#personally i think he has no real problem at least before The Horrors of being attack mobbed. so i do think any feelings he might've been

[shopcat]

do u have any particular sexuality thoughts abt eddie the way you do abt steve?

not really at least in the same way? i don't think!! :0 w steve we have a lot of basis to go off of bc we get 4 seasons of specific characterisation expressly to do with how he interacts with romance + girls + his own reputation thereupon so it's really fun to extract stuff from that but with eddie he's sort of more of a blank slate but also funnily, in comparison, we do get a LOT of character building back story and development even through implication that makes it a different kind of interesting thing to gather stuff from 🤔 it's also funny that we know way more about eddie's home life than robin OR steve's LOL literally just funny...

i think it's fun that the gay hc is so popular with eddie and i get it he is a little gayboy tbh and i also think it ties in significantly with how... you can tell from extrapolation and just basic like, relation that eddie is this guy who was outcast by society BEFORE he developed his own counterculture against it and the way he wears his specific type of anti authoritarian anti mainstream bubble wrap is in line i think with some sort of intrinsic part of him, and others, that he may feel he needs to protect and defend against. a not insignificant part of a lot of actual counterculture is being against the bigotry and oppression that goes hand in hand with society at large and, fundamentally, the loudest voices against oppression and the leading forefront will always be and SHOULD always be the victim and survivors of it, and a gay metalhead with a punk rock attitude in the 80s is the easiest thing in the world to imagine. i think we as like lgbt people and anyone else who has a certain hand in... allyship can pick up on this really easily with eddie and see ourselves in that part of him that feels different than the same vein social ostracisation like, dustin and mike go through, even if on the surface it appears similar.

so yeah basically i think he's literally gay. i don't know if the quote unquote gay CODING was intentional and i'm going to go with a definitive Not but i will enjoy the spoils nonetheless. i also think it's significant that a lot of the real life inspiration for eddie specifically WERE gay kids and probably that is where this unintentional coding springs from... the hunt the freak line is a very important one to me as well for this specifically with that it's him and robin, a canonical gay woman, meeting him on his level without skipping a beat. this is also where i disagree that obviously his death was not "bury your gays" because anything picked up on was not something that was figuratively put down 😭😭 the duffers did not have EDDIE circled on a whiteboard with 💯 GAY -> pointed to it we literally just think he's gay.

also just bc i kind of side stepped the sexuality hc itself unintentionally HEH i think he could also be bi sure and all this remain true!!! though i don't think he had any feelings for chrissy (and to me reading that scene as him having a crush on her comes off... different. soz.) potential age gap notwithstanding. i think bi eddie could be fun and also hilarious bc it means he had even more of a quote unquote chance and still erm. committed virgin sacrifice </3 i do agree with the like general consensus of him being bi feels different if only because erm... there is a lack of actual evidence that he is inclined one way or the other and being assumptive of his supposed attraction to women in order to undercut the gayness is like a very classic homophobic. thing. and also weirdos ruin it

if eddie is bisexual i think it is purely in theory for him as well as us (lol) and he would probably be SO annoying stoner-esque "why limit your love to just one half of the population mannn" type about it despite never getting any bc he's scared of girls in a gayboy way. also i do not see truly any part of him being some sort of behind the scenes suave seductor of women DESPITE what the horny minded may or may not think... he is not looming over any girl being some sort of manic pixie edward cullen reject he goes home and neurodiversely plays the same chord over and over again on his guitar then passes out wearing jeans he is literally a wet eyed loser not a wattpad BAD BOY. My poor little princess RIP

[ashotofogdensoldfirewhiskey]

hinny prompts??? ooooh um maybe write something where harry is being a bit protective of ginny? hbp, post dh, whichever point in time you feel most inclined to write about!! thanks 😍😍😍

“You were right about Vanishing spells,” Ginny declares irritably, dumping her school bag onto the table Harry has secured for their study date in the library. “They’re a pain in my arse.”

“Ah,” Harry says, looking up from his essay with an expression of sympathy. “Bad lesson?”

Ginny throws herself into the chair opposite and scrunches her nose in distaste. “Awful. Might as well have been using one of Fred and George’s trick wands for all the good mine did, at least then I’d have had a laugh.”

“Did McGonagall set you extra homework?”

Ginny sits up rim-rod straight in her seat, makes her lips as thin as they can go, and adopts a lofty Scottish accent, “Miss Weasley,” she chides, in a passable impression of McGonagall. “An essay on the proper wand motion and theory behind Vanishing vertebrates to me by Tuesday.”

“Brutal,” Harry winces. “How many inches?”

“Two hundred and four. And once you’ve finished that, please use your newfound knowledge to Vanish the Chudley Cannons abysmal goal scoring problems, Fleur Delacour’s superiority complex, and Harry Potter’s penchant for danger. And then you can fling yourself from the Astronomy Tower for your trouble.”

Harry snorts loudly. “Oh, is that all?”

“I might just skip straight to the Astronomy Tower.”

“Efficient. Please don’t, though.”

“Honestly,” Ginny grumbles. “She set me fourteen inches. Fourteen! I’ve already got loads of Charms to do this weekend, I’m going to be in the library all–”

Ginny trails off, for Harry had turned in the middle of her rant to scowl rather hatefully at a group of fourth year Ravenclaw girls whispering at a nearby table. “Er, Harry?”

Harry turns back to her, but the scowl remains. “Sorry. Fourteen inches?”

“What’d they do to you?” Ginny jokes, jerking her head toward the girls’ table. They aren’t being particularly loud, and Harry isn’t typically one to become enraged by library volume etiquette.

“What?” Harry says quickly. “Nothing.”

Ginny grins. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“It’s nothing, honestly.”

“C’mon,” Ginny goads. “Were they trying to ask you about the Chosen One rubbish, or something?”

Harry shakes his head. “No. They… before you arrived, they were talking about you,” he says in a tone of combined incredulity and disgust.

“Ah.” Ginny sits back in her chair, utterly unsurprised. “What was it this time? That I’m spiking you with a Love Potion? Or that you’re only interested in me because I’m a tart? Or – ooh, my favorite is that I’m using you to usurp your position as Quidditch Captain. I think they might be onto something with that one, actually…”

Harry doesn’t even laugh at her joke as his expression approaches the realm of horror. “The Love Potion one but… People have been saying that other stuff about you? To you?”

Ginny shrugs unconcernedly. “Not to my face, but I’ve heard it, yeah. Dunno if you’ve noticed, Harry, but a lot of girls fancy you.”

Harry shrugs this off so quickly that Ginny can’t help the feeling of satisfaction and smug glee that sparks in her chest. “But that’s… that’s so fucked.”

“Well, yeah,” Ginny says, slightly amused by his naivety to the Hogwarts gossip mill. “I suppose. But honestly it’s all rubbish anyway, I don’t give a rat’s arse. Let them say what they want, they don’t know the real reason I’m with you - all your gold.”

Harry laughs despite himself, but the concern quickly returns. “But I don’t understand. Why would anyone think you’re spiking me with Love Potion?”

Ginny grins wickedly. “Dunno. Might want to tone down your infatuation with me. It’s very suspicious.”

Harry shakes his head as he lets out another reluctant laugh. “No, but I mean it. It’s… it’s mental,” Harry makes a gesture to her general person, like she’s meant to agree with something. 

“Yeah, I mean, obviously I’d never do that to anyone, let alone you–”

“No,” Harry interrupts. “Well, yeah. I bloody hope not, you’re not Romilda Vane,” he adds darkly. “But that’s not what– I just meant, why would anyone even assume that? Half the blokes at this school fancy you.” He gestures to her again, as though his point should be self-evident.

A heat blossoms over Ginny’s cheeks. “Half the blokes in this school do not fancy me,” she laughs. “You’ve been listening to my brothers.”

Harry stares at her like she’s the one who’s lost her gobstones. “No, I haven’t. But that’s beside the point. It’s just… insulting.”

“Doesn’t paint me in a particularly good light, no,” Ginny agrees, feeling like she’s missing something. “Rather creepy.”

Harry exhales in frustration. “I just meant, how can they honestly think that’s the only reason I’d fancy you? I mean… you’re…” He gestures to her again. 

If she’s meant to fill in those blanks, Harry is going to be disappointed. “I’m… what?”

Harry stares at her incredulously. “You’re… brilliant! You’re the best in the school at Quidditch, you’re always making everyone laugh, and well, you look like,” he gestures to her again, helplessly, “that.”

The heat has spread from her cheeks down to her chest. She might be on fire, actually. “Harry–”

“No, it’s… how can anyone honestly think that I wouldn’t fancy you? It’s really rude, actually, I don’t know why you’re not bothered.”

Ginny is struck quite dumb by this proclamation. A tingly, glowing warmth is radiating out from her glowing cheeks. Ginny supposes it shouldn’t feel so surprising - they’re together, and Ginny doesn’t think she’s alone in how quickly her feelings are escalating; on some level it comes with the territory that he’d think these things of her. But she had been totally unprepared for him to be so indignant – not about being the subject of baseless gossip yet again – but about the insinuation that Ginny would need any help in attracting his attention. 

“I don’t–” Ginny splutters. “Well, that’s– you really think all that?”

“That you’re brilliant at Quidditch?” Harry asks in disbelief. “That you’re funny and beautiful? I mean – yeah? You are.”

“I think you might’ve overdosed on that Love Potion I’ve been slipping you–”

Harry barks out a laugh again. “Come on. Honestly. Of course I think that. You must know that.”

She supposes she did know, but it’s quite a different matter to have him state it so baldly like this, like her brilliance is so wildly self-evident. Harry’s gone and released a jar of snitches in her stomach. 

“Well, clearly the rest of the school’s got a different opinion,” Ginny says, trying to disguise the way his words have impacted her. “Or perhaps you’re underselling your own appeal.”

Harry smirks, and Ginny might die. “Find me appealing, do you?”

“Obviously.”

“Glad my Love Potion’s worked.”

They grin stupidly at each other, and Ginny’s heart is thrumming in her chest. 

“I am sorry, though,” Harry says, his grin fading. “That people have been saying all that about you. I didn’t realize.”

“It’s fine,” Ginny says, waving her hand. “Honestly, they’ve done me a favor. Got you to admit how obsessed with me you are, didn’t they?”

“Didn’t realize I was hiding it,” Harry replies, casually delivering the fatal blow to Ginny’s composure. 

“That’s it,” Ginny announces, stuffing her Transfiguration book into her bag. “We’re done with the library.”

“But you haven’t even started–”

“Don’t tell McGonagall, then. Come on.”

Harry doesn’t need telling twice, as he packs up his things with admirable speed. 

They make their way to the Library exit, still grinning soppily at one another, and their path takes them past the table of Ravenclaws. As they’re passing, Ginny thinks she catches a snippet of their conversation, sees a tightening in Harry's jaw: “--so obvious, I bet she gets them from her brother’s joke shop–”

Suddenly, Ginny is being spun around on her heel. Before she has time to react, Harry kisses her, boldly, smack in the middle of the library. His hands come up to cup her face, and Ginny’s heart is hammering in her chest. After several moments, he pulls away, leaving Ginny feeling rather gobsmacked. 

She watches as he shoots a nasty scowl at the Ravenclaw girls, who are all staring in blatant shock. Satisfied, he takes Ginny’s hand again and continues their meandering path from the library, as though they’d experienced no interruption. 

“Er, Harry?” Ginny says, thoroughly gleeful. “Not complaining, or anything, but I’m not sure that helped with the whole Love Potion narrative. And it’s definitely not going to help me beat the tart allegations…”

Harry shoots her a sheepish look. “Fuck. Sorry. We’re both tarts, then.”

Ginny’s grin widens. “Oh really? I wish you’d told me sooner…”

[yukidragon]

Sunny Day Jack - Recording Love

We I interrupt the baby-focused ramble train to share a thought/theory that popped into my head that has some smutty fun possibilities. This post will probably be short, but I'm still throwing in a quick Content Warning that this post contains a heck of a lot of Adults Only NSFW lewdness.

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur @kurokrisps

Most people in the fandom remember this classic audio of Jack giving a villainous monologue, right? I've theorized in previous posts that Jack becomes stronger and more real the more his sunshine loves him, while conversely if they stop caring about him, he just might disappear. After all, it certainly sounds like the person Jack is talking to isn't his sunshine, which is something he can't do in the demo.

Well, at least as far as MC is aware, but that's a theory for another time.

It does make me wonder if MC being intimate with Jack via sex and telling him that they love him will make him more perceptible to others. That might mean the demo ends right before we get to see that something changed.

Also, given the fact that cats don't care for Jack and vice-versa, perhaps that's a sign that cats are more sensitive to ghosts(?) like Jack. It could be that after Jack asks, "Who's this?" we might get an interesting reaction from Shaun and/or Moon Pie...

But, again, another theory for another post.

It's hard to say what the progression will be like as Jack grows stronger thanks to his sunshine's love. Perhaps he'll be visible out of the corner of peoples' eyes at first. Maybe he'll appear as some sort of "glitch" in reality like a distortion in an analog tape. Maybe it'll start with just his voice being clearly audible before his body becomes solidly visible to others. Maybe he'll start off the way he became in the "no" route, untouchable while visually being there.

It's this thought about an analog distortion that reminded me that Jack can't be seen in mirrors or photographed. It's kind of interesting that the ghost(?) of a murdered TV show host who came from a VHS tape can't be filmed. Perhaps the first impact he might have on reality is the ability to be caught on video.

As another quick aside, this makes me imagine a tense scenario where Nick, Ian, and/or Shaun are using their phones to film the area around them, frantically looking for where Jack is, because he's not visible to the naked eye yet. His voice comes through their speakers, taunting them, and they only get glimpses of him in their sweeping shots before he gets them.

