#so i can make allusions to some stuff and the whole thing has more flesh to it

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

mucking around on world anvil. i already have like twenty articles, several hours invested (a lot of hours), a very good idea of my world and also this is my home now i live there now

[lucemferto]

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT PH1LZA (or Why Philza is a Victim of Narrative Circumstance)

Heyo! Per request I am posting the script to my video of the same name here on tumblr. I must warn you that just reading the script will probably not give you the full experience, so I would encourage you to watch the video (linked above).

There might also still be a lot of grammatical errors in the text, because I don’t proofread.

Intro

LAST TIME ON LUCEM FERTO

Okay, so! I don’t want this to turn into a reaction channel OR a Dream SMP channel for that matter! [echo]

Well, I lied.

[Intro to “Luc is pretentious about the funny blockmen. Episode 2”]

I swear, I’m working on other stuff. It’s just that my dumb lizard brain has only capacity for one interest at a time!

So, something you might not know about me, is that I am on tumblr – who am I kidding, most of you will know me from tumblr. Before starting this whole YouTube thing, I thought that website died years ago – but as per usual reality proves me wrong. I’m also on Twitter and Reddit, but I get the most engagement on tumblr – by far! – and I need those sweet, sweet numbers for the serotonin!

Anyways, one of my favourite past-times on tumblr is to razz Philza Hardcore Minecraft – that’s his full name – for being a frankly awful father [clicking away] – wait, wait, no! Philza fans, this isn’t a hit piece on him, I promise! Please come back!

This is video is meant to be a companion piece to my previous video about Technoblade and the Doomsday event – you can tell by the shared nomenclature – so you should probably watch that one before you proceed. Unless you don’t want to, which is also perfectly understandable.

DISCLAIMER: This video is mostly about the character Philza plays on the Dream SMP. Whenever I talk about the content creator Philza, I will say so properly. Also, Spoiler Warning for Dream SMP Season 2.

… What is that? You’re wondering what the Dream SMP is? Well, if you had just watched the other video like I told you to do, you would know, because I explained it pretty well there. But in case you don’t know, here’s the cliff notes.

Dream SMP is the hottest New Media Series on Twitch right now! It has it all: gaslighting, child soldiers, Machiavellian political intrigue, Hamilton roleplay, desecration of the dead, shounen protagonists, SO! MUCH! AMNESIA! Filicide, furries, a red egg that’s definitely homophobic and teenagers inventing nuclear warfare. And it’s all done in Minecraft – yes, the funny block game where the only way to emote is to crouch.

And you say the perfect brief doesn’t exist!

Now, you might be wondering, why do I want to talk about this? Well, it’s because Content Creator Philza is one of least controversial internet personalities that I can think of. That man exudes pure comfort. So, it’s just very, very amusing to me that his character became one of the most controversial figures on the SMP, only outshone by Tommy and Technoblade.

And it’s not just amusing, it’s also extremely interesting! I want to dig deep to uncover and discuss the dynamics behind why that is. How did it come to this point? How did a man who appears genuinely so pleasant create a character that inspires so much discourse!

Now, if you watched that Technoblade video – like I told you to twice now! – you might know, that I am the resident character analyses hater of fandom! And that impression is false and slanderous! Don’t tell other people that I hate character analyses! I love them!

It’s just that, in the Dream SMP in particular, there is an abundance of character analyses! Every streamer has at least two very good essays written about them, exploring every possible angle to view their characters and backgrounds and everything. All I’m saying is: I don’t have anything to add on that front.

So, instead I want to pursue a different approach – something, that I feel is a bit underrepresented in the fandom! And I’m not just talking narrative analysis – that’s right, this episode we’re going even more pretentious! – I’m talking Transtextual Analysis!

Now, what is Transtextuality? Well, unfortunately it has very little to do with actual Trans people – #transrights, just in case that wasn’t obvious – but instead describes a mode of analysis with which to put – to quote French literary theorist Gérard Genette – “the text in a relationship, whether obvious or concealed, with other texts”.

Basically, you know how the L’Manburg War of Independence heavily quotes and borrows from the hit musical Hamilton? That’s transtextuality! A lot of the analyses surrounding how Tommy mirrors the Greek hero Theseus, who was invoked by Technoblade multiple times in the series, are already doing transtextual analysis! So, it’s really not something that’s new to the Dream SMP fandom.

But how does this apply to Philza and how he is looked at and judged by his parental skills? Well, there are multiple forms of transtextuality, two of which we will discuss today.

But before we continue, I gotta do that annoying YouTuber thing. I know these videos don’t look like much, but I spend a really long time making them. I work fulltime and I try my best to keep up, but sometimes I can’t. So please, like, subscribe, comment to give me some algorithm juice – I really need it – and most importantly share it! Share it with your friends, share it with your family – I’m sure Grandma is very interested in what I have to say about Philza Minecraft.

And I’m trying to be better! If I sound at all different for this video, it’s because I finally bought a new pop filter, so I can hit my plosives without it sounding like there’s a thunderstorm in my room. I hope it makes a difference; it was a very cheap pop filter, so maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it sounds worse – that would be bad!

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, CHILD NEGLEGT!

 Intertextuality: Why is Dadza?

You know what’s really interesting about the Dream SMP – aside from, you know, most things about it? Very few of the characters have concrete, fleshed-out backstories – and that’s pretty weird! In no other medium or genre could you get away with something like that – at least for long-form storytelling!

So, how does Dream SMP get away with this? Well, it’s because every character on the Dream SMP is basically a self-insert – and I don’t mean that in the “This character is based on me”-kinda way, but in the “This character, for all intents and purposes, is me!”-way. This, like many things that are fascinating about the Dream SMP, is owed to the fact that this series didn’t start off as a continuous drama – it started off as a Let’s Play.

And while we can talk about how someone’s on-camera/on-mic persona is in some ways a character, it’s still miles off of being an actual, fully-realized, separate character in a storyline.

This is where Intertextuality comes in.

Intertextuality is a subset of Transtextuality. It describes how the hypertext, which is the text, you’re currently engaged with, uses another text, the hypotext, to supplement itself. The interconnection the hypertext establishes with the hypotext, through stuff like allusion for example, uh-hum [Hamilton], can colour how an audience interprets the hypertext. Basically, Hamilton and Theseus are the hypotexts; the Dream SMP is the hypertext.

So, what does this have to do with backstory? Simple: The backstories of the characters in the Dream SMP consist basically of nothing but intertextual references. Through intertextuality their content effectively substitutes their character’s backstory.

You can see it everywhere. Wilbur’s and Schlatt’s relationship and rivalry is hugely enriched, if you are aware of their shared history like SMPLive, for example – I think anyway. I haven’t watched SMPLive, because … there’s only so many hours in the day and I cannot keep up with the Dream SMP and catch up on SMPLive and live a healthy life – which I already don’t do, so…

BadBoyHalo’s and Skeppy’s relationship, which has become the crux of the Crimson-Storyline of Seasons 2 and 3, is hugely supplemented if you know that they’re also very close as streamers and in real life.

Another great example of intertextuality is basically Technoblade’s entire deal. If you just look at him completely within the text of the Dream SMP and try to transplant his entrance to any other medium: It would be extremely weird! Like, he’s just this guy that comes in in the middle of a very climatic arc, no build-up, no explanation what his deal is, and he’s treated like he has always been there. In any other medium that just wouldn’t work – at least not without a flashback or some sort of exposition!

But because of stuff like Minecraft Mondays, the Potato Wars, his Duel against Dream and SMPEarth, we understand that he is a Big Deal!

Anyways, to bring all of this back to Philza Minecraft: What kind of hypotext informs how the audience sees his character? Well, this is where I will have to talk about SBI.

SBI is an acronym that stand for State Bank of India, the 43rd largest bank in the world and…

It also stands for Sleepy Bois Incorporated. Sleepy Bois Incorporated is a loose assembly of content creators, consisting of Philza, Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit and Technoblade. It is most well-known for its very endearing family dynamic – a dynamic that is frequently acknowledged and played up by the creators involved. Tommy is the youngest brother, Wilbur and Techno are the two older brothers and Philza is of course the dad. And when I say, it’s played up, I really mean it! Wilbur seems to be especially enamoured with the idea and leaves no opportunity untaken to bring it up – which we will come back to.

And I’m not saying that they’re faking this and this is somehow an act. While I know none of these people personally, it appears to me, that this is genuinely how they interact – if a little exaggerated for the streaming experience. Even when they’re not consciously playing into the family dynamic, their interactions still very much lend themselves to that interpretation by the viewers.

Philza especially just radiates Dad-Friend energy – so much so that it has become a huge part of his brand identity – yay, I can bring that back (check out my Christmas video if you want to hear me ramble about that). The nickname Dadza stuck even before SBI was a thing.

So, even if we completely disregard SBI – which we shouldn’t for reasons I’ll get back to – Philza has cultivated an image of strong paternal guidance. He is, in my opinion completely deservedly, regarded very positively. He is highly respected and in turn seen as a voice of reason.

All of this would eventually inform the hypotext of the character Philza within Dream SMP.

 Interlude: Before Dadza & November 16th

Okay, so now we have established that a) Dream SMP heavily hinges on intertextual readings by the audience to supplement character backstory and b) that Philza’s entire deal is that he’s the dad-friend – more specifically that he’s the dad of SBI (not the bank). I think you know where this is going.

So, yeah, ever since it was on the table that Philza could join the Dream SMP, it was immediately assumed that he would take on the paternal guardian role all these traumatized people on that server so desperately needed – and with good reason! Like I said before, the audience at this point was trained to take intertextual interpretations as basically canon or at the very least canon-adjacent.

I want to emphasize that this is most likely not done deliberately. I’m sure content creators Wilbur and Philza didn’t sit there and said: “Yes! We will rely entirely on the audience’s inclination to interpret our characters intertextually to define character Philza!”. Like, obviously that did not happen.

But it’s also important to remember that unlike with traditional media and the fanbases cultivated there, the separation between the Dream SMP and its audience is almost non-existent – and purposely so. The story events are streamed live, Chats are acknowledged in canon and even outside of livestreams creators are extremely involved with the fandom. So, the weight of fan-expectations is equally amplified and will more likely be incorporated into the writing process. Case in point:

[Wilbur “I miss Philza”/Philza about Wilbur]

During Wilbur’s villain arc, even before his official involvement, Philza became a prevalent point of discussion. The hope that he would be the one to snap Wilbur out of his downward spiral was not only wish-fulfilment on behalf of the fans; it also very much played off of the intertextual reading of the SBI-dynamic in relation to the Dream SMP.

Of course, this still doesn’t make Philza and Wilbur canonically blood-related – but it definitely used the “paternal”-dynamic of SBI to build-up tension and drama.

And that ultimately brings us to November 16th. The Grand Finale of Season 1 and Philza’s first canonical appearance on the SMP.

Now, for this I want to pull back from the transtextual analysis and talk about simply narrative analysis: What is Philza’s narrative purpose on November 16th?

Philza serves as the last threshold on Wilbur’s Villain’s Journey – to appropriate Vogler’s version of the monomyth for a minute here – he is what Vogler calls the “Threshold Guardian”. He is the last enemy the Hero faces before completing his quest – in this particular case Wilbur’s quest is to blow up L’Manberg. Multiple people have at this point tried to dissuade him from this course of action: Tommy, Quackity, Niki and others. So how come this Philza moment is not redundant in terms of dynamics compared to these prior scenes?

Well, it’s through our intertextual understanding of Wilbur’s and Phil’s relationship. Because Philza does not just occupy the role of the Threshold Guardian – he is also implicitly the Mentor. Before Phil there was no character in the storyline that held a higher position of moral authority than Wilbur – Dream and Schlatt, while at points more powerful in terms of actual authority, were never positioned by the narrative as Wilbur’s superiors in the same way as Wilbur was to Tommy, Tubbo or even Niki.

Before November 16th all challenges Wilbur faced were from people narratively subordinated to him. But that trend is broken with Phil. That is why he is the Threshold Guardian, why this confrontation is at the climax of Wilbur’s arc. Because Phil is the last thing tethering Wilbur to whatever morality he held before his villain arc; Phil is the last, moral obstacle Wilbur has to discard before gaining his reward.

And, just a quick sidenote, because I’ve seen it around the fandom a bunch: When I’m referring to Wilbur denouncing his morality, I’m using that in terms of narrative analysis. I’m mentioning it, because Wilbur’s character can very easily be read as mentally ill or neurodivergent and some people have – rightly! – pointed out that the excessive vilifying when talking about his character is … problematic, to say the least.

So, I just want to make clear, this isn’t a character analysis, I’m being purposely broad when talking about Wilbur and Phil.

In the end, Wilbur takes that final step and gets his “reward”: As his final request his mentor takes his life and vanquishes the evil – the dragon of Wilbur’s story slays the dragon of L’Manburg. It’s very Shakespearean in its tragedy – but beyond the larger theatrics it’s not really used to further characterize Phil – at least in the context of Season 1. There’s not a lot of focus on his characters internal conflict during November 16th.

Phil, like Techno, is very utilitarian in how content creator Wilbur writes him: He serves as a moment of hype; an obstacle Wilbur has to face; a participant in the tragic climax of Wilbur’s character and ultimately takes on his implicit and expected role of mentor and guiding figure to the rest of L’Manburg.

I think not a lot of people talk about how Philza does not join Technoblade during November 16th. He takes the side of L’Manburg – he fights against the withers and he joins Tommy, Tubbo and the others at the L’Mantree, thus framing him as loyal to the L’Manburg administration – even though Season 2 would make his loyalty to Techno central to his character. But more on that later.

What’s also important about November 16th is that this is the day when the general intertextual interpretation became canonized text.

[You’re my son!]

Wilbur is made Phil’s canonical, biological son. The intertextual interpretation of SBI as it pertains to these two characters on the SMP was completely reinforced by the narrative. Or to put it in Fandom terms: The headcanon became actual canon. At least when it came to Wilbur … but what about Philza’s “other” children?

Well, that leads to our second form of transtextual analysis:

 Paratextuality: Is Dadza?

These titles are just getting better and better.

The Paratext is defined as all those things in a published work that accompany the text. It comes in two forms: One of them is the Peritext, which are non-diegetic elements directly surrounding the text – like chapter titles, author’s notes, and stuff like that. Translated to the medium of the Dream SMP, it would be stuff like this:

[Examples]

And, trust me, I could make a whole separate video about how people on the SMP use their peritext as a tool for storytelling – I’m looking at you, Ranboo – but that’s not what we will talk about in the context of Dadza.

Instead, we will focus on the second form of Paratext, the Epitext, which consists of all authorial and editorial discussions taking place outside of the text. That’s stuff like interviews, private letters or J. K. Rowling’s Twitter Account – you know, before she decided to become a full-time asshole.

[Wilbur: Transrights]

After Season 1 ended, Wilbur indulged pretty heavily in providing epitext for the Dream SMP, something he had not done prior to November 16th. His paratextual additions ranged from the playful, like assigning DnD alignments to various SMP members, to the extremely impactful, like the whole three lives system!

You probably think, you know where this is going. Wilbur provided some epitext about how Tommy and Techno either are or are not biologically related to him … and I have to be honest I thought that too. But then I began looking into the impenetrable web that is the SBI-canon on the Dream SMP and found this!

[Ghostbur explains family]

So, it wasn’t paratext, it was just straight text. Said in character, in canon, without any implication that we the viewers should question this. The text of the SBI family dynamic was explicitly linked to Dream SMP-exclusive lore, namely Fundy being Wilbur’s and Sally the Salmon’s son. This is as clear as Philza’s anguished declaration on November 16th in establishing the intertext as text. And because Wilbur also had a very heavy hand in the discussion of paratext around that time, it gave his character’s words even more “canonical” weight. Metatextually speaking, this very much read like the author giving exposition through his character – exposition that we should understand as reliable.

And, by the way, before I continue, I need to give a huge, huge shoutout to kateis-cakeis on tumblr, I hope I pronounced that right, who was just so quick in providing me with these crucial clips. Without him I would have looked for days because these people don’t archive their shit! And the Dream SMP Wiki was NO help, by the way! I love what you guys do, but stuff like this belongs in the Trivia section on characters’ pages!

Anyways, basically during the entirety of early Season 2 the SBI family dynamic was basically canon to the SMP. Sometimes it was only alluded implicitly, again letting the intertext fill out the rest.

[Philza clips]

But just as often it was just explicitly talked about – both in the text and in the paratext.

[Fundy clip/Wilbur “Twins” clip/Tommy clip]

So, I know what you’re thinking: “Why is this part called paratext, if the entire family tree is just textual”. Well, that last clip might give you a hint, as to what I will talk about. Notice how Tommy, one of the people most directly impacted by the canonization of SBI lore, is both unaware of and seems generally unenthused about it, to put it nicely? Well, that would soon turn out to be a much bigger deal than anyone could have imagined as he wasn’t the only one.

[Technoblade decanonizes SBI]

Yeah …

This happened on 20th of December. Regular viewers of this channel will remember that I put out a 90-second joke video, where I complain about this very development. And while I was mostly kidding around, the core idea is still true. The paratext provided by Technoblade and established text were in direct contradiction with one another – and that brought a lot of confusion into the fandom. Confusion, that would soon be followed by frustration.

Because Techno only decanonized himself as part of the SBI family dynamic – but what about Tommy and Tubbo, the latter of which was incorporated into the dynamic exclusively within the lore of the Dream SMP. Was this still canon or wasn’t it?

What followed was a muddled mess of contradictions, intertextual implications, text and paratext in conflict with each another. It was for the most part inscrutable to figure out how Tommy and Philza related to one another. I’ll spare you every comment made about this – mostly because I want to spare myself from looking for all of them.

In the end, the current status is that their familial relationship is … unclear. Philza said, again in paratext, that it’s ultimately up to the writers to decide, whether or not Tommy is his son … which, I personally think he and Tommy should be the ones to establish that, but I’ll come back to that later.

But why is all of this important anyway? Why would this ambiguity create such an uproar, such controversy – especially when it comes to Tommy’s character? What makes Tommy’s and Philza’s relationship such a target for discussion in the fandom?

Well … this is where we will have to talk about the storyline of Season 2.

Interlude II: Tommy’s Exile and Dadza in Season 2

Okay, Season 2. This is where the spoilers are, so I will just sneakily drop this again. It took me five seconds to google this gif and I will milk it for every penny it’s worth!

At the beginning of Season 2, Philza’s narrative role has not changed much from where Season 1 ended. He is in L’Manburg dispensing earthly wisdom, being a paternal figure to Fundy, Ghostbur and Tubbo, helping with the nation’s rebuilding efforts; just generally occupying the role of the mentor.

[clips]

And then came … the Exile. The Exile Arc took place between December 3rd and December 15th during Season 2 of the Dream SMP. It revolves around TommyInnit getting exiled from L’Manburg and slowly getting psychologically tortured and broken down by Dream. It’s a really great arc, at least in my opinion, that explores and deepens a lot of Tommy’s character relationships, whether that be Tommy and Dream, Tommy and Tubbo or Tommy and Ranboo. One relationship, however, is noticeably missing.

So, yeah, Philza spends basically the entirety of the exile doing pretty much nothing of consequence. And that’s not a problem specific to him – One big criticism I would levy against the Exile Arc is that a lot of characters are left spinning their wheels. Which is why we get zany stuff like El Rapids, Drywaters, Eret’s Knights of the Roundtable, Boomerville – anyone remember Boomerville, that was a thing for 5 seconds, wasn’t it? – basically a lot of storylines are started and then unceremoniously dropped. Now, I will talk more about this, when I make a video about Season 2 of the Dream SMP … in ten years, look forward to it.

In the case of Philza, this inaction was especially damning, because at this point it was still a considered canon that he was Tommy’s dad. So, the fans were left with a situation, where just a few weeks prior Philza was occupying a paternal role for Fundy and Ghostbur … but now, that his youngest son was in a very concerning predicament – to put it lightly – he was nowhere to be found.

So why is that?

Well, the most obvious answer is that Dream and Tommy didn’t write him into the storyline. We’ve seen that Tommy wasn’t particularly interested in exploring a familial relationship to Philza, at least at the time. And it would just not fit in with what Dream and Tommy tried to do with the Exile Arc: they wanted to tell the story of Tommy being isolated, completely under Dream’s mercy, slowly worn down and manipulated. If Philza had been constant presence for Tommy during that time, it would have definitely shifted the narrative focus. That doesn’t mean that they couldn’t have done that, it’s just a matter of fact that they didn’t.

This also reveals another truth about content creator Philza’s character work, that I think is extremely crucial: He takes what the writers give him. Outside of a few choice moments, he doesn’t seem particularly interested in expanding or even solidifying his character on the SMP.

What I’m saying is that he is very go-with-the-flow: Wilbur wants to enact a Shakespearean tragedy? Philza’s up for it. Fundy wants him as a parental figure and mentor? Philza’s here for him. Tommy, conversely, doesn’t want him as a paternal presence, even though it would make sense for Philza’s character, as it was established so far, to be there? Philza will oblige.

The reason I’m mentioning this is because, while Tommy and Dream were unwilling to utilise Philza in their storyline, someone else was more than happy to. Which leads us back, like it always does, to everyone’s favourite Porky Pig-kinnie in a crown: Technoblade.

Technoblade and Philza, from everything I’ve seen of them, seem to be very good friends – and they share a lot of history even outside SBI. So, it’s commendable that they would collaborate on a storyline together.

A consequence of that, however, is that Philza’s narrative purpose shifts completely with very little transition. His entire character changes from being the Mentor-figure of L’Manberg to being pretty much exclusively defined as Technoblade’s ally; his man on the inside. It is a very sharp turn from the end of Season 1. Their relationship is once again informed via intertext – this time the Antarctic Empire on SMPEarth serves as the hypotext – but there isn’t a huge effort made to smoothly integrate that aspect of Philza’s character into the larger narrative framing around him.

