumblr will do it anyways through keyword search so

[spark-circuit]

LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO

*V1 voice* [LITERALLY SEETHING]

[mysticsparklewings]

Obscutober 2024 Prompt List(s)!

Anyone got room for yet another October Prompt List? 😉

I really wasn’t feeling the Official Inktober Prompt List this year & deeply miss the Obscutober lists nikolas_tower used to post over on Instagram, so I decided to break from tradition even more than I usually do & make my own! ✨

The main idea is each prompt is an Obscure Word, but I did get a little choosy & try to put a bit of my own spin on it!

Click the "Keep Reading" and we'll talk more about the details + Definitions if you need them. ✨

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

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Before I get into my usual long-winded description, if you want to actually follow this prompt list—Or the Lite or Weekly version—here's what you need to know:

Here's the "Official" Definition list so you don't have to spend time looking up the words yourself if you don't want to...But also, if you do want to, feel free! The "official" definitions are intended as a time-saving guideline!

The list is open to all mediums! "Typical" visual art (Digital or Traditional), Literature, Sculpture, Crafts, Coloring Pages—whatever you want!

The word itself does not have to be directly included/related to what you make; You can just take inspiration from the way it sounds or looks, or something the sticks out to you in the definition, etc.

If a word or two doesn't work for you for various reasons, feel free to swap-in a different word—Either another "obscure" word of your choosing, or a word from another prompt list that you like better.

I've provided "Lite" and Weekly versions of the list in case the full 31 is too much, but you can pick-and-choose words from the full list however you'd like if you're not crazy about the words I picked for the shorter versions, or if you want to shorten the list in a different way.

Tagging me is appreciated, but not required!

Remember that my views on these Month-Long Daily Challenges is that it's about the challenge of completing a certain amount of creative pieces in the time given...And that's pretty much it, so as long as you're doing that and having fun, I'm really not bothered about how you choose to follow the list! My Inktober motto has always been "work smarter, not harder," and this is no different!

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Well, well, Sparklers—I assume this is quite the surprise coming from me. 🤭 Both because I've been awfully quiet over the past couple of months and this is what I come back with. [And for the record, I intend to explain more about where exactly I've been in a Museletter, but I wasn't able to get it typed up and ready-to-go today; Once I get it ready I'll add the link here.]

Not that me disappearing for a while and coming back with something not necessarily expected of me is all that abnormal, but rather if you've followed me for a while, you might remember I'm not normally super-keen on everyone and their uncle's mother's brother's sister making their own Prompt Lists.

So then, Mystic, what gives? Why make your own Prompt List now?

You can thank nikolas_tower on Instagram for that, actually. 😆 Some of you might also remember that I follow his Obscutober list in October 2021, and I've also swapped in an Obscutober word a couple of times when one of the "official" Inktober words didn't work for me.

I've explained before how much I love the Obscutober concept to its core, so I won't re-hash all of that here. The important part is that I do love it, but to my great sadness, 2022 only got an abbreviated Obscutober list (2 words per week), 2023 didn't get an Obscutober list at all (though I didn't really need one for 2023 because I was busy enough as it was following two other prompt lists at once) and considering just how close we're getting now, I really sincerely doubt Nikolas has/had plans for a 2024 one. Add to that: I was not super jazzed about the official Inktober prompt list for this year. Now, don't get me wrong—I'm normally not thrilled with every single word on the list (and if you've followed my Inktobers' past, you know I say as much during the month!), but I'm not sure I've ever felt quite so unenthusiastic about the whole list before.

Additionally still, some of you might remember I did talk a little bit last year about some...struggles I supposed is the closest word, that I've had with the past couple of Inktobers I've done. And generally, I've had some ideas for really shaking up the way I handle October for the past couple of years.

While, granted, my main "shake-up" idea is totally unrelated even to this list and I never seem to be able to get the necessary prep work it would require done in time, I think the main takeaway is a I've had a low-grade yearning to do something different...but I do still want to stick to my "tradition" of handling Inktober unconventionally.

So in the end, it kinda just made sense to at least try making my own Obscutober-style list this year. It's something different and I've missed the Obscutober lists, so why not?

Worth noting that I did try to put just a little of my own spin on it in my choice of words. While already I did try to stay away from words Nikolas already used for all 4 of his Obscutobers, I also had a couple of "rules" with the words I picked:

No words that are "Obscure" purely because they're not English/aren't found in English dictionaries. For example, "Lunette" is a French word, but it appears in English dictionaries with a definition that's more than just "the French word for..."

The word must have a definition that's relatively easy to find and/or appears in well-established English Dictionaries like Dictionary.com or Merriam-Webster. This rule exists because I noticed pretty quickly a lot of "aesthetic" definition images on Pinterest either don't turn up any other reliable results that a word even exists, or the word may exist but the Pinterest definition is straight-up wrong.

No overly gross/medical/NSFW words. (This wasn't a problem with any of Nikolas' Obscutober picks, this is just a personal preference that did shape my research a bit.)

One of my problems with the Inktober list for this year is too many words feel like synonyms/too closely related, so I wanted to avoid that. A couple of words are still kind of close in the end, like "Vitrine" and "Hyaline" or "Escutcheon" and "Orphrey, but they're still more different from each other than some words that I considered and ultimately turned down. [For example, I considered "Lambent" and "Clinquant" but decided they were too close in meaning to "Scintillate."]

Likewise, aside from the theme of being Obscure, I tried not to lean to heavily on words that fit a particular theme or idea

I tried not to pick "obscure" words that have become decently well-known or popular because they're obscure. The best example is "Aglet" wasn't even considered because it's been mentioned in multiple TV shows that I know of. "Scintillate" might push that boundary a little, but it is one of my personal favorites.

I also tried to pick words that had a little variety in definition length and not pick too many that had really short definitions, which ties into my next point...

More abstractly, I tried to pick words that feel like they both lend themselves to a really solid image but also leave room for interpretation of that image. Historically I've had problems with Inktober words feeling too much like they really only fit one specific interpretation of the word or they only have so many ways to represent the idea. And on the flip side, some of Nikolas' Obscutober picks (at least when I participated in 2021) felt a little too abstract at times. Ultimately, this feeling is probably highly subjective, but I tried my best to find the right balance anyway.

While not perfectly balanced, I did try not to lean too heavily on one type of word, as in Adjectives/Nouns/Verbs. There are still less verbs overall because it was just harder to find verbs that fit what I wanted, but if I hadn't consciously paid attention there probably would've only been 1-2 verbs and like 20 adjectives.

Not really related to adding "my own spin," but also worth noting that it was also important to me to provide "Lite" and Weekly versions of the list the way that Nikolas did for Obscutober II to make it easier for people that just don't have one-thing-every-single-day kind of time to feel welcome to still participate in some way. As stated in the description for those, you can just jump around the list however you like, but I know sometimes it's just easier if someone already lays things out that way for you instead of having to remember to leave things out and such.

And then for the visual list design, I did a mixture of Nikolas' Obscutober list style and my own more typical branding elements, which ended up working out much better than I expected; I wanted the "spirit" of the list to be recognizable to fans of Nikolas' lists without being an exact copy/looking too much like I was trying to "pretend" to be him or something, and I think I landed in a pretty good place. [And in case anyone is wondering, yes I did use my own template to make the list!]

I do have to admit to you Sparklers though that despite going through all that trouble, I'm actually still not 100% sure I'll be following the list myself. 😅 I've gone back and forth over how exactly I want to handle October at all this year so much...I definitely want to (and intend to!) do a Daily Challenge, especially given how spotty my uploads have been over the last year, but I just can't seem to settle on one full-fledged plan that I'm completely satisfied with.

I do have one potential idea I'm considering that already has a very specific alternate list, but pretty much all of my other ideas would normally use the official Inktober list, and so since that list isn't on the table for me this year, and it's really looking like DeviantArt isn't doing Drawtober again this year—Which I find incredibly sad, by the way!—I need another list on-hand that I know I can use and be reasonably happy with.

And for the record, I'm being intentionally coy about that one specific idea and not sharing that list because it's highly specific and if I do decide to go that route in some way, I'd like the main idea to be a least a little bit of a surprise.

But even if I don't use this list myself, I thought at least a few other people might enjoy giving it a try. After all, I wasn't the only one that enjoyed Nikolas' Obscutobers—I originally found out about them through another person entirely. So maybe a few other people are feeling that Obscutober void, or maybe you're just a big Word Nerd™ like me, or maybe you just want something that's a little different still from a lot of the more typical alternative prompt lists that have been floating around.

So, whatever the case, here the list is (and the Lite and Weekly versions, too); Let us all do with them what we will! 😉

Before I go, I will offer an apology to anyone who's disappointed or frustrated that I'm posting the list so close to time to use it—Believe me, if I'd been 100% sure I wanted to make it in the first place sooner, I would have gotten it out much sooner, too! But I'm doing the best I still can by getting out with this very tiny 2-day cushion instead of just dropping it right on the 1st. If the list turns out to be something you Sparklers want to see again next year, I promise I'll do my best to get it out with a lot more advance notice next time!

With that, there are still two days left in September and as semi-implied already, I still have a ton to do to be anything close to ready for October, so I'll leave you Sparklers to the list and your own October plans, whatever they may be; Hope to see you all again hopefully very, very soon...! 🤗

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List Design  © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

[fabbyf1]

Hi!

I’m not sure of this is how to go about this correctly.

I’m not sure what your position is on others drawing inspiration/directly from your incredible fan fiction writing but, on Ao3 there is a fic called ❤️lestappen- One shorts💙 by lestapeeen. The most recent chapter (14) is very similar to the monza chapter of long live(twwct) specifically the piggy back and proposal promise. some of the dialogue is exactly the same.

I figured you should know. If it’s a cool with you or if you knew already, sorry to be a bother.

DISCLAIMER: This post, by no means, is asking for ANYBODY to send this author mentioned (and tagged) below hate. On anon or main. I have been pretty damn clear with my feelings on the matter below. They know what they've done, and I won't stand for it. Nobody needs to make this worse by sending them death threats. With that out of the way, let's deep dive, shall we?

YOU KNOW WHAT?

First off, god bless you, bestie. God BLESS you. I want to smooch you on your incredibly wonderful forehead. Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. I cannot be everywhere at once and cannot possibly read every fanfic posted to AO3, but it's not fucking cool for people to straight-up plagiarize my shit.

Secondly, I'd like to ask that if ANY of my followers come across something that looks very suspiciously similar to my fics, please let me know. You can for sure send it on anon, or send me a dm.

Now, with that being said, I clicked on this fucking fic not knowing what to think. I went into it with a pretty open mind, knowing that there are quite a few authors currently posting fics that are verrrrrrrrrrry similar to my writing style. I've gotten pretty close to calling a few of these authors out but haven't for a few reasons.

Fanfics based on the same ship, in the same canon setting, are always going to be... let's use the word "similar" here. The plot can only change so much when you're following canon events, you know? I don’t write AUs, so I’m only going off canon-inspired fics. My fics generally follow along with canon timelines and therefore, other author’s fics that follow the same timeline are going to be... similar. I get that and accept that.

Characterizations are bound to be... well, fuck it, let's use that word "similar" again. I'm gonna be pretty forgiving when someone's Max is damn near the same as my Max because one: I'm a good and forgiving person, and two: I think my characters (while totally fucking fictional) are very life-like to the real person. So, with that in mind, when I read a fic with characterizations similar to mine... I will usually give somebody grace... and accept that maybe, just possibly, they see Max Verstappen (the person) the same way I do (fictionally) and it’s a big old coincidence that our fics read so similar. You know? Does that make sense?

But with all that being said, I’m not a fucking idiot. 

And honestly? I give more grace than I should on this goddamn website. (lmfao, respectfully.) This is sadly not the first time that somebody has very much written in my likeness, and I know it won't be the last. But this is definitely the boldest version of plagiarism I've seen. I haven’t clicked on any chapter except for 14, and I heavily skimmed the first part, but let’s take a little deep dive into some of the highlights. Because I will show the receipts, bestie.

from their story:

from long live:

..... right, let's move on.

from their story:

from long live:

okay................. sure

from their story:

from long live:

If you're going to plagiarize my shit... you could at least put it in a different font, so to speak. "Hey, can I copy your homework?” “Sure, but change it up a bit.” 

Girlie pop, you stopped even trying to change it the fuck up. 

Let me be clear: I do not authorize anybody to translate, re-post or distribute my work without my written consent. This is in a disclaimer (that I will post below) in every single one of my fics. Taking MY dialogue is NOT okay. 