Man, there are so many possibilities for Jack being a really terrifying analog horror entity. But that's also for another post. This is one is about smut, and I need to stop getting distracted so we can get to the good stuff already.

Back on topic... it'd be kind of fitting that Jack's first real return to reality, outside of MC, is being recorded by them. He was once a famous star known nation-wide, recorded on film and audio tape. He was loved by so many because he was recorded. He came back to the world of the living thanks to a video tape. It'd be kind of poetic.

Heck, what if those recordings are what allow Jack to become fully human(?) If the love of MC got Jack this far, then maybe if they spread the word about him, uploading videos of him to the internet, and making the world know about him... Perhaps by being remembered by more people will give him a stronger foothold in reality, especially if they love him like they used to when he was on the SunnyTime Crew Show.

Perhaps the fastest way to make Jack real again is for MC to film them showing him lots of love~

Yes, this was all build up to suggest that the solution to Jack's problem is for him and his sunshine to film pornos together.

It'd be kind of fitting, don't you think? Especially in an NC-17 eroge. Not to mention that Jack does have that exhibitionist kink after all. I'm sure he'd be more than happy to show the world just how much he loves his sunshine and how much they love him~

Of course, not all MCs will be open to the idea of sharing such intimate recordings publicly. Heck, there'll be plenty not comfortable taking nude snapshots to share privately with a partner. I know my girl Alice wouldn't!

That was when I wondered... what might convince Alice to change her mind? At least to some extent.

See, what led me down this rabbit hole in the first place was thinking about what comes next in Sunshine in Hell, specifically the fact that Alice isn't just going to be ignore the giant clown shaped elephant in the room. MC did some testing and found out about the mirrors and photographs in the demo, but Alice is going to want to investigate more and get more proof. Either she's lost her mind, or she has a supernatural entity living with her. She needs to know which it is in order to know how to proceed.

Jack can't be photographed? Okay, but he can pick up objects. He can interact with Alice physically, and that can be recorded.

If you can't draw the subject for your picture, then you can show show it's there by emphasizing the negative space where it should be.

Alice is going to do some experiments. First she tries to film Jack juggling some balls he pulled out of his pocket. (Because clowns gotta juggle am I right?) The balls don't show up either. Neither does anything else Jack manages to just pull out of nowhere like his wardrobe changes.

Okay then, Jack can juggle, um... er... Alice looks around for something not breakable then finally gives Jack random writing utensils. She films him picking up pillows, moving furniture, making her bed, cooking food, etc. She could even film him writing messages on paper.

It certainly looks spooky to Alice seeing items moving around like that when she plays back the video.

A darn shame that there's hundreds of these sort of "ghost" videos online. It's amazing what people can do with homemade special effects and video editing software! Even if Alice wanted to post these online to see if this is something other people might know about or have a similar experience with, no one would actually believe it's a real ghost(?)

This led to thoughts of Jack using Alice's body as a more convincing prop of his presence. Of course, this would only be after they get together as a couple. He might suggest picking her up among the early experiments, but she wouldn't feel comfortable with that in the early days. It'd be a while later when Jack remembers the experiments that he decides to bring up the idea again.

Alice is a bit hesitant, not wanting to record herself and plaster it all over the internet, but Jack suggests this time they just do it for them. Even if they can't see him, it'd be cute to see how she looks in his arms from every angle.

Though a bit embarrassed, Jack does manage to convince Alice. It would be more proof that he's really there after all, even if they can't see him. Jack even spins her around a bit once they start filming, catching her off guard. He tells jokes to make her laugh, they banter playfully, and she surprises him in return with a kiss.

When playing back the recording, they see distortions, hints of someone there besides Alice, hints of a voice in the background laughing along with her and responding.

Then, for just a moment, just for a single frame, when Alice is kissing Jack, he's visible. He's distorted and not perfectly clear, but he's there, all blue haired and brightly colored.

It's a huge shock and Jack is practically vibrating with excitement. Alice can't help but be overwhelmed as well by it. Yes, by this point she was certain Jack had to be real, and she had other small bits of proof but this... this is so much more.

Jack wants to do it again. He needs to do it again. Alice is more than willing to help, and the two of them try a few more experiments, quickly realizing that it's when they show each other love that he becomes more visible.

This leads to some rather... intimate footage.

Jack takes it slow, knowing that Alice is insecure about her body and very shy. He starts off with playing with her hair, telling her sweet words of love. He encourages her to do the same to him as well, as that might help. He kisses her, blazing a trail down to her neck where he sucks firmly and nips, wanting to leave a mark on her skin in full view of the camera.

The more intimate they are, the more Jack appears in the video, more real and solid.

Alice is too shy about taking her clothes off while being recorded, but lets Jack slide his hands underneath her shirt. Even if the glitches won't show him in that moment, there's a perfect outline of his hands through the cloth, massaging her breasts. It feels so lewd, almost too much, but it's more proof that he's real. Jack makes sure to distract her by tweaking her nipples and whispering in her ear that she's being so good for him.

Huh. Sorry for another quick aside, but I'm suddenly reminded of all the fan art of Jack doing lewd things to MC's body while they're at work. It takes place when they're standing behind the counter, trying desperately not to react and let anyone know that they're having sex right there in public. There are security cameras all over the place, with only one blind spot that is definitely not where the front counter is. Maybe if this scene appears in the game, security footage of the incident is what gives Jack his first solid footing in reality.

Man, won't Barry be surprised. Imagine that phone call of the boss yelling at MC for having sex with their boyfriend right in front of the customers. And what the hell were they thinking letting someone who doesn't work there behind the counter?

Back to Alice and Jack experimenting... it'd be a slow progression of Jack encouraging Alice to try more and more. After all, the more love they show each other, the more Jack appears, the more he's heard. He's even visible at times when they're not actively groping at each other. Maybe they just need to go further.

Alice wants to help Jack interact with the world, and he's so happy about it, so excited... How can she refuse? Besides, no one will see these but the two of them. She's going to make absolutely sure to hide these videos where no one else can find them.

Boy would it be awful for a certain remorseful cheating ex if he came across these, wouldn't it? Good thing Jack won't let Ian near even a recording of Alice ever again.

Back to the good stuff. Jack fondles Alice through her clothes, makes her mewl and beg him for his touch. It's so lewd when playing back the video that she has a hard time watching herself in such a state, but he's sure to praise her during the viewing as well telling her how beautiful she is. He just adores the way she calls his name, how lovely she looks arching into him as she cums all over his fingers.

Next the clothes come off, for Jack at least, at first. He has no shame showing his body before the camera, especially when Alice is the one touching him, kissing him, and taking off all his clothes. He's visible the entire time in this video, more solid and defined when she's caressing and kissing him. They can see the way he laces his fingers through her hair when she goes down on him. Even the mess he left behind that she couldn't quite swallow all of remains visible on film while they get cleaned up.

Alice is mortified by how she looks, but Jack is right there to praise her, both in the video and in reality. Watching her get him off just gets him excited all over again, and he wants to do even more. He wants to repay the favor... while recording it. He wants her to see how beautiful she looks when he shows her love.

They've come this far, going further and further each time. Alice has seen herself so lewd already, so going this far is less scary by this point. Besides, it's been so helpful for Jack, and he's done so much to make her feel loved and adored, not used. He made the experience so much easier than she thought it could be.

Jack makes sure to angle Alice's body so she has a perfect view of what his mouth and fingers are doing to her. He makes sure to describe what he's doing as well whenever his tongue isn't otherwise busy teasing out obscene noises from her. The camera was initially aimed as a sideways view to show both of them and not so much a close up of her sex, but at some point Jack grabbed the phone to get different angles. He wanted to record Alice's expressions of bliss and give her a good look at just what he's doing to her body. He wants to see it all and share this glorious experience with his precious sunshine. He goes overboard groping and licking, making marks all over her thighs, breasts, stomach. It goes from just cunnilingus to a full body experience. They don't stop even after he makes her cum, as he wants to see her cum in more positions and get more angles of her in a state of bliss screaming his name.

It's their longest video. After worshipping her body so much and sharing so much of her pleasure, Jack eventually can't hold back anymore. He just has to be inside of Alice. Now. He needs it so, so badly.

The camera gets set aside, still angled at them, but Alice is too dazed to remember it even exists, and Jack is too desperate for her to want to mess with it anymore. When he's finally inside her, he has to take a moment to keep from exploding. Maybe it was all the build up and teasing, maybe it was from sharing one of his biggest kinks with the one he loves all day, maybe it's the act of doing this making him more real, but the feeling of being one with her is as intense as the first time they made love.

The first round is just for them in that moment, Jack just reveling in the pleasure and love he has for Alice and vice-versa. The next rounds are where he takes advantage of the camera, changing positions so that they get good shots without him needing to mess with the phone again but mindful of where the camera's lens is aimed. He keeps his sunshine's attention on him and the praise he showers her in the entire time so she doesn't think about the video. He adores seeing her like this, so needy for him and unashamed to show him just how much she loves him.

They only really stop when Alice is too exhausted to continue. Jack gently praises her and reassures her that he'll clean her up and take care of things. She's half-asleep when he mentions that he'll turn off the camera, and for a moment she wonders, what camera? But she's feeling too good and too tired to think too much about it.

Of course, Jack makes sure they watch the video after breakfast the next day. This one is the best yet. He's perfectly visible and audible the entire time, with nary a glitch in sight. Even when he's seen cleaning Alice up afterwards - while looking mighty pleased with himself and giving her adoring looks the whole time - he looks perfectly normal, perfectly human.

It's still embarrassing for Alice to see herself in such a state, and she certainly won't ever let anyone else see the video, but it worked. Now when they take videos of Jack, he remains in the recording, regardless of what the video is rated.

Still, even though they succeeded and technically they don't have to keep filming pornos to have Jack visible in the videos, it couldn't hurt to keep doing it, right? Just for the two of them of course. It was a lot of fun, don't you think~?

After all, it'd be nice to save these precious memories of how much they love each other captured forever on video so that they never forget~

Okay, I know I said this was going to be a short post, but I got carried away once I finally got the smutty ball rolling. I just can't resist indulging in my OTP, okay?

As another aside (as if I didn't have a ton of them throughout this post), if Jack is made stronger through his sunshine's love, maybe the reason why he has insane stamina is the more they love him, the more charged with energy he gets. I guess that incubus costume is more fitting than we all realized~

Really... aren't cubi created from dreams in legend? That might be something to explore in another post.

On that note, let's wrap things up. I'm sure there's plenty of MCs who would have a ton of fun not only filming themselves loving on Jack in the naughtiest of ways, but they might decide to share it with others if they're especially bold. A shame for any of the other love interests who might come across it.

You know, MC and Jack might get a lot of money for those videos if they start up a LonelyFans account. They could even do livestreams there like Nick does.

Funny how Jack might become Nick's biggest rival in more than just romance, don't you think?

I hope y'all enjoyed this silly, smutty romp of a theory!

[howlsofbloodhounds]

An interpretation and personal headcannon of mine is that Killer is programmed with two main Directives. Seeing how his soul is described as what remains of Sans and Chara fighting for control I take this as something like a command or guidance from the two.

On one side Chara directive is to simply do as they say. Sans is a simple plea, a wish to protect him and avenge him to not give up. It just Sans directive neither really took hold while in his timeline seeing how Sans was gone it only becomes a problem to others once he is taken from his timeline suddenly he is surrounded by so many sanses but how can he be sure that they are sans and not just named sans. Some are easier Horror is Sans, and Cross is Sans. Blue is weird he has many traits of Sans but also not Sans so he is put in the inconclusive pile while more research is being conducted. His real road block is Dust though he is just like Sans just with one major wrong and that is the fact that he killed Papyrus and Sans would never do that so he must not be Sans. His codes, his timeline everything insists that he is even if Dust says he is not. He digs deeper before finally coming to a conclusion that Dust used to be Sans but with corrupted codes he was changed so now he is Dust. Does that mean he cannot go back to being Sans he is unsure but at least he finally has an answer to his dilemma.

I don't see Killer ever accepting Dust as a Sans because that would mean that Sans could kill Papyrus which would put everything about himself and Sans in question. If Dust is Sans and Sans can kill Papyrus by choice does that mean that Killer is Sans and he just wanted to kill Papyrus the entire time? He doesn't know and so he'd rather believe Dust just isn't a Sans not anymore at least that he was changed similar to Killer into someone knew, something different.

~Musical Anon

To be fair anon, Cross isn’t really a classic Sans, he’s a swap like Sans. Add on the heart locket and the being obsessed with chocolate and the soul thing with a Chara, even more reasons Killer would be iffy with him. But he wouldn’t feel like a threat to Killer the way someone like Dust would—if Dust keeps viewing and insisting on his identity as Sans.

And if i recall correctly, Killer’s SOUL was described as a war between two souls; Sans’ soul, and the Determination SOUL—not directly Chara. Might’ve been changed once the Player’s involvement in Killer’s story was revealed.

And this interpretation is pretty interesting, especially since we do see Sans as among those “personalities” that guide Killer’s choices when he’s in Stage 1.

Although it’s to my understanding that Murder doesn’t really insist he’s not Sans? But that he is Sans. Not sure about that so Murder fans can correct me. I’ve seen many different views on this—Murder still views himself as Sans and doesn’t want anyone taking that from him, or Murder doesn’t feel he deserves the name of Sans, etc.

But out of all the MTT, Killer seems to be the one most convinced he is not Sans and is something entirely new, separate, different.

He seems to think he came into existence because an outer force willed it, created it. The whole “Killer Sans exists because of you” thing, and the “you’re the reason I’m like this” stuff. That he’s here to serve someone else’s whims and desires.