How much the narrative utilisation of Philza has shifted can be very easily observed through the Butcher Army event on December 16th, a story event that I like less and less the more I think about. Here Philza is used to show just how corrupt and violent Tubbo’s administration has becomes. He is no longer the respected mentor, he is now the stand-in for the oppressed populace, similar to Niki’s role in Season 1. On a narrative level, he is here to prove a point.

If you’ve seen my Technoblade video, you know how I feel about … just that entire storyline, so I will not reiterate too much on it. I just want to make clear that I’m not principally against this development – if they wanted to truly explore Tubbo going down a dark path and getting corrupted by power, so much so that he would even treat the person who effectively raised him like a prisoner, I would be extremely here for it, I cannot stress that enough.

The problem I have is that it’s just so sloppily done. It is not coherent with how these characters behaved and, more importantly, how they were narratively framed prior to the Butcher Army event. Fundy gets one token line about Phil being his Grandfather – a far cry from the very emotionally complex relationship they had established at the beginning of Season 2 – and Phil then callously disowns him.

The major problem simply is that we don’t see how Philza changes from Mentor-figure to embittered, oppressed citizen. And there was enough time to build to that. During the entirety of Tommy’s exile Tubbo was pretty much spinning his wheels and Quackity and Fundy were opening up plot cul-de-sacs that didn’t end up going anywhere. This is time they could have spent on developing their relationship to Philza and the dark path they were going down – but again, Season 2 video.

There is not much to say on Philza’s narrative purpose and framing beyond the Butcher Army event. He remains pretty much exclusively Techno’s consigliere with his role as Mentor to L’Manburg a distant memory. He has some cute character moments with Ranboo, because content creator Philza is just big dad-energy whether he wants to or not, and whenever he and Ghostbur share a scene suddenly the narrative remembers that there are people other than Technoblade that should exist in Philza’s inner world. But aside from that, Philza’s storyline in Season 2 remains … pretty definitive is the nicest way I can put it.

Most importantly his relationship with Tommy continues to be completely unexplored – whether by chance or choice – and that combined with ever vaguer paratext leaves “Dadza” in a very peculiar situation.

 Conclusion: Is Dadza a Good Dadza?

So, the question to end all questions. The big, obnoxious text, that I will probably have put in the thumbnail – I haven’t made it yet, but I know myself. The honest answer is: I couldn’t tell you.

I have, in the past, been expounding the virtues of narrative analysis. That is because I feel that Narrative Analysis and Textual Analysis, like in this video, can provide certain tools that Character Analysis lacks. Often times I see people trying to get at a writing problem or query and getting frustrated because they’re not using the toolset, they need to figure out what they want to figure out.

But I’d be a hypocrite if I pretended like everything could be solved through the modes of analysis I prefer. And I think the Dadza-issue is exactly such a case.

I set out to explore why the Philza-Tommy-“Dadza”-relationship has become so controversial. It’s a combination of expectations build up through intertextual readings, that were partly canonized – something that is very common for the Dream SMP – conflicting pieces of paratext, which only serve to muddle the issue further and a text that is not only completely uninterested in actually exploring Tommy’s and Philza’s relationship – as it stands right now they might as well be strangers, narratively speaking – but also completely changes Philza’s narrative purpose as it relates to characters like Fundy or Tubbo about half-way through with little to no transition.

That is why I say, that Philza’s character is a victim of narrative circumstance. Because unwittingly, through all of these factors and decisions, there is not coherent reading of Philza that frames his parental skills in a particularly kind light.

The question of how we can judge Phil as a paternal figure ultimately falls within the purview of the character analysis – and that’s a very multifaceted issue, highly dependent on which POV you focus on and how you interpret the other characters in that POV’s periphery.

To put my cards on the table, I think that Philza is a very flawed father/father-figure – and I find that absolutely okay. Flaws are the spice of character building. He is not Cinderella’s Evil Stepmother – but he’s also definitely not Mufasa. If we were to read Philza as a paternal figure, then he would have made a lot of mistakes and decisions to the detriment of his “children” – least of all everything that happened on Doomsday.

But I also have sympathies for Philza fans who are tired of the Dad-Debate and would like to have his character judged independent from his relationship to Ghostbur, Fundy, Tubbo and Tommy.

Ultimately, to bring it all to a point, I’d like to end with saying, that I think that Philza, out of all the characters on the SMP, has the potential to be on of the most intriguing, multifaceted ones. There are all of these different patches of story, character moments and narrative and transtextual implications, that, if brought together, could create a beautiful tapestry of the character Philza.

You have his relationship with Techno, which holds the potential for so much emotional conflict and vulnerabilities, you have his time as mentor of L’Manburg, which is just criminally underused; the complex relationship between him and Ghostbur/Wilbur; and – for me, personally – most intriguingly this weird, almost uncomfortably distant non-relationship with Tommy. That last one is intriguing to me, because it contrasts just so much with our intertextual understanding of the characters and streaming personas – and it just holds the potential for so much conflict, so much drama, so much angst. Which I live for!

And, yes, I do believe that most of this is narrative happenstance, that this was largely not intended by Philza or really any of the writers. It’s just what happens when hybrid-roleplay-improv a long-running, livestreamed storyline in Minecraft.

But I want them to realize the potential they have on their hands, because it could – with barely any adjustments – turn Philza from a victim of narrative circumstance to a champion of it!

 Outro

Thank you so much for watching this video. Usually, I don’t record outros this standard, but after this beast of a video I felt it necessary. I hope that whether you’re a Philza fan or a Philza critical or just completely uninvolved in the whole thing, there is at least a little entertainment you could get from this.

I want to take this opportunity to say that my next few videos will probably not be Dream SMP related – a sentence which undoubtedly lost me a bunch of subs – simply because I don’t want to burn out on it. I genuinely enjoy watching the SMP and being exhausted by it would be something I wouldn’t want to force on myself.

But who knows what will happen? The Karl Jacobs video was something I did spur of the moment because the idea just came to me – so I can’t guarantee that the next video won’t be a three-minute joke about Purpled or whatever.

Anyway, my concrete plans for future Dream SMP videos are essays on Season 1 and Season 2 as well as one for Tales from the SMP.

Before that I have a longer video in the works, which I’ve already teased a bunch, so I hope it will finally be finished sometime. And I also may be working on something … eboys-related? Maybe. I’m not making any promises!

[rosiehunterwolf]

two halves of a broken whole

Prompts: Scars and Free Space (stealing Post-Fight from the twixt board)

Word Count: 2,191

Characters: Nya and Zane

Timeline: Immediately after season 9

Trigger Warnings: Blood, Needles, Brief Swearing

Summary: The Sons of Garmadon have been defeated. Garmadon is in prison. The city has been saved.

In the aftermath of the battle, Nya is more than ready to take a much-needed break. But the life of a ninja is messy. Recovery is never that simple. Although the wounds may have healed, the scars still remain.

Zane’s scars seem to match up, though. And maybe together, they can begin to heal.

Read on FFN.net

Read on Ao3

Tumblr work under the cut

Nya stumbled through the dark kitchen, searching through the cabinets. She gritted her teeth as pain flared in her arm. Where are those painkillers? Ugh, how does Skylor find anything in here? There’s no system!

She gasped in relief as she finally found the medicine cabinet, but as she reached out to grab a bottle, she bumped her bad arm against the cabinet door. Crying out in pain, she jerked her arm back, and the bottles came tumbling down and clattering loudly to the floor.

“Damn it all,” she groaned, leaning her head against the cabinet. “Stupid, stupid arm, why do you have to be so weak-”

“Nya?”

Nya jumped, hitting her head against the cabinet door. “Ow! Zane, what are you doing here-”

The nindriod crossed the small kitchen in two steps, yanking off the damp towel she had draped across her upper arm, revealing a long, bloody cut stretching across the length of it.

“I knew it,” Zane muttered. “Nya, why would you hide something like this?”

“It’s not that big of a deal, I-”

“Not that big of a deal? Nya, this is serious! You need stitches! Next time, say something!”

She winced. “I didn’t want to bother you guys- Lloyd was way more hurt than I was, you guys had your hands full with him.”

“You could’ve gone to Skylor.”

“I wanted to prove I could do it, okay?” Nya snapped. “Skylor was so strong, walking off Garmadon’s power corruption like it was nothing. And she was being so generous, letting us all crash in her house like this- I didn’t want to bother her anymore, but instead, I just ended up bleeding out all over her bathroom floor.”

Zane shot her a sympathetic glance. “Nya, don’t worry about that now. Skylor will understand, and I can clean it up. The only thing we care about is that you are safe. Here, go sit down.” He gestured towards a kitchen chair and headed towards the cabinet. Nya slumped over into the chair, still clutching her arm, and Zane rooted through the medicine bottles, finally pulling out the painkillers and handing her three large pills and a glass of water. She eyed them warily.

“Isn’t this a little much? I mean, it hurts, but not that bad.”

“I still have to give you stitches, remember?”

“Oh. You’re doing that now?” Zane turned away, and Nya took the opportunity to down the pills, using the cheap coffee she had made herself to help her swallow instead of the water Zane had given her. “Nya, if I don’t do this now it will only make the cut worse.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know- ow!” she yelped as Zane rubbed at the wound with a wet, antiseptic-soaked washcloth, the fabric quickly staining red.

“I need to clean it, Nya. This would’ve been much easier if you hadn’t spent so long walking around with an open wound.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

“I’m going to go get a needle and thread, I’ll be right back.” Nya sighed, slumping back against the chair. This was exactly what she had been trying to avoid. The guys had been through hell recently. The last thing they needed was having to worry about her, too.

“Nya?”

Nya jerked her eyes open, turning her gaze towards Zane. What happened? Did I doze off?

Stupid coffee, not doing its job.

Zane seemed to catch on to this too, and frowned. “When’s the last time you slept?”

“I don’t need sleep, I have this magical liquid called coffee.”

He shot her a stern glance. “Nya.”

“Fine! I don’t remember, okay?” She reached for the paper cup again, but Zane snatched it from her hand.

“You can’t live off of coffee. First of all, it’s horrible for your health, second, it can never replace a full night’s sleep.”

Nya crossed her arms, grumbling. “Hey, at least I’m better than Lloyd. He dumps like five pounds of sugar into his.”

“Yes, well, Lloyd is sleeping. Like you should be.”

“Which is so not fair,” she huffed. “I spent weeks trying to get him to sleep and the second you guys get back, he does it instantly.”

Zane smiled, but his eyes were sad. “Kai’s always kind of had a way with him.”

“I know.” She turned her head, sighing. “I wasn’t trying to sound ungrateful, I’m so glad you’re back, but-” Nya let her hand fall to her side, where it bumped against Zane’s. Gently, she rubbed her fingers across the smooth metal, her heart pounding in her chest. Suddenly, she squeezed Zane’s hand, her breath coming in heavy pants as she closed her eyes.

“Nya?”

Her eyes snapped open. “I’m fine. Let’s just get this over with.”

“Nya, it’s okay if you’re not fine.”

“I am.”

“I’m sorry we left you as we did.”

“It’s not your fault, okay?” She tugged away from him. Her hands were trembling now- from the coffee? The painkillers? The fear? She didn’t know. “It’s not your fault.”

Zane closed his hands over hers, steadying them. “No, but it still wasn’t fair to you. I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”

“You don’t know,” she whimpered. “You don’t know what it was like. I wanted to give up so bad, and Lloyd-” she closed her eyes, breathing out slowly. “I don’t even know how I got him through it. He was so depressed. I can’t go through that again.” She turned sharply towards Zane, grabbing his hands. “I can’t. You hear me? That can never happen again.”

Zane squeezed her hands back, his eyes sad. “Believe me, Nya, I will do everything in my power to make sure it never does. But we are ninja. Dangerous things are going to happen, and if we spend our whole lives fearing that, we’ll never get through. We need to live life one day at a time. We need to trust in each other.”

“I do trust you!”

“Good.” He placed a hand on her arm, just below the wound. “Then you’ll let me patch you up?”

Nya glanced at the needle and swallowed, looking away. “Just go ahead. Don’t make me watch.”

“We really don’t have the proper numbing medication,” Zane said. “The painkillers will help some, but this is still going to hurt.”

“Believe me, I’m sure the sword going in felt a lot worse.”

Zane pressed his lips together. “Yes, I suppose it did. Ready?”

“Stop asking me if I’m ready and just do it already!” Zane flinched away, and she quickly added, “Sorry. I’m just a little on edge.”

“You’re going to be fine. Just hold still.”

The needle was cold on her skin, and then suddenly it was piercing through her flesh. It took all of Nya’s willpower not to jerk away, and she bit down hard on her lip, forcing back a scream. “Holy shit- Zane!” she broke off in a whine.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry. It’ll be over soon.”

She tried to focus on her breathing as the needle pricked her again and again, Zane’s tugs quick and tight.

“Augh, remind me to visit Kryptarium later and go scream at those assholes for doing this to me.”

“We could’ve gotten you to a proper hospital if you had spoken up earlier. This is your own fault.”

“Oh, yeah, blame the victim. Besides, I hate hospit- aaugh, Zane, are you almost done?”

“Done.” Zane neatly snipped the thread, and Nya slumped over onto the table, grinding her teeth together and clenching her fists.

She felt Zane’s hand on her back. “Are you okay?”

“Gaugh, I will be, but son of a bitch, that hurt!”

“Alright.” Zane’s voice suddenly sounded cross. “It’s over now. That language is no longer necessary.”

“Are you seriously scolding me for swearing right now?” The table muffled her yelp. “I’d like to see how you cope when your arm stings like hell.”

“Nya.”

“You’re impossible!” Sitting up, she told him, “If you’re going to be such a goody-two-shoes, could you at least get me an ice pack?”

Zane got her the ice, and after about half an hour, the pain had finally dulled to something she could sleep through.

Exhausted as she was, though, she wasn’t done yet.

“Come see me in the morning,” Zane was saying, cleaning up the last of the bottles and putting them back in Skylor’s medicine cabinet. “It should be fine, but I want to check just to be sure. And try not to sleep on that side. I don’t want the stitches coming out during the night.” As he turned to walk out of the room, Nya grabbed his wrist.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

He blinked. “To bed? Like any sensible person should be at this hour?”

“Not so fast, now it’s your turn.”

“My turn?”

“You patched me up,” Nya told him as she turned and rustled through Skylor’s junk drawer. “It’s only fair that I return the favor.” She pulled out a few screwdrivers, some scrap metal, and- score, a circuit board. And in pristine condition, too! Skylor always had the best stuff lying around. When you could find it, that is.

“But Nya, I’m not injured!”

She put a hand on her hip, glancing him up and down. Scratches and dents littered the ice ninja’s skin, and if she knew Zane, that was usually an allusion to something bigger going on.

“Oh please, the four of you came back a mess.” She walked around him, inspecting him. “Don’t tell me you came out of that whole ordeal unscathed. And I didn’t see anyone check you over today. Aha-” leaning forward, she rapped her knuckles against a spot on his back, near the shoulder, and the panel shuddered beneath her touch. “I knew it. This section isn’t sturdy. Take off your shirt so I can get to it better.”

“Nya, I am a nindroid, injury is inconsequential-”

“I said, take off your shirt! Or are you going to make me do it for you?”

Zane sighed, pulling off his pajama top so that Nya could see the damaged area better. The panel appeared cracked and loose, so, gently, she pried it off, revealing several frayed and broken wires. Part of the exposed circuits were fried.

“And you were telling me off for hiding my injuries?”

“It’s hardly the same. Human bodies cannot withstand the amount of force that a nindroid’s can. Plus, you are susceptible to infection.”

“Zane, I don’t care!” She got to work snipping at the wires and pulling some of the damaged parts out. “You’re still one of us. Just because you can take this sort of damage doesn’t mean you should!”

“I know. I was just worried about the others.”

“Well, it’s about time you thought of yourself for once. You can’t properly care for us if you’re not functioning at full capacity, anyway.” Sticking the tweezers between her teeth, she readjusted the wires and got to work on the circuits.

“I… I don’t like asking for help.”

Nya’s fingers paused.

“‘E ei’er.” The tweezers muffled her words, but Zane got her point clear enough.

“Sometimes we do need help, though. We are part of a team for a reason, after all.”

Nya removed the tweezers and wiped her grease-stained hands on a towel. “You’re forgetting that I was Samurai X before I was a ninja. I didn’t need any help then.”

“I didn’t forget, I just remembered the important parts. We were still there for you afterward, even on your solo missions.”

Nya was quiet for a moment. “Maybe that was why it was so hard with you gone. It was like a piece of me was missing. I couldn’t fully uphold the Resistance without you guys there to help.”

Zane’s fingers skirted across his heart. “I don’t know how we went on, with part of our souls realms away.”

Nya put a hand over his. “But we’re here now.”

“But you weren’t. We have all the pieces again, but they feel… broken.”

“Hey.” Nya pressed the metal against the gap in his back, using the screwdriver to secure it into place. She leaned back, admiring her work. Good as new. “I fixed you, didn’t I? Nothing will stay broken forever.”

“I can fix a car,” Zane sighed. “Or the Bounty, or the oven, or myself. But I have no idea how one goes about putting pieces of a broken heart back together.”

Nya sat down next to him. Their eyes met- stunning, electrifying blue against deep, gentle brown. “Neither do I. But maybe… we can figure it out.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Together.”

“Together is good,” Zane agreed, putting his arm around her. “I think I like it a lot better than being alone.”

Sitting there, on the hard wooden chair, raw stitches in her shoulder, with Zane’s hard metal arms wrapped around her, she couldn’t have been in a more uncomfortable position. Yet Nya felt more at ease than she had in weeks.

For the first time since the guys had gone to the First Realm, Nya’s sleep was peaceful and uninterrupted.

[the-ghost-king]

I’m just intimidated by people who can at least seem to have all their shit together

I just submitted multiple assignments I've had a week or so to do after the due date, and my room is the worst mess it has been in months, and I'm neglecting sleep to dissociate... Any allusion about me being put together is simply that, an illusion

There's a wonderful video I love by Kat Napiorkowska (all of her videos are lovely but this one particularly relates to want I want to say to you), and I think that it might help you understand just a little better. It's not a perfect interpretation of myself and my life and my feelings and behaviors, but it has moments that hit so personally and so intimately...

She talks at the end about the idea of holding onto sanity, and how you expect someone with mental illness to look vs how someone with mental illness actually looks, and how much someone who suffers from a mental illness will hide themselves as an act of protection.

I think people think that sometimes people are someone they are not because we are better at projecting our false sense of self to please other people than we are at really being ourselves.. I do not know me because I have spent my whole life being the embodyment of someone else's ideas of myself

I try to be as open and honest as possible I'm regards to who I am, I am a person who makes mistakes, who is human, who is not unflawed, I am made of imperfect and penetrable flesh, I am not metal, I am human not monster, I am tired of being eaten, I cannot stop fighting... I think people are too often worried about being hated for being genuine or being hated for making a mistake and I try my best to be genuine and vulnerable when I can, because this helps avoid a false perception of who I really am

Social media isn't real though, and I can only project so much of who I really am through it that in some aspects it is bound to be an idealized version of the reality which I live in... Not because I lie but simply because I omit the harder aspects that carry pain other people don't need the weight of.

There is something about being raw and forthcoming that is unparalleled and I don't understand it but people enjoy it, and I haven't quite figured out why... All I can say is I try to speak truthfully and as kindly as possible, and my goal is to always be better than I was yesterday.

These are not complicated things to me, I simply take a moment to think and then say what I mean, and I try to clean up any damage if my words do happen to offend. I have made mistakes before and failed these rules, some of these rules I have made for myself are old and some are new, there is nothing put together about learning yourself though- I can assure you of that.

I don't know exactly where I'm going with this anon, but I decided at some point I couldn't keep killing myself quietly and now I'm trying to figure out the best way to water the plants that are me.

Also if I seem to have my shit together online I assure you I've had 5 mental breakdowns this week for a variety of reasons including homework, college, an internship, and some other stuff as well as I spent an entire day disassociated... Not to garner sympathies, but just to acknowledge I am projecting a more stable version of myself beyond what really exists.

I lay on the floor, and I eat chips, and then I cry because I ate chips, and I watch movies with the subtitles on so I never have to rewind in case I don't hear something, and I can't take a Tylenol without having an anxiety attack. I've heard voices that aren't real and seen the shadows on my wall become people, and I've cried sitting in my shower, and I give my dog a bath, and read my little sister stories, and I stumble over words in a language I don't yet entirely know.

So it shocks me that people find me intimidating or cool, because I am assuredly just another human with internet connection and a weird fascination with words and thoughts and human nature, and there's nothing horribly significant about someone staring out a window all day and reading poems online, other than I'm neglecting an overdue math assignment right now.

(Here's another video by the same creator that's also personally somewhat relatable and in line with the theme of what I'm trying to say)

[gyromitra-esculenta]

Died on Saturday, Buried on Sunday

Stretching fingers from the mermaid au for a moment, worked on the older idea, forgot how past tenses work. It has some sexy *cough* times in it.

Warnings: Eldritch stuff; Eldritch std; Eldritch Pregnancy; TENTACLES (some, not a lot) - Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane category; gore, violence, blood; dark humor; Major Character Death (Myabe, maybe not, quite esoteric in its essence); Underage (contextual allusion, but I'd decided to err on the side of caution); Lots of unsubtle manipulation; SOMEHOW LIKE PRETTY MUCH CANON-COMPLIANT AND I'M LIKE WHAT?

*

*

Jack Morrison had been dead for the better part of three decades.