Direct quote from the beginning note of Long Live:  DISCLAIMER #4: This is 100% fictional, and I do not own any person, team, or sponsor referenced in this story. I mean no offense to any person(s) mentioned and characterized in this story. I am not affiliated with any part of Formula 1 or its subsections. Please do not translate, re-post, or distribute my work without my written consent. I will cry.

To sum up, writing is not easy, and it takes time and effort. Time away from my friends, my girlfriend, my family. Time away from my job and my other hobbies. Long Live is 76 thousand words and took me countless hours to write.

To have somebody so blatantly and disrespectfully post MY SHIT as their own and not even try to give me credit? To not write a note that said, “Heyyyyy go read long live, which I [clearly] really enjoyed!” or even a “Some of this dialogue was inspired by @fabbyf1” or even just a “lmfao some of this i didn’t write but the rest i did” really pisses me off.

Why did it ever have to come to this?

I am SO disappointed right now.

Happy fucking Friday, I guess.

For full transparency, here is the link to their fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55255699 and here is the link to their tumblr: @l-estappen

Here is the link to MY fic, which was posted on April 2nd, 2023, and written in Google Docs with revision history about a month before that. I have receipts out the fucking ass, my dear. https://archiveofourown.org/works/46190509/chapters/116284915

Be well.

[phoenix-and-found-family]

Hello people who found this craziness entertaining!

I made this blog because I was bored and wanted a place to lore dump about my ocs without bothering the few normal people that come across my main blog

‼️DISCLAIMER: THE ART IN THE HEADER ISN'T MINE! I got it from this picrew: https://picrew.me/en/image_maker/1473879‼️

You can ask my characters anything you want, just be aware I won't answer asks I'm not comfortable answering/are about upcoming lore that I don't want to spoil before I write it

Just state who the question is for, and if you don't I'll assume the question is for me and answer accordingly

Basic blog things:

Sorry Phoenix x Juniper shippers, my blog doesn't do that because I personally don't see it. But I support if you ship them and love to see stuff like that! I do ship Prism x Reginald though, and Prism x Fabby...

Basically I ship her with everyone except Phoenix and maybe John.

Also, I have no drawing skills at all, so please don't expect me to draw them doing anything 😭 (edit: I have a couple drawing skills now and plan to use all of them for this >:3)

My Phoenix!!!

Name: Trevor Clyde Ballesteros

Codename: Agent Phoenix

Age: 22

Pronouns: They/Them

Height: 5'2" No fuck that I'm totally 6'3" and have large muscles

Joined the agency at: 18

Favorite color(s): Red and Black

Disability(s): Agent Phoenix is missing their right leg from a horrible car crash that (supposedly) claimed the lives of their parents at 14, forcing them to live on the streets for two years until they eventually got scouted by the agency. Miraculously, even though they've been in far worse danger and experienced far worse pain, they have not sustained any other lasting injuries.

Personality: Imagine if the Norse god Loki and a can of Monster Energy drink had a child who likes to commit arson as a hobby.

Random facts: Phoenix can read, write, and speak fluent English, Spanish, and Japanese because their parents moved around all the time and barely stayed in one place for more than a month. They're also pretty good at Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, French, and Galic. They refuse to reveal where they learned all of these languages in only 18 years.

They can do some basic martial arts, (update: they are a black belt in Karate, and did not reveal that until recently for some reason) but they mainly excel at accidental stealth and all-out brawl style fights, for they are very fast and good at analyzing how exactly to take an enemy out.

They are diagnosed with autism and auditory schizophrenia, although they believe that they may also have ADHD because of how much stimulation they need to get their job done.

Lore posts

Here are the links (Oldest to Youngest by when I posted them) to posts that give you more lore about my versions of these characters

The Home Argument (Handler's perspective)

The Home Argument (Phoenix's perspective)

The Agency can Wait

Random Headcannons (self h@rm mention)

A Phoenix burns hottest when it's Born Again (Part 1)

The Most Perfect Name

I know I'm pathetic (angst)

Incident report 067 (more angst)

Why I don't hate you (who could've guessed, more angst)

Art!!

I shall put my art links here when I remember to

Phoenix...but in a dress

Phoenix but not in a dress

Cuddles

Art about my Personality Swap AU

Can't cage a Phoenix arc

Brothers of the Stars (long ass RP chain with @the-one-and-only-043 )

Who's Trevor? (slightly angsty)

The most painful way to say goodbye (even longer RP chain with @the-one-and-only-043 and @wyvchard (sorry for the tags))

The Victim of a Basilisk (Part 1)

Agency file: The Basilisk & Dr. Vadas

The Victim of a Basilisk (Part 2)

Dream Cast ( @wyvchard version)

Dream Cast ( @the-one-and-only-043 version)

Screen Cast (right after the other two, some Agent Circuit lore)

OC's

Agent Ombre (profile)

Agent Circuit Board (image)

Rants (that may or may not contain lore)

Reginald Crane is a professional

John Juniper is known for his lies

A Reversal of Roles (ieytd au)

Random lore (doesn't really have a name)

Operation: Deluge (ieytd au)

How do you kill a Phoenix? (announcement post)

Random things you should probably know beforehand

Prologue: The Death of a Phoenix (This takes you directly to the Ao3 chapter, heads up)

Unconditional Love (Roxanix fic thingy, full of angst)

Part one (Prism's Perspective)

Part one (Phoenix's Perspective)

Part two (Reginald's Perspective)

Part two (Phoenix's Perspective)

A trip to the past (fic idea by @kayssweetdreams , thank you!)

Part one

Random ask things

Phoenix's text will be red

Reginald's text will be orange

Juniper's text will be green

Prism's text will be blue

Fabricator's text will be purple

We've also got Hivemind and his text is pink

(this does not apply to lore posts(usually(sometimes I add this system in because it's hard to tell who's talking)))

Thanks for reading! That's all for now :3

[bellysoupset]

Hello!! Could I request a touch-starved Leo with Jonas where maybe Jonas doesn’t believe Leo when he says he says he doesn’t feel good. He makes a mean remark or something but Leo has an upset bloated belly (no emeto, but gassy) and just wants comfort from Jonas (maybe he feels like he doesn’t deserve it - bc of trauma or smth) And Jonas feels guilty? Ending in lots of cuddles and tummy rubs?! Thank you so much ❤️

"It won't kill you, stop whining," Jonah rolled his eyes as he walked past Leo, fixing his tie on the mirror. His boyfriend had been sitting at the edge of the bed for the past 20 minutes, only half dressed. He had his social shirt all buttoned up, but he still wasn't wearing anything but boxers and his own tie hung limply around his neck. Jonah glared at the reflection, "Leo."

"Jon, you don't need me there, c'mon-"

"I want you there," Jonah frowned, "Leo, please?"

The blonde met him with a steely glare, blue eyes very striking against his face and for a second Jonah's will wavered. Leo really didn't seem to be just playing it up to miss the event... But then his boyfriend nodded, having lost the battle of egos and turned around to grab his trousers carefully separated and ironed already.

Jonah gulped down the sudden bad taste in his mouth and shook his head. He couldn't let Leo have his way, if it was up to him they'd never socialize ever.

It was the opening night of an art gallery and Jonah really loved the art scene, much more than he enjoyed chips and beers with the guys. Obviously he didn't say that last part out loud, but it was an open secret.

Leo was tagging along like a sullen shadow as they entered the modern building. The lights had been dimmed in the main hall, then the whole place had been separated in sections, the blue area, the pink one and so forth.

"This is gorgeous," Jonah all but beamed, reaching behind him without looking, in order to take Leo's hand, but he found nothing but air. He frowned, glancing over his shoulder and his happiness considerably diminished. Leo had his arms crossed to his chest, a painful frown on.

A pang of annoyance hit him and Jon breathed out forcefully, "really? At least try to enjoy it."

Leo glared at him, unimpressed, "I'm here, am I not?"

"You're acting like a toddler," Jonah hissed back, before a familiar figure walked behind his boyfriend and he pushed the argument aside, opening a smile and calling out, "Wendy, hey!"

Wendy was clad in a silver-blue dress, arm in arm with a friend and she waved and beamed as Jonah circled Leo and went to hug her.

Leo glared in her direction, somehow she was always there when he wanted her there the least, he thought sourly, watching Jon pull her in a hug and then shake her friend's hand enthusiastically.

He wasn't just being annoying for no reason, Leo scowled, he had tried multiple times to tell Jon he'd much rather be at home. Not only these events made him uncomfortable, but while he could normally suck it up, tonight his belly really didn't feel well and it was hard to concentrate on being the perfect boyfriend.

He moved away from the trio, not bothering to greet Wendy. It was no secret between the two of them that Leo didn't like her and he wouldn't be all smiles just because Jon wanted him to.

Instead he walked to the other side of the gallery, to the green section and leaned on a pillar, sourly doom scrolling his instagram account and trying not to think of the burning jealousy in his gut and the crampy sensation that was spreading all over.

His trousers were digging in him, but he couldn't possibly loosen them or do anything about it. He scrolled past a picture. One of his teachers whom he followed was posting educative stuff about Law. He pushed the slides, liked it and scrolled past it without reading a word. Next post was Lucas', it was a video of him leaning against his apartment's bathroom door, which was closed and the noise of Bella singing faintly over the shower could be heard through it. He had put a bunch of fire emojis all over it. They were sickening adorable.

Leo rubbed at his chest, dislodging a small, breathy burp and he let it out slowly, glancing up. Jonah was nowhere to be found. Great.

He had no idea who were the next two people on his feed and then he ended up getting lost in his recommended videos -

"Champagne, sir?"

Leo's startled at the question, nearly dropping his phone. His chest rumbled with a burp, he swallowed it back down and it hurt.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Champagne, sir?" the waiter repeated and Leo felt an urge to laugh hysterically. He couldn't count in one hand the amount of times he had been in the other side of this interaction.

"Uh - Yeah, yeah, thanks," he said awkwardly, taking the champagne flute and starting to sip on it. The bubbles went up to his nose. Sat heavily in his chest, refusing to go down.

He swallowed a burp back down again, feeling cold sweat start to collect on his brow. His stomach hurt. Whatever he had had for lunch, it was truly upsetting it and he was terrified that nausea was soon to follow the whiny gurgles that were making their way around his belly.

"Hi," Wendy's voice interrupted his musings and Leo glared at her as she came to stand elbow to elbow with him, looking ahead as if she was admiring the photography framed before them, "goodnight to you too."

"Uhm," Leo rolled his eyes, took another sip of the champagne, which he immediately regretted, "what do you want, Wendy?"

She raised a perfecty manicured eyebrow, "Geez, calm down, Leo. I just wanted to make small talk."

"We don't have to small talk," he scoffed, then couldn't help but grab at his stomach as a painful gurgle ran through it, queasiness following suit.

She was studying him still, hazel eyes glued to his face, "...right" Wendy said skeptically, "so what are you doing here? I thought you were Jon's date?"

"I am," Leo glared at her, running a shaky hand through his hair and forcing the saliva pooling in his mouth backdown by taking yet another regretful champagne sip, "of course I am, why are you asking?"

"You're not with him," she shrugged, "well, you don't have to be tied by the hip, kinda antiquated on my part to say so," the jab was clear, "some couples are a little too clingy if you ask me."

"I didn't," Leo scoffed, "Wendy, did you want something or did you go out of your way to pe-" he cut himself off when a wet burp pushed past his lips, turning frothy and disgusting at the end. Tasting like bitter coffee and champagne. Oh yeah, he hadn't had lunch, Leo remembered. He had been stuck at the library all day, living off coffee.

He rushed a hand up to cover his mouth and kept it clasped there for a couple seconds as he swallowed down the nausea, eyes squeezed shut. When he opened his eyes, Wendy was still staring at him, unfazed.

She squinted at him, "you were saying?"

"Please," Leo rubbed a hand over his face, tired and noticing how clammy he was, "leave me alone."

"Alright," she said a little too cheery, raising her hands in mock surrender, "can't say I didn't try to be friendly."

He huffed, "very friendly," and watched as she turned around and walked away from him... And straight to Jon, across the room, who had just been chatting with her friend.

"Shit," Leo grumbled, watching as Wendy grabbed Jon's grey blazer and pulled him aside politely, before prompting starting to rant. Probably going on and on about how rude he was, Leo thought with a renewed sense of nausea, as Jon looked past Wendy's naked shoulders and to the spot where he was standing.