Large part in why I personally like to HC that in more canon adjacent Bad Sanses AUs that Killer is the one who renames Murder into Murder/Dust, and possibly Horror too, or at least it was his idea that he pitched to Nightmare when the two were “recruited.” Renamed them as if they were pets.

Probably to not only handle any confusion caused by having the same name as eachother (is the justification), but to make it easier on Killer (which is in Nightmares best interests too. Nightmare doesn’t want Killer changing, he doesn’t want Stage 1 around too much, because change means questioning means leaving Nightmare.

Nightmare doesn’t want Killer to think—in large part probably why Horror and Dust are around, because Killer cannot be allowed to be left alone with his thoughts. He’ll start questioning himself. This could potentially be justified in a way of that Nightmare doesn’t want Killer “hurting himself”—implying Killer cannot be trusted to stay alive or want to stay alive if he goes into Stage 1. (Citing their first meeting/kidnapping as evidence.)

Giving Killer responsibilities such as Horror and Dust prevents critical thinking and examination. He’ll be too focused on those two and performing his duties to think about himself.

Any time he’s not on a mission, most of his downtime could be spent with them, performing tasks around the castle, attending to Nightmare, or rare moments allowed in his room where he could have distractions like video games or a phone. Smoke screens and fog.)

So he doesn’t have to question himself too much, and examine his motives and actions (something often encouraged in cult like settings and conditioning causes thinking through the lens of the conditioning that bypasses conscious thought.

Killer (at least when in Stage 2) is not actually the most self reflective or critically thinking individual when it comes to himself—because he was trained to not be, and discouraged from it, and trying to directly ask him in Stage 1 would probably be what triggers him into Stage 2–a part thats too dissociated to fully attach to his actions and its consequences enough to question and examine. (Color would be excellent at making him question his beliefs, and in contrast to Nightmare, would fully encourage him to do so—with adequate support, because questioning too much too quick without support would likely be dangerous for Killer himself or those around him.)

He doesn’t know a lot of the reasons behind why he thinks the way he does or does the things he does—he just.. does it. Without thinking it through.

He doesn’t even actually fully know how killing makes him feel, or what he feels when he kills Papyrus. He notices it’s different from when he kills anyone else, but he doesn’t know why or how.

He doesn’t know why he hesitates and falters when faced with Papyrus, and reminders of Papyrus. When asked if he’s okay after coming out of Stage 4, his speech is disorganized and confused—unable to tell if he’s actually as fine as he says he is. (Ex: “I’m fine—“ “I don’t know—“ “I’m okay.” Am I?)

When asked what it’s like to be apart of the Bad Sanses, he says it’s fun while standing over a pile of monster dust, and yet the faint words under his red speech saying “sad” point otherwise.

And of course, that one question that pointed out that killing clearly doesn’t help him feel anything, so why does he keep doing it if he knows it’s pointless? Because he’s conditioned to.

Because he was made to do it so repetitively and unthinking without stop that it’s quite literally unthinking instinct now, not even something he consciously decides to do, and a part of him (Stage 4) fears what’ll happen if he doesn’t (the constraints of the Deal.) He was even going to instinctively stab Abyss in that one silly drawing if Color hadn’t been around to catch him before he could.

But of course, Killer does not know this. He is not consciously aware of this.

If directly confronted as to why and he bothers to try and give a reason (even if something as gross and disgusting and untrue as saying “because its fun,” as if parroting someone else’s words that he’s repeated many times), it’d be contradictory and won’t make sense when examined critically (you say you can’t feel anything and this doesn’t even seem to make you actually genuinely happy. do you even know what happiness is? When’s the last time you felt happiness? Can you even remember?)—and of course, he won’t—can’t—acknowledge what would happen if he attempted to refuse, either from Chara or from Nightmare. Attempting to refuse just triggers Stage 4, and he obeys anyhow.

We can see evidence that he wants to understand himself—experimenting on himself, curious in the souls and codes of others—but little bro cannot deprogram himself. Get that guy some therapy 🙏)

So in short, I agree that Killer would struggle to accept Murder as Sans (especially if Murder keeps insisting he is and his name is Sans)—and for his own emotional and mental and physical safety and stability, he’ll either attempt to rather violently avoid and detach from Murder—possibly seeing him as just a tool he has to take care of, or something following its own script separate from him and seeks to keep it that way (cue killer behaving like a threatened cornered animal if murder keeps trying to interact with him just like he did with swap, trying to maintain that distance and position of power between them (killer is the right hand, blah blah) or force Sans to give away anything that makes him him or connects him to Sans (the name, Papyrus’ scarf, probably mock or criticize any puns or jokes he finds the will and energy to try and make) and encourage him to be something different.

To “let Sans die” and be something stronger, or perhaps whatever sends the message that he doesn’t deserve to consider himself Sans. —the conflicting thoughts of “Am I Sans? I want to be Sans. I don’t deserve to be Sans” (st1) and “I am not Sans, I just have his face. If im not sans then what am I?” (st2) causing him behave how he was taught to maintain the beliefs he was taught.

He might frame it out to be for Sans’ benefit. Some may claim it’s only ever for himself. In actuality, it’s only ever for benefit of those who want him compliant.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Different nonnie from the Tikki-Xuppu person, but what you said about Tikki’s personality fitting Order better than Creation made me think about how Pollen would’ve be a better fit for Creation symbolism-wise over Tikki given how much bees better fit that image over ladybugs with their beeswax, honey and hive-making, not to mention the intimate relationship humans of various cultures have had with bees for literal millennia. Even the restoration of Miraculous Ladybug fits bees better due to the connotations of pollination and how essential bees are for the world’s ecosystem. In a universe where Pollen was the kwami of Creation with Tikki’s canon powers (though with bee-theming of course) to Plagg’s Destruction, how do you think things would’ve gone with Marinette and Adrien while having their canon personalities? How do you think they would have played off of each other with their canon personalities?

(Post that spawned this ask)

Before we begin, I want to note that my answer is probably going to be at least a little biased by @zoe-oneesama Scarlet Lady comic because Pollen has a big role in that and Zoe's read on Pollen pretty closely matches mine. Do with that what you will.

This is the first Kwami swap that I could see working. Plagg's personality is so iconic that it's hard to imagine anyone being an improvement, but Tikki is pretty generic. While she has a clear personality, she has no real interests or hobbies that make her stand out. She's mostly just here to be cute and act as the writer's mouthpiece. While I hate that for her and think she deserves better, it does mean that booting her and replacing her with a different Kwami doesn't feel like you're breaking a core element of the show so long as her replacement plays off the other characters well.

We don't see much of Pollen in canon, so it's hard to get a great read on her, but she her love of calling Chloe "my Queen" and the fact that Pollen is a bee give me vibes of a loyal, devoted Kwami who thinks that her Chosen is the best thing ever no matter what. Compare that to Plagg who delights in tormenting his Chosen and there's major potential for some excellent banter and fun contrasting moments, which is what Tikki's replacement would need to be able to do. Tikki and Plagg's contrasting dynamic is a lot of fun and you wouldn't want to lose it. Pollen and Plagg's dynamic would be different, but in a similar enough vein that I think it could work. Which is actually a point in Pollen's favor. If she was just another Tikki, then there would be no point in making the switch.

While Tikki is often dishing out lectures, her most valuable role is building Marinette up in moments when Marinette is feeling down. Pollen should be able to do that no problem. If anything, Pollen may be a little too zealous in supporting Marinette, but since Marinette isn't often shown to listen to Tikki's advice, that's not really an issue. It could even be a new source of comedy where Marinette comes up with insane plans and Pollen hypes her up while the audience watches in fascinated horror. It could be a lot of fun and also give Alya a better chance to fill the voice-of-reason role that she's occasionally allowed to have. That's one of the many awkward things about Alya knowing now. Her and Tikki often fill the same role on the civilian side since Tikki isn't presented as a wise, ancient mentor who knows things that these kids don't.

I especially love the idea of a Kwami swap where Adrien is praised to death and then refuses to give Pollen back because he needs this right now, okay? His lady can have the cheese loving gremlin for a few days while Pollen floats after him, calling him a Queen and praising his every move. Maybe Pollen even starts sneaking into his backpack and leaving him whatever her favorite treats are as a little sign that he's appreciated, leading Plagg to get all territorial, which further validates Adrien. (I just really like comedy that has a sweet undertone, okay?)

Since we don't have a full understanding of Pollen's personality, I won't speculate further than that as I'm trying to avoid getting too far into the realms of headcanon, but I do really like this idea and think it could be a lot of fun. I even like the idea of Pollen as Creation because bees do make more sense than ladybugs from a theme perspective. Plus Ladybee was such an iconic look, one of the few good unifies, and a version of that without the red would still be fabulous!

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

Best and Worst of both Worlds (part 1)

Tw: yandere oc guy, but i dont think this chapter shown that yet, but readers a fuckin stalker loser this time, university horrors

Okay guys so this story im literally pitting Yves and Montgomery together, gonna be a little slow burn but we r gonna get 2 da conflict like eventually

Also da settting in university cuase its da most relevant 2 me 💯

Enjouy

PART 2

He's so beautiful and ethereal. The man has been plaguing your mind for the entire week, you're being distracted from your assignments just because of this unbelievably gorgeous man with silky, long hair and dressed to the tens.

You grinded your teeth and scratched your skin, you know where he frequents. The university's library. And you obviously want to get closer to him after he caught you from falling. You slipped on a sheet of paper that you dropped and this mysterious stranger was there to catch you by the waist before your body could make any devastating impact. Unfortunately, your stacks of textbooks and other miscellaneous documents were scattered to the ground.

"Are you alright?" He asked, his voice was smooth and pleasant with a unique, suave accent to it.

You were reduced to a nervous, stuttery mess. He gently brought you back up to your feet, he helped you gather your things and even arranged it by size and weight, so that it would be less likely for it to topple over. The man took a further step to smoothen the frizzles of your hair, fix your collar and sleeves. He even zipped your backpack up, you were unaware that it was open in the first place, adding to your embarrassment. You couldn't really push him away because your arms are occupied with your belongings.

It was hard to look into those stunning emerald eyes without flustering yourself even further, so you looked away while you stammered a "thanks" to him.

"Be careful." He said as he tilted your head by the chin to make direct eye contact. You know that you're as red as a tomato, but he didn't comment on it. The man lets you go before walking away, he fixed the handles of his luxury bag on his shoulder. Luscious curls bouncing with every step.

You felt like you wanted to explode right there and then, it took you a while to regain composure, other university personnel wondering why you're just standing in the middle of the path like that. Aren't you tired of holding all that stuff? It looked heavy.

You were snapped back into your senses when someone who you assumed had a bad day, told you to get out of the way. You scurried along the traffic, having the incident fresh in your mind.

You wonder who that man is, a student? A professor? A staff member?

You came to know that he's in the library for a few hours every weekday afternoons. He doesn't have a particular spot, the mystique spontaneously appears in random but fairly secluded reading spots in the library.

You felt like a stalker, but that's what you are. Too shy and afraid to talk to him, yet content with watching from afar. His ears are covered by his hair, so you don't know if he had any earbuds in. Fuelling your hesitance to make any contact first.

He could be reading a thick novel, handwriting something down on his notebook, or he could be typing away on his sleek, black laptop. In either instances, you have no idea what he's doing, it's either in a foreign language, full of numbers or completely made up of technical jargon.

You don't know why you're doing this instead of studying for your midterms. You're never like this to any of your crushes, not this obsessive over a real person, so why now? What compelled you to become this... creep? It's like you can't stop. You're scared of rejection but you can't get rid of the butterflies in your stomach.

You had no one to talk to about it because university is a very lonely place. At least, for personality types like you. You didn't want to bother your other friends, they have their own problems to worry about.

It reaches a point that you tried following him out of the library, wondering where he will go next. Before you could step past the automatic sliding doors, you looked at the book in your hand.

'Wait a minute, this is fucked up.' You thought to yourself. This isn't like you, exams are in spitting distance and you're subjecting this poor person to this harassment just because of a singular interaction.

You made a 180⁰ turn and marched back to your all-time favourite seat. Which happened to be occupied by the stranger earlier, maybe that made you a little peeved because you "claimed" it first at the start of the year. But he took it for the day.

To your surprise, there lies his notebook on the ground. He must have accidentally left it. You picked it up and looked around to make sure the coast was clear, then you flipped through it.

You were blasted with numericals, diagrams, words you weren't sure if it was written in English or otherwise and even floorplans of a building of some sort. You couldn't understand anything.

"Excuse me."

You whipped your head to the whisper. It was him! Your blood ran cold as he caught you snooping through his item. You opened your mouth, but no sound came out.

You struggled to form a coherent sentence as you pointed at it, you're done for, you're going to be confirmed a creep. But he only watched you with the utmost patience.

There came a point where you gave up, placed the closed book on the table and pushed it towards him.

Luckily though, you didn't have to say another word.

"You found my notebook. How careless of me to have dropped it." He pulled a chair opposite of you and sat down. You watch him place his handbag on another chair.

He elegantly picked the journal up and slid it into his bag. You were sweating at this point, the dread is about to make you vomit on him and that's not great. You wished that he would go away now, but seeing that he's locked onto his seat, it's highly unlikely.

You prayed hard for it though, he finished his business for the day. There shouldn't be any reason for him to linger.

"Thank you for keeping it safe. I hope you found whatever it is you were seeking from me." He continued, crossing his legs and resting his hands on the table.

What.

You asked what he meant by that.

A teasing smile made its way to his rouge lips.

"You were watching me." You grew pale and you scrambled to explain yourself, but he raised his index finger to signal you to let him continue.

"Your tact could be improved upon; I could see you trying to hide behind the shelves, I could hear you mumbling to yourself, and you shouldn't think so lowly of yourself." He propped his head up on one elbow.