After locking the door behind himself with the personal override that cut off all the outside communication, Gabriel turned to face the thing wearing Jack Morrison's skin sitting behind the Strike Commander's desk. He watched the pretense of any human emotion bleed out of Jack's face, to be replaced with impersonal curiosity.

"If this is about the discourteous United Nations representative, in my defense, I was hungry, and he irritated me."

Great. Time for breathing exercises. And Gabriel wondered, somehow, where his developing drinking problem was coming from. He crossed the distance to the desk and leaned on it with both his hands gripping the edge.

"You can't eat people only because..." Hell, who was he kidding, they had this particular argument rehearsed past the point of déjà vu. "Is there anything left I have to worry about?"

"It's not one of your operations," Jack smiled, teeth showing, and without the usual mimicry, the expression could – and did – look downright terrifying, "or one of your inconvenient detainees. I'm always careful."

"Yeah, about that..." The real Jack Morrison had been dead for the better part of three decades, a victim of a hit and run left to die in a ditch whom something else found and crawled into – if Gabriel were to trust anything this Jack Morrison told him. “You gave me some kind of eldritch std.”

"I did?" Jack craned his head to the side, the reaction almost impossible to gauge. Gabriel let go of the desk, slowly, and pulled up his jacket together with the shirt underneath. The skin on his side still pulsated with immaterial liquid blackness coming apart. "So I did."

"That's all you have to say for yourself?"

"This situation is far from an exact science, Gabe. To this time, you're the only human that has survived in full health." Jack brushed his fingers against the undulating mass trying to cling to his fingertips like water in zero gravity.

"You have no idea, then."

"No. But I think I know who might prove helpful, you will only have to put on your charm after I'm done with her." Jack brought up a profile on the screen. "Just say the word."

Gabriel did not need to read it, he had prepared the dossier himself and advised caution, preferably termination.

"Do it."

Two months later, Moira O'Deorain was inducted into Blackwatch.

*

Blackwatch's best-kept secret was the fact some occupants of the holding cells sometimes disappeared without a trace, only leaving behind the unusually bloody mess splattered even on the ceilings. Awful stuff no-one wanted to be stuck cleaning up, so everybody kept their mouths rightfully shut.

Gabriel flicked the ash off the cigarette he'd been barely smoking in front of one of such cells.

"Are you done in there? You have a party in an hour, and if I can't get out of it..."

The door opened with a high-pitched whine of one of the hinges – he should have someone look at it later – and Jack, looking pristine compared to the gory mayhem inside, stepped out, slowly licking the tips of his fingers, the tongue flitting in and out of his lips.

"...then neither can I?"

"Then neither can you." The wet sounds of the blood dripping from the ceiling still held their unnerving quality. "Did you learn anything useful?"

"Only a bunch of religious nonsense. Tell me," Jack turned to face him inside the hidden elevator going straight to his quarters. "Why do you all find a merciful god when faced with me?"

Because there has to be something to balance out the existence of whatever you are, Gabriel answered him the first time the question had been asked. A rehash of an old argument, Jack being facetious and playful, always leaving him wondering how many of those interactions were purely for his benefit, and what he was exactly to Jack: a pet, a project, an interesting specimen?

'One that didn't run' was an exponentially poor explanation to Gabriel's liking, and the only one he ever got. After all, running was of no use, and that night he had snuck out to smoke on the roof of their compound, Gabriel decided he might as well finish his cigarette before he got devoured like Mason, or be driven insane by the sight of the thing that wore Jack Morrison's skin.

Funny how spontaneous explosion due to unexplainable internal buildup of unknown gases got on the list of some more baffling SEP side effects.

"My turn?" Gabriel had asked when Jack turned to him, face slack and expressionless like one on a corpse, but put on something living, a travesty against the natural order. He raised his half-burned cigarette up for Jack to see. "Give me a minute or two."

With Jack slowly circling him, far too close for it to be of any comfort, he got to finish his smoke.

"I like you. You might do."

It took him two more cigarettes in the company of the splatter of organs, bone, and blood Mason had become to realize he was alone, and around half an hour before he called the whole mess in, avoiding any mention of what had actually occurred. An elaborate hallucination, Gabriel had assumed. God, was he wrong then, and on the next placement rotation, Jack made sure there were no doubts to be had about the authenticity of the roof incident.

The ding of the elevator arriving was enough to bring Gabriel back to the present.

"What were you thinking about?"

"Mason."

"Always the romantic." Jack moved deeper into the suite, ordering Athena to open the windows but lower the blinds, getting the ‘security’ expert in Gabriel to wince before he eventually remembered he had no idea if Jack could even be killed. He had seen the body pull itself back together more than once, the pulverized muscle and bone popping into its proper place with visceral slurps and cracks, the sinews tying the single strands back into a whole – an atavism, as he came to learn. The perfect image in one's mind's eye to be undressed to.

Not that Gabriel minded, particularly. Not at all.

But seeing Jack feed always brought something out of him – and being satiated always made Jack prone to indulge in more pedestrian matters, like having Gabriel spread painfully over his lap and speared on his cock, tendrils of void keeping him bound and upright, and immobile. Dissecting him with clinical precision and then putting him back together, all while observing Gabriel with the professional disinterest one might wear during a specimen’s autopsy. Honestly, the thought itself made his dick strain against his thigh, nothing at all like bending Jack over Strike Commander's desk for a quick fuck, or having him on his knees with his scary pretty mouth on Gabriel's cock, sometimes even playing along in a fashion making him appear almost human, and so much more horrifying for making Gabriel doubt who – or rather what – was sucking his dick.

He was jostled out of his unconscious train of thought by something pressed hard against his side, sinking into the flesh turned black. With his neck craned, Gabriel observed in morbid fascination the tentacle as it moved deeper in, soon joined by another one following the suit.

"...what?" Gabriel gasped out before slick mass forced itself between his lips and surged down his throat, choking him with its girth, and for a moment took his mind off the sensation of becoming increasingly – inconceivably – bloated, for all the wrong reasons. To his rising panic, the intrusion blocking off his air remained still and rigid, making it impossible to breathe around it until it eventually moved and contracted, slipping slowly further along. The first few breaths Gabriel took produced embarrassingly wet wheezing gurgles becoming frantic again with the growing awareness of something stuck in his gut, poking and prodding where nothing should, the feeling of things inside squirming alien and impossible to ignore.

He strained futilely against the bonds keeping him in place.

This was it, finally, the moment Jack would devour him because he had become bored with him, or Gabriel had lost his usefulness to him – the moment Gabriel would become a pitiful smear of flesh and blood painting the walls and the ceiling – and maybe even Jack himself. The thought should scare him. Instead, Gabriel felt his dick twitch in excitement as his balls tightened and heat pooled between his legs, leaving him trying to fuck the air in the vain hope of creating any friction while still held in the vice of unyielding tentacles.

Pleading with his eyes, not for his life, but to be let to come.

Jack pressed his palm to his chest, lips on his scary pretty face curled up in either amusement or sneer, or something entirely else, and the sensation of something popping inside reverberated behind Gabriel's ribs. Peritoneal rupture, the still-functioning analytical part of his mind supplied. Internal bleeding, infection, immediate medical intervention needed. But Jack was only smiling up at him while something contracted his lungs, leaving his chest fluttering desperately.

"She has outdone herself, his time," Jack mused, breaking away the eye contact as his lips closed around Gabriel's nipple – teeth scraping over it – biting into it – just one of the myriad of sensations breaking through the descending fog of lightheadedness. His body fighting for its life, Gabriel focused on just, or as much as, staying conscious while the animal inside clawed and whined, maddened with the primal fear of death until something was squeezed from the inside – almost an explosion – and, screaming, he tasted the bitter ichor.

Slowly coming to, and laid out on the bed, Gabriel was simply amazed to be alive – still. Sore, hurting, spent, but neither in pain nor dying. His hand, held to his side, rested on solid unbroken skin while his befuddled mind tried to come up with any explanation at all. Fucked within an inch of his life, definitely. Confused as hell why – somehow and inexplicably – he was still breathing and existing? That too.

Something brushed the back of his hand, and the tendril receded back to Jack, folding back into his form with unhurried neatness.

"Being fashionably late is back in fashion, I hear," Jack, in his dress attire, laughed before walking out and leaving Gabriel to his own devices. He glanced at the digital clock on the wall and swore.

He made it to the party an hour late, already hating everybody there.

And with any function like this one, nothing more was expected of him but to be an intimidating wallflower, allowed to be almost as rude and uncouth as he truly wanted to be when telling people to fuck off while he nursed his undiluted vodka, eyes on Jack flitting around the room. All smiles and sparkles, and sweet words of social conventions and contracts he had no care for save for keeping up the appearances. The performance was nauseating by itself.

As for Gabriel, he was more than happy with their silent arrangement, the small talk exhausting and pointless – and what was he supposed to even say?

'Dear ma'am, I murder people, and when I don't, I find people for your precious devil-sent Strike Commander to eat, and by the way, ma'am, you look simply enchanting tonight!'

Gabriel set the empty glass on a windowsill and grabbed another one from a passing waiter.

'Sir, so nice to meet you, I'm Gabriel Reyes, this is my partner who is an unholy abomination straight from some hell – if hell exists, but I’m willing to err on the side of caution in those circumstances – and our kid literally popped out of me on the battlefield, yeah, I'm still trying to figure that one out' also never seemed like it would do well as a conversation starter.

Gabriel knocked back the drink, gin and tonic this time, and left the glass standing next to the previous one. He walked out to the balcony, hand already reaching for the pack in his pocket, fingers itching to feel the weight of a lighted cigarette between them. Turning around, he came face to face with Jack bringing up an already burning lighter for him, his back to the crowd in the room. Gabriel leaned against the balustrade and lighted his cigarette, drew in the smoke slowly into his lungs – savoring it – observing and waiting. Jack pocketed the lighter, and then tampered with Gabriel's tie, his fingers sliding lower after, splayed, with a smile of something that had never learned what a smile was really about.

The ride or die kind of smile, all teeth and malice, the last thing for anyone else but Gabriel to see.

"It's coming along all nice," Jack mused.

"You put another one in me?"

"Maybe." Coy and teasing, the answer sent shivers down Gabriel's spine.

"When."

"Not today. Would you have said no to me?"

The choice he didn't have aside, Gabriel knew he wouldn't have refused.

Curiosity was the first step on the stairs leading all the way straight down to hell, and he had gladly taken a tumble down, his sanity forfeited with the knowledge he had never wanted but couldn't get enough of. They say curiosity killed the cat, but the satisfaction brought it back.

And the satisfaction had tasted of iron in his mouth, smelled of burning circuitry, felt like a projectile ripping through his armor – Jack huddled over him, speaking nonsense words of encouragement not to him but to the thing gnawing at Gabriel from the inside. It finally burst out, and Jack took it into himself before calling in the medvac, hitting all the right notes in his voice on the call: trembling and interrupted, pitched higher than usual.

"When it's coming?"

"When it's ready."

Gabriel blew the smoke in his face, slowly.

Later that night, long into the morning hours, fucking into the body going through its paces below him – back arched and mouth open, fluttering fingers clenched on the sheets – Gabriel asked again about the why.

"Do you really want to know?" Jack whispered into his ear. "That night, on that roof, you held no faith. And I thought, I'll make you believe in me."

The answer horrified Gabriel more than anything else Jack had ever told him, not because it rang false but because it rang true – and the truth of himself was worse than all the lies Jack could spin.

*

Following months – almost a year – passed in an unfettered deluge of things going wrong and compromised operations. Jack didn't give a fuck, starting with Rialto.

"I want you to kill him."

Gabriel stared at him, waiting for a follow-up that didn't come.

"It runs contrary to..."

"Either way, you will find your hand forced. Isn't it better to act out of one's own volition?"

What had sounded not unlike a veiled threat turned out to be an even more veiled warning. 'You still need her,' was Jack's answer to Gabriel's ire, delivered with a note of amusement. The worst of it, he was right, disgustingly and irredeemably right. Gabriel hated it; Moira remained on retainer.

But today, another name was on Gabriel's mind – swamped with fear, anger, and desperation – as he broke into a run towards the landing bay.

Ana.

Jack had killed Ana.

Gabriel pushed past the agents and the medical personnel, ignoring the surprised sounds of indignation, Jesse behind him taking over the explanations, his voice relaxed and unhurried.

"Better clear out, the commanders are gonna have, ah, whatcha call it, a private word."

Jack, still in the carrier, sitting with his head bowed, pensive, Ziegler standing in front of him, didn't acknowledge his presence, not until Gabriel sneered at the medic to get the fuck out. The perfect image of the caring commander in how he slowly nodded to her.

"Now!" Passing Gabriel, Ziegler flinched with her entire body. He waited for her to clear at least some distance from the carrier before he was looking into amused blue eyes while he had Jack pressed by his neck against the far wall of the craft's inside. "The fuck have you...?"

"What do you think I've done?"

He didn't remember much of it – startled out of his fury by the sound of laughter, of all things – sitting on Jack's chest with knees braced on either side of Jack’s ribs – fist raised, hurting – skin on his knuckles cracked and covered in blood, his and Jack's.

"You killed her. You killed Ana. You..."

But Jack didn't stop laughing – meat and bone fixing itself back into shape, torn lip regaining its arch – a proof of Gabriel's impotence, his momentum cut short when it met with the simple inability to cause harm to the wretched thing under him.

"I’ve never ever touched her."

"You're lying!"

"Why would I? You see," Gabriel started at the touch curling around the nape of his neck, pulling him to lean down with the strength that suffered no objection until their foreheads met, "your dear Ana, she left you."

"She wouldn't..."

"She did. She saw an out, and she took it, so clever."

Arms wrapped around his back and Gabriel slumped against Jack's frame, adrenaline and tension bleeding out of his body – leaving behind surging feelings of betrayal and hopelessness – and still, some doubt that dispersed with fingers combing through his hair, lips brushing against his cheek in a light kiss, and a hissing whisper.

"I could hunt her down for you."

"No."

Gabriel didn't question Jack's ability to find Ana, he feared what Jack would do when he found her.

"Poor Gabriel, left all alone. Alone, with me," Jack chuckled. His fingertips massaged Gabriel’s scalp in a soothing pattern. "She's always understood, and she still abandoned you to me."

Gabriel had no strength left in him to protest that she couldn't know.

"Such keen eyes, to call me ifrit of the jinn. Such a narrow vision to call me that. So much more than I came to expect from your kind," Jack continued, words dripping with twisted amusement, and Gabriel closed his eyes. "A vengeful curse of the dead. I do like the sound of it. Don’t you?"

*

The noose slipped around his neck and the ground gave way, everything falling apart to rubble and leaving an empty husk behind. Gabriel didn't want to fight anymore. The blue coat rested thrown over the back of the chair Jack sat in with his chin propped up on his palm.

"I don't know what else can be done. This situation is... Are you even going to do anything?"

"No." Jack tapped his fingers against his cheek, slow and idle, a smile stretching on his face at Gabriel's resignation.

"I don't know why I even care anymore."

And he didn't. He could try to bullshit himself with the tired phrases of duty, of having poured his heart and soul into Overwatch, of doing good and fighting the good fight, but ultimately, they would all turn out to be poor excuses.

'I will make you believe in me.'

"You shouldn't care." Jack stood up and walked around the desk, stopping in front of Gabriel. He put his hands on Gabriel's face; some part of Gabriel hated the fact he didn't flinch. He never did. "This system's complexity outgrew the possibility of governance a decade ago."

It had been for nothing. And now, as Jack leaned in with the grimace of a baleful smile stretched across his face – touching his forehead to Gabriel's – with the defeat came relief: in the greater scheme of things, whatever were his actions, they were meaningless after all.

Gabriel looked – truly looked – at Jack for the first time in ages, and he saw the details he had always noticed but never considered as a whole: the receding and thinning hairline, the white at the temples, the crow's feet, the spiderweb-like labyrinth of small purplish veins under the skin. Superficial signs of aging appearing subtly over the years, the question of either performance, or the body pushing its own narrative over the thing inhabiting it, but, according to Jack, death didn't exist, and what existed in its stead was change.

"What do you intend to do now?"

"A real quandary, isn't it, what will I do next? What should I do? What do you think, Gabe?" Jack mused, his eyes leisurely half-closed, Gabriel's hands finding their resting place at his hips. He answered the question by himself, the one Gabriel was on the cusp of asking but too afraid to voice. "We could find Ana, air our grievances with her, we do have some, don't we? Or play around and hunt down some dirty scurrying rats. With nothing holding you back anymore, just imagine it, all the bloodshed, and all the violence you might ever wish for."

"Tempting." And it was. Gabriel sighed, reassured at being included.

"I knew you'd see it my way." Corners of Jack's eyes crinkled in amusement. Of course, Gabriel would, Jack made sure of it: seeped under his skin and into his thoughts, slithered all over his nerves and took root in his mind, bound Gabriel to himself with Gabriel's own permission. In hindsight, he wouldn't change a thing, as long as he was still wanted, for the lack of a better word.

Jack stirred, eyes flicking to the side for a moment, lips pursed and attention focused on something beyond the room.

"I see. This is how it's going to be."

Jack pulled him with his hands in for a kiss – crushing and ravenous – devouring Gabriel as the ground gave way under their feet among the roar of the blood rushing in his ears and the wail of the backdraft before the suffocating darkness overtook everything.

After he had pulled all the parts of himself together among the smoking rubble, deafened by the cacophony of gunfire and screams, Gabriel fled. Jack would survive on his own.

Sombra slipped out of his flesh with little fanfare days later, a small shadow through which alien stars shone like glittering eyes. But he called her that only when she began to fill in her form, soon a young woman consuming knowledge with the voracity of a newborn.

The hearings came and went. Ziegler made a show out of herself. Gabriel had scoffed at her testimony then. In retrospection, he could see how she had reached her conclusion.

Months passed and Gabriel, struggling to keep whole at the seams, had finally understood Jack was not coming back. He handed Sombra to Jesse, who could teach her so much more than Gabriel ever could, and sought help from the only person who could offer it.

Years down the line, looking at the frail – small – mangled body – its fingers twitching in a growing pool of blood, and pinkish bubbles breaking on the lips, eyelids on an uneven level, one eye bloodshot – the thing inhabiting it gone with a soundless pop of ripped reality, Gabriel realized Jack had never specified if the kid was dead when he had found him.

It was a split-second decision that he made.

"O'Deorain, get your ass down to the lab stat, the body is still alive."

*

With the kid below him – back arched and mouth open, fluttering fingers clenched on the sheets – Gabriel was, once again, found doubting.

[nodesiretogrowup]

alright, round 2

Quack Pack!:

Damn, they just throw you into the sitcom. I love it. All the overacting and over the top poses/reactions are great

Dewey’s entrance is great

Is the bear the one from the last episode?

“I’ve shenaned-once, I’ll shenan-again” BEAUTIFUL

And then he just one-legged hops up the stairs backwards

I liked the Della and Louie are both wearing green. It’s a cute thing to tie them together

ON THE MOOOOOOOOON

Louie totally did this scheme with Dewey in Della’s place at some point

The fact that Scrooge stops to entertain the idea is great

 “We’ve got about...30 mins” I love when shows make allusions to the actual runtime

Beakley and Webby had the BEST ENTRANCE! They must have seen the Lady Gaga halftime show

That dangerous agent stuff is probably gonna come back. Next week is the spy episode so...

“I’m not a spy” I wonder how that worked in the plot of the fake show. Did Beakley do spy stuff? It just doesn’t make sense for a sitcom

From the get-go Huey could tell things were off

WHY DID DONALD HAVE TO MAKE SUCH A SEXY FACE AT THE CAMERA?! I DON’T WANT TO HAVE A CRUSH ON DONALD! CURSE THE DT CREW FOR MAKING DONALD HOT! AND THE SEXY VOICE!

I wish they had just used the Quack Pack intro for the theme this episode

I want Launchpad’s band to somehow exist. I liked the girl’s design a lot

INTRODUCING DELLA!

“QUACK PACK WAS TAPED IN FRONT OF A LIVE STUDIO AUDIENCE.” Oh 90s sitcoms

When you rewatch the episode you can see they foreshadowed the twist. Donald looks directly into the camera an awful lot for someone that doesn’t know there even is a camera

Knox Quackington? Even for a show full of punny names, that is a ridiculous name

His outfit looks more “ace reporter” than “eccentric photographer”

“He’s a spy” Do you think Gene was trying to pretend to be a spy for the wacky misunderstanding of the episode in-universe or he just didn’t know how photographers act?

“YOU’RE SO SMALL! But so STRONG!” Webby has probably killed a man

The screen wipes are GREAT, though that feels more like an anime thing than sitcom. Sitcom scene wipes usually were establishing shots of the house they live in or the city. I’ve watched far too much tv

Louie’s lie speil was great and solid logic

“Time is money, kids, and I’d rather spend time because it’s not money” Inspirational

Donald sure cares a lot about the lighting. How would he know the office had the best lighting, hmmmmm

Something about that hand movement makes me think 90s but I’m not sure why

Dewey doing the dance that the triplets do in Mr. Duck Steps Out is cute

The blank pages made me think about how people can’t read in their dreams

“On the moon we had this old saying-always check your pockets” To be fair, that is good advice

Poor Huey just CAN’T catch a break! First he hallucinates a talking guidebook (THAT BURNS TO DEATH AND COMES BACK AS A GHOST) now reality is SHATTERING BEFORE HIM. Yeah...this season’s gonna do a number on this kid. Hopefully he gets a break next week

“Since when are YOU a hairstylist?” “SINCE THE INTERNET” Now THAT is a quarantine MOOD right there 

So we learn later that SHABOOEY is Gene’s catchphrase, is Dewey saying it because he’s being controlled by Gene in that moment? 