It felt like he had been caught doing something terrible, even if in reality he had just been standing there. He felt an urge to run, from the intense manner Jonah was looking at him. His boyfriend planted a reassuring hand on Wendy's shoulder, then started to walk towards him, an angry frown on.

"Leo."

"I swear she fucking started it," Leo defended himself, feeling even more shitty that he had to defend himself to his own boyfriend, but Jonah only scoffed.

"Leo."

"It's not my fault she seemingly hates me for no good reason. I swear she's half in lo-"

"Leo," Jonah's voice was an octave higher, more harsh, "Wendy said you're sick."

"...What?" he mumbled, confused, stomach pain forgotten, anger too, "what...?"

"She said I'm a dick for dragging you here when you're clearly sick," Jonah moved awkwardly from side to side, looking him up and down, "so are you?"

Leo glanced over his shoulder, to where Wendy was standing across the room, drinking champagne with her friend, pretending to be blissfully unaware, "No, I'm fi-" he started to lie, only for another sick burp to press at his throat. He cupped his mouth and tried to swallow it back in, but it was to no avail. Gross, warm champagne flooded his mouth and he swallowed it down, gagging. Once he opened his eyes again, Jonah looked like he had just assassinated his puppy right in front of him.

"Jon-"

"Bloody hell, Leo," Jonah groaned, crossing the space between them, "I'm so sorry, I should've - Shit, I should've heard you, I'm so sorry-"

He felt ill for a whole different reason now. Vindicated, yes, but also just guilty that he was ruining Jonah's night. His stomach churned even more aggressively and Leo pressed the heel of his head to his forehead, "I'm sorry..."

"Oh shut up," Jonah scoffed, cupping his face, thumbs coming up to smooth his brows, taking him in, "let's go home, alright?"

"I can go home on my own-"

Jonah's whole face fell and if Leo hadn't been looking at him, he wouldn't have caught it. The hurt, fear and disappointment all in one, quickly masked away by careful indifference.

"You don't want me to go?"

"I didn't say that, you idiot," Leo groaned, then decided he was done being polite and leaned in, pressing his face to Jonah's peck and muffling a sick burp against his jacket, "do you want to come?"

He could almost hear Jonah eyerolling. Instead his hand came to rest on Leo's nape, rubbing little circles there as he carefully guided them, never once pulling Leo away even though it made walking very difficult.

It was a nice night, the type that wasn't too warm, but wasn't cold either and Leo only pulled back once they were outside. He rubbed at his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose.

"I'm sorry, Jon... We can come tomorrow to check it out, I promise-"

"Please stop," Jonah sighed, opening the car door for him, "get in."

Leo obeyed without a comment, unsure if Jon was annoyed or not, unsure if he was annoyed or not. He should be, rigth?

Instead he leaned in and pressed his forehead to the dashboard of Jon's fancy sports car, undoing the fly of his social pants and groaning as it brought a tiny spark of relief.

He heard as the driver's door snapped shut, then felt Jon's hand in his hair, voice smooth and calm as he said, "what's wrong, baby?"

"My belly really hurts," Leo groaned, sinking his fingers on his normally flat stomach. It was tender to the touch, too warm, "I feel sick, Jon."

"Gonna hurl sick?" Jon asked wearily, but for once it wasn't as much like he was worried about himself, much more about his boyfriend, "Leo?"

"I don't know," the blonde sighed, "not sure."

"Okay," Jon squeezed his shoulder, "we'll be home in a minute, I promise."

"Alright," Leo nodded, keeping his head down, arms wrapped around his unhappy, bloated belly.

He was thankful that Jonah was true to his word and that his apartment building was just around the corner, because the short ten minutes long drive was enough to heighten his carsickness and the moment the car came to a stop, Leo pushed the door open and turned around, retching towards the concrete ground.

He didn't bring up anything, just some horrible burps that hurt his throat and made his nose burn, and the nausea was still present when he saw from the corner of his eye as Jonah circled the car and crouched down next to him, possible vomit be damned.

"Leo, hey," he rubbed his leg, "let's go inside, you need to lie down."

"I feel sick," he shook his head, trying to communicate he was terrified of puking in Jon's extra fancy elevator, but his boyfriend only sighed and pushed the hair off his eyes, wiping the perspiration away.

"I know, baby, but sitting here won't help... I don't think you're gonna throw up."

"You can't know," Leo groaned, digging in his stomach and bringing up another sick burp, turning his face away just in time to avoid belching on Jonah's face, "I feel really sick, Jon."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," Jonah sighed, then didn't wait for a response, pulling him to his feet, "lean on me, it'll be just a second."

Leo gulped down at the movement, hugging himself as if his stomach was detached from the rest of him and would somehow fall off if he didn't.

Jonah was terribly quiet during the entire trip up, even when they entered the apartment and Leo headed for the bathroom, instead of the bed.

He allowed him a minute of privacy, taking his sweet time in the bedroom and Leo crouched down in front of the toilet, staring at the swirling water and trying to force up whatever was making his belly so sick. He coughed and spluttered, burping again, but despite his burps ending wet and horrible, no vomit came up.

"Baby," Jonah planted a hand on his shoulder, holding his bicep, "I don't think you'll be sick, come to bed."

"I don't wanna puke in your bed," Leo all but whined, dignity quickly starting to fade the sicker he felt, "I already ruined your night-"

"I ruined your night," Jonah corrected him sharply, "don't you dare twist this around. We could've spent it in and I bet you wouldn't be feeling half as wretched," he ushered Leo up and back into the bedroom, "stop caring about the bed, it's not important."

"It is-"

"Leo, for fuck's sake!" Jonah snapped at him, only to wince at his own tone, breathing in, "the bed isn't important, alright? Can you please lie down so I can help?"

Leo sighed, obeying but not without throwing Jon a dirty look, "just because you said please."

Jonah's frustrated, angry frown melted into an amused smile and he moved closer. He was no longer in his tux, had already changed into silk pijama pants and a flimsy tanktop. His hands went for Leo's shirt first, undoing the buttons, since the tie had already been undone in the elevator ride up.

"Oh... Leo..." Jonah said quietly, unhappily as he got a decent look of his boyfriend's belly. Just like Leo imagined, it was bloated, very bloated, gurgling non-stop and slightly blushy too, pushing against the elastic band of his boxers, "that can't feel good."

"It doesn't," Leo grunted, digging his fingers on his sides and forcing up another burp, "feels tight as fuck."

Jonah glanced up, pulling on his pants, "do you want me to rub it?" it was a genuine question and Leo blushed, cursing the way his whole face turned red.

"Sure...?"

"Okay, lie down," Jon nodded, finishing undressing him and then crawling on the bed next to him and rolling onto his side, planting a large hand on top of Leo's bloated belly. The light weight pushed up another burp and the blonde froze, swallowing in.

"Can you get me the bin?"

"You're not gonna be sick," Jonah scoffed, but instead of arguing he rolled away and grabbed the paper wastebasket he left across the room, handing it to him. Leo stared at the two receipts on the bottom, burping towards it, before moving on the bed so he was closer to Jon and there was space to keep the bin right under his left arm, curled near him.

Jonah planted a kiss on his naked bicep, fingers brushing up and down his taunt stomach, the muscles tight against his skin. He drummed his fingers on the side and sighed, "you're so bloated..."

"Uhm," Leo answered eloquently, closing his eyes to avoid looking at him. He was still blushing, "sor-"

"You've got to stop apologizing," Jonah scoffed, pressing under his navel, rubbing his thumb around and popping a pocket of air. A sick, loud and long burp exploded out of Leo's mouth and the man sat up further in bed, reflux burning his throat.

"That hurt..."

"Did it help with the queasiness though?" Jon asked, staring at his domed belly as if it was a puzzle piece.

Leo shrugged, "not sure..."

Only to feel Jonah's fingers pressing in, never releasing the pressure as they dragged from the sides of his belly towards the navel. A gurgle came up, so loud that Jon heard it and Leo blushed even more.

"What did you eat to upset your stomach so badly?" Jon frowned, thumping lightly on the sides and causing a string of small, wet belches to roll out of his boyfriend. Leo rested his hand over Jonah's, gagging.

"Slow, babe, be gentle..."

"Sorry," it was Jonah's turn to apologize as he resumed to a more delicate belly rub, "so?"

"Nothing," Leo thumped on his chest, trying to unstuck a big burp he could feel was there, "I only had coffee since breakfast."

It was the wrong thing to say, Jonah's hands stopped moving, the steel flooding his hazel eyes and making them much more green than brown, "you're joking."

"Uh-"

"Leo!" Jonah cried out, sitting straight up on the bed, "it's been hours - It's no wonder you're sick!"

"I'm not sick," Leo winced, leaning forward to hang his head between his knees and squeezing his belly, "just gassy and queasy-"

"...Oh fucking hate to break it to you but that classifi-"

Leo's chest jostled with an aborted heave and he grabbed the bin with trembling hands, burying his face in it and gagging once, twice - Then a horrible belch echoed in the plastic bucket.

He pulled back after a second, looking pastier than before, "feels... Feels better now."

Jonah let out a sigh, "you're unbelievable..." he pulled Leo back down, snuggling next to him and once again planting a hand on his gurgling stomach, taking care to be gentler this time, "...we're having breakfast together tomorrow," he leaned in, planting a kiss on Leo's temple, "and lunch and dinner."

"Aww he cares," Leo smiled, cheeks all flushed pink and Jonah rolled his eyes, squeezing his tummy a little harder and causing him to burp again.

"Shut up."

[tododeku-or-bust]

hey I just wanted to ask about the ofmd post. I know you called the show racist so I’d like some elaboration if you’re open to that? I’m a bit confused as to what you mean. But there definitely is a racist interpretation that many people on tumblr ascribe to in which Izzy is a good guy.

Okay so I'm going to preface this by saying I did not watch OFMD. I personally don't find Taika Waititi's form of humor funny in general. (And now, with the whole Zionist thing, 🤷🏾‍♀️) So I can't sit here and point out scene for scene. But that's not really my issue to begin with.

The first part of my issue is the characters involved in the main romance. Both of them were slave traders/owners. It didn't HAVE to be those two people. The writers could have come up with completely fictional people for this pirate story, so... why? But that happened. Okay.

The second part is that it makes sense then, right, that some Black people would find themselves uncomfortable romanticizing people involved in their violent oppression irl. Because as far as I remember (before I blocked the tag out of sheer annoyance) no one was really saying "don't watch the show". They were saying "I'm not going to watch this show because-". If an important part of the show is relating to and liking these guys, and you think of your enslavement when you see them, then you probably won't want to relate or care lmao.

And what really bothered me was that when Black people would point out this discomfort ever since the show dropped- a completely valid discomfort to have- fans of the show would jump on the bit to be incredibly anti-Black racist, under the guise of "queer representation" and often considering themselves and their opinion simultaneously that of a white savior.

This whole video here (it goes kinda fast) is a joke, but it really does encompass that entire blow up of someone truly being shocked and appalled that "if we don't let our show with our racist ship exist, you'll RUIN QUEER REP FOR EVERYONE" type shit and tbh, it's a very white perspective to have. The vitriol, as though their rights were actually threatened, was honestly batshit (calling pointing racism out "infighting" 🙄). Queer rep doesn't just die because someone told you to not be racist or to consider how your creations may affect others (gasp! Brown queer people exist too!!) 🤣.

and while this person clearly had a meltdown live action, there are people all over fandom who unironically and consistently behave like this, who hide their racism behind their queer identity and act like they can't be called out and held accountable because of it.

It was and is disgusting behavior, it just got put on blast in a hilarious way that doesn't often happen bc the majority usually agrees with the racist assessment.

(It's why so many closeted racist posts on here get tens of thousands of likes and reblogs by people who really think they're not racist, yet don't even hear the dogwhistles behind what they're saying or sharing. But that's a tangent.)