Your cheeks felt hot. That is true, you were berating yourself for being too wimpy to go ahead and talk to him. You just didn't think you were that loud.

"I would have enjoyed having a chat with you. I wouldn't have thought that you were-- and in your own words, a 'creepy, loser-freak'."

Oh. He heard that too. You wish that you could disappear this instant.

"I'm flattered that you thought highly of me. However, I was disappointed that you thought that I was intimidating." He pouted playfully. "I won't bite." He twirls a lock of his hair around his fingers.

Your nerves are frazzled as he leans in. You didn't know what to say or what to do. He seemingly picks up on that and continues leading the conversation.

"Let's start with names. Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine." You felt his shoe brush against your leg.

You almost forgot your own name as you watch the bead of sweat drip down your nose in horror. He must think you're a stinky slob.

But all he does is stare straight into your soul while drumming his fingers against the table.

You told him your name, with a severe stutter. Each passing second felt like a serrated knife slicing through your flesh.

He repeated it, syllables rolling through his tongue wonderfully. He pronounced it correctly on the first try despite your cripplingly anxious enunciation.

"Yves." He replied. Finally, you have his name. You're totally not going to use that to dig for more information on him.

"You have a beautiful name." He complimented.

You nervously returned the compliment and let out an awkward laugh. Trying your best to ignore the growing sweat stain between your pits.

"How charming of you, (name)." He stood up and pushed his chair back under the table. Yves collected his bag and turned his attention back to you.

"I'd love to talk longer, but I must go now. I believe you have an exam to prepare for. Best begin your revision now, I hope our brief conversation has helped to quell your worries."

...and you mumbled that part about yourself too. It's pretty safe to assume he heard all your thoughts.

Yves extended a manicured hand to you. Taking this as a clear request for a handshake, you accepted it.

Only for him to bring it up to his lips, tenderly and fleetingly kissing your knuckles. This entire time, his piercing gaze never left your eyes.

You wanted to claw yourself out of your flesh and die out of embarrassment.

"Study well."

He lets your hand down and presses it momentarily with his larger ones.

You watched him saunter away with his back turned against you.

You brought the back of your palm to your sight.

There is a faint, reddish tint on it. It must have been from his lipstick.

You're not sure if you ever want to wash your hand after this.

[mdhwrites]

In your opinion does "The Owl House" have any re-watch value? Does the story, characters, characterization, writing, etc. hold up over repeated viewings or is the show played out after the first time through the series?

So I want to acknowledge that this is actually an awkward question. Not with how you phrased it or anything just... Period? Because whether something is rewatchable will mostly come down to personal taste and enjoyment. Some people find Horror movies to be great fun to rewatch while others may not see the point because you already know all the scare moments or answers to creeping dread. Some might find action movies exciting to rewatch while others need the novelty of a first rewatch. As such, my answer is very much so is going to be biased by the fact that I ended up not liking the show.

But... I broke essentially on rewatch in a way. A lot of people have shattered on TOH essentially from having to reconcile what it says versus what it does. A lot of this because TOH constantly kicks payoffs down the line and hints at potential it will reach. It is constantly making the journey suffer for the promise of a grand finale. And, well... A lot of people have agreed that the shortening did not force their hand to break multiple themes in the finale, or take Amity's character or a bunch of other things that bloated the series and never got a proper payoff, such as the Collector.

This format of TOH I think is actually what makes it so hard to rewatch unless you are the ultimate fan of it who will notice nothing. S1 is labeled as boring, a complaint I even agree with as someone who mostly likes S1 still. It spends the most time setting up plot lines though in episodes that are a pretty safe seven out of ten, or worse. Amity episodes can escape this problem decently often, being fun in their own right, but that's why the fandom only acts like half, at best, of S1 even exists. Most of it is easily forgotten because it's very forgettable. Not like in a S1 of Amphibia way where it's all so much fun but also so much of it that they can blur and be hard to separate but just in a "I just wasted 20 minutes of my life watching an okay kids cartoon" way. The only thing that helped those episodes not feel that way was this idea that it was building towards something with these characters.

And... After the shock of things like the Lumity Kiss being real, I don't think S2 holds up for being the majority of those payoffs. Amity and Willow? One of the most explicitly kicked cans? Seen interacting on the same side before either addresses the "We're not friends' thing because of Eclipse Lake, so that's pre-shortening and they still didn't decide to address and then address it badly. Luz's magic is wrapped in a plotline she's not a part of and has no real reaction to even. It's just "Oh, we're just making bullshit up now instead of finding glyphs? K." Amity's parents are wrapped up, in the same episode, early S2, in a very similar way where Amity is barely a part of that episode but now her core angst and excuse for being a bad person? Dealt with and out of the way, at least until they randomly decide to try and say Alador TOOOOOTALLY wasn't a bad guy. That he hated Odalia too. Totally doesn't contradict literally everything that came before, something that would be much more sharply noticed on a binge rewatch. Like... It cannot be understated that by the point most plot threads in TOH wrap up, they were introduced and left to rot for so long that half the time, the fandom was starting to get UPSET during the runtime for the lack of any exploration or conclusion. Long hiatuses didn't help but at its core, even when it was running people were wondering when we would get satisfying answers to thing and rarely were they happy about it.

I think this is a core part of why ONLY the shipping community seems to have clung to TOH. That or people who are exploring the show's missed potential with characters like Belos or the Blights. The fandom has had to either commit to the one thing TOH did do well, its shipping (that comes with so many fucking asterisks) and its potential baiting. But the latter also means you have to recognize why it failed in the process of doing your exploration of the work.

So will some people enjoy rewatching it? Of course. There are people who probably like rewatching the AtLA movie though because the die hards are die hards. Do I think from a casual perspective you get much out of rewatching a random episode, let alone binging the series again?

No. I just think disappointment that the main series will leave you, which will eventually no longer be tempered by the reputation of it having been shortened, will only get worse. It is not a tale worth seeing again, so I hope I see you in the next one.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

Week 1-4: Yandere Apocalypse - Uvil Penz

Original Post

Getting to meet everyone was nice and all but it’s entirely different from living with them

When it comes to sleeping arrangements the Penz brother’s each had their own rooms

Naturally Marco was sharing with Aria

Willaim with Simpson 

Leaving Uvil who speedily offered to room with you

“If you wouldn’t mind (Y/n), maybe you should stay with me.”

Of course Henrietta and Grant would have a problem with this

Both of them whining about the other as you let Uvil usher you away from the living room

“C’mon don’t leave me with this crazy broad!”

“Nooo! But (Y/n) reminds me the most of my baby! I need to sleep with them! THIS IS SO UNFAIR-”

With the clicks of multiple locks he decides you both are ready to turn in for the night

“Just for safety. After all you don’t really know these…strangers yet.”

“Uh thanks.”

You try to ignore the fact you don’t really know him either

But with a sporadically themed bedroom with two beds and a full bathroom, you’re not complaining

Because of your closeness with one another it’s natural as tiredness tugs at your eyes that you confide in him

“I for one, am glad you survived. I’m sorry for the emptyiness you feel but I think you’ve filled something for all of us…especially me.”

It’s nice when he says sweet things to you

And when he leads the group with grace

Or when he makes a fair meal plan for everyone to follow with the refrigerated and canned rations

…it just gets weird when he so easily adapts to the invasive demands of the group

Siphoning your time like some prized toy

“(Y/n) will not be drinking from you for at least another day…your behavior with the food rations is to blame.”

“THAT IS SO UNFAIR!WAAAAHHH!”

“Ha weird idiot, instead they’ll have to endure my ultimate smackdown…in the gaming room.”

“No to you too little brother.”

“What?! What did I do!?”

“Marco says you made Aria cry and he refused to operate the drones we have outside because of that. Thus you’ve lost your (Y/n)-privileges.”

“That’s….so unfair...”

Of course he doesn’t bother to ask you at all despite how polite he is pretends to be

But he has no problem intertwining his hand with yours while he goes around the bunker taking inventory

Or encouraging you to watch movies while cuddled up beside him

Its not so bad

It’s a great way to get used to the bunker life 

With Uvil’s guidance you’ll start to get used to this new way of life

And by the end of the 2nd week you’re starting to find your way on your own

But Uvil will never let that happen

Still hovering around you and monitoring your time despite your independence

“Space? (Y/n) you’re my dearest bunker-mate, of course I worry about you.”

It’s annoying but he’s far from the worst person in the bunker

Unbeknownst to you, Uvil’s only the best at hiding his obsession with you

When he’s not by your side he’s watching the cameras intensely for everyone’s movements

3 monitors dedicated to you 

What camera room?

The camera room only the Penz brothers seem to know about and none of them will confess

Not only being your most devoted watcher he’s the only one free enough to suffocate on the sheets you slept in 

To touch keep the dirty laundry you share with him

Or the access he gets to your journal entries 

But the best thing of all is the closeness he’s granted as your first real friend

“(Y/n) would you like a massage while we watch a horror movie? I know you’ve been feeling tense lately and I want nothing more than to help you relieve that.”

He knows a month is all he’ll get away with

Before the others start to riot

But this will be enough…for now

“I’m going to miss you (Y/n)...but it’s a small cycle. You’ll be back with me before you notice. And you’ll always find a safe space in my bed room.”

[homestuckreplay]

when your friends don't invite you to the matching username party :(

Now that we've seen all of John's friends talk at least a little bit, I wanted to deep dive into their usernames, and see what they might be able to tell us about the characters we don't know yet. For sure I've seen some weird usernames in my time on sites like MSN Messenger, but these seem especially weird, and not like words most kids would use.

There's also a weird pattern - all three of John's friends only use words beginning with T and G in their screen names. We have TT, TG and GG, so if they were doing a bit together we'd expect John to be GT, but instead he's EB - not even close. Could this be a sign that he feels disconnected from the friend group, not fully part of things, doubting that they want him around? Is it possible that the other three are all each other's 'real life' friends while John only talks to them online? Did John not want to be GT, or did nobody ever tell him there was a theme? Was he GT before, but then got mad at his friends one day and change it to spite them? Or is there another GT we have yet to meet?

Discussion of all four known chumhandles under the cut - only ~1k words :)

ectoBiologist - As discussed in my in depth John thoughts, the strict definition of this is 'someone who studies outside/external biology', which could relate to a huge variety of very niche fields - but, knowing John, almost certainly refers to the biology of ectoplasm, slime, and ghosts, a field which doesn't exist in reality but which John might consider himself a pioneer of.

As a sidenote, if John was GT, he might go in a different direction with his username. We know from TT that John regularly wears disguises while talking to her / interacting with his dad / just in daily life, and that he's into comedy and pranks (NOT clowns). Reflecting those, I came up with guisecladTrouper as a chumhandle that would fit the modifierTypeofguy pattern, as well as the letters. If anyone has any other GT ideas for John, I'd love to hear them!

turntechGodhead - TurnTech is a Chinese company founded in 2001 that makes scientific and educational software. This probably isn't the reference, but you never know; this kid could be really into science, happen to own a piece of software from this company, and have liked the word. I also think it could be short for 'turntable technology', which can be a few different hobbies - records/DJing, railroads, or sculpture/ceramics/metalwork. DJing fits his vibe but I think it'd be so cool if he was a train guy. 'Turn' relates to shaping or forming as well as changing direction, so he could be someone who develops his own technology.

This also fits really well with 'godhead', which is the true or essential nature of God in several major world religions. So this could be a suggestion of a guy with delusions of grandeur and a massively inflated ego, or, it could be someone who takes on the role of a god himself - some kind of creator. I really think this kid is going to be into invention, metalworking, and engineering. Built his own computer from scratch type of guy. I bet he owns a soldering iron and uses it for fun.

tentacleTherapist - Lots of living things have tentacles, including snails, squid, jellyfish, coral, moss animals, caecilians, the star-nosed mole, some carnivorous plants, Squidward, and mind flayers. Tentacles are generally associated with sea creatures, horror media, or both. Therapist, meanwhile, is a person who helps to heal someone's physical or psychological problems. The words sound really good when said together, but don't have an obvious link.

One idea is that she's someone who either lives near water or owns weird pets - a tank of snails or jellyfish seems reasonable - perhaps caring for or rehabilitating them from the wild. But the idea of her being into cosmic horror creates a fascinating parallel between her username and John's. John is a biologist; he studies, analyzes and understands academically, while TT is a therapist; she rehabilitates and understands emotionally. John works with ghosts and slime, while TT works with aliens and deep sea horror. It's delightful to me that they might have bonded by nerding out over paranormal lore, an interest probably neither of them shares with many people around them.

gardenGnostic - I keep reading this as a shortening of 'common or garden gnostic' as in 'your average, everyday gnostic' which, out of all the four usernames, might be the wildest one for a 13 year old to be. Much like 'godhead', 'gnostic' carries a very strong religious theme, especially with the capital letter - I know it's the syntax, but the words could be this way round for a reason. I'm definitely going to do some background reading on Gnosticism as we get to know this character to see how well it fits.

The first word could also be referencing the Garden of Eden, the original sin and the tree of knowledge; the combination indicating a character with a drive for spiritual knowledge and self-understanding above all else. In a more literal sense, I'm imagining someone who spends a lot of time outdoors and who would think nothing of a few injuries from the Slimer pogo ride in the yard. This chumhandle is also only a few letters away from 'garden gnome', which makes me think of someone who enjoys the ornamental, decorative, and whimsical.

Just as John and TT's usernames are a pair with similar themes, TG and GG's handles also match up. (Sidenote: does this mean these are the pairs of 'best friends'? Feels weird considering TT is the only one of the three who didn't wish John a happy birthday). Both TG and GG have chumhandles strongly related to religion, creation, and origins, with TG representing the mechanical and technical side of things, and GG representing the natural and environmental side.