Donald looks into the camera again

SOMEONE HELP THIS CHILD! HIS WORLD IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL

THE FUCKING PEP COMMERCIAL! GOD IT WAS SO 90S AND BEAUTIFUL!! I NEED THE SONG TO BE RELEASED! 

Maybe because it was a soda ad in a Disney Afternoon-based show, but the commercial made me think of Coo-Coo Cola from Rescue Rangers

Ducktales-the ONLY Disney show with an in-universe “and you’re watching Disney Channel”

I love Huey dearly but....it’s really fun watching him MCFRICKIN LOSE IT

Dewey can’t throw...because he’s a theatre kid

Donald looks at the camera again

Louie’s wipe DEFINITELY looks like something out of an anime. Is Louie secretly a weeb? I mean he is in a different show

Gene doing his best not to break character. A true thespian through and through

“Yo” *all the ladies cheer*

All of the sudden BAM Launchpad has a band. Is he the Uncle Jesse?

I love that we don’t get to hear them play

“Trapped in a mystical prison that’s constantly laughing at us” I call that my brain :’)

“WHO ARE THOSE LITTLE GUYS?”

“I figured if anyone would crack, it’d be Dewey” Huey seems WAY more likely to snap imho

“But that was from soul-crushing loneliness” Della, you wanna talk about that? With a professional perhaps?

“We need some wacky hijinks!”

“HOW DID I GET HERE? WHY AM I DANCING?” Huey gets SO MANY great lines this episode

And once again we have Donald looking directly into the camera

“Cute girl stuff” Della probably went around with a meat tenderizer as a kid, so it’s normal

Goofy seemed to be aware of the cheering. HMMMMMMM

AAAAAAAAAAAAND.....GOOF TROOP POSE

I’ve been calling DT17 Goofy Chibi Goofy because of how short he is compared to how he normally looks. They probably made him shorter so he and Donald fit in a single frame easier. I know a lot of the boarders/animators for the show have a hard time doing scenes with Launchpad and the kids because of how MASSIVE he is compared to the kids

Goofy knew something was different about Donald. HMMMMMMM

The way Don delivers the line “You CAN help” has a weird inflection, at least to me

I want Goofy thinking to become a meme and people put random sounds over it like those are Goofy’s thoughts

That face-slap was loud

AND DONALD LOOKS INTO THE CAMERA LIKE HE’S ON THE OFFICE

Where was Dewey that whole time? He kind of just...disappears for a bit

Oh Launchpad, you MAJESTIC himbo. And Gene smiles, too cute

“Getting the lid off that peanut butter jar was an adventure” In that household it probably could have

Donald using Louie and Della’s names when he could have just said you broke your mom’s vase or something like that

You look pretty nervous there, Donny-boy

“I don’t mean the last episode” Good, because you kinda lost your mind in the last episode

Wow, flashbacking is TRIPPY

“EVERYONE, TILT YOUR HEAD TO THE LEFT THEN SCRATCH YOUR CHIN” So that’s how you do it

“We should really get back to the plot, I mean problem”

Why don’t you want to flashback, DONALD?

lol Goofy does it too even though he wasn’t present for that event

Gene’s just blankly staring in the background

“REMINISCE HARDER” What you tell yourself as you take a test and are trying to remember what you studied

Yay, the journal is brought up!

“How many lamps did this jerk have?” Excellent question

Webby looks INSANE and Huey FULLY SUPPORTS HER

DONALD HAS PTSD AND NEEDS HELP

I feel like Gene took some MAJOR liberties with Donald’s wish. When I think normal family problems I don’t think of sitcoms. In fact that is the FURTHEST THING from what I think of as normal. Then again Gene is played by Urkel, so that might be his normal

Speaking of, does Gene know that they are all ALREADY in a tv show? How far does this rabbit hole go?

“EVERYONE STOP CATCHPHRASING!” “Is ‘I’m not a spy’ seriously my catchphrase?” You deserve better, Beakley

Of COURSE Dewey’s cool with it...because he’s a theatre kid

DEAR LORD, SOMEONE HELP THIS MAN!

Gene just trying to sneak out. I don’t think he wanted to deal with all that family drama

“HOW MANY MORE SECRETS DOES THIS AGENT HAVE?!” Oh Launchpad. Next week you’ll learn all about secrets and agents and secret agents

Gene feels like what would happen if all of Genie’s pop culture references were limited to the 90s. I LOVE IT

“AGES! The long ago year of 1990!” Well I feel old (born in 91). His eyes after he says it are just AMAZING

Gene being so knowledgeable about what makes great tv is hilarious. Clearly he should have directed the Darkwing movie lol

Seriously though, this really gives us a good look at Donald’s psyche. The guy just wants his family to be safe. But it’s even deeper than that. He wants to be normal, which includes him having a voice that’s easier for people to understand. He’s got a lot of baggage and trauma that needs to be dealt with, mainly how he views himself. Like, fuck

The HURT you see in Della’s eyes when Donald talks about why he likes it there BROKE ME

Huey’s line about adventuring being who they are got me teary eyed

Goofy just shrugs as he walks out

Of course Launchpad was gonna get the multiple dates plot. We’re ALL thirsty for some Launchpad

“Probably at least 3 seasons, plus spinoffs, and I assume they’ll reboot the show eventually.” Lines like this make me think Gene is very aware he is in a tv show

WHY THE FUCK WERE THE AUDIENCE HUMANS?! IS GENE AWARE THAT HUMANS EXIST AND ARE WATCHING THE VERY SHOW HE’S ON?! WHAT IS REAL ANYMORE?!

 “HORRIBLE, FLESH-FACED MONSTERS!” Not gonna argue with that

Dewey is SUCH a drama queen

I don’t like how Scrooge called Gene genie. He told you his name, there’s no need to be rude

POGS

Ok the study date girl kinda reminds me of Laura from Family Matters, but that might just be because Urkel is there lol

How old is Launchpad supposed to BE in the sitcom? I don’t think a 30-something is going on many study dates

“You all seem real nice, I feel bad about the mix-up” LAUNCHPAD YOU BEAUTIFUL HIMBO

OH GOD THE LAURA DUCK IN THE BACKGROUND. JESUS

Beakley and Della telling the dates to find themselves and to be independent SLAYED ME. I was NOT expecting that!

“AH, MY PET SNAKE!” “Louie why would you have this?” “THIS IS A POORLY CONCEIVED STORYLINE!” “Eh, everyone’s a critic.” Louie’s right though, DEWEY would be the one with an exotic pet. Or any pet

Tiny Johnny and Randy

WHY ARE THE HUMAN KIDS’ PROPORTIONS SO MUCH WORSE THAN THE ADULTS?! THEY HAVE GIANT FUCKING HEADS!

 PUT SOME PEP IN YOUR STEP

The ENTIRE SCENE of Goofy and Donald together was SO HEARTWARMING and something we could NEVER GET before this series!  Having Donald and Goofy talk about being parents is WONDERFUL! It’s something we’ve never seen before with these characters. Donald just wants to be normal and Goofy giving a beautiful speech about how there really is no normal so enjoy the candid moments in life. I LEGIT CRIED

OF COURSE Goofy would have the wallet overflowing with pictures, he is THAT DAD. Seeing Max was great. I thought we might see PJ but I SQUEE’D when they showed the picture of Max and Roxanne! I hope they show up for real later on

We get a hint at the OTHER twist here with Goofy actively encouraging Donald to put things back to normal while everyone else that aren’t the Duck family are trying to keep them there

Also, Goofy’s ears have bones

DON’T MESS WITH DONALD’S FAMILY. It will NOT end well for you

Goofy just starts snapping pics, like the true photographer he is

SAX TIME

“LET’S GET QUACKING” It’s no “I AM THE STORM” but still good

AVENGERS CAMERA SPIN

“A lamp in a lamp?” I can’t tell if that is BRILLIANT or lazy. Or BRILLIANTLY LAZY

“YA HA HA HOOOOWIIIIIEEEEE” It wouldn’t be a proper Goofy cameo without the yell

The scorpions got bored and left

 “The sound of no one laughing never sounded SO GOOD”

“BEST EPISODE EVER!” Definitely in my top 5

“Gawrsh, that’s sweet.” *does a cute wave* “Wait, Goofy was really here this whole time?”

Ok, but where was Goofy before then? Did Gene poof him away from something important? I WANT ANSWERS!

I bet they had this bit so people wouldn’t freakout like they did with Darkwing

I love Launchpad just being confused and waving at Goofy. He’s never met the dude before so it’s understandable. But I NEED they to have a proper interaction. THING OF THE PROPERTY DAMAGE!

“Magic’s got NOTHIN’ on a big name guest star” YOU KNOW YOU’RE IN A SHOW!

Lowkey want that Goofy lava lamp

The little Maxes flying over Goofy’s head...ADORABLE

PLEASE TELL ME THEY GOT GOOFY HOME SAFE

Donald using his last wish on the picture made me tear up. He could have had ANYTHING. He could have wished for a normal voice. But he used it for a family memory

Donald and Beakley both looked into the camera for the picture. WHILE FIGHTING DEMON HUMANS.

I can’t lie, THIS was the episode I was most excited for even before we got the premiere date. I was excited for the 90s cheesiness. Then we found out Goofy was gonna be in it and I got even more excited. Goofy is one of my faves, especially Dad Goofy. I was expecting it to be balls-to-the-wall insanity nonstop but they got me in the feels too. I want more of this Goofy and Donald. The two of them being single parents who lost someone close to them. Like I said earlier, this episode is in my top 5 for sure.

[willimannarai-new]

Avatar tours#1-3: Zurich-Tokyo

«Am nächsten Tag ging die Sonne auf »

Helmhaus Museum, Zurich/CH

4. December 2020 - 24. January 2021.  20. December 2020 -  2. March 2021 - 5. April 2021 

With: Ali Al-Fatlawi, The Bad Conscience (Veru Loremipsum & LS Grave), Seraina Dür & Jonas Gillmann (in collaboration with the Theater Neumarkt Zürich), Philip Matesic, Teresa Pereira, Silvia Popp – Insel Institut, Alicia Velázquez, Guido Vorburger, Wassili Widmer, Willimann/Arai, Mirjam Wirz, Druckatelier Thomi Wolfensberger – curated by Nadja Baldini, Vreni Spieser, Simon Maurer and Daniel Morgenthaler

https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/kultur/de/index/institutionen/helmhaus/Presse/Presse_am_naechsten_tag.html

Next Day The Sun Came Up – that could be the opening sentence of a novel. The exhibition at Helmhaus is all about breaking out and starting afresh – with the rising sun. It is about the capacity for resistance and regeneration – having overcome sheer exhaustion. It is about the possibilities of renewal. A dozen or so collectives and individuals, idiosyncratic, unconventional and compelling artists from Zurich, are putting themselves and their work out there at Helmhaus.

We actually came up with this title Next Day The Sun Came Up back in 2019. With its interwoven allusions to past, present and future, it could easily be the title of a novel or even of a rom-com. Today, we are all aware that the whole world is like some penny-dreadful. There is no guarantee of a happy ending. The only thing we know for sure is that the sun will come up next day. No matter what happened last night. The relentlessness of time, passing as it does, even over masses of dead bodies, under radiant blue skies, is both a blessing and a curse. Time goes on. That is the only certainty there is. Not for everyone, but for those who remain. Its unpredictable, inexorable advance right across the entire world defines the present. No algorithm can fully help us to prepare for the future, through growth and depression, whether economic or healthwise. And so we stumble along, lightheaded and breathless. What we suppress comes back to haunt us.

Even before the virus began to circulate, we had already chosen circulation as our theme for 2020 and the participating artists had already been exploring concepts of circulation in their art. The participating artists keep on going, producing, creating, heading reflectively into each day. They take the light with them and make something of it. No matter what may come – next day. They weave a web of threads between continents and cultures, between past and present, between day and night, banality and dream. They exchange viewpoints, address their counterparts and opponents. They speak with pigeons.

Four examples: Next day the sun came up – but what was Zurich like the day before? Artist Philip Matesic always develops his works in collaboration with exhibition visitors and passers-by. In this instance, he wants to find out, as part of a collective, whether a city such as Zurich has a memory. In doing so, he uses techniques inspired by American author Joe Brainard’s I Remember, unleashing a veritable stream of memory that inexorably sweeps us along, churning memories of our own to the surface. Zurich? Now, that somehow reminds me…

Mayumi Arai is always eight hours ahead of us and far away, while Nina Willimann explores the area around the Helmhaus: time, space and body overlap on encountering the avatar willimannarai. A flesh-and-blood creature speaks to us, here in Zurich. And yet there is a nagging uncertainty about whether or not we are maybe talking to Tokyo after all. Visitors have the opportunity of accompanying the avatar live on walks through the Old Town, through Altstetten, and even through Tokyo’s Ueno district, near the main station, in Zurich.

Mirjam Wirz’s sound system reaches all the way to the ceiling of the exhibition space. The loudspeakers stacked one on top of another blare out fragments of music and voices from Mexico City, which is where the artist began her research project Sonidero City. Following the traces of cumbia music, Mirjam Wirz brings together people’s stories, music, everyday life, the world around us and the knowledge within us, and combines them to form a mosaic of image and text. Her work bears the title Ojos Suaves (Soft Eyes) and her gaze is correspondingly open, seeking some undefined moment in which everything seems possible. Making things possible is also the key to a project involving twenty Zurich artists. During the first wave of the coronavirus, Martin Senn got ten artists to produce a portfolio of ten lithographs in collaboration with Zurich printmaker Thomi Wolfensberger. We liked the idea so much that we would like to continue the project during the second wave with prints by another ten Zurich artists. Lithography is a new medium for all of them. But why not take advantage of these exceptional times by starting something new?

Events (for dates and details, see the enclosed invitation card, and for updates see www.helmhaus.org) Even the sun has a corona. And so, for Next Day The Sun Came Up, our focus is not so much on big events, but more along the lines of direct – and safe – encounters between visitors and artists. Almost all the artists are present from time to time during opening hours. Teresa Pereira will be continuously working on her wall sculpture to create a radiant body, while Ali Al-Fatlawi will be lending form to the memories of visitors. Alicia Velázquez will be reflecting their dreams in drawings and writings, merged with her own dreams, to create a collective dream. The pigeons are always there for Seraina Dür & Jonas Gillmann and the duo will join them now and again, perhaps singing or dancing. Islands expert Silvia Popp produces chairs in her workshop and reflects on transformation, Wassili Widmer lends rhythm to all these spaces – and all sorts of stuff can happen besides – while Guido Vorburger quietly works on his next painting in his studio.

Discussions will continue at the Helmhaus – we hope – beyond the turn of the year. Speakers will be there as ever, with masks of course, to engage with visitors in reflecting on what has been seen, heard or felt. And, as ever, we’ll be announcing three events that will take place at the Helmhaus sooner or later. The book launch relating to the Neu-Oerlikon Performance Series presents a new publication covering a decade of performances in the public space. Edited by Maricruz Peñaloza and published by Amsel-Verlag Zurich, the book not only documents the contributions made by 150 performers from all over the world, but also addresses wider social, political and cultural issues (Thursday, 10 December 2020). How Swiss museums handle Diversity is the question for our panel discussion on Thursday, 14 January 2021. Based on a research project at the Hochschule der Künste Bern, and moderated by cultural scientist Anke Hoffmann, this is an opportunity for the guest panellists and the public to discuss representation, dependency/dependencies and quality with regard to the topic of diversity. Finally, we welcome a guest who has seen the sun come up for nigh on a century: Fritz Senn, Director of the James Joyce Foundation in Zurich and internationally renowned authority on Joyce, will be speaking with Daniel Morgenthaler in our 5 O’Clock Theses series, this time under the Beckettian title The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new (Wednesday, 16 December 2020). And besides: we can all look forward to the curiosity in the eyes of children, and adults too, putting the everyday behind them for an hour or so at the Helmhaus, thanks to the expertly led and thought-provoking Guided Tours – as well as Studio Tables for children.

For further information and visual material, please contact Nathalie Killias, tel. +41 (0)44 415 56 77, email: nathalie.killias@helmhaus.org Information on the exhibition and visual materials are available for download on our website: helmhaus.org.

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-02-24

IT’S ONLY BEEN TEN FUCKING DAYS HOW OFTEN ARE WE GONNA GET THIS STUFF

IT’S NOT EVEN A BONUS IT’S SOME MAINLINE THING

Alright, clicking the log to find my place as usual (while squinting so I don’t see too much), I see... one new page... THAT’s ominous.  Unless they’re doing the thing Andrew used to do and only showing the surface link so as not to spoil the update length/contents in the log, which would be nice given the new site format.  (Also I’ll be covering the commentary for the previous chapter here that went up on Patreon.)

...um.  what?

Well, it doesn’t say [S]...

> Chapter 5. YOUR 3Y3S H4V3 B33N CLOS3D

CONTENT NOTE: This chapter contains Discussions of Suicide.

Thanks.

...I kinda understand the need for inclusion of this, though.  Not the trigger warning, that’s genuinely appreciated, I mean the working-through of many of these characters’ probably suicidal-verging thoughts given the bullshit the Epilogues have put them through, and the leadup events thereof.  Or, from the looks of this page trying to lay out how to create these new alien races, clearly based in part on pages of her Zoologically Dubious grimoire...

...the creations THEMSELVES wanting to commit suicide, if I had to guess.

(Hooves?  Dirk.  Don’t let this become a Musclebeasts VS Horrorterrors session.  Whoever wins, we clearly lose.)

*scrooooll*

Ohh, I get it.  It’s a single really long-form story-image to montage the process to us, instead of a series of panels.  THAT’S why it’s a one-page upd8.

What are you clowns doing?  (And that architecture and teal road below it is looking kind of Land of Thought and Flow-y too.)

Hah, poor Rose, just float-noping on out of there cause Dirk’s pushing his whole Cave-shadows-on-the-wall allusion.  Are you getting bored of this monstrous process, Rose?  Yes?  No??

Taking a floatwalk across the gorgeous alien landscape?  (Wait, your robot floats without rocket boosters? Neat. Is that technology or God-Tier flight? Did it need to be a fancy robot to integrate the latter or was that just yours for free?)

What will she run into to make sense of the title of this chapter-panel?

...Wait.

Did Terezi run back to the ship to snoop on that thing Dirk had been hiding while he and Rose were distracted?

I hope that’s what she did.

Eeeewww.  It looked MUCH cooler when your human eye did a magic sun thing.

Yes, yes, you have a technosight HUD, that’s no excuse, your magic was still cooler.

The whimsical wandering angle of this shot makes it unclear whether Rose is flying ahead while looking into the sky, or has suddenly flopped forward onto her face on a pale patch of ground.

Ooh, and now we have text! ...Which makes it unlikely that Terezi successfully snooped anything important unless Dirk would narratively let her.  Shit.

Wait, the command for this page might make sense if she was using the command terminal in the ship to mess with Dirk or someone else, possibly to give her the opportunity to pull something.  Right?

The soft whitenoise ringing of the extensive ventilation network sounds, if she closes her nose just right, like the rustle of wind through the leaves of a treehive universes away.

...closes her nose.  ¬___¬

but Terezi isn’t distracted from the main object of her focus — the unconscious body of Rose Lalonde, bathed in dim light, chest rising and falling in an artificially-induced slumber.

Good.  Her body had better fucking stay alive for a while.  They killed Davebot’s outright, since he was an “extra”, essentially -- Rose’s needs to stay alive if we’re to have fucking hope that Kanaya can snatch her up in a comfortable non-robotic embrace and get her out of this self-centered, brainwashed nightmare.

Wires and tubes run up from her plinth to the ceiling of the chamber, keeping her alive, yes, but too much just for that purpose. Something about the tangle of intravenous tubing and fiber optic cable makes Terezi think of the old stories about the Ψiioniic.

Mhmm.  She has to stay connected to and pilot her body.

ROSE: There you are. I haven’t seen much of you. TEREZI: IV3 B33N R1GHT H3R3 FOR HOURS TEREZI: BUT YOUR 3Y3S H4VE B33N CLOS3D TH3 WHOL3 T1M3 >:[

--Oh.  I’d misremembered the chapter name as “your eyes are NOW closed”.  So it probably wasn’t some sort of trick.  (Unless she’s lying here, and tricked Rose into THINKING her body wasn’t kind of half-awake for a moment, potentially rebelliously? .....nah.)

Better question, though...

Why does Terezi care so much?

I can imagine the old Terezi getting attached enough to Rose (and Kanaya) to look at this and feel bad enough to stare, but...?  She used her emotional distance from most of her remaining friends to vamoose with these people a long while ago.  (Which was a pity.)  How did those feelings and that empathy get resurrected way out here?

Rosebot turns her head to look back at the frail, failing vessel that once housed her consciousness. She doesn't even dispatch a fake laugh to her behavioral display matrix in pity of this half-joke.

Fuck you.  Dirk is writing half of this.

ROSE: Your attachment to my comatose body is unexpectedly charming, as well as slightly sinister. ROSE: She isn’t going to do anything. ROSE: She isn’t coming back from where she’s gone. TEREZI: YOU N3V3R KNOW

Does Terezi really care about Rose that much now?

Also, fuck you, Dirk-manipulating-Rose’s-worldview.

I mean, I know she’s probably really deep into all her new power and foresight, even as herself, but she wouldn’t be nearly as dismissive and comfortable if Dirk hadn’t been shaping her with mind control for years.

ROSE: Yes, I suppose that’s true. ROSE: Anything can happen, you can’t see the future, etc. etc. ROSE: Except I can. I can see the trajectory the story needs to take, and thus I know the trajectory it will take. ROSE: And resurrecting my meat puppet would not only be difficult to the point of being worthless, it would also be extremely lame. ROSE: Not that it would be out of character for this story. We live and breathe on the stupefyingly mind-numbing, and the mind-numbingly stupid.