In summary: it was the behavior of the fandom for me that was incredibly racist, and the thoughtlessness of the premise of the show's main romance that was racist. The show itself, I didn't watch, so I can't tell you about that. 👍🏾

[britswriting]

Fallen For You |H.S AU

Fallen For You | Masterlist (I'll try and put them all under the #fallenforyoubybrit tag)

Read on Wattpad

Cover + edit made by me. Instagram watermark is my Demi Lovato edit account - I might open a Harry account but that's TBD right now

Description:

"Welcome to Fallen Ranch!" "Oh, I thought it was fall in. Like fallin' a part" Harry Styles was Boston Creek's must have rancher. He was hard to come by, hard to accommodate to, and a pain in everyone's ass; but he did a damn good job, which made him become very desirable. Everyone wanted him, and if you had him, you had to make sure you could afford to keep him. Not only was his pay out of this world, but he also requested room & board, including meals, a truck to get to town and at least one day off a week. If you wanted your chance at Harry Styles being your Rancher, there was absolutely no wiggle room for discussion. Delaney knew how much of a pain in the ass Harry Styles was. She grew up hearing the stories ever since he moved into town. "He's disrespectful", "He thinks his way is the right way" and the worst of them all? He didn't like dogs; but even with all of the bad mouthing the town has said about him, she couldn't help but notice his dreamy eyes and glistening muscles as he worked in the sun. The moment she found out her father had landed the Harry Styles, she was terrified. Her family couldn't afford her to make a fool of herself. If she wanted to keep Harry and everything that came with him, she needed to seal her heart up and throw away the key... right?

This is my warnings from my Welcome page on Wattpad before you read; the casting + their photos need to be viewed through Wattpad due to me passing Tumblr's photo limit per post.

~

Hello! Welcome to my new Harry Styles fanfic! - this is my first time writing a Harry fanfic since 2016, so honestly wish us all luck lol

This story will contain smut! - if you're uncomfortable with that, there will be warnings at the start of each chapter. 

I'm pretty warning heavy if needed, so if anything comes up that I'm aware of being triggering, I will put a disclaimer - if you find anything that I missed that should be a warning, feel free to comment! - I won't put a warning for "fat" comments due to they're not meant to come across has harmful or hateful - Delaney is plus sized and she is aware of that. Jokes get made, insecurities are shown but none of it is supposed to come across in a negative way. If those things are triggering, it should be very sparse due to I'm trying to write a confident plus sized character! 

Comment's Harry makes are never intended to be hurtful! He comes from a good place, it just all comes out wrong! <3

For those who came from the dadrry tag - it isn't immediate, but it's there!

This story contains lbgtqia characters, POC characters & plus sized characters - hate speech is not allowed, your comments will be deleted and you will be blocked. This story is a safe + loving environment for all! 

This story contains swearing! (I can't help myself I'm sorry lol)

Last prewarning, I write slow burn! - they will not be dating immediately nor having sex right away! I like writing the build up and edging in my writing, if that is something that bothers you, this book probably isn't for you! - Because it is forced proximity, they are always together and it doesn't take a million years lol they just won't be together by the 5th chapter unlike other books.

Tropes:

Rancher!Harryxplussized!OC ??

Grumpyxsunshine 

dadrry/grandparry 👀 - Harry is only 28/29! You'll understand later lol

Forced Proximity 

She falls first x he falls harder

The most important for anyone who doesn't want to see the full cast, is our MC (Main Character)

Here is Delaney! Also known as "Lane/Laney" by close friends + family

Chapter One

[crepuscularqueens]

i! keep! coming! to! your! blog! to! ask! about! WIPs! and! keep! getting! distracted!!!!!!!!!! i cant figure out whats been asked about already perooo, do you wanna tell me about i'm so ugly, tropic morning new, & stwin tag *???? pls???

hiiiiiii <3 thank you of course i want to tell you about these lol

im so ugly was a semi existing way too old clintbucky WIP that went nowhere and i could not figure out what to do with it and then i watched the movie self reliance and thought. well. what if i turned that into a clintbucky AU using some of what i already have? bc i think the main character could very easily be clint. and here we are.

Bucky drags on the smoke, standing huddled from the rain under the awning of the building he lives in, scrolling idly on his phone through personal ads on Craigslist. He hasn't got a clue when he picked up this habit, maybe to feel more like a real person, like the faceless people of the internet desperately reaching out for some small connection will spark something in him. Not that any of them have ever given him cause to reply. Maybe it's only because they're good for a laugh, though. His eyes catch on a truly sideways attempt to roleplay an exciting dating experienced, and whoever this guy is he's insanely committed to the role he's chosen. The ad is written from the desperate point of view of a man being hunted for sport as part of a game he's playing, the chance to win a ton of money if he makes it through a week while unknown assailants are after him. Asking the anonymous people of the internet if someone could stay by his side for the remaining time to ensure he won't get killed. Having to admit he's reluctantly amused, Bucky replies. After all, might be a good thing to actually try to make a human connection here instead of endlessly scrolling through other people's problems without doing a thing about it. At least this promises to be some type of entertaining.

tropic morning news i did answer here but! i of course will give you another snippet :)

There was a long silence after Jack finished relaying the vision to Max, he was still pinching the bridge of his nose, though the headache that always appeared in the aftermath of prophecies had already long since settled in. Max was watching him in her careful way, brow slightly furrowed.  “And you understand what it was you saw to mean-” “That, essentially, we’re all fucked here?” Jack interrupted, “Yes, I believe that was the general idea. Max sighed and poured from the bottle she was still holding into the forgotten cup. “I was just told ‘zhat will not help’,” he snarked, even as he gratefully accepted the drink. “It is certainly not a long-term solution,” Max agreed, now pouring a cup for herself, “I fail to see what can be done immediately, so until we can piece together who you are having visions about and how we can best take care of it…” She trailed off, raising the cup to her mouth, her eyes lifting to the second landing and softening in the way they only ever did for Anne. Jack turned his head to see her exiting their room, shirt billowing where she hadn’t bothered to tuck it in.

twin tag is a whole 23 pages of notes i have comparing max and silver's journey through season one of black sails that i intend to continue and do for the rest of the show as well. because i truly needed to take the time and compare each and every action the both of them take in each and every episode and point at them and scream. idk. distorted reflections of each other. the same character in wildly different circumstances.

So, when Silver sees the page on the cook, puts together that it’s valuable and he might take advantage of that, he works independently to do so, haphazardly piecing his plan together as he goes to fall in with the Walrus crew. Max has to warm herself and work cooperatively with Silver, gaining his trust and proving her usefulness to be allowed into this plan. Neither method is lesser than the others, they are both borne of necessity required by their positions and grabbing an opportunity where you see it, when you see it. Where Silver standing over the dead body of the cook on the merchant ship is undoubtedly suspicious, that suspicion is put on hold for more pressing matters, after all there was just a bloody battle between the two ships and who can say what the truth really is? If Max were to have killed Silver for the page, she could not have claimed the same and likely would have been punished by her superiors as well as the Walrus crew for doing so, her survival would likely be put into question. They are both very aware of the consequences of both the actions they do take as well as the ones they avoid.

[tadbitfooled]

NAME? JB

PRONOUNS? She/ they

MOST ACTIVE MUSE(S)? It really depends on my mood of the day, and I tend to just be able to jump from one to another unless one is being a bit difficult. That's why I have a multimuse blog.

RP PET PEEVES? This is happening on my sideblogs, but when it's clear someone doesn't read the rules. Yes, they're canon, but at the bottom of the rules post is that it's a private blog set up for mutuals of my main. Do people go check out my main? no, they just follow the sideblog because of some favoritism for canons over OCs or something. Another is accessibility issues because I have astigmatisms so no I can't read your thin dark gray font on your black background, mate. I won't even bother following at that point.

EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS? Probably about...18-19 years? started out on ava.tarfans.net as a teen and have been rping on and off since then.

FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT? I'm generally good with a lot but I do like platonic and familial interactions. Smut is really a come and go sort of thing for me because sometimes I can find it boring and other times, it's something I like. I think it really relies on the emotional build up in the smut for me, otherwise it's..eh.

PLOTS OR MEMES I like memes for ice breakers or if my ideas are kind of running dry. Plotted stuff is great or just the little "you know what we should do?" kind of things we throw out there too.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES? I like to write descriptions so you're going to get at least a paragraph. I can never get my flow on short little one to three line replies. Those don't give me enough character introspection.

TIME TO WRITE? We'll find out, my schedule is kind of getting changed up. But usually I write in the evenings, but I can pull stuff out during the day/in the morning if I want to. Just depends on when I have time.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S) I like to put little bits of myself into each character, honestly. So there's parts I'm like, parts I'm not like. But I will say that Talilah and Gwenifar are a pretty good split on two sides of me, and then crafted into their own characters.

Tagged by @notyetfixed & @tamedstray Tagging: man I think everyone did it while this was going around and I was busy. But if you didn't, tag you're it!

[horizon-verizon]

I agree with you that the show is bad in terms of writing and characterization, and probably i won't even watch the next season, but if I'm being honest you seem to hate the show so much why are you still searching for posts related to the show and respond to it if it's bother you this much?

FIRST

I don't actively or habitually search for the show or anything related to it in Tumblr with the purpose of fighting with others or proving how smart I am.

I do reblog with corrections, counterarguments, or praise if I feel strongly enough about what's being said AND if I have the energy

posts about it pop up in my feed in the "Based on what you liked!" list because I don't block their tags

OR I get asks about the show's characters and/or writing.

I write of the main experience I have to write against the claim that I "search" for HotD posts as if it is a continuous action. This is what usually happens. And the person sending the asks about HotD are usually those who only ever watched the show and never read the books, are antis, or have skimmed the books and read the wikis instead of actually doing some independent thought and deeper research with comparative analyses.

It is less common/rare for me to begin a discussion from an original green stans or an avid HotD lover. *EDIT* Now, as of 2023, there are asks with links to posts by others (mostly made by green stans) that the asker asks me to consider/think about and respond. I mostly respond to those already responding to others or to those who make comments and reblogs of my own posts, like what happened in my Sansa POST and one Daemon/Nettles POST.

I’m saying, anon, that it could be a lot worse. I could become a greater menace to others on this blog than you presently think.

SECOND

Before I started writing original posts or answers to asks, I collected various team black and team green posts, and I still do so today. Why? Because I actually wanted/still want to know the arguments each team makes. Because in general, I like and want to hear how people think about things.

I came to Tumblr wanting to collect posts and make a blog I can use to reference material and arguments but still have more personal freedoms to do this. (Which is also why I refuse to put “anti” tags just for the sake of “politeness”.)

I basically want to make my blog a reference point thus I will force myself to add stuff about HotD/greens’ opinions as much as I can stomach.

I want to know what logic they present, where does it fall short, what maybe-good points they make, how much they actually know about history, human psychology -- how much I know and need to know about somethings after reading, etc.

Which is related and goes into my next reason....

THIRD

It’s not a matter of superficial “like” and “dislike”. The show “bothers” me more than a matter of bad writing and bad characterization.

After watching the show, you get more people feeling justified by their already existing illiteracy/refusal to learn (beyond their conservatism) and their theories about the canon material. (POST).

You even get people mixing up the show’s events and portrayals and changes with the canon, thus there are people out there with ideas of what this story/part of the Westerosi history is about when they are simply ill-informed or dead wrong.

It’s twisting the narrative, checking all the boxes, to make it more “modern”, “palatable” to performative activism, or/and (thus) make it a lot more marketable to more people. To follow up and revitalize the fervor for the horrid ending of GoT (which was itself sexist as hell) without actually keeping the substance and philosophical/political weight of the original story that lets us know the greens were the unequivocal villains.

Here are a few reblogs/posts/articles by me and others about the actors, marketability, how HotD fails at some things, etc.: POST, POST (you can go to the “performative activism” part), POST, POST, POST, POST (you should really get into this one, it begins to explain how the writing itself doesn’t support accountability), POST, POST, POST, POST, POST,  POST (this one talks about Hollywood and Rhaenyra and feminism). Your choice to read all or a few or none.

And after listening to the “neutrals” AND what non “neutrals” say about “neutrals” (of both teams), I found that there is no such thing as a “neutral” unless you really never or never watched/read any ASoIaF product and thus have no existing opinion about its themes and characters and events. But then you’re not a fan, you’re just someone who knows the fandom exists.

Unless you are like the former brideoffires (Tumblr)/starlight and seafoam (Twitter), who looks at the F&B characters--esp Rhaenyra--as set up to Dany's story and recognize the larger composite picture of misogyny-leads-to-great conflict/Dany-is-the-fixture (to put it very simply).

When you read about the Dance and if you know anything about civil wars and how/why they happen, you should know that you can almost never philosophically or ideologically not pick or at least favor a side. It’s nearly impossible once we are acquainted with why the sides are fighting and the historical details of how this civil conflict happened in the first place, specifically when one side has done nothing to the other before, nor present any true, future threat. Of course things change, as they do in the Dance where the sides commit war crime after war crime & lose more of their own kids, but it was very clear the greens began it through the sexist usurpation to gain power for themselves; they also had little to actually fear from either Rhaenyra or any lord if she had ascended peacefully.