So, that's our four chums! The most interesting thing to me is how well these pairs of usernames work together, despite John being outside of the letter pattern. Both these things feel very intentional and not like I'm reaching; they definitely mean Something in the themes, but it's too soon to say what. I'm so impatient to see more of these characters and learn anything concrete about them at all.

If you've made it this far, here's a quick poll!

[popculturebuffet]

Here Comes Garfield: The Garfield Movie Review!: Colossal, Stupdendous one might go as far to say.. Mediocre (Patreon Review for Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to here comes garfield, my look at all the garfield specials and now his film career. Which I realize now means I probably have to do Garfield The Movie At Some Point... and... Tale of Two Kittles.. and Pet Force...

That exesntial horror aside, today that means we're looking at the recently released Garfield Movie. The Garfield Movie comes to us from Columbia Pictures, which Sony will never let you forget is 100 years old and they own every year of that now with the 100 years logo they plopped in front of this and Ghostbusters: It Was Meh.

The film has gotten the predictably mixed reactions from a less ambitious kids film: Kids clearly love it, my own niece and nephew included, Critics loathe it and a lot of people who saw it ironically gave it one star on Letterboxd. In other words it'll likely get at least one more sequel and possibly a streaming spinoff on whoever pulls the biggest dumptruck of money up to sony's house.

So let's dig into this film: Why it's such an easy target, how good it really is, what dosen't work, and what delicoius layers it has.

The Chris Pratt Problem

Before we get into the movie, let's get into WHY it became such an easy target. And the first and biggest reason is the simplist: who they choose to play the fat cat the cool cat the nobody's fool cat: Mr Chris Pratt

Chris Pratt's casting became a meme quickly and it's understandable why: Not only was this on the heels of his questionable (if ultimately decent enough) casting in Mario but both castings felt.. Lazy. Like an exec googled "Celebreity Man" and went with the most afforadable option. Pratt isn't a bad actor. As a person... I didn't have the bandwith to full research that and shift out the genuinely douchey actions from the internet herasy. Seems like he might be bit of a dick, can't prove it. But as an actor he can be good: he was great on parks and rec, in the lego movie and in the guardians trilogy. The probelm is like a lot of actors, once he got famous, he started becoming the best imintation of himself: most of his parts like jurassic world tend to just be him doing what people now expect to be Chris Pratt TM performances. For instance Star Lord.. is a fleshed out hot mess of a character, with some depth and some genuinely emotional moments despite often being the butt of a joke. The Guy From Jurassic World.. is just that without the depth or any real character beyond "Raptor Pal who wants to bang Bryce Dallas Howard". It's not all his parts, the bullk is still good, but he's sliding very comfortably into not giving a shit if he dosen't have to and it's not a good look. I love Ryan Renolds but he can also be like that, and his better roles are when he dosen't like Deadpool. For as big a thing as it's become and as much money as he's making you can tell he's making the third one not because it'll make him even richer, but because he loves the part.

With both of these rolls it feels like Chris signed on because

He DOES give it a decent try, being pretty good as mario and alright as Garfield, but it's easy to see why there isn't a ton of enthusasim. When Ben Schwartz got Sonic the Hedgehog he was fukcing pumped, brought it and really sunk into the role. He's easily one of the Blue Blur's best voice actors and you can tell he loves the franchise. I'm not saying you have to love a franchise going into a part.. but it dosen't feel like Chris Pratt really put his soul into it and as corprate as Mario and Garfield are, these are characters with life to them. I'm not saying you can't do a good roll for a paycheck, see Orson Wells as Unicron, but fans aren't going to give you a lot of room if you don't seem to give a shit you got such a big part that is important to them.

I don't think Pratt sinks the film.. but he was far from the best choice. The best choice, in my opinon.. would've been nick offerman. He's a big comedy name, has a lot of talent, has done plenty of voice acting, currently headlining fox's best show The Great North, and has that low sarcastic voice that can be used for a bunch of diffrent moods. Jason Mantzokus is a close second choice as his gravly ness fits garfield and he can both be earnestly sarcastic AND energetic, both things garfield needs. I know the latter is ironic but the guy is emotive when necessary. But putting aside my choices he just feels like he's doing "Chris Pratt". He's good ENOUGH, but the film could've found better and has such a standout cast, including another possible choice in Brett Goldstein, that he sticks out as the guy whose just kinda.. there.. and he's in the lead roll. he's not bad and gets some great deliveries in places, but he's servicable. It's a hard roll to nail, for me only Lorenzo Music and Bill Murray have truly got it, with Frank Welker trying his best but just not quite nailing it. There's a reason there was a bit of a gap before Welker took up the roll: Music is a hard mountain to climb, Murray happens to just exude slacker energy it's not easy. But they could've tried HARDER instead of going with "well generic hollywood guy will sell tickets"

Garfield Sells Out

The next issue is one I can cover pretty quickly:

The Garfield Movie has gotten flack for it's various bits of product placement: Garfield eats POPChips, there's Olive Garden leftovers in the fridge, and his dad orders things from Wall Mart. There's also possible FexEx and Tinder advertisment I missed I found looking at articles or two and credit to the daily best for the first and reddit for the second. There are adds for big corportaions in this film and while that's not NEW , until a discussion with my friend Emma I hadn't realized how much the MCU advertizes (And just for clarity I love a lot of the mcu and Emma is neutral), it is wince inducing in a film primarily aimed at kids. It works decently for adults (raises hand), but I get the target demo and while they get advertised to plenty, it's still scummy to cram this into the movie itself.

I have nothing against the food tie ins: Stouffers doing one for their lasanga is too sensical not to do, as is having olive garden make a cameo in the film itself, Tastykae's garfield cake was adorablea nd delicious, and popchips, while certainly not the kind of greasy snack garfield would gravitate too, are the kind of casual snack food I could see him at least trying... or more accurately Jon buys them, Garfield eats everything else because he assumes like many boomers "Healthy=bad" and finds out he was wrong and orders more. It's still mildly manipulative, but it's nothing new: Kids get sold food to them all the time.

That being said.. it's still fucked up how much product placement is in the film, even if it's spread out well and while I do wish we'd stop getting SO MANY ARTICLES on it included Cracked claming the drones in the film are Sony trying to get kids to accept drones more

I get the impulse: We want to protect children and while I was originally going to be more critical of this, the more I thought about it the more scummy it felt. The Product Placement isn't to say add a layer of authentiity by using a real brand or because it's fun, it's just.. so cheap and blatant. It's just whatever brand wanted that garfield money. The film does HAVE food at the center: Garfield meets John in an itallian restraunt and has to pull a milk heist and neither place is a real life brand.. which begs the question why all the others were flavor blasted in there. There's no real need to shill and the movie would've been fine doing tie ins out of universe. I get we live in a corprate hellscape but you don't HAVE to advertise to chidlren and their parents and to sad middle aged men like me. You can just.. make a movie. Let that be the "product" if your that cynical. All you did to the brands involved is remind people "Oh yeah they sold out in that one movie". Well with Olive Garden if your sonic you also make me go to it .. or this film... but Olive Garden is delicious.

So onto the third major problem had with the film

We've Been Here Before

The third is something I can agree with: the plot is stock as hell. While the film has good points i'll get to, the basic plot is one seen in dozens of other animated films. A hero is thrown out of a lot in life their either happy with or tell themselves they are, but are thrown into a CRAZY adventure by circumstance that they must go on to get that life back while learning something along the way. To prove HOW common this is I decided to go through my film list on Letterboxd and put all of the animated ones I found that adhere to this formula into one image. It wasn't nearly as many as I expected.. but I still found about 40 diffrent films with this formula in some way

And please note this formula in of itself.. isn't a bad one. A lot of great films are made on this premise. To prove this let me take out the films I don't like from this grid

Your still left with a ton of stone cold classics. You'll also notice the breakdown for the original is 1/8th garfield. The first three specials, the first bill murray film and the second dtv film really do all fall into this formula somehow.

The key is that the formula isn't inherently bad: All these films start with the protagonists comfortable or about ot be and whisked into danger but they all go in such diffrent directions. Heartwarming child bonding comedies, a meditation on jealousy and our own realities, betting a black man's freedom in a way that the producers had to know was fucked up, space dolphin played by matt berry, everyone has their own way.

This film... dosen't do anything NEW with it: The film just stacks other animation tropes and cliches on top: you have our hero whose spoiled by what he has, has issues with his parents, has to go on an adventure adressing those issues, deals with a theatrical yet intimidating main villian and their two dumb and sympathetic henchman, gets training from a mentor with a tragic backstory to do a heist, the heist goes bad, the relatoinship that got built up over th efilm is semeingly shattered but OH NO IT WAS A MISUNDERSTANDING and the climax happens cumulating in everyone being one big happy family.

I could do the grid thing with practically every trope in this movie and it just kinda plays the hits. It reminds me of the Super Mario Movie last year: I liked that one too, but it's mostly carried by the visual spectacle, seeing the creators meticuously turn mario's patchwork world into a living breathing place, to see a giant version of dk island, to see Bowser's Kingdom in all it's glory. It's still a decent film, but it uses a pretty stock framework to do it because either the execs wanted that or the creators didn't feel they had the room to really push it. I could see the same problem here as you have Sony, Viacom and various sponsors Sony wants shoved in all wanting a say. This dosen't feel like say Across the Spider-Verse (Same parent companY) or Nimona (Same production company) where they had more freedom, so they just went with a formula that worked for other movies and worked for garfield before. The question is does that formula ruin the movie? Is there enough to still make it enjoyable despite being stock as hell?

Yes

The film is still pretty damn fun and feels like a welcome return to the character after being gone in other media for almost a decade. As Quinton Reviews pointed out in his review of this film, the Garfield Show ended in 2016. It's been a WHILE since the orange tabby's been animated, with his only apperances otherwise being in video games, showing up in Lasanga Party, Garfield Kart and being a guest racer in Nicktoons Kart Racers 3 and a fighter in both all star brawl games, all welcome as it's just.. fun to play as garfield. Does he have any real connection to nickelodeon besides them owning the property now? Nope. Is it fun to have him anyways? hell yeah. Have him hit the avatar with a pie, either one!

The strip still exists but like many aging comic strips it's clamped to it's formula. I've been reading it daily for a few months now and while there are occasional gems

It's mostly the same stuff. You can find better jokes by buying the first few three in ones. It's not nearly as bad as some other legacy strips, seriously why is Blondie still around, but it sticks out in an age where more cartoons like Heart of the City or Nancy are allowing someone to flat out reboot the strip and try something different.

With a movie you have that blank slate to do whatever and while it does a standard animated movie TM with it to a point, the film does try some neat stuff I can't help but admire.

The biggest point is the animation. DNEG did the animation here and went above and beyond the call. I love their designs, combinging modern garfield with some of the classic garfield heft and proportions: his limbs are still super skinny, but they aren't as gangly as they are in the strip, feeling more in line with his body and the head resembles the one from the early 80's more. The eyes are also without a line, which seems like a small detail but ups the expressivness, something key to garfield as "funny facial expressions" are one of Garfield's best bits.

Slapstick is where this franchise thrives and the film mostly does this well. I wish there were more, but it has some fun visual gags: while it was trailered to hell and back, the fluffy fur gag is pretty funny. All the gags with Roland, big bad Jinx's muscle played by Roy Bloody Kent himself Brett Goldstein has a lot of fun gags: How this wall of folds and muscle just.. will show up any time Garfield tries to leave, disappearing behind a sign and pulling a cell phone out of his folds his boss refuses to touch. It's not a ton, but it's a lot of fun and while he must've been a nightmare to animate, so, many, FOLDS, it results in a character that's just inherently funny to see walk around and Goldstein's gruff voice just adds to it.

There's other great btis like Garfield and Vic stuck to a tree and using the vines to beat the hell out of each other, garfield getting smacked into a car windsheild and more.

The animation is just gorgeously expressive: the non garfield cast may be somewhat stock but damn are they fun to watch and the main trio (and Liz and Nermal in very brief cameos) are at their best. IT's fun to look at, visually gorgeous and easily the best part of the film: the film may not remotely stack up to some of the masterpieces we've gotten, nor does it try to, but it does look great while having a lot of fun doing it.

Since we're talking character let's look at our cast and starting at the top Billing we have Garfield himself. Like I said Chris Pratt does.. fine. Would've preferred Nick Offerman, gold star to whoever brought that up, but he dosen't ruin the character and is still dryly sarcastic enough.

Characterization wise he's a tad diffrent: He's not nearly as much of a dick to Jon and Odie, something CellSpex pointed out in their own review might be corprate not wanting Garfield to be as dickish and thus less markketable. While I do think that's the case, I also think they threaded the needle well: Garfield is still a massive douchey orange blob to them, but it's in less over the top ways: him pummeling john or punting Odie siimply dosen't play as well, so instead he maxes out John's credit cards and Odie is essentially his butler. The former isn't super funny, but is fitting enough, and it's telling Jon, pushover he's always been, dosen't really push back against it, while having Odie instead be his hyper compentetn sidekick works. It could've backfired, turning Odie into something like say the minons that say s"please merchandise me", but instead it gives Garfield a foil, someone to make passive agressive dog noises or leave him tied to his dad on a tree. Odie is still dumb, but having him be garfield's slightly more emotoinally sasvy and competient sidekick still works well and gives him more than just "ain't he dumb" as a joke for a 90 minute runtime.

Jon is done incredibly well here but I wish there was more of him. This seems to be the sentiment across most reviews, and I can't blame my fellow critics on this one: Nicholas Hoult equals Thom Huge at the part, and like Garfield it's not easy. But it works by doing it a diffrent way: Thom had a dry sarcasm to his john that contrasted nicely with his manic dorky side, while Nicholas Hoult just leans into John as a loveable mess and it works. His panic as he tries to reign in a kitten garfield from eating an entire itallian restraunt, resignment as he washes the cat, and general bafflement at his pet fits the character like a glove.