They’re REALLY pushing her as a full fucking villain here.  Benefits of transcending human flesh aside, she’s being WAY too dismissive of what she’s leaving behind, here.  What came with this body besides the body itself.  The attachments and Blood it means relinquishing and severing.

TEREZI: 1F WH4T YOU'R3 S4Y1NG 1S TRU3 TEREZI: 1F 4 STORY H4S TO B3 COMP3LL1NG TO B3 C4NON TEREZI: DO YOU R34LLY TH1NK D1RK 1S TH3 TYP3 TO T3LL 4 COMP3LL1NG STORY

A compelling story, yes!

But a heartless one.

TEREZI: H1S T4ST3 1N 4N1M3 4LON3 1S CONC3RN1NG TEREZI: 1 D1D 3NJOY TH3 ON3 4BOUT TH3 HORS3S THOUGH ROSE: I don't think that counts as "anime."

MLP is pretty colorful.

TEREZI: PL4Y1NG W1TH 4 WHOL3 WORLD L1K3 1T'S SOM3 K1ND OF SQU34KY LUSUS TOY DO3S SOUND L1K3 1T H4S 1TS MOM3NTS TEREZI: 1 M34N TEREZI: MY FR13NDS W4NT3D TO RUL3 YOUR L1TTL3 WORLD 4S P3TTY TYR4NTS 4FT3R W3 WON TH3 G4M3 OURS3LV3S TEREZI: BUT DO YOU TH1NK TH4T WOULD'V3 B33N FOR TH3 B3ST FOR YOU 4ND 4LL TH3 OTH3R M4MM4L14N W31RDOS ON YOUR PL4N3T >:/ ROSE: It didn't happen because it didn't happen. TEREZI: 1F 1 H4V3 TO H34R ON3 MOR3 T4UTOLOGY FROM 31TH3R OF YOU 1 4M GO1NG TO MOV3 TO TH3 WOODS 4ND PL4GU3 YOUR N3W SOC13TY 4S 4 H3RM1T BOG MONST3R FOR3V3R

Rose has stared into the sun so hard that she is LITERALLY BLIND.  “It didn’t happen because it didn’t happen” is the worst, most basic and wrong level one Seer of Light thing she could possibly believe.  She has completely fucking FORGOTTEN that she played through an entire game session that was clearly trying to TELL her something.  TEACH her something.  And is dismissing everything at play back then, everything that MADE reality and the final timeline what it WAS, as something at worst meaningless or just plotpoints in a subpar story, and at best a failed moral tale that she thinks she would write better in her sleep.  She’s like... worse than inverted Rose right now.  Where’s all this new Lighty wisdom she’s supposed to have?  Jasprose is showing more foresight and prudence in the bonus chapters than she is as a PURE ultimate self, thanks to her own twisted ambitions and Dirk’s horse-blinders.

TEREZI: JUST B3C4US3 YOU'V3 3L3CT3D TO 4B4NDON TH3 CONC3PTS OF "GOOD" 4ND "B4D" 3NT1R3LY DO3SN'T M34N 1 DON'T ST1LL H4V3 MOR4L R3S3RV4T1ONS

...Yeah.  I’d like to think that Rose would never do that on her own without Dirk’s twisting, but...

TEREZI: 1'M T4LK1NG 4BOUT TH3 B4S1C 4B1L1TY OF 1NT3LL1G3NT B31NGS 1N 4LL R34L 4ND HYPOTH3T1C4L PL4N3S OF 3X1ST3NC3 TO G1V3 4 SH1T TEREZI: 1 DON'T G1V3 4 SH1T TEREZI: 4ND HON3STLY 1 H4V3 4 H4RD T1M3 UND3RST4ND1NG WHY YOU DO

I didn’t expect the “Why would anyone read this crap?” line so early in the story.  Still, this sequel WAS designed to both ask and answer this question... I shouldn’t be so surprised.

TEREZI: YOU D1DN'T DO MUCH "WORLDBU1LD1NG" WH3N YOU FUCK3D OFF FOR 3ONS 4ND L3T CH3SS P3OPL3 BU1LD YOUR PL4N3T ROSE: That approach failed. ROSE: Without an organized antagonistic force, the planet became fundamentally unsuited to relevance.

YOU FUCKING MORONS

THE GOAL OF MAKING A NEW UNIVERSE OUTSIDE OF CANON WAS TO ESCAPE RELEVANCE FOR PEACE!

Everything New Rose says makes me want to throttle her.  :(

ROSE: We only know of one way to perpetuate canon for sure. To play and defeat the game, and continue the life cycle of the genesis frog we cling to parasitically.

WHY is “perpetuating canon” EVEN A GOAL

WHY if it isn’t even WORTH anything???

ROSE YOU SOUND LIKE A CASH-IN-HUNGRY MOVIE PRODUCER

ROSE: Now it is protected, in the steady hands of a duly-elected ruler, sure to have a boring and uneventful perpetual term in office.

Oh my GOD, Rose.  You thought leaving Racist Jane in charge was going to just be peachy?

ROSE: As the sheer number of doomed universes our actions in the game spun off should show, we barely understood the design at the time. ROSE: Truly, we stumbled through the tape of the finish line ass-first, cheating all the way.

I suppose I can agree on a small sliver of this, a tangent -- one of the same reasons I was so surprised when Homestuck’s finale closed so few threads:

You all clearly didn’t have time to learn enough lessons.

ROSE: But there was no table of judges waiting to adjudicate our performance by holding up little placards with numbers on them. ROSE: We are the observers, and we are the judges. ROSE: We won, and to the victor go the spoils. ROSE: If you want a hand in making the rules of this new world, then don't storm off.

Terezi knows better than this.  The trolls “WON” with this attitude, and were hoisted on the resulting petard.  Ah, there we go, and she’s saying just that:

TEREZI: YOU'R3 TRY1NG TO L34D M3 TO 4CC3PT YOUR MOR4L FR4M3WORK TEREZI: WH4T 1F NO ON3 SHOULD CONTROL 4 UN1V3RS3 TEREZI: 4LL W3 FOUGHT 4G41NST W4S MONST3RS WHO CONV3RT3D POW3R 1NTO CONTROL TEREZI: 4ND NOT 3V3RYTH1NG W3 LOST F1GHT1NG TH3M W4S 4 M1ST4K3 TEREZI: TH3R3 W4S 4 LOT S4CR1F1C3D FOR TH3 1D34 OF "GOOD" TEREZI: WH4T'S TH3 PO1NT 1N CONT1NU1NG TH1S STORY 1F TH4T W4S M34N1NGL3SS TEREZI: 1F LORD 3NGL1SH W4S JUST HOLD1NG UP TH3 WORLD TEREZI: 1F 1T T4K3S 4CT1NG L1K3 H1M TO K33P 1T 4L1V3 TEREZI: WOULDN'T 1T B3 B3TT3R TO JUST L3T 1T D13

...but that crazy, ruled-over multiverse they ended up escaping is exactly what we think they’re going to end up CREATING in this story, right?  A contained loop of countless universes that follow the same rules they fought so hard to shrug off, many enslaved and miserable under Lord English’s rampaging thumbs?  In trying to do it “better” her own way, Rose is going to possibly end up creating the exact system she once tried to reject.

Congratulations!  You’ll have created a prison.  For your Ultimate Villain, AND yourselves.  I just hope you come to your senses and dodge getting trapped inside there again.

Rosebot looks over at the plinth where her body sits, kept alive, sure, but atrophied and weak, dependent on this machine to continue projecting consciousness to the abiotic enclosure keeping the realization of the Ultimate Self from tearing her apart.

Wouldn't it be better to just let it die? Terezi isn't asking new questions. Rose had first threatened suicide when she was eight.

Ah, damn.  That’s the route we’re going with this conversation, huh.

I was wondering whether keeping Rose’s body alive was “necessary” for the functioning of this particular level of robo-self tech, or whether it’s the last vestige of her vacillation, refusing to cut it off completely yet only because some NON-FUCKING-BRAINWASHED piece of her is wondering if she’ll eventually decide that all this isn’t “right” after all, that she can accept being “less” if it makes her happy.

Explaining things to someone not aided by the exponential increase in processing power Rosebot has is tedious. Terezi's hesitation won't be swayed by explaining more of the universe. There's another source at work.

Source?  What?

ROSE: You said it yourself, that you don't give a shit. ROSE: This melancholy, this meaninglessness you're feeling? ROSE: I think there's another explanation for it. One having little to do with the structural soundness of our plan.

Oh, THAT kind of source. Fuck you, psychoanalyzing anybody else when you’re like THIS right now.

ROSE: You are fucking depressed. TEREZI: OH TH4NK YOU DOCTOR SC13NC3 TEREZI: L3T M3 T4K3 OUT MY HUM4N CH3CKBOOK TO P4Y YOU FOR TH3S3 1NV4LU4BL3 HUM4N 1NS1GHTS

How would you have the slightest impression that Terezi ISN’T completely aware of this, Rose?  Why do you think she CAME with you???

ROSE: The constant insistence that everything is as it ought to be isn’t just counterproductive, it’s pathetic.

Oh, you think she’s projecting.  Fuck you.

ROSE: From one seer to another, we both know how bad you’ve gotten in the past. ROSE: Or, if not in the past, in some past. ROSE: I have no desire to meet that Terezi, no matter how doubtlessly sticky and charming she might be.

Eugh.  It’s interesting that you know so thoroughly about non-blind faygo-chugging Terezi from that timeline (who Terezi fully knows about too), but using it against her is pretty low.

TEREZI: W3 4R3N'T FR13NDS TEREZI: GO 4H34D 4ND DO YOUR 4RTS 4ND CR4FTS PROJ3CT W1TH P3OPL3'S L1V3S

But she DOES keep staring at Rose’s life-support body...  so she DOES care somehow.

ROSE: Your life is going to be short, compared to mine and Dirk’s, but that doesn’t mean it has to be boring. TEREZI: TH3 TWO OF YOU R34LLY 4R3 M4D3 FOR 34CH OTH3R

:C

Just, a tragedy what an asshole she’s been transformed into.

TEREZI: 1S TH4T WHY YOU L3FT K4N4Y4 B3H1ND TEREZI: B3C4US3 YOU KNOW SO FUCK1NG MUCH 4BOUT "F4M1LY" ROSE: I would be careful if I were you. ROSE: The weight of what I know and you do not is enough to overwhelm a mortal frame. TEREZI: UGH SHUT UP TEREZI: STOP PULL1NG TH1S MYST1C4L BULLSH1T 3V3RY T1M3 TEREZI: DON’T YOU M1SS H3R? ROSE: Don’t you? TEREZI: YOUR CONST4NT D3FL3CT1ON 1S 4S PO1NTL3SS 4S 1T 1S 1N3FF3CT1V3

Yeah, Terezi looking at Rose’s body and seeing constantly that crime committed against Kanaya is enough excuse to stare at Rose’s floating body, if she cares about Kanaya.

Too bad Rose is incapable of even THINKING about Kanaya properly as long as Dirk’s influence persists, and Terezi practically or literally knows it.

ROSE: We are obliged to act. To save the concept of meaning itself by continuing to spin the narrative loom into new tapestries.

Said the movie producer plonking down for the creation of Fast 7.

TEREZI: D1D YOU W4NT 4LL TH1S? TEREZI: OR D1D TH3 PR1NC3 >:?

Abruptly, Terezi is lifted from the ground with a glidingly-smooth effortless motion. Metal is so much stronger than flesh. She flashes a sharp-toothed grin as her feet dangle uselessly in front of the lithe metallic form of her counterpart Seer. Inspiring a reaction like this from Rose's robotic placidity has been like squeezing blood from a stone on this years-long journey.

Delicious, candy-red blood.

Oh hell fucking yes.  Is THIS what you were after, you beautiful troll?  Terezi just proved that SOME deep level of Rose has recognized that she’s being manipulated, and refuses to accept it for the sake of her own ego.  She couldn’t possibly get so ANGRY otherwise.  :D

ROSE: I know what I have lost. I have taken a full account of it. I cannot and will not forget it. ROSE: But to cling to it as it faded to nothing would be a meaningless capitulation to entropy.

Why do you value “perpetuation” so much?  She asked you before, and you barely gave a straight answer.

ROSE: Someone must sit atop Olympus and propagate the fabric of reality upon which these memories sit. ROSE: That is the task we have taken on. The game does not feel. The game does not mourn. The game must be played, and we must guide those who will play it better than we ourselves were guided.

DID it need YOU though?  You already had a universe under your belt.  YOU didn’t have to be the one to cause all this.  But I suppose it’s too late now -- you will be, and you might end up regretting it.

ROSE: Just as I have remembered the good, I can recall the terror that consumed me and overwhelmed my body. ROSE: The visions of dissolution. The narrative unspooling. A thousand voices shouting contradiction. ROSE: What value is a marriage, temporary domestic bliss, if all is lost? ROSE: You understand this bargain.

Yeah-- it’s pretty clear here now.

The heroes’ goal in the initial comic, and the reward they earned -- while unclear on paper and DEFINITELY not spelled out -- was to “stop being Homestuck”.  Was to escape the bounds of the comic, to almost KILL the comic.

But that was a little vaguely put, before.  HS^2 has done us the favor of making it an EXPLICIT GOAL of the heroes.

ROSE: Is your resentment towards my choice about Kanaya, or about V–

BONK. Rosebot's even metallic voice is interrupted by the bang of skull against metal, and Terezi's headbutt collapses the both of them into a crumpling heap of metal and flesh.

That was a step too far. Tensions that once simmered under the surface have found the catalyst for a boil.

Terezi’s barely holding on if she’s going to get so dramatic so fast.

Or Dirk’s writing this so dramatic, anyway.

Rosebot finally has Terezi pinned to the ground by the throat. A cool metallic knee is pressed hard between her legs, holding her down. A natural pause in the staccato squabble is found, and two pairs of red eyes are locked on each other.

Oh God, don’t <3< please.

TEREZI: 1 T4K3 1T B4CK TEREZI: TURNS OUT 1 ST1LL 3NJOY T4LK1NG TO YOU >:]

Ah, shit.  Weakness for Light players, huh.

Rosebot leans in close. Terezi can smell the licorice-black lipstick, the same kind as always, applied now to synthetic polymer lips inches away from her own. Rosebot's metal fingers close just a little tighter around her neck–Woah, woah, woah.

I fiddle with some advanced speciation machinery for a few hours and then come back to this?

...yeah, you can’t get into Terezi’s sex life without a bit of choking and breathplay I guess.

You people are here for logic. Systems. Weird plot shit. Lore. Not this.

Hm.

I have mixed feelings about this possibly-sarcastic point of view of his.  And that’s coming from someone who was fuck deep in those systems and frustrated as hell that Andrew worked them out but never explained them or made their (at least I believe) hidden importance clear.

Quit out of your browser, slam the laptop closed and punt it into the ocean. That shark is probably hungry after all the jumping.

You won’t, though. If you were going to quit you would have quit before this. We’re in this for the long haul, you and I. We’ll all go down together. Welcome to ‘Nam.

...yeah.  :C

I'll just get a head start on my species, then. It's only the fate of a new planet on which the weight of saving the universe lies.

Did Dirk never get the memo that Calliope and fucking Caliborn were born on Earth C millions of years hence???

Your universe’s “relevance” is safe, my dude.  You’re just making excuses to rule the narrative.

And... that’s it!  For this update, anyway.

Let’s cut over to the commentary for the last one, which I expect will be touching on and lampshading just how much of an amoral dick move Rose and Dirk are making with the entire live-draft species creation process.

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 4, The Contest

Oh, two members of the writing team are discussing this one.

Plenty of appreciation of the art of the alien planet, apparently art-ed by Gina.

--Yes, I agree, Terezi probably wouldn’t be the best at parallel parking.

Oh right, I should skip most of the fluff y’all would see if you paid and get just any plot important discussion, let’s skip past some ogling of Rose’s pretty well-designed robo-form and its first onscreen appearance...

(Xam’s designs are GREAT all around.)

A1: The imagery is, admittedly, a little heavy-handed. Terezi leaving the cave for the light, the other two remaining in the darkness to talk endless circles around each other. 

Heh.

...There are some seriously good jokes here.

--OH! I finally get to figure out why Dirk’s hand was glowing all weird when he slammed the “map”: ......nope, they just talk about how big his yaoi hand is.

A1: I guess this means we’ve sort of canonized Dirk’s Texas accent? a2: yeah, but i think this was a foregone conclusion. the dude lived in post-apocalyptic texas, and he's ABSOLUTELY the sort of person to adopt a long-dead accent for no reason other than historical accuracy.

That’s fair.  (Yes, I included that for plot relevance. Totally. ...I really need to be a lighter touch with how much I include of these things that isn’t helpful to actually understand what the fuck is going on with the actual plot/characterization, here, this was real borderline.)

i think we could stand to talk more about the writing at this point.

JESUS CHRIST THANK YOU

we sort of go in drunken circles of Dirk and Rose trying to out-bullshit each other and convince themselves they’re doing the right thing.

--which was obvious to everyone, but.  Still appreciated to see it spelled out.  Seeing our points of view validated like this helps us stay sane through the bullshit, a golden promise of eventual reprieve and vindication.

a2: we tried something a little different for the writing process of this update, which is that for large sections of the dialog we just rp'd the characters a2: andrew copied large sections of early homestuck from personal chatlogs with friends, and i always thought that lent it a special kind of humor and rapport that can be hard to capture by yourself. i think this approach worked pretty well for us.

It REALLY is an effective way to write dialogue for these sorts characters in particular!  Heck, I’m kind of helping someone else do exactly that.  It’s pretty fun!  There are chapters and chapters out by my understanding, having diverged from such a focus on the central character I’m playing but using our logs as a guide... none of which I’m allowed to read, not even the FIRST chapter, so as not to spoil me with the surrounding narration and added revelations.

...What?

You expected me to tell you what it is? Where to find it?

No.  :)

(Maybe later.)

A1: Moving right along. We see more of Dirk’s casual manipulation of Rose’s mental state, that he rationalizes away. It’s not actually that bad if she was going to agree anyway, right? 

Mhmm.  Hard to watch.

a2: [...] but it's a large part of what this chapter is about. a2: what is the right thing to do when you're functionally omniscient? a2: or omni...whatever these kids are. A1: Yeah, the question of whether morality actually has anything to do with running a system like this. Can god be moral? a2: and of course, that's kind of the same question that i ask myself a lot when writing. authorship is a peculiar thing.

That last part is pretty key about the story this entire thing is trying to tell.  A story about the morality of how one goes about creating a story.  A just story.  And if what’s created even has value.

a2: i was responsible for the animation on the sprite panels, which was fun. it's obviously imitating andrew an awful lot, but i think that lends it an aura of homestucky authenticity. andrew is low-key really good at animation. 

Yeah, he really, really is.  His keyframing and the devices he used to communicate what was physically happening were really tight.  I always appreciated that.

a2: aaaaand one last gina panel to finish with. rose may have had her doubts about this contest at first, but as soon as dirk made a little creature with tentacles she's like, fuck it, this is all i've ever wanted actually.

:(

A bit sparse on the detail I was looking for once shit started to get horrific, the implications and such... but I can understand that.

Maybe when we get to the second and third place draft aliens, we’ll actually see a hint of a moral crisis in them.  At least a tiny one.

Arrite, that’s it.  See y’all next time.  I’ll wait to blog the commentary on the past bonus chapter whenever the next bonus chapter is up for blogging.

[littlemisssquiggles]

Some people say seasons 4 and 5 were weakest in terms of stuff happening for Ruby and character progress for her, compared to the focus of several episodes on Blake. Like Ruby doesn’t get that too much. What would you say to refute that? I’m just curious I like seeing people’s stance on things gives me a new perspective at times.

Hello again Sweet. Seasons greetings to you and your family. Whelp as I toldyou before, I didn’t exactly see V4 and V5 as Ruby’s weakest seasons. On thecontrary, this squiggle meister hasthe opposite opinion in which I think that V6was Ruby’s weakest season (with the current V7 potentially becoming a closesecond) despite her enduring quite a bit of focus and development during that volume.

Although much didn’t happen for Ruby during V4 and V5, I personally didn’t mindit . While the title of RWBY says that the storycenters around the adventures of all four RWBY girls, I’ve always had the greater impression that Ruby was the mainheroine of the story.

This was evidenced by the fact thatshe was the first character to be introduced to us both in her originalcharacter trailer and the first episode of the series. Not to mention that for a good chunk of the Beacon Trilogy (V1-V3), you can say that much emphasis was based onRuby, often by her own peers which made her stand out compared to her oldermore experienced teammates.

Basically what I’m saying is thatfor half of RWBY’s narrative, Ruby had been a focal character. So when V4rolled up and we got an opportunity to focus on the JNR members for a change,particularly Ren and Nora, for me, I actually enjoyed it. I know some Ruby stansdidn’t like that Ruby’s time with JNR involved her receiving less focus as opposedto the rest of her team (who were the focal characters of their own plots whilethe team were divided during the first 2/3 of the Mistral Trilogy). But like Isaid, I didn’t mind it coming off the high of the Beacon Arc which, in myopinion, had a good amount of Ruby development to satisfy me long enough untilthe PLOT was ready to resume fleshing out what’s next to come for her story.

To me, my biggest gripe with V4 andV5 had less to do with that. As a matter of fact, I actually disagree withfolks on saying that Ruby did receive focus during those two seasons. What wasproblematic for me was what the PLOT—here go the CRWBY Writers at the time(Miles and Kerry) chose to focus on as part of Ruby’s story for the Mistral Trilogy.