Again, unless we don't know, we can't fully care, and once you start actually caring, then you take a side and form strong opinions. In civil wars, there exists hatred or the need for dominance within the territory itself and it usually comes from a particular background that cannot be ignored but can also be messy and conflicting.

Plus, I found that most of the neutrals (not all, one still has to listen to why one says they are "neutral") are really people who think the greens are in the moral right, are the “fun” and “better-developed” characters, or are the more politically savvy. Yet also refuse to look any deeper to see how their arguments make no sense for the story the show rips off of. Basically, team-greeners who refuse or don’t know they are wearing the cape, or are trying to hide it to make team blackers look stupid or get one on them and seem “reasonable” while actually trying to push forward this narrative of “soft femininity wins all”, conservatism, conformity, patriarchy, etc. 

This following is only in the observation that there are sympathy-changes made for them while the blacks and Rhaenyra are not only similarly dumbed down but also the writers have been trying to assign them certain negative traits or behaviors that can't be feasible as to what we understand them before the show existed.

HotD is actually fostering that sort of bullshit with its refusal to:

**(in context of the next 3 pts.)**Alicent and Aemond as they are: entitled, sexist, classist, blood purist people who intentionally attack and target Rhaenyra for the sake of power and male privilege

working behind the faux romance/friendship of Rhaenicent.

dumbing Rhaenyra down, watering her passion down

removing almost every character's accountability or drive for power (female for this one) by making them more reactive than active and even then there not much of a substantial or meaningful reaction

sexistly making Alicent a dumber and more sexually abused version of herself, giving all of her accomplishments or actions to her father, Otto. Benevolent sexism.

Thus I cannot ignore the show or its glaring faults. It has such popularity and influence over how people think about women, children, who deserves what and how/why, and how people express themselves and live with such cognitive dissonance, that I feel I have to say something against it. Even if it’s a dumb Tumblr post.

[uncommondumbats]

Transcript

Murch: Listen up. We have a problem.

Coyote: Uh, who's that?

Murch: I'll get to that.

A.I.L.A.: What did you do this time, merchant?

Murch: Last night I sent 3 survivors on a supply run. I was monitoring them the whole time just in case our new "friends" decided to pay them a visit. Something attacked them and by the time I got there to help, it was too late.

Coyote: Sounds like a typical evening here.

Murch: No, Coyote this is different. I had positioned outside the deep night's range, and the aftermath there were none of the usual signs left behind. Before they died, one of the survivors took this picture. This isn't deep night. This is-

Val: -a Yeti.

Coyote: Ok what. Seriously who is she?

Murch: This is Val. She is part of my old crew back in my home timeline. You can trust her. I brought her here to help because she's an expert hunter. The best one I know. We need to take this thing out before it finds our camp.

Val: It is a pleasure to join you all. I wish it were under better circumstances. I have hunted many creatures in my time, but the yeti are illusive, and we should not take this threat lightly. We have to thread very carefully.

Coyote: Great, this situation just keeps getting weirder.

Murch: Val is going to track the yeti and prepare our survivors to take it down.

Val: I crafted a bow that should aid the survivors in our hunt. It won't deliver a killing blow, but it will slow it down enough to create a window of opportunity.

You then receive the Longbow gear and the Broadhead Arrows bundle.

Murch: A.I.L.A., it's time to field-test that new project you have been working on.

A.I.L.A: Excellent.

A.I.L.A.'s deconstructer charges up.

Murch: Yetis exist where Val and I come from but I didn't think there were any in this timeline. I'm curious to see what we'll find out. Let's get to it.

Commander: I don't appreciate your rag-tag team meddling with my operation.

Murch: Meddling? If you and your men had done your job, we wouldn't even had to intervene!

Commander: Well that "intervening" has created a problem. You didn't bother to clean up the body, did you? Do you have any idea what else was down there.

Coyote: Uh, Murch? What's he talking about?

Commander: My team was never there for the yeti. We were there to contain an infectious anomaly. The yeti, was unexpected. You left the body behind. You gave it exactly what it needed. You gave it a host. Now it's attacked our main outpost, infected countless men. It's spreading.

A.I.L.A.: This is not first time the merchant has made a critical error.

Murch: What do you need us to do?

Commander: I need you to clean up your mess. Unfortunately, most of my team has been wiped out in the attacks and we're short on men. You need to contain this, now.

Murch: We'll handle it. A.I.L.A., Coyote, let's get a sample of the substance, see if we can jerry-rig a technical solution together. Val, you mind sticking around a little longer?

Val: Whatever you need, Murch.

You then receive the Longbow gear and the Broadhead Arrows bundle.

Murch: Commander... sorry about your men.

Commander: Then let's consider it even.

Transcript

[The Survivors return to the cabin via car with groceries]

Coyote: Oh, you're back? Did you get my slushie-

Murch: Ehem, welcome back. We just finished cleaning up down here, and got most of the debris blocking the lab's sub-level cleared out. Come on down.

[The Survivors take the groceries out of the car and enter the cabin, they put the groceries inside the fridge and then head to the basement lab to meet with the crew]

[Dialogue with Murch and Coyote before you trigger the first cutscene]

Murch: Could you even make it out? I had almost no time to grab anything before I left.

Coyote: I should myself, was stuck in there for like decades. This landscape full of nothing. Time felt like it was out of stance to me, just kept going until I found these exits, holes, things that led to places. Timelines, probably. Eventually found one that led here.

[The first cutscene starts to play]

Coyote: Anyways... There you are! ...Wait, no slushie?

Murch: Down to business, Coyote. Not the time for joking around.

Murch: As I'm sure you're all aware, last night the survivors ran into something unexpected. That monster from the attack of the cabin. The one that "killed" the slasher...

Murch: This one is real, it's not a manifestation like we're used to seeing. We already lost someone, and had serveral others injured.

Coyote: It seems like the Deep Night's starting to catch on to our plan.

Murch: We need to be much more careful going forward, and we need more info.

Murch: A.I.L.A., you've been sorting through the records and databases on these terminals, correct?

A.I.L.A.: Affirmative.

Murch: Do you have anything?

[A.I.L.A. displays the "Project Nocturne" hologram]

A.I.L.A.: I have found several references to a project called "Nocturne", records indicate they were attempting to fuse Deep Night matter into living organisms.

A.I.L.A.: ...The project was shuttered, after control over specimens had failed.

A.I.L.A.: ...Project was overse N B Y -_#"<^-_#"- Doctor Malcolm Orvhill.

Coyote: Wait wait wait. The owner of the cabin? Orvhill Energies? Didn't you guys tell me the guy died a few years ago?

A.I.L.A.: Accessing H.U.N.T. files on Doctor Malcolm Orvhill...

[A.I.L.A. accesses the H.U.N.T. Files and displays Dr. Malcolm Orvhill's data file hologram]

A.I.L.A.: Name: Malcolm Orvhill/ Occupation: Former Orvhill Enegeries CEO / Age: 84 / Status: Deceased / Cause of death: Natural causes

Coyote: This dude was tied up in some serious business. If that monster has been down here this long , how did it even escape? DId someone let it out?

Coyote: ...Are we sure that Orvhill is dead?

Murch: He's dead. If H.U.N.T. has files on this guy, then he's got to be.

Coyote: ...Hmm.

Murch: Regardless, looks like we have even more of a reason to check out the sub-level of the lab. We need to see if there is any information about this "Nocturne" project somewhere down there.

Murch: Maybe we'll find a weakness, and be able to put that monster down for good. Head on down, we'll wrap up here and be right behind you.

[The survivors head down to the lab stairwell and finds the first old computer (if interacted some dialogue will play), they head left and find a security center]

[The survivors enter the security center and pulls a power lever. The power lever activates the security cameras of the cabin and allows the survivors to open the blast door]

[The survivors interact with the blast doors but it doesn't open, it instead deactivates]

Murch: What was that? Survivors, did you touch something?

[The survivors triggers an alarm]

[Laboratory Security Intercom message starts playing in a distorted voice]

Lab Security Intercom: Se-urity al-rt. Warn-ng. Unat-orized person-el have entered th -ab-rato-y. Lock-own in-ti-ed.

Murch: Ahh, thats annoying. A.I.L.A., can you shut this thing up and remove the lockdown?

A.I.L.A.: Already in progress. [Hacking sounds]

Murch: Just hang tight, we'll have you out in a second.

[After a short amount of time, a loud roaring sound is heard and "Nocturne" starts breaking down the door]

Murch: What?! The monster! A.I.L.A., where are we at?! Can you get this open?!

A.I.L.A.: Negative. "Nocturne" will breach the room before i can override the lab security protocols.

Murch: Aagh! Put up a barrier at the lab entrance!

["Nocturne" starts breaking down the blast door with the 20-second death timer appearing on the survivor's screen]

Murch: Sorry survivors, but you got to find a way out of that room, and fast! In the meantime we'll work on finding you an alternative exit! Now go!

[The survivors enter a ventilation shaft to escape "Nocturne". During the vent sequence, "Nocturne" walks pass a vent and checks the vent before immediately running away]

[The survivors head towards the end of the vent which leads to a large office with the second old computer]

Coyote: Have you found them an exit yet, A.I.L.A.?

A.I.L.A.: Yes, forwarding location.

Murch: Alright you got that, survivors? We're on our way, and will meet up with you at the coordinates.

Murch: If you can swipe any info on your way without becoming monster chow, at least this situation won't be a complete loss. Stay safe.

[The survivors approach a second vent to reach sublevel exit to regroup with the gang while suddenly a barrier automatically shuts down the door next to the vent, which makes an alarm sound]

[The survivors enter the vent which they are now at the other side of the previous blast door with more alarms blaring, they then approach another vent to bypass a locked blast door]

[The survivors are now at the other side of the blast door which leads to a extremely large room with a Deep Night reactor core in the middle of the room, they then approach a cargo elevator to go to the lower floors]

[They went to the lower floors with more barriers blocking the door to reach to the exit, but suddenly "Nocturne" breaches the topper blast door and starts swinging at the ceiling to block off the survivors path, but he somehow doesn't attack]

[The survivors take an alternative route which a pair of black tentacles eat up the doors. The doors leads to a large ventilation shaft hallway with large wall fans, overgrown plants and even more dead bodies. The end of the hallway leads to a small room with multiple bunk beds, the third old computer and a vent. The survivors enter the final vent which leads to the laboratory's control centre, the final area before the survivors finally regroup with the gang]

[A cutscene plays which Murch, A.I.L.A. and Coyote are running in the halls to regroup with the survivors]

Murch: Survivors, you're still alive. Good, Let's get out of here, come on-

[A pile of goo in the middle of the room starts to emerge a large figure]

Murch: Everyone, get behind me.

[Murch takes out his revolver and nervously aim at the pile of goo]

[Unknown FIgure]: I have anticipated this moment for a very long time.

Murch: What is this?

[Unknown Figure]: Ah yes. The Great Merchant, savior to the timeline, how noble of you. To think that you can stop what is coming.

Coyote: Midnight's Shadow...

[The Unknown Figure's name is revealed to be Midnight's Shadow]

Midnight's Shadow: Thank you for fulfilling you end of the deal. I knew you were a wise one.

Murch: No... Coyote... What's going on? What did you do?

Coyote: I...I had no other choice. It either was help him, or stay stuck in there, forever. I'm sorry.

Murch: Coyote...

[Coyote takes out the Amplifier and hands it to Midnight's Shadow]

Midnight's Shadow: So cold of you to lie to your friends. Don't worry about it, I'm sure they will understand. After all, Murch is no stranger to manipulating those that trust him most. You told me to see purpose. And i have certainly found it.

Murch: Oh my god... Aiden? What happened to you?

Midnight's Shadow: I have become an emissary! You pushed me down this path, for that, I will grant you one mercy. Consider this the only opportunity to get ahead.

Midnight's Shadow: Embrace the cover of midnight now, for you cannot run from it much longer.

["Nocturne" teleports behind Midnight's Shadow and the door behind the gang closes]

Murch: A.I.L.A., find us an exit, now.

A.I.L.A.: In progress.

[A.I.L.A. uses her panel to find the nearest exit]

Midnight's Shadow: Pity, I had a feeling we would not see eye-to-eye on this. Do not worry about fleeing to the cabin. Consider this an eviction notice.

[Rubble starts falling off of the the ceiling]

Murch: I'm gonna kill you!

[Murch shoots Midnight's Shadow with his revolver four times]

Midnight's Shadow: [Laughs] Sorry to dissapoint you. I have to admit, I didn't expect you to find three of the amplifiers so fast, very good planning on your part. Orvhill hid them well, the things we can accomplish with this...