Sadly the plot.. really dose't leave much room for Jon. It's understandable: Even if his mouth now moves, Jon can't undrestand garfield and the film outlines this, with an app specifically to translate animals being needed and only being known to exist by an unhinged security guard. It still would've been fun to give him more of a b plot looking for his pets, maybe rope in liz or irma from the diner as side characters.

What B-Plot we do get though.. is easily the best joke of the film. Jon is left on hold by a lost pet hotline for SEVERAL DAYS growing more hilariously deshevleed along the way. There is nothing more jon arbuckle than the world pantsing him while he's down and his deranged rant to the guard at the pound when he picks up the boys that "I'm done waiting! The Jon who is waiting is dead!" is fucking great, as is his bafflement when the boys run out on him after getting home to go save Garfield's dad, and his wondering if he triggered garfield when Garfield runs out to bring his dad home at the end. Hoult plays a perfectly pathetic jon, the relatable doofus we all know and love and I hope any future projects both bring him on board and give him more to do. The man is brillaint

Likewise Harvey Gullien is great as Odie. He has to commuincate using barely intellgible dog sounds, and of course great visuals from DNEG, but does so well. The man's voice acting career is a slow burn but man should he do more. He was great in Puss in Boots, is aces here and should be in most animated films from here on out. If Sony needs an Alan Tudyk, they've got one.

Onto supporting we have Garfield's Father, Vic, played by Samuel L Jackson. Vic is a big kitty who left garfield behind as a kitten and whose past crimes force his son into a heist wtih him. Look like Keith David I could listen to Sam Jack all day, easy. He has a talent for being awesome no matter the movie and no matter how much he's just in it for a paycheck. He's playing a fairly stock "ex con dad" type character who wonders into his child's life and tries to reconcile, but he has so much fun with it it's hard to really notice and the design, a big giant muscly blob, works well as a contrast to garfield: both are big soft boys, but Vic clearly lifts.

The plot between the two is cliche, I won't lie.. son is bitter his father left but DADDY HAD A GOOD REASON FOR ABANDONING YOU and if done wrong can have some bad implications. If a parent left you and is a dick, you have no obligation to them. Even if their not you don't really.

The twist that Vic didn't MEAN to abandon garfield was obvious from a mile away: even seeing the trailer it was clear he probably wasn't the asshole Garfield thought he was. But to the film's credit they don't hide that it's more complicated: from the get go Vic TRIES to explain he left, but Garfield's both understandably pissed he said he'd "be right back" and never came back and that Vic's old partner Jinx is forcing garfield into the film's heist simply to fuck with vic. It's also the right push to get Garfield into the plot: i've seen complaints about how "oh this big heist film isn't garfield he just lies around the house".. .but a key element of most of the specials and the other movies is garfield kinda gets.. shoved into adventure. Here Come Garfield happens because the next door neighbor has the pound come and Odie's too stupid to run for it. He tries to ignore his friend being lost, and tries to tell Jon who naturally dosen't get his charades, but ultimately goes to save him. The key to getting garfield into an adventure is to push him into it: either he has an emotoinal investment or , like in this case, he really has no choice, like that time he fought a panther to protect Jon. You CAN get plenty of good slice of life nonsense out of the boy but i get that for a specail or movie you have to kick it up a notch and having Garfield forced into a life of crime fits well.

It's a bit fucking weird, but again so is garfield. It's something people tend to forget or don't really care to look up and that came up in a lot of reviews, but the specials could get werid. Garfield was on a talent show, went through 9 very diffrent very fucking weird lives, was a private eye, had a whole spy pastiche adventure in his daydreams, went to hawaii to stop a volcano with the help of Fonzie's ghost.. or was it james dean's ghost? it was someone's ghost, and of course met ghost pirates. Not every adventure was fucking insane, but it bears repeating sometimes the strip or specials or especially the show got weird, and that's alright. Frankly the films could go weirder and less stock, but this really isn't out of his wheelhouse. Like with Scooby Doo maybe research a franchise before you bitch about it. not saying everything's gold, lord no, but I am saying the franchise is way more experimental than it gets credit for.

The twist on WHY vic left though.. is heartbreaking. This ties back to the opening which you can see most of in a trailer: vic abandons his son, Jon finds baby garfield outside the window while he's having a sad single man meal at an itallian restraunt, Garfield eats everything in sight and Jon still adores his pet. The only part left out is Jon almost leaves Garfield behind, as his apparement dosen't allow pets.. but goes back. Why they added this.. I don't know.. but their origin is truly hearwarming and may be another reason why they toned down the asshole to Garfield being less of an abusive roomate and more Jon's spoiled teenage son.

Naturally though we didn't see VIC'S side: he went to steal some food for his son, had to wait for the worker's long as hell phone call becaues some dick won't feed a stray cat. I mean I get they come back but counter argument: who cares. As long as you don't invite a roving pack of cats, help the starving kitty you ass. At any rate by the time vic got back with half a fish, his son was gone and he watched the whole scene at the itallian restraunt.. and then watched Jon come back, realizing Jon gave his son a better life. He gave his son up so he could. As for why he never visted it's the painful but truthful worry of ruining his son's new life: vic's a career heist man, an alley cat and garfield was comfortable. The sad irony is garfield.. woudl've welcomed his dad in. Jon being Jon would've gladly adopted him. Garfield wanted both HIS dads. Vic instead watched from a nearbye tree, a revelation garfield only gets in the pound after Vic fakes a double cross... when really he knows Jinx will NEVER let garfield free of her grasp and thus returns the milk from the heist himself. Naturally garfield realizes this, gets a drone fleet to help him rescue his dad along with the bull they befriended earlier, and saves the day.. and Vic still plans to leave but ultiamtely garfield convinces him to stay. Is it a tad cliche? Sure. Did it still knock my fucking heart out? yes.

Outside of this emotoinal arc, Vic is a lot like his son, but more active, having more world skills... and it's not really played up. Vic's emotinal arc is well done but outside of it he dosen't have much charater. Only the fact he's played by sam Jack really lets him be a character. He's not BAD but I wish they'd fleshed him out more outside of his tragic backstory. It moves me.. but there's not much else to the guy.

Onto our bad guys, and Jinx, our main villian is a delight. She has a decent motive too: She was once a would be show cat, but choked on stage, genuinely found family with Vic.. and turned vengeful when he left her behind on a job, her hate twisting her into the operatic selfish tyrant we see today with her two henchman Roland, the foldy brett goldstein boy I mentioned before and Rupert, his twitchy partner played by SNL and Fire Island's Bowen Yang. Roland is great mostly due to the expressive animation and Goldstein's deadpan delivery. Youc an almost feel rupert about to threaten

Good times. yang.. gets less to do. Roland is just kinda there because they felt they HAD to have a pair of henchman and coudln't have just one big british foldy boy. It's also weird to me they didn't go with another ted lasso cast member. There's tons of options and if you already got the big bad and one of her henchman from there commit to the bit. The show's lined with talent.

Speaking of which Jinx is voiced by Hannah Waddingham, who like Goldstein was a dream on Ted Lasso. She also was recently in the fall guy which you should watch. Seriously .. go.. go do that. It's fucking incredible. At any rate she makes the most of the role hamming it up to all hell, giving Jinx a nice manical quality. Jinx isn't given a ton of layers outside of her backstory, but is hilarous enoguh with her big fluffy persian cat presensce, general evil dickery and awesome villian song that for some weird reason wasn't actually put in the film proper but makes the credits a joy to sit through, she's a LOT of fun and you can tell Waddingham is knawing on the scenery in the recording booth and loving it. I like her getting to flex her range post-ted lasso, already terrific as Rebecca but now getting to play a nice variety of parts. Jinx wouldn't be the same without Waddingham and the casting was perfect

Our penultimate major character is Otto. Otto is a bull and garfield's grumpy mentor with a tragic backstory because everyone has a tragic backstory in this movie except Odie and that's because they cut the scene of Lyman getting shot to death in the falkland's war. He's a bull who was part of the farm Garfield has to heist with is daddy guy, and was removed from it because the new owners are dicks, desperate to get back his one true love Ethel. He's played by Ving Rahmes, who does a great job and the character honestly isn't bad, it's just.. weridly sandwitched into this movie. A ways in and we suddenly get this guy who should be leading this whole other movie. The heist itself fits decently enough, but this whole tragic past, his history with the guard Margie, it feels like a whole other film that Garfield and Friends just wondered into.

Otto is fun to watch, his serious as hell tone contrasting with things like assinging Garfield roadkill or his deadpan assement that Garfield and Vic are going to die and are only ready because they'd need a month and have a day. He's not bad, he' sjust a bit undercooked> he does get his happy ending with Ethel back, so tha'ts nice, it just feels like another character in a cast that probably didn't need one more guy.

Finally we have Marge, the security guard played by Schmigadoon! star Cecily Strong. Strong fucking brings it to marge, who could easily just be this obstacle of a villian but instead is this super obessed guard who has a score to settle with vic, instantly recognizes that jinx calling to set vic up (And hilariously it just being Hannah Waddingham saying meow a lot), is a cat informing on someone, and has this unhinged energy the film needs and that fits garfield like a glove. Garfield is all about unhinged weirdos wondering into his life in other media. She provides a jolt of energy for the heist section and a nice way to payoff things later as she trades the truck for ethel and takes in Roland and Rupert while taking Jinx to the pound.. or to an unmarked grave. Marge.. is hard to read. I just love her though, having this werido who understand this elaborate animal plot somehow. Beauitful.

We also have a few smaller roll: Snoop Dogg plays a cat

Dev Joshi plays Liz for all of 5 seconds, and for some reason Jeff Foxworthy plays a bird for even less time.

The cast overall is decent, if a bit overstuffed, but iwth good enough performances to make you not care.

Before we move on a complaint i've seen here or there is that they don't really use garfield's supporting cast. I agree on Jon, Nicholas Hoult was too damn good to use that little, but for the rest of the cast.. I get it. None of them really fit into the narrative that well: Arlene, The Meanest Dog in the World, Nermal might of fit as members of the heist crew, it woudl've been intresting to see them gather one, but otherwise Jon's Parents, who I dearly love, don't quite fit (It'd be fucking werid to have garfield rob people he knows instead of a souless corperation0, Irma has no real place and Lyman got shot to death in the falkland islands. Other than their neighbors who used to show up, Garfield has no other recurring characters to use. it WOULD have been neat to use the US Acres cast for the heist, again could've gone full ocean's elven, but I get not adding even MORE characters to a crowded film, and possibly saving them for another movie down the line. Again Garfield dosen't have a big bench to pull from: if you have that full a cast that can stand on it's own and possibly anchor their own film, I can't blame the mfor saving them. Same for Arelen and Nermal Garfield falling in love or having to deal with his greatest enemy are both things that could anchor a sequel.

The Big Fat Hairy Conclusoin

So overall the Garfield Movie is.. fine. It's nothing exceptional, but it has a LOT of fun energy to it and out of the films i've seen i'ts easily the best.. and frankly I doubt Tale of Two Kitties or Pet Force is better. The film does have way too much advertising, a stock plot and way more characters than it needs.. but it compesates by mostly nailing the characters from the comic, having some of the guest characters be intresting, and when they aren't all parties involved are buffered by talented voice acting and gorgeous animation. This film is okay, and if you don't like Garfield, you probably won't like this film. If you like some goofy animation and some schmaltz though, you'll likely enjoy this one like I did. It's not perfect by a mile, but it adapts the strip's tone and style well, adds some florishes here and there, and leaves the door open for more. And frankly with it's success it gives me hope that other comic strips might get adaptations. After Paramount's treament of Phoebe and her Unicorn and Big Nate, we could use somre more comic strip movies with this level of animation, and maybe some more depth. I'd love to see films for more recent strips like Phoebe and her Unicorn, Wallace the Brave or Breaking Cat News that have both intresting casts to tap into and unique art styles that would look gorgeous on screen. I'd love to see some older strips get a new spin as well like Baldo or Zits, ones with a formula sure but a lot of visual flair. With this and the peanuts movie, we're hopefully seeing more comic strip adaptations and unlike last time this could be something good instead of CGI monsters from beyond the farthest star.

So I leave this film with an "I'ts alright you might like it" and the number two spot in my rankings of the specails i've covered

Next Time (Hopefully): It's Christmas in July so that Means it's time for us to get down on the farm with Jon's family for some musical numbers, home cooking and elaborate back scratcher b plots.

[bonefall]

Briarlights death makes sense to me. As much as I love her character, the movement technology you’ve come up with wouldn’t be enough to keep her alive in a society where her nether regions are constantly exposed to the outdoors. She would get UTIs and kidney infections very quickly, which would be fatal when you can’t feel pain. My partner has to use catheters to avoid them (he is paralyzed in the same spot Briarlight would be.)

I think it’s disingenuous to have a character that’s paralyzed but have no other health problems or concerns regarding it, even if it’s uncomfortable to think about for some readers. It’s just as ableist to minimize the additional struggles she’d face as it is to kill her off unnecessarily.

Not accusing you of ableism, but expressing my concern. They’d need to find a way for her to poop and pee in a way that’s sanitary and a way to combat infections long term - even if the thought is “gross” to some people it’s the reality she’d have to live with. She should, at the very least, remain immunocompromised.

That is a valid concern. I will keep this in mind-- I'll make sure to note her immediately being cleared out of camp at the first sign of sniffles to avoid it. My cats can do some very minor building and there are now several cats on Jayfeather's Garden Patrol, it wouldn't be too much of a problem to make that area into a comfortable "satellite camp".