During the Beacon Trilogy, Ruby’s arcwas her starting her journey to become a huntress and most of her story fromV1-V3 was about her training to live up to that aspiration of hers whilelearning to be a leader as part of a huntsmen team. It was an establishedaspect of Ruby’s story that remained pretty consistent until the conclusion ofthe Fall of Beacon.

However at the end of V3, the CRWBYWriters introduced this new element of intrigue to her character—her being aSilver Eyed Warrior. After the end of V3, I was hoping that the nextinstallment in Ruby’s development would’ve involved her unlocking the mysteriesof these mystical powers she alone seemed to possess, learning about its strangeorigins in connection to her mother and even Ozpin who seemed to be the onlyperson at the time who knew any info on the Silver Eyes, as revealed by QrowBranwen back during the finale of V3.

I thought Ruby learning aboutthe Silver Eyed Warriors and potentially starting her training to become a fullyrealized one was what the Writers’ had next in store for her story.

But rather than watching three seasonsof Ruby learning about the Silver Eyes, instead we spent two full seasons—V4and V5—feeling as if the PLOT had forgotten this new part of Ruby’s story asthey had her focusing on other things. 

At the time, I previously chocked upRuby’s lack of interest in learning more about her Silver Eyed heritage as her concentratingmore on the upcoming Battle of Haven and the acquirement of the Relic ofKnowledge since that was the main objective of the Mistral Arc at the time. Howeverthe more I thought about it, the more I started to think that it probably would’vebeen a better idea if the PLOT had spent more time providing the groundwork forthat side of Ruby’s story.

Even if it was as small as Ruby simply askingfor more information on who the Silver Eyed Warriors were, I would’vetaken that as opposed to having her not care about it at all for two seasons.Especially since it was tied to her relationship with her mother as well aswhat happens later in V6 after Maria Calavera’s debut. 

This also illustrates my biggestpeeve with the treatment of Maria. As much as I really, really like our veteran pocket abuelita,right now she feels like wasted potential.

The Writers had an opportunity tomake Maria a significant character in Ruby’s rise to Silver Eye status as theold lady is the first and only other Silver Eyed Warrior that Ruby has met inthe story thus far.

Instead, the PLOT practicallyrendered Maria’s character irrelevant bythe finale of V6 after rushing Ruby’squintessential ‘magnumopus’ moment with her Indomitablescene against the Leviathan Grimm.

They still had a chance to redeemthemselves by progressing Ruby’s relationship with Maria for this season. Butfor the second time since V4 and V5, the CRWBY Writers have once againabandoned focusing on building up Ruby as a Silver Eye in favour of forcing development onto another side of her character.

What do I mean by that, you might ask?

Back in V5, it was said that Ruby’s so-called‘problem’ was that she needed to learn hand to hand combat…in spite of her alleged ineptitude forhand to hand never being a key liability to her fighting style inprevious seasons. I mean yes we saw Ruby struggle without Crescent Rose duringher brief altercation with Mercury Black during the Vytal Festival back in V3however we’ve also had moments when Ruby was able to hold her own without theneed for her trademark weapon as shown back in her last fight against Torchwickand Neo in the same season.

So the Writers making the choice to alter that trait in Ruby’s character to suit the PLOTfor that respective season honestly came off as a minor retcon for our little red rose .A retconthat was ultimately made pointless bythe end of V5 entering V6 since Ruby was never seen using or even needing to use hand tohand combat ever again; making me ask the obvious of question of whythe Writers chose to have that be a point of focus for Ruby back in V5 sincethem dropping it a season later  madethat aspect of her story from the season before quite meaningless.

Now this squiggle meister is starting to get a weird sense of déjà vusince I’m seeing a similar pattern being repeated for Ruby’s character for V7only now it’s with her semblance.

While I understand that one’ssemblance is capable of evolving withtime and proper continuous training as mentioned by Ozpin back in V5, however Ican’t tell whether Harriet’s remark to Ruby in V7CH3 about “there being more to her semblance than sherealized” was an indicator that Ruby’s Petal Burst semblance might be evolvingwithout her realization or not.

I mean that could very well be thecase going on with Ruby. However instead I’m left feeling like it doesn’tmatter or that it’s not really that important since Ruby herself has been shown to notthink about it at all; in spite of characters like Harriet and later Oscar inCH6 pointing out that there is something different going on with her signaturesuperpower. 

Instead I’m left thinking that thewhole thing with Ruby’s semblance for V7 is just another example of the PLOT forcing attention onto another aspect ofRuby’s character that’s didn’t really need it.

Back in V5, hand to hand combat didn’tneed to be an obstacle Ruby needed to overcome since a) scythe-wielding has alwaysbeen her signature combat style since her introduction and most importantlyof all b) she never needed to learn hand to hand since it’s never been a  liability to her as a huntress in the line of combat prior to V5.

And now for V7, I’m seeing a similarthing with Ruby’s semblance seeming to be getting some focus but I’m leftfeeling confused by this choice since Ruby’s semblance had been consistent(mostly) for many seasons and honestly didn’t really need any focus at allsince I wasn’t expecting Ruby’s semblance to be developed moving forward.

I was expecting it to be her SilverEyes especially coming off of the end of V6. However it appears that onceagain, Ruby the Silver Eye plot thread has been dropped for yet another season whichunfortunately makes all of progress back in V6 (as small as it is) feel …well…kindof pointless.

Now the impression I’m left with, asa viewer and Ruby Stan, is that the CRWBY Writersdon’t have a clear blueprint or treatment for what Ruby’s Arc is supposed tobe.  While it’s evident that they do haveIDEAS for what they can do for Ruby’s story, a proper PLAN of how they intendto go about executing said ideas per season isn’t there and it SHOWS in the show.

Case in point, Ruby being a SilverEye. Despite presenting the allusion that Ruby being a Silver Eyed Warrior mightultimately play an important part in her story with Salem, the implementationof them building up that side of her story has not only been sloppily handled butit’s also been very fickle with how they flipflop with other things they claim to be important to Ruby’s development.

And as someone who was very excitedto see the progress of this stage of Ruby’s character, seeing the way the PLOThas been handling Ruby in that regard has been a disappointment. Nonetheless, inspite of the oddness in choices made for her writing, this squiggle meister still likes Ruby as our protagonist. She’s stillmy second all-time favourite RWBY character.

If anything, my feelings for Rubyironically match my other favourite character: Oscar—Still one of my favs howeverthe treatment of their side of the story within the series has been so questionable that it’s made it hard toremain invested in whatever the showrunners have planned for said character.Granted that there even is a clear plan which I’m left feeling like there isn’tone based on what I’ve seen so far. However, this is only my opinion.

If anyone reading through myresponse respectfully disagrees withme since they’ve been satisfied with Ruby’s story up until this point then that’sperfectly fine. Like I said, this is my stance onthis subject matter and I hope no one is offended byme taking it this way.

That being said, my verdict isn’tthat Ruby doesn’t receive a lot of focus compared to other characters. As I’vestated throughout my post, I think she receives a good amount as the leader ofour main four. It’s just what the PLOT decides to be the focal point of Ruby’sside of things and the execution of those ideas. This has been my issue withRuby for the past three volumes and even as we’re in V7, it’s unfortunatelystill a problem with the writing for her character for me.

It’s as I said. During the BeaconTrilogy, Ruby’s story was that she wanted to become a huntress to protectothers and a pivotal part of her arc back then was watching her grow into thatrole while proving herself in the eyes of other characters who either doubtedher abilities (such as Weiss) or rose to challenge her on her ideals (such as RomanTorchwick).

It was great watching Ruby grow intoher own as a huntress back in those early seasons because it was a stable part of her character writing that grew withevery season that followed the last.

It’s why I’m having issues followingRuby’s development into a Silver Eyed Warrior (or anything the PLOT has donewith her after V3). The consistency thatwas present with her development has been lost a bit and thus, I’m left feelinglost on what Ruby’s story moving forward is going to actually be.

This isn’t me trying to throw shadeat the Writers or the writing for RWBY in general. It’s just an issue that I’vebeen noticing over the past few seasons, especially since I did my full recapof the whole series last year in preparation for V6.

It’s an overarching issue that, forme, began a bit back during V4 until it was made more apparent by V5. While V6and V7 have shown improvements andsteps in a better direction for the series, unfortunately I’m still noticingthe same lingering problem that has impacted the overall treatment ofcharacters such as Ruby.

Don’t get me wrong. There has been plentyof material dropped by the last few volumes from which I can see the PLOTworking off of to further strengthen Ruby’s story and character. But just likeher treatment back during the Mistral Arc, I’m concerned for the execution of those said ideas and that’s where I mostlystand in that regard.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

[sweetdeathwrites]

Their Seven Deadly Sins

Pairing: entire Vongola family/Reader

Summary: They were all sinful. Every single one of them. Here are their tales.

Warnings: It’s.... the 7 deadly sins... so lust, greed, wrath, ...uh... gluttony.. sloth, envy.. and pride... tbh I had to look at the fic to remember smh... THIS IS ALL PURPLE PROSE!!, violence, death?, allusions to sex and some can be interpreted as dubious consent?

Word Count: 1,000

in response to the second prompt of the (Lunaescence) May 2017 Prompt Off

(This was rather exploratory...)

(posted on my Ao3/Luna. Here’s the original A/N)

(heres my submission for May's second prompt, 'Seven Deadly Sins'! aaa, a bit dark, huh? I write more of the dark stuff than I do of fluff, but fluff's all i've posted lately! Time to switch it up!! Umm so I missed the first prompt... it just totally slipped my mind... but it's ok to do the second one, right? please leave a comment and tell me how you liked this one! I'm not sure how well i executed this but i hope you like it, haha! It was fun to write!)

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They were all demons. They were evil incarnate, the seven deadly sins personified. You’ve their sins, up close and personal. Every single one of them. Here are their tales. His puppydog eyes, those pretty eyes, could fool anyone. But you weren’t easily fooled. His fingers would twitch whenever he was around her but you knew better than to pass it off as nervousness. He dreamt about her every night and every morning she was the first image to pass through his mind. It wasn’t young love anymore. He didn’t love her, he idolized her. Greedy eyes dilated as she walked past and you never missed how they slid down to the bottom of her skirt. He was devoted to her but he never turned down an offer to be intimate. You can’t count the number of times you felt his hands squeeze your hips reverently just for his lips on your neck to sigh her name blissfully. This was Tsuna and his lust. This one appears abstract at first, but nothing is black and white. He takes and takes and devours everything in sight. The emotions of others are an aphrodisiac to him, urging him to eat more. He takes all that is offered to him and all that is not. He’s swallowed the minds of lesser people whole, tore into their bodies with orgasmic euphoria, literally and metaphorically. Through all his meals and savagery, he had his loyal partner beside him. You’ve spent nights with them, but it took just one for them to take everything you’ve ever had, the good and the bad, but especially the good. When you left you didn’t even feel the weight of your soul or the heft of your heart. You felt empty, and even vaguely empty at that. This was Mukuro and Chrome and their gluttony. No one would ever suspect him of any evil. He is wholly evil and you’ve never doubted it. The star. The center of attention. He works his body to steal the adoration of others, and when he isn’t satisfied with the attention on him, he’ll steal it from others. He always needs to soak in the spotlight and you’ve seen the way his eyes narrow in jealousy when he isn’t being worshiped. You bought a lunch for yourself one day when you ate with him and, unable to ignore his hungry glances, offered him a bite. A wicked grin spread over his face as he reached over and took your whole lunch from your hands, and looked you in the eyes as he ate all of his and yours. This was Takeshi and his greed. He spends his days stretched across the living room couch and mooching off of the kindess of others. You’ve never seen him do anything for himself, much less for the sake of others. He’s a selfish bastard that would lounge until his flesh melted from his bones and death stole him away, and he wouldn’t move an inch to escape. You offered to help him, to give him a part of you so that he could be made whole. He laughed and turned over, rolling so he wouldn’t have to face you and then fell into a deep slumber. This was Lambo and his sloth. His body is hardened and he was never born for love. All he knows is pain and what it gives him. He sees nothing but red and you’ve seen the destruction he can dole out without even trying. Does he like inflicting misery? He loves it. He loves the feeling of bone crunching and flesh giving under his fists. He hit you once and you felt like you were going to die, the air torn out of you and the taste of iron flooding your mouth and out your nose. His mouth had been twisted in a pleasured grin and his eyes shone far too bright. This was Ryohei and his wrath. There’s never been a more bitter man than he. He simmers in his skin until the boiling rage within him is too much to bear and he lashes out at anyone, anywhere. He wants everything that everyone has but there’s one thing, one shining, glimmering thing he wants more than anything else in the world. It’s no surprise that it’s worth much more than what money can buy. He would steal the happiness from others if he could and he tries it nearly every waking moment. Once, you had been enamoured with someone that wasn’t him. He took it upon himself, in a jealous rage, to steal you as his own and kissed you with passion not of love, but of jealousy and of selfishness. His teeth bit and made you bleed. This was Gokudera and his envy. He never would let anyone see him at anything but his best. He preened and cleaned and polished himself until he glittered under the stares of the public. Then he wouldn’t even let them honor him. He hated them for beholding his gorgeousness, his strength, his glory. They were weak and didn’t deserve a thing from him. Only alone, only in the mirror, will he let anyone look at him. Only he is worthy enough to see all his beauty and power. He hurts others, not for the punishment of them, but to prove to himself how much he can destroy and that destruction makes his head feel light. He fights to show off how much better he is than the maggots that writhe before him. He is a god before them. He made you cower before him and right before he crushed you under his heel, he turned away to say how your blood would only dirty his foot. This was Hibari and his pride. And here, you prepare yourself for death. You bare your teeth and bristle when they draw near but you wouldn’t have it any other way than to die at the sinful hands of these people, these demons who embody evil.

[beastofeasto-blog]

Medlar and Quince Jam

There’s a special pleasure in making your own jam. It’s not just another thing to brag about: ohh look at me I made a strawberry-Chablais-black pepper abomination, I’m better than you.

The point, I think, in making your own, is to scratch an itch that isn’t widely commercially available: don’t bother with berry jams. It’s just going to be a whole lot of effort on your part resulting in something you could’ve popped down to the shops for.

Now, where I’m at, in soggy old England, tis the season for two excellent fruits.

This is a  quince. It looks like an especially  large, yellow, tumourous pear. When you poach it (cue eyerolling from the zoomers in the audience, derisive snorts and rhetorical questions as to which century it is), it takes on an implacable, exotic fragrance, and a taste somewhere between roses, apples and pears, and a texture that’s both grainy and soft. I know that’s not to everybody’s taste, sometimes, not even to mine. If you have a quince at home and don’t know what to do with it, the best I can advise is to cut it into chunks, put it into a pot, cover with water, add maybe three tablespoons of sugar and a few well chosen spices: a stick of cinnamon, a couple star anise, maybe some cardamom. Subtlety is the name of the game here, so don’t be excessive. Then let it bubble away until the white flesh has blushed to magenta and it will yield to the pressure of the back of a fork. You can serve this as is, or with double cream or even custard. It’s the perfect thing to cheer you up on a wet November afternoon.

The other fruit is something that some of you probably haven’t tasted or even seen. English poets of yore charmingly nicknamed it “cat’s arse” or “open arse” due to its suggestive, rectal shape. Medlars are doubly strange because they’re inedible raw, and it’s standard procedure to allow them to blet: soften, darken, their interior flesh changing from cream to an applesauce-brown to something somehow even less appetising. Yeah, bletting is a more appealing way of saying rotting. So why am I telling you about them? Not just due to centuries of jokers making allusions to them, but also because they’re delicious. I mentioned applesauce because that’s an approximation of what they taste like. Applesauce, or medjool dates. They also have the quality of being absolutely packed to the gills with pectin. This is another reason why I want to tell you about this recipe: unlike many other jams,  it doesn’t require pectin. It’s strictly a jelly: silky as the jar of Welch’s, but at least a dozen times better tasting.    

Now, in absolute brevity, pectin is a polysaccharide, like starch or cellulose. It’s different from something like fructose, glucose or sucrose, because they’re all monosaccharides; just one "unit” of sugar. Pectin, on the other hand, is a polymer chain of many monosaccharides, all bonded together. The gel forms because when heated, the different pectin chains form hydrogen bonds with one another. For those who’ve neglected their chemistry, hydrogen bonds are comparatively weak interactions, that occur between a hydrogen and a pair of free electrons on most usually an oxygen, nitrogen for fluorine. Despite their weakness, they’re still significant, because they can affect the 3D structure and behaviour of molecules. They allow DNA to have its double-helical shape.   Pectin is another great example. The pectins (remember, they’re chains of sugars) interact via hydrogen bonding, and form a net-like structure. In real terms, this means a gel forms. 

However, what this recipe does need is a pot, a wooden spoon or spatula, something to strain with like a relatively fine-grained sieve, and a cooking thermometer, ideally a candy thermometer.

I’ve modified a Nigel Slater recipe here. Nigel Slater is my favourite food writer, and he probably should be yours also, not just because of his evocative prose but because he doesn’t give a shit what’s going on at El Bulli or Noma or God knows where else. He cares about good, tasty, unpretentious cooking. He’s one of the reasons why I’m so interested in food today.

You’re going to need for about two jars.

about a pound of medlars, 2/3 of which are soft and squashy, and 1/3 of which are still quite hard.

one big quince

 an apple

a lemon

water

caster sugar

and some spices of your choice

First, cut your fruit into pieces so that they’re all roughly the same size. I’d suggest that you go for “half a medlar” as your size, but it’s entirely up to you.

Then put them into a big old deep pot, cover them with water, and then about a thumb’s depth extra.

Bring the pot to a boil, and then turn it on low and let the thing bubble away for an hour. Poke at the fruit a little with your spoon, but don’t stir because the jelly will cloud, thereby partially ruining it. While you’re boiling, you could skim the foam off the top if you want to. I did it, but you don’t have to.

Then, pour all of it into the sieve, which you’ve sat over a bowl that’s at least 2L in volume, and let the liquid pass through. You can help the juice on its way, but generally let nature take its course, until all that remains in the sieve is a dark mess, and the bowl is full of a pretty, deep coloured liquid. You could, of course, use a jelly bag or cheesecloth, but you probably don’t have one and they’re the very devil to clean. While a sieve isn’t as fine, it’s good enough.

Now, measure out how much liquid you’ve got, make a note of it,  and return it to the pot. Boil for a few minutes, not just to deepen flavour and colour, but also to bring it up to heat.  Here, you can add some spices. I chose cardamom and hibiscus: about four cardamom pods and a small handful of dried hibiscus flowers. The cardamom because I think that it works beautifully with stewed fruit, and the hibiscus to amp up the gorgeous colour. Add the same volume of sugar as you did liquid. Stir to combine and bring it up to to 108C/220F. This is the gelling temperature, and if you don’t do this the jelly won’t set. Cook at that temperature for a few minutes. Dip a cold metal spoon into your jam and remove it. If two drops  coalesce to form a “sheet”, it’s ready. Another way to test for doneness is to put a teaspoon of jam onto a saucer and put that into the freezer for a few minutes. If it furrows like a brow when you run your finger through it, it’s also done.

Now, once you’ve done that, pour it into sterilized jars. Hot jam likes hot jars, cold jam likes cold jars. I’m not sure how long this keeps, but it’s probably weeks-to-months.

The first thing I ate it with was some baguette and brie. It was excellent. I’m no sommeilier, but let’s see if I can evoke the flavour. It was sweet, even for me, fragrant, intensely tasting of quince, with that subtle bitter/sourness from the hibiscus flowers, and with a distinct almost creamy flavour which I suppose comes from the medlars. Very rich stuff. The texture was jelly-like, but subtly crumbly.

So here we are. Medlar and Quince Jelly. My first post. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did cooking it. Next time, maybe something about Japan.

All images were taken by me except for the quince illustration, which is by Ann Swan, and is called “Champion Quince”.

[rahirah]

For DVD commentary: the Spawn fake dating scene in The Road to Byzantium. "Try an' look debauched here!" etc. etc.

For reference: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11428

Okay, the scene in question takes place in the middle of the story – it's the summer when Buffy is dead, the Knights of Byzantium have come back and captured Dawn and Anya, and chipped-up Spike is trying to rescue them, under the handicap of not being able to hurt humans.  Spike and Anya have concluded that just rescuing Dawn isn't enough; they have to ensure that the Knights never come back.  And to do that, they need to convince the Knights that Dawn isn't the Key any longer.  To that end, Dawn has given Spike a mouthful of her blood, hoping that will convince the Knights that she's no longer "pure" and therefore not the Key.  Unfortunately, Key blood has some unanticipated side effects...

"Spike," Dawn croaked, "what's the plan?"  He was still wearing that lunatic grin, and his pupils were enormous black wells in his amber eyes - well, they would be in the dark, wouldn't they?  His body radiated an un-vampire-like warmth.  "There is a plan, right?"

My idea here was that if Slayer blood is a stimulant for vampires, Key blood is vampire crack.  Spike is as high as a kite.

"'Course I've got a plan." Spike sounded offended.  "Got lots of plans.  Oodles of plans!  Plenty of plans, all of them cracking good plans, too!  What demon girl said, yeh?  Shush, it's General Wossface, with enough arrows in his quiver to re-enact the martyrdom of St. Sebastian.  Oooh, not sporting, not sporting at all!"

It was a lot of fun writing manic, run-on word-salad dialogue for him, just tossing a bunch of pop culture and classical allusions together.

Aethelred halted at a safe distance and folded his arms across his chest. "Vampire!  This charade is pointless.  You cannot hurt us, and you would no more harm the Key than her sister would.  Until Brother Selwin can examine her, I'm loath to chance the girl's death - but I will kill both of you rather than let her escape."  He waved at the bristling arc of bowmen.  "Turn the Key over to me, and we will allow you and the demon woman to leave."