Coyote: I don't think so.

Midnight's Shadow: ...What?

Coyote: Well it all went according to plan right? I brought them hereand you got an "Amplifier"; just like you asked. We're done here.

[The amplifier on Midnight's Shadow's hands start to make an alarm sound which its pitch rapidly increases, seconds before exploding]

A.I.L.A.: Exit located.

Murch: Run!

[The crew runs to the exit and the amplifier explodes on Midnight's Shadow's hand]

[The gang escapes via a long catwalk which leads to a cargo elevator with a 30-second death timer initiated]

Midnight's Shadow: This is the beginning of the end! You have no idea how hopeless you are to stop us! Keep running! I WILL END YOU!

Murch: Go! Get to that cargo elevator!

[The crew successfully escape via a cargo elevator which leads to the outside, but the cabin they stay in had burned down, killing all the avatars inside the cabin]

[A.I.L.A. calls in a Tech V-tol to pick them up]

Murch: ...We need to leave

[The Tech V-tol arrives]

[The crew enter the Tech V-tol, only the avatars Chad, Hazmat and Hunter survived from the cabin fire]

Coyote: Listen, Murch. I'm sorry. I had no other-

Murch: I'll deal with you later!

[A.I.L.A's Tech V-tol warning goes off]

A.I.L.A.: Warning, incoming attack. Hang on.

[A.I.L.A.'s Tech Vtol gets shot down by an unknown object]

Murch: Everyone, brace for impact!

-The Story Mission Ends-

Old Computers Transcript

3 Old Computers can be interacted inside the mission which will have dialogue relating to Malcolm Orvhill's plans, the voice recordings are not Orvhill's voice but rather an unknown scientist working for Orvhill Energies. (Since there are no subtitles for old computer dialogue, some of the dialogue might be incorrect)

Old Computer 1 dialogue

[Cassette Tape activates, which makes a loud activation sound. The screen of the computer turns purple]

[Cassette Tape starts playing, making a short beep]

Unknown Orvhill Energies Lab Scientist: [Sigh] May 13 was another failure. Nothing seems to survive beyond the first few days. Orvhill suggesting try something larger and uh.. more resilient to the source. Even sent us a few new genome examples. A uh... Dire Wolf, two subspecies of leopard and uh [scoffs] an actual komodo dragon, if you could believe that. [ugh] At least it's better than rats, I guess.

-Old Computer 1 dialogue ends-

Old Computer 2 dialogue

[Cassette Tape activates, which makes a loud activation sound. The screen of the computer turns purple]

[Cassette Tape starts playing, making a short beep]

Unknown Orvhill Energies Lab Scientist: [phew] We finally have it. One of the subjects to survive the procedure. The changes for its physical structure were uh.... a mix to say the least. It's several times larger than we previously predicted and somewhat bipedal as well. But [ugh] just as expected though, there's no change in the subject's cognizant behaviour. Uhh... For a lack of a better phrase, it's as dumb as bricks. Still runs on animalistic instinct and adrenaline. We can't control it, yet. Surely there has to be a way, right?

-Old Computer 2 dialogue ends-

Old Computer 3 dialogue

[Cassette Tape activates, which makes a loud activation sound. The screen of the computer turns purple]

[Cassette Tape starts playing, making a short beep]

Unknown Orvhill Energies Lab Scientist: Human trials? What a bunch of corporate hacks. When you register human trials, we haven't even begun to understand the substance we're dealing with. Even if we did, even if we had enough subjects willing to volunteer, fatality rates are over 96 percent. No, no. We have to do better, or this won't end well....

-Old Computer 3 dialogue ends-

sigh

[my-jokes-are-my-armour]

Blood origin

OK, so today I am gonna try to make my review and quick analysis of Blood Origin and try to survive it.

I'll precise more than once but I am not a defender or a hater of the show. There are aspects of it that I love and other that I dislike, even hate. So I do both parts in my critics. You've been warned.

Before I enter in full analysing mode, I'll just put some thoughts on the main characters and the show itself.

I won't go in full details (but it will be long anyway 😅), so consider that to be my relatively spoiler free review. It contains spoilers but I don't really say how things went, more what I thought about it. For obvious reasons, I will tag nothing but the #twbo.

The short version

So you can decide to chose to continue reading or not, I'll make it short here so if you are unhappy with it you can leave already 🙂.

Did I like it ? Yes ! 😶‍🌫️

Is it a good story ? In my opinion yes.

Was it good with the canon ? No. They are deviating a lot on some points. But for the thematics yes and I understand some strange choices. Other... less.

Did they try to save it with Jaskier ? Yes.

Are they milking the franchise? Yes...

What I did like ?

The thematics of the series. The parallels and the cycles.

The characters chimestry (especially the seven). Jaskier is a bonus 😏

The ambiance, the music and the sceneries.

Some cool ideas and good fights.

What I didn't like ?

Too far from the canon for some points that could have been integrated.

Too fast. They should not have cut 2 hours of it. But we don't what was in those 2 hours, so...

The cgi. I don't care about that, it didn't bother me but it can bother some and objectively that's not good 😅

The entity in the void plan. I have an idea of what it is at if it's that, that explains a lot of what went wrong 🧐

Are you still there ? Can I go into a more detailed review?

General opinion

First of all, I don't find this a masterpiece but there things I really dig in it and overall I enjoyed it.

Huhu, I enjoyed the show and I had a fun experience of watching it with some of you on discord ❤️. It was my first time that way and I liked that we were elaboring theories while watching. The bottom of that is : I am not an english talker so following both the show and the conversation was tricky sometimes. I always watch it in original version so it double the challenge. Some actors have tick accents and I needed the subtitles 😅.

So I watched it again later and it elevated my appreciation of it (and my complains also lol).

About the source material. Well, this is more based on the Netflix canon for some plots. Some things from the books are not explained enough to be associated with them, but there are metaphors that they took and made theirs. For example, I am pretty sure that all the monolith things are their take on the "Gates of Worlds". I never made the link in the main series but now I am convinced they are. I'll get there in analysis.

For the rest, more or so, they took the ideas developed on the books more than exact things. I understand that their vision can be upsetting for those who loved the rich stories of the elves that is nested in the future of the main plot, and for those who liked the game version of it. This is a really simplified and twisted version of the books. Also certain liberties have been taken. So book accuracy criticism can fully be understood from this perspective.

I will always find the book version superior in terms of lore. Yet I didn't have that canon problem personally, because I found the other links to the source material interesting. And in a way I guess that I have accepted the Netflix canon as another take of it. This is my point of view and I am not there to say I am right above others. What I want to do is : try to explain all the connections I found with examples, more that just saying this is OK or this is wrong with passion or anger.

That said... opinion now...

My first impression was positive but I found the series too rushed. I feel that the 2 hours cut is a miss. It would have slowed the pace and would have given us more time with the characters who I enjoyed.

Before hand I had a worry about the voice over of Seanchai, but finally it was discreet and wasn't too explanatory, like "I am telling you what you don't understand because we don't have time". There was some exposition moment indeed but not that much. It was more there to articulate the fast forward moments.

That said some characters suffered from the fast narration. The trio of the woods as i like to call them - Callan, Sacaré and Syndrill - were those who had the less time to tell their story. But they had a good chimestry together. For the opponent side, for me Balor suffered the most. He was cool but his inner motives were not that much illustrated. Like we don't really see the effect of his low cast borned birth. He just says it. For Eredin... well hmmm that's harder in a very twisted way (and it has nothing to do with his sexual inclination).

On the good side, I have a very soft spot for Meldof 😅. Her with Callan was really nice to see also. Even if he hadn't much back story at least he had chimestry. Éile and Fjall were the most developed and at the first watch I enjoyed their story but found their chimestry rushed. On the second watch I dug more into it.

I will develop more on the characters part.

I enjoyed the fight scenes. And that some of them carry some characterisation. Like the fact that they are all skilled in combat but they have to learn how to fight together, for example. Also a part of me was like yeah but why ?

The show had clearly a low budget in comparison of the main show but I found it visually good. Yes sometimes cgi is a bit low but it didn't bother me at all. And god, I love Merwyn's wardrobe and stylists lol. On the other end, I wish we could see more of the high cast elves. We had more of the low cast that displayed more "human like" costumes. On the main series it has meaning as they live on humans lands now. So they adapted. I am a bit deceived that they didn't add something distinctive for their culture there.

The music is great and seems very nordic to me. Maybe this is a good point as much as a bad point as it would have been better with more eastern influences? I don't know. The Lark songs are good and I liked her voice. I liked a lot 2 songs of her. The Black Rose and The Echo and the River because they hold meaning within the story. I'll tell more in a more specific post also 😅.

Mild spoiler (mild because the official clip is already out lok). As much as I listen in repeat the song, the Jaskier's song is not his strongest. It was clearly made in a rush. It slaps and the lyrics have meaning but this is not up to the narrative building. Also musically, the verses are clearly a mixed of "Toss a coin" and "The Golden One" so... Yeah lazy. I saw that Joey was credited for the music not the lyrics (well yes I can tell haha - they are not that bad but it covers only the riot part and they are straightforward) but for the music I find it strange because the verses are clearly not in his confort zone in low range. Maybe he played instrument in it or helped for some arrangements. Or maybe he is credited to get something from it in compensation 😅. Seriously I feel like this is the minimum for being the biggest PR shield they used all along. But I'll elaborate my bittersweetness of that in another post. So many posts I want to write 😮‍💨.

That said I question myself a lot about that story Jaskier has to bring back to galvanise non humans.

Anyways. Nonetheless to say, I loved Jaskier's part in the series but I am not really objective about that. Yet I will argument in another post dedicated to the narrative (one more...).

And just because I'm in the narrative part in my general opinion bloc, I can say it there. This is what I enjoyed to most about the show. The parallels and the cycles 😅. I didn't find it confusing at all even at my first whatch. This is too fast yes but not hard to understand. Very straightforward on the surface, richer under.

Some references about the lore are there but not said, as for the Aen Seidhe and Aen Elle. Those we see are Seidhe a long time after the depature of the Aen Seidhe.

The characters

Éile and Fjall are the main focus. They have the most time to develop their relationship. The accent was almost made on that, only for the drama 😅. Their back story is fast but a least we have something to understand their motivations. They are used to make us understand clan's rivality at first and unveil sordid stories about their species. (I have a problem with the clan thing by the way but I need to find the time to elaborate)

My complain here is more on the emotional part with other members of their siblings that falls flat for me. They have no time to grieve or to comfort each other more than for the relation they have together. Some deaths should have more meaning for example. Death of members of their family is used just like a trigger that fuels a burst of angry to justify a sudden change of mind, not very much more.

Meldof doesn't have this problem as her arc is about grieving and vengeance, and what's left behind... She is the most attaching one. Her story is simple, it has a beginning and an end. Her story with Gwen is bittersweet and mirrors the cycle of hatred. Also it refers a lot to the main series. It helps build the elves not as innocent than they were protrayed before and leaves us wondering of what would happen if their would overcome the humans...

Scian has an interesting back story and arc that make us understand her motivations and her scepticism. The back story isn't very detailed but it is part of the global narrative. Her combat scenes are great.

Callan is the weakest link in terms of storytelling but he has a marvellous synergy with Meldof and I loved their relationship.

The Celestial Twins, Sacaré and Syndrill are so important and very little developed 😭. I feel like in their past, in their relationship, there was a lot to say but that was probably cut. Basically she is the key to understand old magic used by the elves. He is the key to understand monoliths. And this is so rushed. I wished we could see more of them to understand some things better. Also this connects dots from the main show that were vague. It has nothing to do with the canon for what I remember about magic, but I find it interesting in its ways.

What I like the most about the Celestial Twins thing is that the elves value both high science and superstitions but the mystical part has really concret effects on their lives.

Now for the antagonists part.

Balor is the pivot point but he is not fleshed out. Said low born he aimed the top. He has a personal quest to gain power so he can rule everything. But we don't see his low born condition. We don't see disdain for his birth in other high born characters. Also he has an assistant who proves herself the person he valued the most but we don't understand why. They barely interact. I would have guess something like Celestial Twins for them but she didn't display any kind of magic so... It's very hard to connect with him even if his part is interesting. He is the character that makes us understand that the magic the elves are using is not chaos until it pour into our world.