I do want to add though that my most important guiding principle is a stronger narrative which includes better portrayals of disabled characters, not perfect rugged woodsman realism. The medicine I add and the guides I write are in the hopes of better representing the lives of the real-life people who see themselves in the fantasy battle cats.

Realism does factor into that of course! But it goes out the door the minute it would smash up against a disabled character's inclusion. This is a series for human beings like your partner; as close to it as I can get by bending the setting when needed.

For example, Epilepsy

Epilepsy was deadly before modern medicine. Full stop. The herbs I created for that guide would not save someone like Shadowsight, whose convulsions are at extreme risk of turning into Status Epilepticus. It would help manage, but Shadowsight's life would have been very brief.

All the chamomile in the world wouldn't replace phenobarbital... or even the older medications, barbituates. Barbituates have been replaced and good riddance, but it's important to understand that even this drug known for causing EXTREME lethargy and horrible side effects was revolutionary. It saved countless lives.

But I'm not here to write a story for the real-life horror that is epilepsy in a pre-modern society. I'm here for the parent who personally thanked me for making their daughter feel less alone.

Evil spirits attacking the living! God knocking over trees! Attacking a bulldozer! That all happens; there's no reason they can't help Briarlight too!!

But I'll make sure to include her being immunocompromised. And I'll include ways they handle that. Just like I included a cat engineer who made a blanket sled.

So... suggestion accepted! I will keep this in mind.

Briarlight's Canon Death

...I will maintain though that the canonical death of Briarlight was one of the worst, most short-sighted, cruelest decisions that has ever been made in this series.

Because ultimately Briarlight is not a real person. She is a writing choice. She is a character based on Vicky's paralyzed cousin, "Dan," and Briarlight was directly modeled on Dan's personality and recovery.

What did the new writing team do, the minute they were writing a series without Vicky? Killed Briarlight to fucking greencough. For shock points. Narrative moves right on back to the MAIN conflict-- Alderheart having feelings for Velvet and Jayfeather enforcing the vow of chastity. ShadowClan officially falls apart in the background lol

It was never about realism, or realistic portrayal of disability.

This series doesn't care about realism when cats have bloody Freddy Kruger deaths in their sleep, or when shadow goo starts eating cat hell, or when lightning strikes Shadowsight. But they suddenly care about how realistic it is that the only paralyzed character survives greencough?? No! Of course not!

In the middle of the CONSTANT "Ohh she's finally in heaven where she can run and jump and not have a disabled life"? And the infamous Squirrelflight's Hope line, "You don't want to be alive again, Squirrelflight! You might become disabled like BRIARLIGHT"

(WHICH BTW THEY STILL HAVE NOT REMOVED DESPITE PROMISING IT YEARS AGO)

I absolutely do not believe for a second that they had a realistic portrayal of an immunocompromised cat in mind when they did it! Hell, screw it. I'll just say it outright;

I firmly believe that the new writing team killed Briarlight because they did not want to deal with her.

I flatly refuse to give them charity towards this choice. At NO POINT did they earn a speck of good faith. They continued every negative trend that was set up by the previous writers (including Vicky herself tbf), and went a step further by killing her to "we need to get rid of some randos" disease.

Not only that; but the Clan dynamics were NEVER the same after her death, because there was no character who could replace her personality. In this cast of cardboard cats, they plucked out one of the few optimists with a clear, unique perspective, not shared by ANYONE else.

My ire wouldn't JUST be because they happened to kill a disabled character in the way they did (though that is frustrating on its own imo). It's because it was Briarlight.

I hope every writer involved with the decision to kill Briarlight in the "Nothing is Happening! Quick! Kill Someone!" book of AVoS chokes on it. I will DIE on this hill and my blood will never wash out of the grass.

[powdermelonkeg]

This has been bugging me for a while now. Because of the racist elements surrounding Ganondorf and the Gerudo as a whole, is it morally wrong to write him as the villain in fanfics (even though he's a canon villain)?

Hoo boy. What a question.

I personally don't think so (other people's answers may vary, please DO NOT take me as the one final answer on this topic), AS LONG AS you're mindful of a few things.

Portraying the Gerudo as a whole as bad isn't a route you ever want to go. OoT's Gerudo are an example of this; a whole clan of people, and they're all thieves? No. BotW handled this part well by making them a distinct, fun-to-be-around people (they have a whole list of other issues, but they're not villains) that you could befriend and work alongside.

Giving Ganondorf valid reasons to be angry with the royalty and want power leans into a different problem you need to handle delicately, in that he/his people are oppressed. Them being oppressed isn't a problem on its own, but it's an oversaturated cliche that belittles POC's agency in the narrative and likes to glorify their suffering; why do so many stories about POC have to be about their struggles under a terrible regime?

You have more leeway with an established Ganondorf than one you make yourself. We know how Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess's Ganondorfs act, and a fanfic that keeps them in character is working with the pieces you've been given. With those, it comes down to asking why Nintendo made their main villain look SWANA (Southwest Asian/North African) yet AGAIN. With an OC Gan, you have to be careful to make him the villain without making him the face of his people or boiling it down to "white people save the world from angry brown man." And that's very tricky to do properly.

Don't make Ganondorf's existence a thing that his people have to atone for. TotK did this, at least in the English translation (and possibly as a byproduct of traditional Japanese ideals of honor). Riju's ancestor said her reason for granting her a secret stone is because she believes it's the Gerudo's fault for making Gan—that is a BIG no. He's his own person, he should be responsible for his own actions.

Especially with an OC, there are a few ways to mitigate the damage Ganondorf does as a character creatively:

Have the real Ganondorf be a good man, but the power-hungry dictator be a curse that took over him and/or replaced him. You can really lean into the horror with this one as everyone slowly realizes their king isn't the man standing in front of them; where's Ganondorf, and how much have they been telling this doppelganger?

Have Ganondorf's ascent to power be a hard-fought one, and follow his descent into obsession more closely. In TotK, Rauru says Gan's a "hero to his people," rather than only acknowledge that since he's the one man born every 100 years it means he's got a right to rule, as it was in OoT. Could he have waged a civil war in Gerudo, and won it? Is he a hero to his supporters only?

Make the struggle one of a point of view. Ganondorf believes he has a right to rule; why? Is it something he should have gotten by tradition, but was shunned because someone better than him came along? Does the Hyrulean side of things look more like a conspiracy to take something of his (hello, Triforce of Power) if you see things from his eyes? Has he seen the world fall, read the history books, and wants to stop the cycle before it continues, but can only do so by force? You can go with a self-fulfilling prophecy on this angle.

Make Link or Zel not white, possibly even of Gerudo heritage. This isn't a perfect solution, but it's the most straightforward and has lots of worldbuilding potential—the problem with a lot of things that make something racist isn't that they exist, it's that they're the ONLY thing that exists. If you've got five white characters in a movie up against a black villain, that's racist; it's visually reducing who's good and who's bad to the color of their skin. If you've got a mixed cast of white and black people on the heroes' side, and a black villain, you've repaired that significantly, because you can no longer glance at the cast and point out who the villain is by anything but their costume design. In LoZ specifically, we've got some new opportunities; Sonia isn't white, so not all of her descendants should be. Link could hail from Lurelin Village. Zelda could be the result of one of her parents being a Gerudo; people ship BotW Zel's mom with Urbosa anyways, so it's not like no one will be receptive to that.

Alternatively, make another Gerudo man that has to go head to head with Ganondorf alongside Link and Zel. One Gerudo male is born every 100 years; logically, there should have been one during the Calamity, and another one during the Upheaval. Or you could have Gan be one of a set of twins. Again, not a perfect solution, but it helps to mitigate stereotypes by having more characters in play. Compare BotW/TotK's Gerudo to OoT/MM's Gerudo, it's a VAST improvement in terms of how the narrative describes them as a whole.

Design-wise, there's a couple things you should not do:

Don't make Gan green as a stand-in for being brown. He's still POC-coded, you just upped the other-ing factor. "Haha, see this bad guy? Isn't he STRANGE looking?" That's the kind of vibe making him green portrays.

Don't make him or his supporters darker than the other Gerudo. If you want skin tone variation like BotW has, have a mix between both sides of the conflict. And ESPECIALLY don't make him literally black in skin tone (staring at Twilight Princess Gan).

Don't make his outfit overtly sexy. That's not to say he can't be attractive, but exposing his skin to make him shirtless and hot isn't fixing his monstrous-ness, it's objectifying the people he represents. Remember the problems with the vai outfit? Exactly like that, just on a guy. Also, it's terribly impractical for the desert; Wind Waker Gan had much more sensible clothes than TotK.

All in all, a lot of "fixing Ganondorf" should fall to Nintendo to repair in future entries, where their character design team needs to take a good long look at what they're putting out there before they make another villain. Your job, if you're fanfic-ing him, isn't to make him a perfect character or vindicate him; it's to handle what you WERE given with care and add to it in a better direction than the designers took it. And because it's fanfic, you have so many different ways you can do that.

And if this is too intimidating a prospect to tackle, there's Vaati, Malladus, Bellum, Majora, Ghirahim, even the Horned Statue in BotW/TotK you could break free and run away with.

Go wild.

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

it's been a while since i've talked about any of my aus, huh

let's do that real quick! first a very simple au where the main point is the stans twins being physical manifestations of the concept of life and death, and then a much more in-depth au involving mystery trio kind of (don't get attached)

warnings for death (of course) and emotional suffering for the first au

warnings for cosmic horror, violence/blood/near death experience, both physical and emotional suffering, and in general Significantly Bad Times™ for the second one

au the first!

the first au is exactly what it sounds like. i've thought about this one for a while but never mentioned it because i don't want people going 'well obviously the reason ford is death and stan is life is because ford is evil incarnate and stan is perfect and can do no wrong' because that's not why i gave them their specific roles

i just felt it fit their personalities better? also cause stan's (somewhat unhealthy) 'family is everything' mindset fits a personification of life better and ford's 'if it sucks, hit the bricks' mindset fits a personification of death better

(also ford gets to hang out with extinct species and stan has to mourn when he realizes he hasn't interacted with any in a long time, so who gets the better deal really)

really though, this ford is essentially always in a state of mourning for. obvious reasons. stan spends most of his time watching various organisms live, and ford spends most of his time sitting with them when they die. and the two don't interact very often because of how busy they always are (i did give ford an emotional support ghost thylacine though, so he's not always alone)

the mystery twins, through means i do not wish to think about nor go into, end up in a state of limbo. the stan twins take them in, alternating between who spends time with who so everyone gets a fair amount of bonding time

it does help ford a bit, but it also puts him on edge because the last thing he wants is for them to have to watch things die. instead, he introduces them to various (more friendly) ghost creatures and teaches them about decomposers

stan's time with them is somewhat easier, what with his job essentially being to make sure things are still ticking, which includes a lot of looking at baby organisms for long periods of time. he does make sure not to show the twins any species that are. uh. low on members, so to speak

the stan twins got into a lot of fights when they were younger. stan's not exactly a fan of mass extinctions and ford couldn't seem to get him to understand that he does not, in fact, kill them, he just shows up when they die, and yes, stanley, there is a difference

they had. a pretty long time to work it out. that's all there really is for this au (at least for now)

au the second!

in this au, ford focuses on astronomical anomalies. one such anomaly he notices is an increasingly unnerving lack of stars. some that were there before seem to have just. disappeared. he figures, 'well, a lot of stars that were documented in the past just don't exist anymore, and we stop seeing their light after a while. even if these examples are unusually recent all things considered, it's not enough to be worrisome yet'

so he starts keeping track of asterisms. he gets his hands on some star charts, makes a few maps of specific ones himself, and starts observing. every time something changes, he marks it off on the corresponding chart. after a little while, he decides that something is definitely wrong here (he's starting to space out more and more often, for longer periods of time) and he calls up fiddleford for help

fiddleford gets to work on building some machines so they can more easily observe this anomaly and, more importantly, properly record its happenings. he finally gets to computer his majigs. and things go well for a while, except for stanford's newfound problems, but it starts to have an effect on fiddleford after a while. he sees something in the void that ford doesn't. and he's starting to trust it more than he trusts his friend

fiddleford keeps this to himself, of course. ford doesn't seem to really notice. what ford does notice is that the gemini constellation has started to go

somewhat reluctantly (though with his hallucinations and absence seizures and bleeding from the eyes and fiddleford's unusual coldness, it's getting hard to care) he calls up his ma, finds out where stan's currently staying, and sends him a postcard. because, sure, maybe stan can't help, but at this point he's starting to feel like his brother should know and also he's getting a little desperate

stan pretty quickly notices that there's something off about the handwriting and language and the stains of the postcard and gets on his way because something has obviously gone wrong here

he expects to have to talk to ford down from doing something, or maybe have to help him get out of dodge because people want to hurt him or something. he does not expect to walk into the house and see his brother bleeding on the floor because his assistant tried to murder him (is this why ford sent for his help? what in the hell is going on?)

stan is confused, to say the least. he pretty easily overpowers fiddleford (how weak was ford? what happened?) and manages to get his brother to a hospital

needless to say, he's a bit surprised when ford wants to return there upon recovery. he's even more surprised when he's shown the anomaly and hey where the fuck are castor and pollux. where are a lot of the stars around gemini actually?

ford gives him a basic rundown and explains that he thinks something about the anomaly caused fiddleford's murder attempt, though he's not sure why it only affected him. stan asks why he hasn't heard about this considering that this is kind of a big deal. ford doesn't know

they're about to hear a lot about it

[fortressofserenity]

Not Goth enough

I think when it comes to creating a Goth character in fiction, the fashion sense and association with creepiness often comes first before the musical association. I think this is what Kai Decadence brought up when it comes to Goth characters, but if I were to add my take it's like how their spookiness is always played up but it's unfortunately easy to forget that Goth is also the name of a music (sub)genre in punk rock and linked to a musical subculture.