One thing I enjoy doing in fic is taking Joss's throwaway McGuffins and fleshing them out some.  So I tried to give the Knights a little more personality, and put some thought into how their organization works in the modern world.  Not all of that gets into the fic, of course, because it's not relevant, and infodumps are tiresome for the reader.  But one of the things I figured is that the Knights take a new name when they join the Order, sort of like a nun getting a new name when they take holy orders.  Except instead of Biblical-type names, they're all Old English.

"Aren't we ever so manly?  P'raps you've noticed..." Spike tugged the front of his t-shirt up.  The cloth was a shredded mess, and the pale, concave belly underneath it was peppered with the tiny black dots of buckshot wounds, but there was no blood. "You can't hurt me, either.  Seems our Dawn's blood puts Lydia Pinkham to shame. Could be it'll work on headaches, too.  Want to find out?"

Dagobert's jaw clenched, causing his mustache to bristle like a belligerent hedgehog.  He took a step forward, and the General laid a restraining hand on his arm.  Dawn could see him working out the odds.  Unless they hit Spike's heart dead on, the bolts wouldn't stop him any more than the shotgun had.  She knew that Spike couldn't keep up the super-speed indefinitely, and the pain from the chip would get worse the more damage Spike tried to inflict, but the knights' briefing might not have been that thorough.

Also my Knights are a tad more competent than their canon counterparts.  They did their homework before trying for Dawn again.

"Thought not," Spike purred.  "Now.  Let's us have a chat.  You'd kill her, yeh, you've stones enough for that.  But it'll eat at you.  Every night, for the rest of your days, you'll wake, and you'll see her eyes staring back at you out of the dark."  His hand cupped her cheek, dry and strangely warm.  Dawn thought it trembled a little.  "So bloody beautiful..."  He blinked and shook himself, lapsing in and out of game face like he couldn't remember which was which.  "Wages of being a good man.  'Course," his grin grew sharper, more predatory.  "I'm makin' the assumption that you are a good man."

I did want the readers to get the idea that Aethelred was a good man, who's genuinely conflicted about his duty.  Which is the main reason that Spike and Dawn's con works; he really doesn't want to kill an innocent girl.  Well, that and some help from Orlando  (whom this story posits survived getting knifed by his comrades, and who was not at all a happy camper.)  

Aethelred said nothing.  Dawn hoped that was a good sign.  Spike couldn't lie to Buffy to save his life, but put him in a situation like this and he turned into Gielgud.  Or at least Matt Damon.

"Things have changed since you and your band of merry men last took the Sunnydale tour." Spike held Dawn's bleeding wrist up for all to see and ran his tongue along the length of her forearm, starting slick and human-soft, ending demon-rough. "Delicious," he drawled, stretching the word out like warm taffy. "You say I won't kill her, and you're right.  But you've got the whys of it all wrong.  Slayer's rotting in the ground - what's a promise to her, now?   You want the Key neutralized.  And for me it's all about the blood.  Seems to me we can both get what we want, without you losing sleep of nights."

"And how do you propose to... neutralize her?" Aethelred demanded, in a voice as stiff as his spine.

Spike's chuckle was possibly the filthiest thing Dawn had ever heard.  "Already done, Prince Valiant.  Key's supposed to be pure, yeh?"  His hand slipped upwards from her waist. "An' she's anything but, now that I'm in the picture."

"Spike!" Dawn hissed.  "You're touching my boob!"

"Blimey, Sherlock, I hadn't noticed!" Spike hissed back.  "Try an' look debauched here!"

In the scene before this one, Spike and Anya discussed various forms of mystical impurity, and because I really dislike the popular connection of moral purity with virginity (which is a completely arbitrary social construct, don't get me started) I had Anya debunk the idea ("Magicians are sexist, but magic isn't.") However, Spike knows damned well that that's the first thing most people will think of, and so he's trying his damnedest to hint broadly at the connection to Aethelred.

Dawn dropped her voice to a Penthouse moan.  "Oh, Spike!" She tossed her head back in her best impersonation of a romance-novel cover painting.  Why should Spike have all the good lines?   "My purity is totally sullied!  Bite me harder!  You make it hurt soooooo good!"

The millisecond of absolute horror that flashed across Spike's face was pretty much worth the admission for the whole night.  He recovered fast, though. "There, you've heard it from her lips.  Impure as I am.  Her power's no use to anyone any longer. 'Cept me."

Poor Spike. :D One thing I try to do is...OK, the main pairing in the Barbverse is Spuffy; says so on the tin.  But Buffy and Spike each have all kinds of other relationships, and I want to write those relationships with enough depth and subtext that if the Barbverse were a stand-alone cration, people would be shipping non-canon pairings.  And in this case, Dawn has a very textual crush on Spike, and this story gave me a chance to play with that. 

"So you would suggest, then," Dagobert said with an icy sneer, "That as good men, we hand over a girl scarcely more than a child to a creature as loathsome as you, to be used for your pleasure?"

Spike snorted.  "There's consistency for you.  You're willing to have murder on your conscience, but you balk at a spot of pandering?"

I like having Spike around to point this stuff out...

"Maynard!  Aelfric!" the General snapped.

A pair of dark-robed clerics pushed through the line of bowmen and hastened to their leader's side. Maynard folded his hands into his sleeves and bowed deeply.  "Your will, my lord?"

"The vampire claims," the General said tersely, "To have made the girl his... doxy." His lip curled with distaste.

"Doxy's such a nasty word," Spike murmured.  "I prefer 'box lunch.'"

Despite the subtext, I wanted Spike to be quite clear that he's biting, not, er, anything else.

"Be that as it may," Aethelred said.  "The undead are vile creatures.  What chance is there his... association with the girl has corrupted her essence?"

The clerics frowned, putting their heads together - Spike could probably hear every word, but to Dawn it was only indecipherable mumbling.  Her head was pounding, and the torches were surrounded by pulsing haloes of light.  What was wrong with her?

Bwhahah.  To find that out you'll have to read the rest of the story.

[nintendotreehouse]

Localizing “Jump Up, Super Star!”

Life in the Treehouse moves pretty fast, and it can be hard to remember when you did what, and sometimes even why, so I had to check my e-mail archives to figure out that we started working on the lyrics for the songs in Super Mario Odyssey back in January of this year. (…Unless it was earlier? Who knows, man.)

Faults in my memory aside, the prospect of working on some songs at work was an exciting one. As a former music and Japanese double major, the idea that I would be using BOTH my degrees at my actual job was amazing. Who does that? Besides, I mean, people who chose their majors for more practical reasons…

When I became involved, the song that would eventually become “Jump Up, Super Star!” was basically done, at least as far as the music was concerned. The song was already going to be a hit in my mind, no matter what the lyrics ended up being, and at that time, the first section already had Japanese lyrics, written by Nobuyoshi Suzuki at NCL. I translated them thusly:

The symbol of a voyage, let’s start to raise the sails A tailwind dances at our backs

Flip a coin, the goddess who’ll tell our fortune Blows a kiss

Let’s sing our love as brightly as All the lights in all the world Then jump! (JUMP SE) And grab! (COIN SE) Say yeah!!! (yeah!!!)

Let’s dream together Love together If we walk with our eyes to the sky Once all our tears have fallen We’ll get a 1UP

Let’s all Jump up high and high five Tap and dance

I’m a superstar lighting up the world Switching you on to happiness So, let’s dance the Odyssey!!!

(Chorus) Odyssey, ya see! etc.

Obviously, directly translating song lyrics leaves you with…well, something that won’t actually work as lyrics in the target language. But it’s clear that Suzuki-san and the team wanted something big and romantic. A love song of sorts. I listened to the song a few more times and set about creating a first draft of the English lyrics, taking the ideas from the above and fleshing them out so there would be enough syllables to match the rhythm and melody of the song. 

Mayor Pauline is a fantastic vocalist, so we had to make sure she had an equally fantastic song to sing.

Here’s what I ended up with:

Oh we're ta- / -king a trip / Here we go it's time to raise the sails The wind is dancing at our backs

Flip a coin / Make a wish / and the goddess might just blow a kiss Boy I'd say your fortune's looking good

Le-et your love shine as bright as the lights in this whole wide wonderful world Jump with me / (grab) coins with me / Oh yeah!

Together we can live our dreams / This love is what it seems / So keep your chin up as you trek alone/ And when the tears they start to fall / There'll be no need to fear 'cause / I'll be your 1UP girl

So let's all jump up super high / and high five in the sky / There's no power-up like da-a-ncing / You know that I'm the superstar / No one else can take you this far / I'm flipping the switch / are you ready for this / Oh, let's do the Odyssey

Odyssey, ya see!

As you can see, a lot of that first draft did survive through to the final version of the lyrics. At this point, Rob Heiret (main English writer on Super Mario Odyssey) and I passed the lyrics back and forth a few times, until we had the following:

This time we're / off the rails / Here we go let's raise our sails It’s freedom like you never knew

Grab a coin / Make a wish / and the goddess might just blow a kiss You could say my hat is off to you.

We-e can zoom all the way to the moon from this great wide wacky world Jump with me / (grab) coins with me / Oh yeah!

Together we can live our dreams / This love is what it seems / So keep your chin up as you trek alone/ And when we’re underground in gloom, / Don’t fear, don’t shed a tear, 'cause / I'll be your 1UP shroom

So let's all jump up super high / high up in the sky / There's no power-up like da-a-ncing / You know that you’re my superstar / No one else can take me this far / I'm flipping the switch / are you ready for this / Oh, let's do the Odyssey

Odyssey, ya see!

We now felt like what we had was worth sharing with the folks on the Japan side, so I went into my home studio (living room) and whipped up a demo version. I’m not sure if it is fortunate or embarrassing that I didn’t delete these demos once the project was done, but here’s what that sounded like:

Too bad it couldn’t have been “Mayor Paul.” If you’re curious, I’m singing the song down a 6th in Eb because singing in the original key of C was not going to happen for me.

After we sent off the demo, the first round of feedback we got from NCL was really illuminating. They liked a lot of what we’d done, but also wanted a lot of it to change. For one thing, we’d leaned a little hard on the Mario references.

Through conversations with Suzuki-san, Naoto Kubo (the composer), and Shigetoshi Gohara (the overall sound producer), we learned more about their vision for the song: that it should be a fun, bombastic jazz number you could enjoy even if you had no connection or familiarity with Mario, but that would reward you even more, with little allusions to the Mario universe, if you were a Mario fan.

The same can be said of the music video that was produced to help promote the game as well—it’s fun to watch no matter who you are, but Mario fans will catch little details like Mario’s classic block-punch in the choreography.

The Mario references had to be at such a level that if you knew, then you knew, but if you didn’t, you wouldn’t really notice.

Another big goal from the dev team was to make the chorus as catchy as possible—simple and repetitive so even people who don’t speak English might be able to pick up on the lyrics and sing along. So, we had our work cut out for us.

Over the next couple of months, I settled into a pattern of adjusting and rewriting the lyrics, sending those around internally at NOA for more feedback, recording a demo, sending that to NCL, getting more feedback, rewriting, and then doing all of that again.

More than a few times, we even had video conferences with Gohara-san, Kubo-san, and Suzuki-san at NCL headquarters, where we would come up with new ideas on the fly that I would sing back to them then and there. I wonder what that sounded like outside the room…

At the end of that long (but fun) process, we had the lyrics for the first verse nailed down and realized that we were going to need two more verses. Oh, and we realized we had to record the song in about three weeks’ time. So, yeah… Things were going to need to speed up.

And they did! Here’s the first draft of the second verse:

Spin the wheel / take a chance/ every journey starts a new romance A new world’s calling out to you

Take a turn / off the path / find a new addition to the cast You know that any captain needs a crew

You can play it in 3D or 8-bit they’re just different points of view Down the pipe / there’s an extra life / oh yeah!

(Come on and) Jump up in the air / Jump without a care Jump up ‘cause you know that I’ll be there And if you find you’re short on joy Don’t fret, just don’t forget that You’re still our 1UP boy.

So go on straighten up your cap / let your toes begin to tap This rhythm is a power shroom / Don’t forget you’re the superstar / No one else could make it this far / Put a comb through that ‘stache / you’ve got panache

Oh, let’s do the Odyssey

Except for the “3D or 8-bit” line, and the “down the pipe” stuff, that’s pretty much what the final lyrics ended up being.

One thing Gohara-san and company really focused on was making sure that the lyrics felt good to sing, and that’s always been something I’ve really focused on in my own songwriting over the years as well. Aside from the actual meaning of the words, lyrics should have an intrinsic aesthetic appeal.

Gotta get those toes tapping, after all, right?

Which isn’t to say that meaning isn’t important, or wasn’t important when working on these lyrics. That said, I’ve found the various interpretations I’ve seen of our final lyrics to be way more thoughtful than my own.

A lot of people think there’s a deliberate “sails/sales” pun in the first line, as in: “Here we go, it’s time to raise our sales!” Sadly, I’m not that clever.

The best interpretation I’ve heard seems to have come out of Japan. I heard about it during the height of E3, when the song debuted. See, people read a lot into the idea that Pauline (in their eyes, Mario’s ex-girlfriend, though I’d never really thought of her that way) was singing a song to cheer him on as he undertakes an epic journey to rescue his current girlfriend (again, feels weird to type that out, but who am I to argue with other people’s headcanons?).

Kinda makes you think about Pauline differently, doesn’t it? Especially when you take a shot of her in Snapshot Mode and the moment you caught the fireworks almost makes them look like tears. I’m sorry, Pauline!

Viewed through that prism, the song becomes—while still joyful and upbeat—incredibly bittersweet at the same time. Again, I’d love to take credit for that, but I know I at least wasn’t cognizant of any of that stuff, really. I just wanted the song to feel good when you sing it.

And from the very humbling reception the song has gotten, it seems like it does! So thanks for listening, singing, and reading.

—Rob T.

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 6 November 2017

Quick Bits:

The Archies #2 kicks off the band’s inaugural road trip and, naturally for Archie, everything goes to hell pretty quick. There are some pretty funny moments throughout the issue as the band deals with their predicament.

| Published by Archie Comics

Birthright #28 is going to play with your expectations. Nothing is quite as it seems and Joshua Williamson is potentially turning things on their ear again with our understanding of the world and its adversaries. Andrei Bressan and Adriano Lucas again make it look gorgeous.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Centipede #4 somehow gets weirder. Kafka dreams and 8-bit graphics.

| Published by Dynamite

Coyotes #1 is one of the most beautiful, unique, and haunting debuts from Image that I’ve seen and it’s not like there’s a dearth of beautiful and unique Image comics lately. Sean Lewis and Caitlin Yarsky have managed to create something here that elevates the horror genre with a mix of a coming of age story and a kind of metaphor for the dogs of society. 

The art from Caitlin Yarsky is also absolutely gorgeous. Her art reminds me a bit of Emma Rios mixed with Jeremy Haun and Declan Shalvey and it has this interesting quality about it that just seems to blend the ephemeral and realistic. I’m particularly impressed by the way that the lettering is incorporated to tell us more about the characters as well. A lot of thought looks like it’s gone into the presentation of this story and it pays off in spades.

| Published by Image

Eugenic #2 jumps ahead to a society now ruled and manipulated by the Numans, subjugating the remaining humans to walled off ghettos and putting a lie to the concept that this new “perfect” race would be any better than its predecessor. 

I also appreciate the moment that James Tynion IV and Eryk Donovan take to comment about representation in media. It’s highly important and highly relevant and it’s nice to see that reflected outright in science fiction.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Grass Kings #9 shifts point of view again this issue, this time to Ashur and Pinball as they pick up some of the threads in regards to the investigation of Jenny Handel’s death. I really like how Matt Kindt has been weaving this story together, a patchwork of overlapping narratives building one upon the next.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Hack/Slash vs. Vampirella #2 has some great art from Rapha Lobosco again. I really like his style, at times I swear I’m looking at pages by Eduardo Risso, and that kind of dark, highly shadowed work fits perfectly with horror. This issue also seems to amp up the comedy aspect, bringing more of the feel of Hack/Slash proper to the crossover.

| Published by Dynamite

Harbinger Renegade #0 is kind of nice in the wake of “Massacre” to see HARD Corps get spanked so thoroughly. It’s also terrifying as Rafer Roberts and Juan José Ryp unleash the next nightmare upon the Valiant universe in this bridge to Harbinger Wars 2.

| Published by Valiant

The Harcourt Legacy #1 is something from a publisher I normally don’t pay much attention to, but the write-up about it sounded interesting. It’s a kind of family drama about a dying relative leaving his inheritance, the family fighting over the will, etc., but it’s also about magic and the interpretation of magic through music. Brendan Cahill gives it an interesting spin, with believable characters, and I’m looking to see what’s next. The art from Jason Federhenn is also very good, he’s got an angular style similar to Giuseppe Camuncoli.

| Published by Action Lab / Danger Zone

Harrow County #27 gives us Bernice kicking all kinds of ass, it’s very satisfying. Her confrontation with Kammi is just a wonderful thing to see, showing how far that she’s come and what she can really do. It’s just a shame what happens next. Emmy’s vengeance against Kammi is going to be epic.

| Published by Dark Horse

Injection #15 is very pretty. Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire seem to up their game again this issue and this is just lovely.

| Published by Image

Kid Lobotomy #2 does the nigh impossible and is somehow even better than that first issue. Gloriously insane doesn’t do justice to what Peter Milligan and Tess Fowler are creating here. Milligan is presenting a story of familial strife, blending literary allusions to Shakespeare and Kafka throughout, across a backdrop of madness that transcends even his work on Shade: The Changing Man. The artwork from Fowler also is wonderful. The layouts and character designs are enthralling, making the book as visually interesting, if not more so, than even the story. This is great stuff.

| Published by IDW / Black Crown

Kong on the Planet of the Apes #1 is the expression of a crossover of properties so fitting that you’re left wondering why no one thought of it before and secured the license and publishing rights. (It’s, of course, understandable why Universal and Fox didn’t do it themselves). This just works so well that Ryan Ferrier’s story is seamless, playing upon the scientific and religious implications of giant apes present in the Planet of the Apes world. It’s also nice to see Carlos Magno back working on both properties.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Pestilence #5 continues hitting hard with its medieval zombies. It’s also interesting to see the religious reaction to the undead as the Pope gives a deathbed confession, pushing our knights to search a new destination.

| Published by AfterShock

Port of Earth #1 is the new series from Eclipse’s Zack Kaplan with Andrea Mutti handling the art chores. It’s another interesting take of science fiction, turning a woefully technologically disadvantaged Earth into a way station for space vessels and suffering the consequences of murderous aliens. Mutti’s art really gets to shine, even with the kind of faded blue wash Vladimir Popov’s colours provide, giving us some great designs for aliens and their technology.

| Published by Image / Top Cow

Redlands #4 veers left into an unexpected ghost story this issue, as Bridget, recovering from her injuries last issue, begins investigating a cold case from 1985. I really like how Jordie Bellaire is telling these stories and developing the characters in a very organic, flowing fashion. Although clearly thought out and planned, everything in the story just seems to flow together. Equally impressive is Vanessa Del Rey’s art. This issue brings back rounded corners, but this time only for the whole page. It’s a subtle technique, but it adds a different element to planned storytelling within a frame, rather than just discrete panels. It’s a nice touch.

| Published by Image

Slots #2 is good, damn good. Dan Panosian delves into the seedy backstory of Stan’s history with Les, while fleshing out more about the various characters across Vegas. His art is also incredible.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Star Wars #38 reunites the original Marvel Darth Vader team in Kieron Gillen’s first issue on the main title. It’s kind of a follow-up from Rogue One, as well as a surprise appearance from a character from the previous Darth Vader run, but it reads well enough on its own, setting up the stakes of this new arc. It helps that the artwork from Salvador Larroca and Guru e-FX is absolutely stunning.

| Published by Marvel

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #26 bills itself as the “zine issue” and as such is essentially an anthology of oddities with some guest art by the unusual suspects. It’s pretty hilarious with contributors like Chip Zdarsky, Carla Speed McNeil, and a Galactus short with Jim Davis.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Astonisher #2, Daredevil #595, Despicable Deadpool #289, Falcon #2, First Strike: Transformers #1, Jessica Jones #14, Half-Past Danger II: Dead to Reichs #3, Marley’s Ghost, Master of Kung Fu #126, Moon Knight #188, The Normals #6, Rock Candy Mountain #5, Royal City #7, Royals #10, Runaways #3, Scales & Scoundrels #3, She-Hulk #159, Slam! - The Next Jam #3, Spider-Man vs. Deadpool #23, Spirits of Vengeance #2, There’s Nothing There #5, TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #2, The Unbelievable Gwenpool #22, Uncanny Avengers #29, Venom #157, X-Men Gold #15

Recommended Collections: 4 Kids Walk into a Bank, Black Panther - Volume Four: Avengers of the New World - Part One, Edge of Venomverse, Rose - Volume One, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

d. emerson eddy does not like green eggs and ham. He does not like them on a boat. He does not like them with a stoat.

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

I need to write this down at least once

(This will skip around a lot, so bear with me)

Naruto’s been with me since I was in 6th grade. There were a lot of things that happened in the story that I only took at surface value, or that I reacted to with very muted emotions: The massacre of the Uchiha clan, Orochimaru’s experiments, the true nature of the Akatsuki, and the like. 

As the story progressed, politics, the relations between people, the grim reality that the past continues to affect the present, and the question whether certain things are indeed irredeemable became larger and larger and became larger than the titular character, larger than the cast, even.

I don’t know if it’s because of my age or because I’ve emotionally developed so much in the past year or so, but I can’t look at Naruto and simply call it a “shonen” manga. It is definitely a shonen, but there are too many seinen elements, however underscored, that we cannot deny.