Eredin is the most damaged character there. I don't mind the part with his lover as it seem to bother a lot. It's here to illustrate that the elven civilisations has the cast system as discrimination, not sexuality or skin colour. A system that have here the same repercussions. My main problem with him is... him lol. Yes he has ambition but he is flat and his story is all over the place with the canon. And I don't understand why they did this. I get that we met him "before" he is evil but in the book he is evil before what happened to him in the end. Lore character wise this is the one that I wasn't pleased at all with. He could have matched way better the empress ambitions with some good evil traits. Its a bit like Balor and Merwyn had stolen his purpose.

Speaking of her, Merwyn in another hand is a very interesting antagonist. Puppetised and puppeteer. She has a passion for those who came in the Continent first (the Aen Elle I suppose) and she wants the elves to return to their past glory. She has a complex of greatness and she turns out to be a coloniser. She wipes the current system and becomes empress with Eredin and Balor's help but she makes awful mistakes. Some seems done due to the fact she is a puppet but then... Her ambition is her fall down. She seems to care about her people but her ways are built on a terrible past.

One problem that is not clearly said in the main show and in this one is the fact that elves do not use agriculture, they collect. So her solution for the famine that is spreading is to get the resources they need in other worlds. And to achieve that she wants to "civilised" those worlds. This is a good use of the lore and a miss at the same time. We barely can connect the dots there. (I will explain later for the lore)

She is gray and at the beginning we can empathise with her until she reveals herself. I liked her ending.

There are other characters from the lore in it but I tried to speak about the main ones that cary the story. For me there was way too many characters for a so short among of time. They tried to tell too much.

The narrators

Seanchai is the narrator of the story. They tells it to Jaskier for him to ressurect it from the past of the elves to help them. Both are used as the narrative framing device for the show. We have to keep in mind that those two weren't initially in the show. My guess here is that Jaskier was pushed in for audience reasons but his cameo was less important in the first place. Yet he would have been told the story anyway.

I really want to see that piece of musical he had done in the first place 😅.

That said. I catch the Jaskier bait. And for some reason this is interesting for his development too. He learns something valuable that is strangely connected to the lore but in a twisted way. And it goes back to S2. That is for another post again 😮‍💨.

Also from a less grounded perspective, I loved the implications of him being told the story of another heroic bard from the past and his warrior lover 😏. They are two many dots to connect there so even if I tried to keep my head out of it, sometimes I remembered that Jaskier was listening to the things we were watching and I was like : Seanchai don't give him ideas, please 🤣.

We already know Jaskier so he is easy to connect with and Joey put on a hell of a range of emotions for his short appearance.

Seanchai is an intriguing character and interesting overall but they is just a voice in the end. Their motives are unclear. Someone pointed me out a Gunter theory before the show aired and I have to say there are some similarities. I don't think that's them but probably there is some inspiration.

The thematics (this is the most spoilery part)

There too much there lol. This is where I think they lost themselves. Telling too much in a so small among of time.

I am not against action packed movie or series, but The Witcher have long contemplative parts. This is something I miss a lot in all the shows. There were some bits in S2 but here almost nothing. With so many characters it would have helped flesh them out. I had read that they cut to keep the action up and I remember in interview of S2 where LH said that the there was not enough action material in the book she was adaptating for a TV show. For me this is one enormous mistake but it underlines how TV shows are conceived. Are we that much distracted to can't stay focus on a calmer development ? Also I get the need to not give too much to build the need to have more. But in this case I don't like it. The milking plan of the franchise is way too obvious.

For me the main plot, and the story that I liked, is how stories can change the world. And how a song can carry hope.

The Lark (Éile) is a warrior that became bard and one of a song speaks to the heart of the lowest cast. This song gives them the courage to rise. A lot of that is confirmed by Balor that fears the hope that The Seven are giving to the people as they can't be stopped by the empire. He want this heroic story to stop before it set fire in the heart of those who are oppressed. "Put them to clay". He tries and fails but my complain is that we don't see it.

I guess that a lot we don't see is because we can't 😅. For the same reason we barely see any crowd to the crowning the Merwyn. No budget to make it real lol.

The fall and rise of empire is ok. This is a common theme. What I liked in it though is the cycles. We have those who want things to stay as they were. Those who want a change. Those who make changes. And those who believe that they are changing things and just repeat the cycle instead.

And it is a perfect metaphor of what is happening right now with the show... are we just repeating ourselves ? Blind to what is good for some. And unacceptiing what others find so wrong for the others. In a sad way I think showrunners are pushing too far and too fast for changes to be tolerable. In my opinion, they will end it all the same way Merwyn ends and that sad.

Those cycles and the bad things that are implied is the reason why I don't get why Seanchai gives Jaskier this story (except for the very last part with the prophecy of course). But she ask him to sing about the Seven to give hope to the elves of his time. And he does that with that song in the credits. But in the end she is using him to revive a dying fire.

The thing I find interesting too is this : forgetting means repeat error from the past or lost purpose on the way. Clearly elves use masse massacre as a way to rewrite history, as their very long life span make the stories last longer, as long as there is someone to remember (Scian or Meldof are tiny exemples). Then when it's the time of humans to rule, this is the same thing but those who want to rewrite history have a easier task as generations of humans come and go faster.

On the other hand, remembering seems as wrong as forgetting here. They use the past believing they would make better things of it than their ancestors. Balor ends up breaking everything on his way. To save the present Merwyn believes she has to repeat the horrors of the past. Éile changes things and she breaks the cycle in a certain way but this is in vain as we know how it will go centuries later for her people. What impact would Jaskier make with his song ? Fuel anger ? Help them resist ? He feels for them and empathise to their suffering. He believes he does good but would he ?

I mean that's what I love about this spin off. It's all gray and that easy to see the world we are living in into that. There is no perfect answer. But plenty of room to think. There are large parts of the books that hold those thoughts. The world changing too fast, hard to find a place under other rules that don't match ourselves. Racism and colonialism. Twisted story told (by Jaskier himself until he learns what truth carries) that makes the concerned ones to react in anger but debate also. Those with longer life span that still carry the past (Yarpen Zigrin is way more interesting in the book for that).

All those things are in the books. They are not told the exact same way because it would take forever. But this is a part of how I connect with what I love about The Witcher stories.

Then we have two other plot points that are unfortunately rushed. The first one is the proto witcher. Mark my words, this is not the first one. He will be created by humans later.

This plot here has three (four...) purposes. And I don't like any of them haha ! Nonetheless it was kind of cool. First, they use it to implant the idea that it is the historical answer to the monsters later on. Could have been said (better) in the main show many times. Secondly, they use it to twist (not fully but just too much...) something of the lore about what is special in elder blood. This is interesting in the Netflix canon but this is not in terms of lore. I understand a bit the simplification but in the same time I find it bad. Thirdly, it gives an explanation on how twisted the creation of witchers is. It taps onto forbidden magic and ethical blindness. The thematic is interesting but not really necessary as the fact that submitting children to the trial of the grass already reflect that in the show lool. And the (fourth) point: this is a big trope to connect both shows of the franchise. As much as I like the love story and the drama it carries, the tropes are too big.

The other plot is the Conjunction of the Spheres. That one is OK I think but its importance is somehow under the water. This show tells us about the parallels worlds and I loved that trying to end the use of the monoliths (the gates) they ended in the biggest catastoprophy. They give little about the monoliths except there were used differently when the dwarves had them. There is a lot to connect to the original lore there, but they used it almost the other way round. Until it falls back "almost" in place.

The last thing I want to say without going into much spoilers of other stuff is the ghost entity in the empty realm. If this is what I think it is then it connects the shows with the thing I found the worst part of S2's writing, justifying a colossal mistake. For me this a very wrong take. But one it connects with something of the first season that was not clear and explains a lot. I don't know how to feel about it. Maybe there is a answer in S3.

But everything is about parallels and cycles, right ? So i dread a lot 😅

There is a lot that I didn't speak about because I want to dig more with it and it will be way too spoilery.

Conclusion

I had a good time and I like the show. I found a lot to dig in. I found a lot of twisted lore. I am passionate for some parts but I understand constructed criticisms of the fans that dislike it for what it does to the canon. For me the representation isn't the issue. There are bigger problems underneath.

That said, I believe it gives a lot to think and it has some great underlying connections with itself, the main series and the books.

I believe also that this may put an end to the franchise. The main reason I am sad about this is because Joey's Jaskier is, for me, the best iteration of the Jaskiers. In this show I loved him to bits because they pushed simultaneously the "old" Jaskier and the "new". For my tastes, he is perfect. (And Joey teasing us is just the best part of it 😅).

This blog is about Joey so I'll dig really further on his part later on.

I hope it was clear enough that is my opinion only and I don't push anyone on a direction or another. I am not stating. I tried to justify my plus and my minus the best I could, so please don't use this for spreading hate to any side.

[3vocatio]

peeped here out of curiosity (i know u have good takes and rb good/interesting takes + filtered words don’t work when viewing blogs and i’ve filtered every single om tag ever) and uknow what? while there’s aspects of the (supposedly) satan-focused i greatly enjoyed (mostly as writing inspo and just the enjoyment of the moment itself more than its part in the overall narrative tbh) i was endlessly frustrated by the fact that diavolo got the true highlight. i couldn’t place why the hell it made me so annoyed but you’re right—the real main character of the story was diavolo and it annoys the hell out of me that satan was painted as more of the bad guy. despite having the most screen time, satan felt like he was simply a means to an end, with the end being some way to show/remind the audience all of diavolo’s princely qualities that often get sidelines in favor of his usual behavior in events.

like. i greatly enjoyed seeing satan lose his shit to the point of terrifying crowds of demons. i liked seeing him lock himself away after to try and process everything by himself. the bits of vulnerability when mc finally manages to speak to him? love. (not that much of it is actually new info but i do enjoy that it’s there)

but the rest of everything else has me pulling at my hair. especially the ending… i wanted mc to ask for something that would be primarily to satan’s benefit after all the bullshit that happened. (and also satan thanking diavolo for giving mc his stars felt… idk. it felt like it encapsulated how a lot of the story key part felt; reminding us that diavolo’s the actual ‘hero’ here and not satan.)

ahdksjakdja so yknow. just some thoughts i wanted to send you. i didnt wanna log into my om blog even though i probably should for thoughts like this >.>;; once again a majority of my real fun came from rewriting everything, which i guess is something since almost all of the non-bday om content for the last several months hasn’t even gotten me inspired enough to bother rewriting anything.

/end yet another rant abt om content shdjssjs

hello...pretend i responded to this first /j

to validate what you mentioned, i also only enjoyed snippets of that event (though as we know, it's been like this for most obey me events for a long time); diavolo aside, witnessing satan compose himself with such sincerity and generousity felt like a blessing tbh. he knows his limits, he knows what upsets him and he should be listened to, even if he gets emotional about it. so what! most of us become emotional when defending something we hold close to our hearts, and satan was no different.

i've said this in the other ask you sent, but you came back right on time as the new lore-focused obm game has been announced! satan was one of their focal points that they mentioned, as well as lore surrounding the (pre & post) celestial realm, solomon, and the attic. it's gotten the entire fandom riled up including myself, and everything looks promising so far :)

i was wondering why the spacing between events in-game have been getting longer and longer, and i'm glad to know it's because they're putting importance on quality over quantity. they began making baby steps in the previous "single character-focused" events, but i'd like to mention that i am very satisfied with the release of simeon's new birthday event, especially when you compare it to the first one for symbolism reasons.

i won't go in-depth about it now unless someone asks me to share my thoughts, but it was the right amount of promising writing i needed to give me hope. for you specifically, satan didn't delve into any cat shenanegains and when he confronted lucifer & brought up a good point, he was acknowleged and listened to. everyone did such a good job...aaaa <3

[appleciderp]

Hold onto your hats, because I want to rant about how Blizzard fucking sucks with women or any minority rep. And why it'll suck for your fav in whatever MW is coming up.

Fully inspired by this post, I'll be referencing to a few points that @spookykittenwrites made

As I said in those tags, I've been playing WoW since Burning Crusade, so I've known about the company since about 2007. I've not touched overwatch, but according to emp, their rep there is surface-level as well.

It's half me yelling about MW and half me yelling about how WoW fails in representation.

I have 0 faith in them with any sort of proper representation. I'll mostly be sticking to queers and women. I do have a small section about Gaz, but I'm white and keep that in mind.

Onto the bullshit

They're not gonna make any main character queer. This means Soap, Gaz, Price, and Ghost. Farah and Alex by extension. Most likely not Alejandro and Rudy. They won't risk the repercussions.