I suppose it would be really rare to find Goth characters who are into Goth music (the Goth music canon often consists of the Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy), let alone outside of Goth orientated stories such as Writhe and Shine. I have to bring up these four as they are foundational to the Goth subculture in a way Depeche Mode isn't, that the Cure is one of the few true Goth bands to get any real airplay speaking from personal experience.

It's kind of easy to lump what seems dark and eerie into Goth, but as a musical genre and subculture it doesn't always revolve around it. The earliest Goth bands have their origins in punk rock in some way or another, Bauhaus's David J was part of Jack Plug and the Sockettes, both the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees started out as punk bands. Even Joy Division started out as the punkier Warsaw, which should tell you about Goth's roots in punk rock. It's that easy to forget that Goth has anything to do with punk rock.

I feel this is a problem with the way a good number of Goth characters are portrayed in fiction that sometimes influences people's misconceptions of Gothdom, even I myself was susceptible to it at one point. Somebody who likes horror isn't necessarily affiliated with the Goth subculture, someone like Hirohiko Araki may enjoy horror films but isn't that deeply into Goth music in any way and he actually listens to Prince more.

Goth is something else altogether by then, it's not merely a love of spooky things but it's its own thing. To put it this way, just because it has anthropomorphic animals doesn't mean it's furry. Plenty of people anthropomorphise animals but have little to no involvement in furry fandom themselves, dressing in animal fancy dress doesn't necessarily make you a furry either. Furry is something else altogether, as evidenced by the existence of fursonas.

Most people who anthropomorphise animals don't have fursonas, so to me a fursona's a big indicator that somebody is a furry. I might be getting off-topic here but this is to give you an idea that Goth is its own thing, separate from horror fandom in other regards. Somebody may like horror films but have no real interest in Goth music themselves, it's easy to get into misconceptions about Goth because we don't really understand the scene from the inside out.

Kai Decadence said that liking Goth music is a big indicator of being Goth, or at least having an idea of what it actually is like. If somebody listens to Goth music, they may not always be Goth themselves (let alone for life), but they know what it actually is contrary to what others think and expect Goth to be.

[nomsfaultau]

(Potentially) daily ask №2

Fault!Ranboo and Genloss!Ranboo edition due to the Founder's cut coming out today!

Fault!Ranboo

Okay does his thing kinda work like the shy man? So photos and videos count too? To the same degree?

Do they have any backstory lore? Before they were captured by the foundation?

Unstoppable force vs an immovable object question. Could anyone from the main gang defeat them? Like, how strong are they actually assuming someone looked them in the eye? Phil doesn't count he's a literal god.

If they and the main gang met, do you think they'd get along? What sort of relationships would they have with each member of the gang?

Would making a one-way mirror glasses for them work to basically disable their powers? Like they can see everything but the others can't see their eyes? Of course you could probably still get a glance from under the glasses considering their height but uh.. idk man, ski mask. But one-way mirror.

At this point you might as well count the universe in which I just spontaneously appear there an au because I can and will give you hypothetical scenarios of me interacting with the characters. On this note. BOOM *spontaneously revives them, convinces the whole ass foundation that they never existed so that they won't be searched for, revives that one doctor's wife, gives Ranboo a ski mask and teleports them to sbi* DONE WOO HI HOW ARE YA FEELIN'? (directed at them)

Gives them their favourite cookies for the emotional damage

Generation-loss!Ranboo

Do you know about genloss? Do you watch it? I know you said that you're not a fan of horror but tbh it's mostly psychological horror and some gore. Mostly silly though.

Are you gonna be watching Founder's cut today when it comes out in like 1.5 hours?

Any thoughts on it? Place to rant basically

The fault crew + Ranboo get teleported into the world of genloss suddenly. Specifically during choice while Ranboo and Charlie are running around the mall. How well does it go for either of them?

[Spoilers for Fault. like really stinking big ones]

Initially I thought not, but I think the real core of the powerset is being unbeholden. So he would go on a rampage if eye contact was made via camera/video. However, the ender pearl is a physical object that can't pass through walls when they teleport. So I suppose they'd just be determinedly trying to burrow through a wall, always knowing exactly where the person was but unable to reach.

Ranboo is alas a very very very minor character currently, like 'backstory to a tertiary supporting character' minor. Does not have backstory before the Foundation explored in or out of Fault...but will be showing up again eventually so more may be explored at that time. But as of yet, not really. Mostly because Ranboo's origins would have to be extreeeeemely far back in the timeline due to being (biig spoiler here) the source of the Foundation's amnestics. Philza has mentioned knowing of the Foundation for at least a few centuries, but also they do a very good job of being unknown. This gets into very foggy territory that's the bane of any urban fantasy's existence actually, because presumably if modern society is nearly identical to our own something has to have been suppressing anomalies from the dawn of time, in this case via Ranboo amnestics or some other means. So unless we assume time travel (which many SCP stories do, and which would be TERRIBLE for my story) I suppose Ranboo -or the phenomena of Ranboo, this could just be the latest vessel- could be very very old. I'd caution on the side of vessel, so potentially they began as a human ? or some other creature that then was changed by the god/entity using him? This entity then having had many many forms over time, frequently captured by use of the Foundation/analogous organization. Perhaps it was once extremely powerful, dampening the memories of humanity for its own reasons, leading to the current regime. oh. so i've just like solved a major world building problem. sick. Oh god I have racing thoughts about this now....

I think most could tbh. I mean Lawrence Lethe (ew) defeated them. In a physical fight Ranboo represents a horror monster threat to base humans, mostly by being tall fast strong and vicious plus some occasional teleportation, but has a very glaring weakness. Tubbo wouldn't for moral reasons but could also just fly way high up so Ranboo can't throw the enderpearl far enough. Tommy's Red might count close enough to water and dissolve them, though there is a debate on if Red would be able to thwart them from attacking him? That's a can of worms you could argue in any direction you want I think so I won't touch it. The Blade al.ways.wins. Like no matter what. Uh oh what's that the forecast looks like a storm how unfortunate anyway deadzo. Phil would turn that sucker to glass. And Wilbur loves eating sand. Though I suppose if he managed to eat their soul he could get Ranboo powers...? Anyway smack down that twink is OBLITERATED.

Ranboo will meet at least some of the main gang albeit as a skull and pile of sand. Tubbo is going to be. Well. in a REALLY funky head space due to encounters with Void madness. But they're going to be like???? our husband????????? not our husband? what plane of the universe are we on?? How do we know what is Real??? Existence is gonna fall apart-- while Ranboo is just like aw thanks for rescuing me random stranger this is great! ^-X Wilbur thinks Ranboo is very inconvenient to move around but at least they don't eat much? Ranboo doesn't like being around it because the void keeps nibbling. Philza would have STRONG feelings about Ranboo due to his horrific experience with amnestics. But also would acknowledge that Ranboo hadn't much say in the matter, and ultimately treat them politely yet indifferently as he does most people he doesn't view as important (anyone that isn't his Collected or a problem). The Blade is very stiff and unhappy as he isn't as good separating them from all of his friends forgetting about him. Bit more of a problem than Phil since The Blade usually handles his problems extremely directly via murder, but he has enough character development at this point to see killing Ranboo won't help. After some friction he gets over it and after some awkwardness is probably down to joke around and be his normal dorky self with Ranboo. Tommy would have resentment about what happened to Phil since he's very loyal, but then Ranboo would make him laugh and he'd forget about it lol. Also 2x scared of touching them.

It's based on Ranboo feeling like they're being perceived to an extent? So I think if Ranboo thought they were being watched they'd also go on a rampage. I think the Foundation just blinded them with a blindfold. Or morbidly, perhaps would rip out their eye and wait for it to regrow, to create a stash of ender pearls for Foundation personnel use...?

Lawrence would be reeling, and then probably assume having the wifey back means his redemption arc is finished. This would cause Many problems later on. Speaking of problems, the Foundation would be PANICKING. Oh my god. I think if convinced Ranboo never existed there'd be utter chaos of them trying to figure out what cognito hazard is messing with them. So while the Foundation is set on fire and the entire premise of the series collapses, let's ignore that and see how the gang is doing! I'm going to say they're dropped at the end of the most recent chapter. Assuming they don't startle and attack in self defense, Tommy is utterly delighted to get even more friends because he's so starved for people, Tubbo is trying to figure out if the wife revival thing would work for themselves/Rhodes (potentially while simultaneously flirting with Ranboo for maximum comedic value)((but also probably Rosalind since that's destroying them)), The Blade is trying to figure out if the teleportation act could be used to break out of the Foundation in the future, Wilbur is disgruntled by strangers (one of which is HUMAN), and Phil is mostly trying to figure out if there's a security risk if they could be found...but is probably quickly assured it's fine given he got Tommy via accidental summoning shenanigans. Since I don't think the ski mask thing would work, Ranboo would probably be blindfolded. I think Tubbo would act as seeing eye bees for them, developing little short hand codes to help them move around and really bonding over that. Phil is the type of guy to do blind fold training and have tips. The Blade commiserates with them over the time he lost an eye, and Wilbur with being blinded by the Foundation via light. And potentially the reactions from 4 (-Tubbo bc of timeline, Wilbur bc revived fully) if more well adjusted since the gang is doing better here than in epoch 3-4.

Wilbur insists he eats the cookies first (to make sure they aren't poisoned of course of course). He tells everyone they're disgusting and tries to eat them all but Phil puts a stop to that. Tommy declares that he is perfectly emotionally fine and is only stealing the cookies because he deserves a reward. The Blade argues he should get way extra because of his size. While everyone is bickering Tubbo yoinks them and flies away, only to get chased down by Philza, who distributes them, and reminds everyone else to thank you. Instant Phil points for making his Collected happy.

Genloss

Not really haha. Haven't seen anything of it. I know zilch, except i think a surgery happens and niki is on a carousal whatever that means? Full transparency, I mostly just watched Techno and then Tommy stuff for more Techno content.

4. As I know nothing of genloss, I can't do much here. HOWEVER. There is a pivotal scene in Fault that will take place in a mall. So we can imagine Ranboo and Charlie frolicking in the background amongst piles and piles of Foundation MTF soldier corpses while the main characters have a terse argument about philosophies, morals, and custody?

[scavengerssuccotash]

What are your thoughts on a Clint x Nat baby? I’ve read some fics where Nat accidentally gets pregnant and debates between keeping the baby or not. But I’ve also read a few fics where they both desperately want a baby and excel as parents once they have one. Personally I think Nat would be terrified if she was pregnant but eventually come around to the idea, because it’s a lil part of her and Clint, and be a great mom.

How did you know about my Sims 4 Clintasha save file?

(They have a daughter named Katya. And she’s fucking adorable.) 😭

Kid/baby Clintasha fics are definitely a real guilty pleasure for me. While I don’t agree with how Whedon presented that bit of character backstory for Natasha, I think taken with in universe logic it would make sense for the Red Room to sterilize their Widows. (It’s one of the few things that is canon that I’ve kept for my fic Sightline.)

(I ALSO have a real big problem with the tone in which it was discussed and handled in the Black Widow movie but let’s just skip over that for now.)

I think Clint and Nat would be exceptional parents. Extremely doting and highly protective I must admit I see them a bit of a helicopter parent duo. At least until the age of ten I want to say, when they start to loosen up their reigns as they finally start to believe that their child is safe. I think they would also retire from both SHIELD and Avenging, I don’t think Natasha much less Clint would be able to handle the separation and uncertainty in leaving for missions for months at a time. Clint is also immediately a girl dad. (I can’t help but picture Jeremy Renner a bit as I type this. Which hilariously shines a glaring light on my own father issues, but like in a ‘awww I wish o had that!’ way.)

I think it’s rather a cliche in the fandom to imagine them having a little girl, and I’m firmly one million percent within that camp. I genuinely can’t picture them having a boy for their first kid. (Yes, I said first. They have two! A girl and a boy roughly three years apart. They live in my head as a happy little family on a farm in the cornfields of Iowa and I love them very much.)

As for the pregnancy—it was fucking brutal! For my headcanon of a non-sterilized Natasha the Red Room kept them continually supplied with birth control and other hormonal blockers to the point that it was actually assumed that she would not be able to get pregnant or at the very least it would be rare. That one in a million chance happened after a particularly nasty fight when Natasha ran into the line of fire to save Steve. Cue a couple of thrown dishes and Clint growling into her ear and pinned to the bed.

“I’m not fucking losing you, do you hear me, Tasha!”

It was very hot and very intense and oops!

What really was difficult about the pregnancy, you know besides being pregnant (her back hurt like a son of a birch) was the emotional torrent that it brought. Sleepless nights, constant worry, questioning if she even wanted to keep it, followed by a surreal disbelief that she was even pregnant. It was a body horror watching and then feeling a tiny baby growing inside her. In the end she decided to keep it, partly as one last fuck you to the Red Room and her past but also because it was part Clint too. When she told him, it was in the middle of a firefight. (He would later tell her that her timing was shit.) As soon as the words left her mouth he looked at her for a good five seconds, blinked and then nodded to himself. He then, without any of the fanfare, dispatched the ten guys shooting at them, clean kills. All ten headshots. One right after the other with the cold efficiency she’s only ever seen once before when she was captured and tortured for three months.

Katya Philomena Romanoff-Barton was born November 16th. Three months premature, and weighing two pounds and thirteen ounces. She has blue eyes like her father and the freckles and red hair of her mother. They were able to bring her home after a year in the NICU.

She starts her Freshmen year at Princeton this year, double majoring in International Politics and Psychology, with an applied minor in History. She has one championship trophy in Olympic Archery and does Ballet in her free time.