I watched the English dub episode of Tobirama and Hashirama explaining the history of the Uchiha clan to Sasuke, about how Itachi even as a child was painfully aware of how his devotion to the village as a whole conflicted with the “instinct” of the Uchiha to look after their own, and how that “love” easily turns into hate. 

The idea that an Uchiha’s love can just as easily switch over to hate is a simplified, yet quite accurate psychological phenomenon. 

As I think more of this, I am actually surprised and amazed at Kishimoto’s understanding of human psychology and politics. This was likely not the route he wanted to go when he started this manga but damn if he didn’t try to flesh it all out with real hard-hitting stuff that I could look back on and analyze as an adult.

I would say this shift occurred during Pain’s Assault Arc, where we saw peoples’ ideologies truly in action. Before that Pain had not been given the chance to truly show us what his ideas were. He told them to us, but the true extent that he was willing to go to enact them had not been seen for real. It is the real carnage and destruction that he inflicts on the Leaf Village that makes a History student like me flashback to the Allied firebombing of Japanese towns or the destruction of Berlin. It is devastating, world-shattering carnage. That is the power a shinobi with such a goal can accomplish.

Then there’s Itachi. Like I said before, he was always a sensitive child, at least according to the 3rd. Seeing that frame of him clenching his teeth as tears stream down his face just as he’s about to assassinate his parents is a mind fuck. He loved his clan, but he loved Sasuke and the village more. If anything, he saw himself and Sasuke as Leaf villagers first, Uchiha second. He knew that such a future for Sasuke, of feeling connected to the village like he was, would be impossible should a coup occur. The clan as a whole had not been positioned in such a way that complete integration was possible - they were respected as a founding clan, feared because of their self-isolating tendencies (though how much of that was Tobirama’s doing, honestly?), and hated because they were lawkeepers. As Orochimaru quipped, those who are assigned that duty in society are usually shunned and hated by everyone else. So no favors were done there for them.

Itachi is basically a Christ figure in that he was willing to bear the inevitable sins of his clan on his own shoulders by committing a more grievous evil unto them, himself, and his brother. Well, then not a Christ figure, but you get what I mean.

I’m repeating myself when I say this, but I look at Naruto now and the amount of political and historical shit that exploded around the latter third of the manga was completely missed by me because I kind of dipped out of it, but now that I’m reluctantly trying to fill in the missing blanks (reluctantly due to nostalgia for the old, “less complicated” Naruto where we knew next to nothing about anything LOL) this whole series is so much goddamn bigger than I realized. It’s almost bigger than I can handle. 

It’s probably because I’m just getting in touch with my emotions (I am autistic) but god damn, Naruto has some heavy shit that just didn’t faze me before. Why didn’t it faze me before? Maybe it’s because I can make connections and allusions to real life situations that Naruto features, things like genocide, war hawks, the desire for peace, political extremism, a world that they live in that is reminiscent of both the Warring States period and pre-WWI Europe. 

I guess what you can take from this rambling is that, as cheesy and stupid as it sounds, Naruto has once again enriched my understanding of myself, others, and the world I live in through its characters and story. I know I could probably get just as comprehensive of an understanding from a “better written” series, and I’ll accept all arguments that Kishimoto is clumsy with his world-building since a lot of the history seemed to happen at the tail end of the series, but the fact that it’s there at all, and just how deep it goes for the short amount of time he had...it makes me think more than I want to, to be honest. I need to stop thinking about all this or I’ll get depressed LOL

[recentanimenews]

THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH Arrives Just in Time for Episodes 57-63!

  Welcome to THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH! I'm Danni Wilmoth, and I'll be your host this week as we make our way through all 220 episodes of the original Naruto. Last week, we covered episodes 50-56, and we continue this week with episodes 57-63. This week we see the conclusion of Naruto’s training under Jiraiya and move onto what we’ve all been waiting for: the Third and Final Exam. The main event this time pits genius versus failure as Naruto seeks vengeance for Hinata and Lee against Neji in round one. It’s a raging battle of ideals that leaves everyone asking, “Where the hell is Sasuke?” Before we discuss these episodes, let's take a look at a question WiseJake237 had about summoning: Maybe I'm misunderstanding the Summoning Jutsu, but if Jiraiya is such a horn toad, why doesn't he just use the jutsu to summon attractive women? It seems like one of the Three Legendary Ninjas shouldn't have to go to the lengths that this guy does. Danni: First of all, that pun had me simply croaking with laughter. Second, my understanding of summoning is that a contract has to be formed between the summoner and the one being summoned. I imagine that Jiraiya could theoretically summon women to him, but they’d have to give prior consent first. Exactly the way it should be!!! Now, let's see what the Crunchyroll Features team thought of this week's episodes! So this week’s batch of episodes began with us meeting Gamabunta, my big grumpy frog dad whom I love. I had always assumed summoning animals basically teleports them to your position to assist you, but he mentions something about it being his first time free in awhile. This begs the question, are summoning animals in Naruto basically Pokémon? And since Gamabunta can talk does that make him Detective Pikachu?

Kevin: Whether the Summoning Animals are from another world or just a different place but on the same world seems to be inconsistent. Gamabunta indicated that the Toad Realm and the Village Hidden in the Leaves are two different worlds, but if I remember correctly, when Kakashi introduced his dogs he said that they get teleported from a distant place, and the accompanying visual implied that it was just somewhere far away, but you could theoretically walk there. So in short: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Peter: Boruto gets into some weird spirit world stuff when they consult the Snake sages about Mitsuki’s location. I’m not sure if super late Shippuden gets into it. Pretty sure they’re all hanging out in some spirit world as shadows against a cave wall or something. Noelle: If I remember correctly, I think the summoned animals are from another dimension or other realm, as we never see them in the regular ninja world. Not a lot of detail is put into that, but it’s always fun to see what new summons pop up next. I never thought about frog Ryan Reynolds before, but I’m sure thinking about it now. Carolyn: I have no idea how to answer this question, honestly. But if the frog were Ryan Reynolds and/or Danny DeVito I would be here for it. Paul: I believe that ninja summons are merely a manifestation of the individual summoner's will, i.e. that there is no separate, extra-dimensional “Toad Realm” or “Dog Realm,” but that these creatures are temporarily called into being and given form and personality by the magic of Ninjutsu. I think it's closer to the Shadow Clone technique that Naruto employs. Also, Gamabunta is clearly a yakuza, whereas Detective Pikachu is a cop. Joseph: From what I recall there’s definitely another realm. Doesn’t Naruto end up there at some point? I’m going off my memory of the manga so gotta do a big shrug here, but I love the frogs in general. David: I definitely feel bad for Gamabunta in the same way I feel bad for Pokémon, who mostly get let out to fight or do jobs. He spends who knows how long locked away in some vague spirit world, only to get summoned by some brat who literally won’t get off his back. Give the poor guy a break! Kara: Too early for me to speculate. The world of Naruto has a lot of weird rules to it and I’m still trying to figure out the whole “raising children to fight to the death” thing before I go any further. That said, I am glad I’m not a summonable animal of any sort. I can’t imagine being in the middle of a nap or a conversation or whatever and just BOOM. Sorry, you’re here to fight now. Both last week’s and this week’s episodes have contained allusions to a connection between Naruto and the Fourth Hokage, and the Fourth Hokage’s portrait last week makes it pretty clear what that connection is. Did anyone else happen to see that coming before now?

  Kevin: I think that literally everyone knows the “secret” before it gets revealed in the show. Make no mistake though, as we go in to Shippuden and more is revealed, the writing will be beating you with a lead pipe of exposition to make sure that you understand every single detail. Peter: During my first readthrough I think I knew as early as Zabuza since Minato appears in some photos and he has the same hair. I knew enough about shonen to know that the main character always has an important dad. Noelle: Same as Peter, I figured it out pretty early on in my original readthrough--if two characters look uncannily similar in anime, they’re probably related. Carolyn: I thought that was always kind of implied. I have seen the show before, but seem to remember making that assumption pretty early the first time around, too. Paul: I assumed that the Fourth Hokage was Naruto's Dad (a.k.a. Boruto's Granddad) from the brief glimpse of him that we got during the flashback of him sealing away the Nine-Tailed Fox way back in the first episode. No real surprises there. The bigger question is who is Naruto's Mom, a.k.a. Boruto's Grandma? Joseph: This is such a poorly-kept secret I forgot it hadn’t been revealed. David: The ‘mystery’ may lie more in why he would choose to doom his own kid to societal ostracization than if he is Naruto’s dad or not. Kara: I mean, between the resemblance, Naruto’s obsession with becoming Hokage, and the way pretty much any references to the Fourth Hokage are framed, it isn’t so much foreshadowing as a brick to the head. You’re telling me it gets more obvious? A good way to tell when a series has settled into a comfortable position is when it begins experimenting in other genres. We saw that this week in episode 58 when Naruto dabbles in horror aesthetics to flesh out Gaara’s backstory a bit. It broke its own mold both visually and thematically. Do you think this change managed to accomplish anything a normal exposition episode wouldn’t have?

  Kevin: I always appreciate any work of art being taken in a new direction, so I liked seeing episode 58 do something different, and the exposition where Naruto starts to understand how similar he and Gaara are was definitely one of the more effective moments. That being said, most of the rest of the episode didn’t really work. From Shikamaru’s magically disappearing shogi board to Ino somehow just having the fruit basket to Gaara actually being as stealthy as a ninja for the first time in his life to AN ENTIRE HOSPITAL BEING COMPLETELY EMPTY, a lot of stuff just didn’t add up outside of just needing to be that way to be creepy. Peter: My second run through I was kinda flabbergasted Gaara suddenly got so verbose out of the context of writing goth poetry. That said Naruto’s response where he realized he completely understood the logic that brought Gaara to being a homicidal maniac was *chefs kiss*. Noelle: Horror always requires some suspension of disbelief in order to be functional, so even though there were quite a few things off about the scene, I enjoyed it more so for the mood it evoked. On that end, I think it succeeded-- I’m always here for series being flexible with the genres they try out. Naruto’s dawning realization that had things been a little different, he could have easily turned out like Gaara, mmm, that was good stuff. Carolyn: Ah, thank you for bringing this up. When we first started rewatching I was waiting to figure out why I used to like Gaara so much. Now I remember. Paul: While I enjoyed the way they framed Gaara as if he were the antagonist of a slasher film, what resonated with me the most was when they dug into his back-story, demonstrating how truly emotionally damaged Gaara is. Prior to that, I couldn't take him seriously as a villain, but once I got a taste of the tragedy at the heart of his character, Gaara became much more palatable. It also re-contextualizes the Kanji character 愛 (“love”) that he has tattooed on his forehead. Joseph: I also love Naruto’s reaction here. It’s one of those moments that goes a long way toward making a character more three-dimensional, and is leagues beyond the typical shonen “he’s bad so I gotta beat ‘im up!” attitude. David: I honestly thought it was a little overwrought, but I very much appreciated the attempt to use a different style to bring some weight to a backstory that might have come across as sort of absurd if played completely straight. Kara: I really like Gaara, but up ‘til now it’s been in the same way that I like horror movies: enjoying the spectacle. But the combination of his back story with (as others have said) Naruto’s reaction to it was just wonderful. I actually busted out laughing when Gaara said “You can’t understand what it’s like” because oh boy. Of all the people he could have said that to. And this scene was a reminder that in spite of his occasional annoying spans, Nart’s a good kid.   The main event this time around was obviously the fight between Naruto and Neji. It seems like every fight in Naruto gets overshadowed by Gaara vs. Rock Lee, but I think I might actually prefer Naruto vs. Neji between the two. In your eyes, how do they compare with one another?

  Kevin: I still prefer Lee versus Gaara, mainly because the exposition was significantly better handled. Lee has a few cutaway scenes to show his progress and one or two moments to blatantly stating what he was trying to do, while Neji pretty much had an entire episode where he just explained his backstory to Naruto (and every single onlooker, but I guess no one actually cares that the Hyuga side family are basically slaves). Comparing the fighting is tougher, since Lee’s fight was much more bombastic and over the top, while Neji’s was more technical and strategic, so I can see the merits of both. Peter: I have some more complex feelings in retrospect knowing Naruto’s actual place in the world. Even without the benefit of that knowledge the idea of hard work and never giving up allowing even failures to rise above geniuses felt a little stale given that Naruto had a chakra demon in his corner. All the emotional beats really hit hard as well. Shame Hinata didn’t get to see Naruto win. Noelle: Still on the side of Rock Lee vs Gaara, since it’s hard to beat the pure energy that comes from that fight. Admittedly, I’m not as terribly attached to this fight, but putting my biases aside, I do think the two fights serve as something completely different. One has more bombast, and the other is more melancholy and introspective. It’s a little hard to compare the two, since they accomplish two different things. Carolyn: Yeah, I also have to say Rock Lee and Gaara. A big part of which is just the fact I like those characters much more. Though, I did really appreciate Naruto echoing Hinata in his fight. He can be a very good friend sometimes. Paul: Naruto vs. Neji is important because it's not just a clash of skills, but of ideals. Naruto triumphs not just because he's tougher and / or sneakier, but because he's got a more flexible perspective and because his desire to actively shape his own destiny is stronger than Neji's fatalism. They also frame it as the catalyst for Neji to grow and change, and I'm a sucker for that kind of character development. Rock Lee vs. Gaara is much more one-sided, in that it only really highlights Lee’s determination. Joseph: I prefer Lee vs. Gaara, but this is a good and important fight in its own right. I did think it was hilarious when Neji stopped everything to laboriously explain his backstory to Naruto and the packed stadium. Hey, the ref said no arguing, he didn’t say anything about no expatiating! David: Naruto vs. Neji is a pretty bad ‘fight’ - Naruto doesn’t do anything particularly special with his skillset that we haven’t seen before, Neji has him overpowered the whole time until Naruto turns on his fox chakra cheat code, and they spend essentially two straight episode on exposition. Lee vs. Gaara wins on that front. However, it is a very good ‘conflict’, with Neji’s worldview nagging at Naruto’s core beliefs in a way that feels natural for both the world they live in and how the series has characterized Naruto so far. In that sense, this Neji battle wins out. It’s also worth noting that with Naruto’s line “I’ll change Hyuga,” he’s officially made his first Hokage campaign promise. Kara: For me, Gaara vs. Lee still takes it for the fight itself. It’s the end result of the Naruto vs. Neji fight that resonates for me more than the actual combat. The whole “gonna be the Hokage” thing, despite it becoming enough of a running gag that we track it every week, is at its core about acceptance and recognition. The fact that we see people applauding Naruto after the fight — even a few people going “Hey, that fox kid’s pretty dang good” — is so important. We’ve seen the results of Naruto’s hard work and training so far, but that’s a reward in his own language, in a way. That’s him being applauded where he was laughed at and shunned. So for that, I at least give it a nod. Sasuke managed to take center stage for most of the Chunin Exams, but in the past few weeks his presence in the show has decreased more and more. In his absence Naruto has stepped back into the limelight to finally show us what he’s capable of. How do you feel about Naruto now compared to the beginning of this rewatch?

  Kevin: I definitely enjoy him more now than at the beginning of the series. I get that his character is supposed to start as someone annoying who doesn’t listen to people, but having him be more focused, competent and actually able to hold his own in a fight and so show people that he isn’t just a screw up is much easier to watch than the kid from the first few episodes who couldn’t even transform. Peter: Naruto’s fights still don’t get the same animation quality so there’s definitely some favoritism going on. Always felt that Naruto was the funnest to root for narratively but Sasuke was the funnest to watch fight. Noelle: I think more focus on Naruto is a good thing- the series is named after him, and we need to see him grow. As well-animated as Sasuke is, he’s already reached the point where he’s highly capable (even if he still has his own struggles), and there’s a kind of effortlessness in his fights. Shonen always features the underdog rising to the top, and that’s Naruto, not Sasuke. Carolyn: Kind of touched on this earlier, but for me, what makes a Naruto fight is the emotion he puts behind it. He cares very much about those around him and that comes through in his performance. Paul: I'm still not completely sold on Naruto as the protagonist. Comparing it to One Piece, I can think of probably a dozen moments where Luffy's heroism crystallizes the themes of the series, where we can see why so many people love and support him, and why he loves and supports so many people in return. I haven't yet experienced that same kind of “come to Jesus” moment with Naruto yet. Joseph: Naruto is still kind of whiny, especially when he wants Jiraiya to watch over his training, but I like the way he’s developing and getting more time to come into his own as the protagonist. David: Between his realized connection with Gaara and righteous anger with Neji’s story, I am actually coming to appreciate the sort of empathy that could make Naruto a good leader in the future - it already goes beyond him being able to Punch Good. Kara: I think what recent episodes have done for me is contextualize what annoyed me about him originally. His actions and feelings make more sense, and we’re seeing that he actually has the motivation to back up his ambitions. As always, what were the high and low points of this week’s batch?

  Kevin: As odd as it might sound, Gaara telling Shikamaru and Naruto about his past is both the high and low point for me this week. I love the slow reveal about how similar Naruto and Gaara are, and the scene is effectively creepy, but at the same time Naruto is frozen with fear… which is something that he swore he would never let happen again and so is somewhat out of character for him. Peter: As above, I wish Gaara had been a bit less transparent with his exposition dump. Maybe explaining his logic without also throwing out his entire life story. Could have done that in flashback without him explaining it so that we know even if others don’t. Just getting a bit of insight into Gaara’s perspective allowing Naruto to realize their connection would have made it even more impactful. My favorite moment was Naruto running into Hinata before the exam. Noelle: High point would be the Gaara reveal. While its execution would be a low point technically, I’ve gotten so immune to shonen having lengthy flashbacks or exposition dumps that I’m more surprised when a series doesn’t do that. Carolyn: Surprisingly, as much as I loved the creepy goth Gaara exposition, my high point was Sakura buying more flowers for Rock Lee because she thought the old ones would have wilted. When this show really wants to get emotional, they know how to do it right. Low point … honestly kind of getting burnt out on how many kids have marks and bad dads. Paul: The high point for me was how they dug deeper into the behind-the-scenes politics with the secret schemes of the Kazekage, who is at odds with the peace-promoting plans of his daimyo. I really dig the ninja intrigue. The low point was all of the screen time they squandered on speculating about whether Sasuke had been murdered by Gaara prior to The Final Test. I don't think anyone was buying what they were trying to sell there. Joseph: I wasn’t that high on the attempt at horror and suspense in the Gaara ep. The boarding and execution seemed kind of sloppy and haphazard. The high point was Naruto vs. Neji and the quote of the week was Kabuto behind the Anbu mask saying, "I'm not suspicious or anything." David: Surprised no one has pointed out the almost entire episode spent on Naruto trying to get to the exam on time as a low point, because I was bored to tears. High point is Neji in the hospital after his fight. Kara: Gotta agree on Naruto’s meeting with Hinata being the high point of the week. I like seeing them encourage each other, be it actively or passively. Low point is probably the drawn-out Sasuke non-mystery. Alright, lightning round. You’re nine years old, and it’s time for recess. You and your friends are all about to play pretend as your favorite Naruto characters. Which one is nine year old you picking? Personally, I’m Shikamaru.

  Kevin: Me nowadays would pick Shikamaru, pretty much no question. If I’m thinking back to when I was nine though, I’m pretty sure I would’ve picked Sasuke. Not because the girls all have crushes on him or because he’s “an Avenger” with a tragic backstory, I honestly just love all of the jutsus, especially finding interesting ways to combo them together, and he has access to more than most of the other Genin. I also remember that as a kid, the attack he’ll show off next week was one of my favorite techniques in the show, along with the Eight Inner Gates, which is why Lee is the only other person I might’ve gone for. Peter: At 9 I’d definitely want to be Sasuke, at least in this point in the story. I think at that age fighting style would take precedence over any kind of characterization or narrative. If we hit Shippuden already though, 9-year-old Peter would prefer Sasori 100%. Noelle: Young me preferred Gaara and one other character that hasn’t appeared yet and current me feels… the exact same way. My taste in characters has always been consistent, I guess! Nate: Lee or Guy. I'd have paper bags filled with rocks so I could "drop the weights" and then run around faster. Carolyn: Probably Gaara, as 9-year-old me. But now, most likely Shikamaru or Rock Lee. Paul: Believe it or not, nine year old me would go with Sakura. As a kid, I generally identified with the girl characters in male-dominated cartoons, such as Princess Allura in Voltron and Arcee in the animated Transformers movie. What can I say? I like pink. Joseph: I’d be Kankuro, running around shouting “PUPPET POWER!” at all my annoyed friends. David: Back in the day I started growing my hair out just to be more like Sasuke, so definitely him. Kara: Probably Kiba while trying to convince my childhood dog to be my Akamaru. I had a border collie, so it would either have gone perfectly or terribly. COUNTERS: "I'm gonna be Hokage!" count: 23 Bowls of ramen consumed: 29 bowls, 3 cups Shadow Clones created: 258 And that's everything for this week! Remember that you're always welcome to join us for this rewatch, especially if you haven't watched the original Naruto! Here's our upcoming schedule! -Next week, on MARCH 22nd, the Chunin Exams give way to an even greater conflict in EPISODES 64-70 as NICOLE MEJIAS hosts! -Then, on MARCH 29th, DANIEL DOCKERY returns as the Third Hokage springs into action in EPISODES 71-77! -On APRIL 5th, CAYLA COATES stops by just in time to introduce us to a mysterious new shinobi in EPISODES 78-84! Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next time! Have any thoughts on our thoughts on Episodes 57-63? Let us know in the comments below! We’re also accepting questions and comments for next week, so feel free to ask away!!! ----- Danni Wilmoth is a Features and Social Videos writer for Crunchyroll and also co-hosts the video game podcast Indiecent. You can find more words from her on Twitter @NanamisEgg.   Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

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