Hell, Alejandro is implied to have a family, but we skimmed over that part as a fandom.

What they will do, like Laswell, mention that a side/secondary/tertiary character has a partner, but won't put ANY thought into it. Laswell's wife could SHOULD have been talked about by name.

They don't CARE enough about their characters to even solidify her over a facade of rep that will make the queer people happy. It did in a sense, I am happy that she has a wife. But if you're bothering to have a line about her, just add a second. Like Price could ask "Oh, how's Madeline doing anyways?" or "Yea, you've told Jenny you'd stop smoking how many times already?"

WoW-wise, their queer characters are mostly surface-level. Which isn't bad in a world full of queer stories that are queer-centric. The problem is they don't have the balls to upset any fan by making a popular character explicitly queer in their portrayal. Hell it wasn't even THEM who made Matthias and Flynn queer, it was originally put into the novels (I believe Chrissy Golden?)

Here's a quote from an executive producer: "We don't try to put a big focus on it and make it a big deal, we just try to make the game feel comfortable, friendly and approachable for everybody"

I don't know about you, but using "comfortable, friendly, and approachable for everybody" as an excuse for why you don't have more outwardly queer rep (versus "hint around it") leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Because my sexuality or gender identity is uncomfortable for people? My existance is uncomfortable for people, so you don't want to explicitly say it???

but he implied that the devs don't think Pelagos is the first trans character. Fuck you. It's giving JKR saying that Dumbledore is gay, but it wasn't important to Harry's story. What isn't explicitly said in the source material is not canon.

They had, HAVE, the chance to make major players into canonically queer characters, but they're afraid of backlash. Vol'jin would have been so easily bi in canon, especially with his whole thing with Tyranthan in the fucking novel. And that Tyranthan went to his funeral??? even though they're on opposite sides????

Onto the next point, they don't and won't give a shit about the female characters. All I'm thinking about is the disappointing outcome of Tyrande's revenge after the burning of Teldrassil, hell even the whole Azshara thing. I'm not gonna go into detail about how it, just know it led to nothing. She didn't get revenge. She didn't have a satisfying end. Why? Probably because Sylvanas and Azshara are both more popular than Tyrande. Sylvanas probably being the WoW character with the most merch (not to mention the whole thing about a dev loving her).

Farah is gonna be brought up minimally, much like she was in MW II. Valeria/El Sin Nombre and most likely the Vaqueros will be completely forgotten. Maybe brought back (again like Farah was in MW II)

They're not consistent with their characters in the first place, why give a shit about a promise they made. It'll most likely be implied between games that some shit will be solved, or a line or two in the next game. Just so people get closure.

The surface level rep keeps going throughout. We have a bunch of diversity in the operators, but significantly less in the campaign, where the characters need to be fleshed out more than a written backstory and voiced lines.

How often have they shown Alex properly since he lost his leg?

The dudebro's are pissed that they changed Gaz, a mostly 1-dimensional character that died within the first Modern Warfare. Gaz is a good character, there's no reason that they're pissed about him vs them being pissed about any other member of the task force. But I've seen more hate on Gaz than any other 141. Which sadly leads me to conclude that they probably only dislike him due to his race.

But the aspect that isn't giving me much hope is the phasing out of Gaz in additional content. You're telling me the only POC in the 141 is not included in the red team? Out of all the dudes you could have removed?? Like I'm all for including Farah into the red team; but removing the only person of color on the team, one who was canonically in the Ghost Team mission, isn't the win they think it is.

Not to mention the numerous merch of the 141 that have Ghost, Price, and Soap; but not Gaz. With only 1 design containing Gaz.

And don't come at me that "those are the old designs though!" It's in their current website for sale. The 8-bit design is fairly recent within the last few weeks or so. Gaz is a main character in MW 2019 AND 2022. He deserves more than 1 solo shirt that is just the repurpose of the 141 shirt.

Onto the points brought up by @spookykittenwrites

Ghoap

Either won't be mentioned at all or will be excessively "haha we're just pals" kinda vibes.

They WILL play up the dynamic in trailers and such, as it did bring a new group of people to the games, and it seemed to make the dudebro's happy with their bromance.

Death

None of the main characters will be killed off. There's too much opportunity to make money off of their survival. So far the new games have been very light with the major character deaths. In the original games Soap and Price are the only 2 that survive past 1 game.

Roach

They're not gonna make him mute or selectively mute.

I do think they might bring back Roach to kill him off within the same Game though.

Hell, they might not even bring him back.

Farah and Alex

I honestly hope that we see them together, it might not happen. I think they're gonna keep the Farah/Alex line as the raid focus.

As for the no chemistry thing. Depends. If they're seen for 3.5 seconds they definitely won't. Hell, they aren't technically ever stated to be dating in canon AND the dudebro's get pissed that people are shipping them. Again with the not saying anything that'll upset the target audience.

For the Muslim aspect; not sure they even think about their own characters enough to have her religion mentioned in game. (They can't even get the bios straight when they update the game, I'm not gonna complain about this here)

Laswell's Wife

Important thing to remember, the line about her wife isn't even in every playthrough. It's a hidden one.

No doubt about her never being mentioned in my head. It only got past the dudebros because it's a lesbian couple. If it was a dude talking about his husband I doubt it would have gotten into the game.

US can do no Wrong

Definitely, the entirety of the blame will be on Russians. They did in fact blame a real US warcrime on Russians in the past.

Interestingly enough, the most recent info I can find is that the Military took out their funding post-sexual harassment allegations from Activision-Blizzard in December 2022.

Military Propaganda is still Military Propaganda even if the Military isn't funding it.

Moral of the story? The comfort of the dudebros, the target demographic for the game, will always be priority. They won't risk hurting their profits by claiming a character is queer or putting too much importance on a woman. Whatever their comfort level is, is what that we'll be getting.

I'm gonna stop my rant here... Don't go into the next game hoping to get some good rep.

On a slightly positive note: they are getting better. Farah was genuinely a good character in MW 2019. The fact that there's a mention of a same-sex partner, even in passing, is pretty good.

Also, enjoy the Christmas merch shirts that I found of Price and Ghost.

[everybodyshusband]

About the fic ask thing:

All your work is amazing and I love reading anything you post.

The last thing on your "husband writes" tag (doesn't have a name, it's regressed rain trying to hide his regression from dew) is so interesting to me. (full disclosure English is not my first language and I'm taking about stuff in unfamiliar with so I'm sorry if I say something wrong) First of all it's so we'll written it really takes me into Rain's head. I love your style of writing so much because everything is always so nicely written. This fic also feels que insightful into something that I don't experience and I love reading stuff that I'm not personally familiar with. Like I spent the whole time trying to figure out what rain wanted exactly and I'm not sure I got it but I've still come back to read it several times. I understand he did want comfort but there's a part where I just struggle to understand if he does want dew to discuss "grown-up stuff" when he is little or not (I think this might just be because I'm not a native English speaker). Idk if this makes sense, I guess in general any extra info you are willing to share about that fic I would love bc i genuinely like it so much. But I read it was kind of a vent fic so I would understand if you didn't want to expand on it. I will try to educate myself on regression tbh bc I'm not very knowledgeable and maybe that would answer my questions, so I won't really bother you with any specific ones. Just if you have anything else you'd like to share regarding that fic.

Thank you for taking the time to read all this, and I'm sorry rambled on for so long!

I hope you have a nice day 💖

i'm going to skip over your lovely, wonderful compliments, my dear anon, not because i don't appreciate them, but purely because i don't know how to respond without getting all mushy and aragrhhrg &lt;3

in terms of the part you don't quite understand, that's not a problem with your english at all !! i tried to write it in a way that wouldn't really make sense :0 in my mind, rain gets frustrated when he's regressed because even though he's lived through so many experiences, the other ghouls won't talk to him about half of them when he's little (simply because the nature of these experiences could be distressing to him, even if rain doesn't think so). part of him knows that talking about it will make him feel worse, but with the mentality that he's in, he doesn't care, and sees their unwillingness to talk to him about certain issues as a way to channel their dislike of him, rather than them trying to help him be more comfortable. ...i hope that helped it make a little bit more sense ?

more under the cut because this got a little bit long :0

in terms of general ramblings about that fic (anon, please know i love you for enabling me to do this) i have so much to say but so little words to phrase my thoughts in the way i want to :0 i think the main thing i want to ramble about is rain's tendency for negative thoughts while he's regressed. i won't go into the specifics because i don't want to have to put any trigger warnings on your lovely ask, but in the scenario he was in in the fic you're referring to, he was regressing involuntarily.

something happened before the start of the fic that caused rain's mentality to slip into something even more awful than usual, and so his brain made the executive decision to shove him into a regressed headspace in order to keep him safe. the only problem with this is that when this happens, rain doesn't magically feel better; he feels just as awful as he did when he wasn't regressed, but the chances of him acting on those dangerous thoughts are lowered (although i definitely do want to write a fic/ficlet about rain doing exactly that one day, but that's a ramble for another time, haha !!) he so badly wants dew's comfort, but he can't manage to convince himself that he deserves it, and he's certain that any time dew spends with him is time wasted :(

i think that's about it for general rambling that i can think of for the moment, but i could ramble on about this fic (and any of my others too, to be honest) for days and days ! so please please please bother me with specific questions if you'd like to, haha !! i love answering them, even if it takes me a while. (and don't you dare apologise for coming into my inbox and sending me an ask that has made me smile every single day since you sent it >:0 thank you, my dear <;3)

fic ask game :>

[ursaspecter]

Before I get into it I just want to give a disclaimer: this is not a personal attack on anyone or me trying to gatekeep Danny Phantom. I am simply just airing some frustrations. This is all my opinion based on what I've seen from the current state of the fandom.

Also I'm writing this at 1am.

Now that that's out of the way, I'm really frustrated with the way this fandom acts at times. I've been a fan of this show for around 10 years now and only relatively recently came back to the fandom after being away for a while. It's nothing like what it was when I first got into the show, and I think that comes from the fact that a lot of people in the fandom haven't actually seen the show and have only read fanfics. And that is where I think the problems start to come up.

Now, ok, the show isn't for everyone. It's loud, has flashing colors, and certain parts haven't aged particularly well since its run from 2004-2007, and that's perfectly understandable as to why someone wouldn't be able to watch the show. I'm not faulting anyone for that. I only take issue when someone has a popular headcanon and a majority of the fandom acts like everyone agrees that it's canon and then get all up in arms when someone says they don't like that particular piece of fanon. I know in the grand scheme of things it's not that big of a deal, but it really bothers me whenever I see something like "I love how we all agree that [fanon]" or "so we all know how [fanon]"

Little things like ghost cores, haunts, obsessions are whatever I don't care that much, but when it gets into the territory of replacing fundamental aspects of the source material is where I have a big problem. See, I got back into Danny Phantom because I wanted to explore a darker take on the story that's a little more grounded in reality, but when every other thing is angst or torture or just treating Danny like a punching bag (most of the time written out of character), the idea really started to lose its luster ans made me hesitant to share my ideas.

The biggest issue I have though is with Wes Weston. Gonna be honest: I never liked him. I thought he was unnecessary from the moment I saw him. Then someone (I'm so sorry I forgot who it was) pointed out that Valerie was the perfect character to fill the role of the skeptic that tries to expose Danny, but the fact that the fandom wanted to focus more on an unnamed background character who happens to look like Danny was very telling.

Obviously I'm not saying that if you like using Wes that it automatically means you're racist. There's more nuance than that. I think what Wes does reflect though is just how much of the fandom just rejects the show? How so many people probably didn't even know about Valerie because perhaps she just wasn't in the fanfics they've been reading? Hell, I see more focus put on Dash than Valerie sometimes. Another one-dimensional white boy minor antagonist instead of a complex black girl anti-hero who is probably the best antagonist Danny has in the show AND the best love interest.

Also the overabundance of DC crossovers where Danny gets adopted by Batman are really annoying. I blocked every possible tag that could've gone with the crossover, but still somehow whenever I go through the main tag one sneaks through. Seriously between Frostbite, Clockwork, and now Batman why are y'all so obsessed with giving him a new father figure when you can just give Jack a better personality. Oh right because then you won't be able to write him vivisecting his son if he actually cared about him. Silly me I almost forgot!

Anyway thats why I only follow like 5 dp blogs and like 2 of them dont even post about dp most of the time. And schnuffel-danny my partner in chaos and shitposting. Gonna start a petition for a Danny Phantom reboot on the CW and make it the most edgy cringy shit ever and it'll have blackjack and hookers and Wes Weston is not invited.