#so yeahhh‚ i hope that wasn't too long of a wait lol

[thelingering]

YOU WATCHED THE BLACK ROSE PIRATES ONESHOT?!? did you finifh it??? may i request thoughts and/or commentary????? :DD

I DIDDDDD :OOOO!!!! all the way through (my poor emotions)!!! and ohohohoh my beloved ak, you can always request thoughts and commentary :DDD

okok so some thoughts (after writing this, I've realised there a lot of thoughts lolll, so be warned /lh):

when they first start, you see the Main Guys :333

i was. oh my goodness was it so sweet when they were panning through the guys, go to Finn (literally some of the first words he said were about made-up creatures, you were HUNDRED PERCENT right when you said that's his bit XDDD a-horse, b-horse, etc. etc. lolll- and the elusive crawfish :0..... wonder if Finn'll ever find one of those with the massive hole in the sea that totally won't happen because they're on their last mission) telling Drey (:DDD) about the weird random creatures (some which's names are. questionable and we will not address them again in this ramble), and then THEY PAN TO CHIP AND ARLINNNNNNN

GOODNESS ARE THEY SO GREAT

I LOVE CHIP AND ARLIN'S BOND

YES

and then you have Lizzie (:000) and her MADDD hot dog eating skills, decimating Arlin and stealing the things in his empty pockets (pocket butter..... loll)

and Drey dee-stroying poor old Jug in the arm wrestling lolll-

and then. and then we see where chip gets his pranksterness from >:3 oh poor Finn, that was hilarious

then they got all reminiscent with the captain right after that, which was really nice and also really funny at how they DEFINITELY were not about to go into a massive hole in the sea, and that they were ABSOLUTELY safe until retirement

then the clouds start to rumble..... ooooo spooky..... then A TENTACLE CRASHES THROUGH THE SHIP WOAHHHH DD: and we meet the Yuckies :O

then they have this massive fight scene during which Finn is not tied to the boat, Captain gets dragged off very quickly, and Jug punches through a tentacle with his bare fists- The Part that made me tear up a little was when Chip was dragged off the ship and Arlin had to make the choice between him and Chip and bebo was like "Chip all the way" without hesitation

like my soul was not ready for how much Arlin cared for Chip (it was kinda funny that Bizly thought he was dying until Grizzly was like "no you're just falling into the water" lol)

then we see some Drey "Sureshot" Ferin ActionTM, some awesome Finn moves, and the Yuckies are done with pretty quickly (they were rolling so low it was so funny- it was like the dice knew what they had canonically just been doing, eg eating dozens of hot dogs in seconds and drinking spicy alcohol)

after all that's said and done and they're heading into the whirlpool, Finn peers over the edge to see if anything else is in the water.... and lo and behold..... the Elusive Crawfish :OOO

then he promptly hops on it, grabs Arlin with a nat 20 in strength from the crawfish, and proceeds to do a kickflip that makes Arlin lose his grip LOL

and then they descend and descend and descend..... spooky tentacles and spookier visions......

then! part 2 :3

they're in the big long hallway with a void for a roof, and Finn begins trotting his way down the thing lol- they reach the door and find a door, a door of which has an almond shape, a moon, and a sun, connected... and a riddle spelt out in somelanguagethaticantrememberlol that's like, "What has a head, a tail, but no legs?"

'twas a real stumper of a riddle, and it was rather unfortunate that they dropped the coins from the yuckies and were struggling to pick them up, accidentally putting them into a hole they won't come out of D:

luckily they solved the riddle and it was all good /silly

then they enter a really weird landscape that's sorta frozen in time, it's dark and grey and spooky booky, and Arlin punches Finn REALLY hard to see if it's a dream LOL- Finn gets knocked back and takes like 10 points off of a nat 20 to hit XD

they wander, and eventually come across a biggggg pyramid, which has a little staircase leading downwards that they can only fit single file down, so naturally Finn's first loll

as they walk down, the candles go out, Finn rolls a nat 20 wisdom save for a total of 26 when Grizzly calls for it, and he gets sent into a memory of when he was leaving his home 20 years before :0 he gives the little kid some research thingies, and discusses with good old Professor Something.... (wow i'm not good with names lol /lh); I'm pretty sure that memory goes pretty well 'cause of the 26 wisdom saving throw lol

then they continue with the candles back on, Finn warns the both of them that this might happen to them (smart thinking ^-^) and I think they also read some things in Abyssal variant of Celestial i think? I cannae remember lol- but then Arlin gets a memory as well, rolls a 6 total and wisdom save, and gets sent back to when little Chip was begging him to let him go, it was so sweet..... and then Chip grows up and stabs Arlin in the back all the way to the heart ._.

that was not fun

same process repeats for Drey, and for some reason Bizly asked to make his pocket butter canon, butter of which they put all over Drey while he was in the memory lol? very on-point for the jrwi guys ig- but Drey gets a memory of when he was first almost run over by the Black Rose Pirates (presumably while he was running away from the navy, judging by his lack of food and little boat), and the memory goes pretty well except for one thing I can't remember that happened? and also Finn was being so conveniently attacked by a shark that was just out of melee range, and Drey shot it, and then Finn went "I think there were only 2-...." which made me laugh lol

then they finally reach the bottom of the stairs where they find a bigggg circle room, and there is, woah, a door :000 a brass one, like in the visions :000 next to it is good old Captain Rose!!! ...except he starts turning into a yuckie, which was really sad and probably extremely traumatising for the whole crew :D

they fight him, he whips out some crazy Legendary moves on them, Finn does like 30 thunder damage, and Drey's finally the one to land the killing blow, after which he just sorta breaks down, which makes sense; poor Drey, and poor all of them- the line "Still a sureshot even when it's against my captain" or something like that was like. my guy. drey. i'm sorry. my soul weeps for you :(

then they go through the brass door, and find The Room full of treasures galore, and a spooky black egg that they all saw in the visions :D Finn starts documenting, and Drey jumps like 30 feet in the air and pounces on the egg lolll

they all tell Drey not to touch the egg, Drey does it anyways, and my soul weeps even more :'''D

the ending scene that Grizzly set where it was like "the whole eastern sea has been turned to black goop, except! for one mast >:3" implying that Chip is alive was fanTASTICCC

and that, dear ak, should be the most of my thoughts lol :3 I also wrote down a line that's like "Finn no! Finn yes!!" and I couldn't remember where it was from... so if you recognise that, i thought it was funny :>

*tips my hat to you* thank you for listening :DDD

[soo-won]

I also can't help but see her as kinda self-centered for being angry at the gods only know when she learns /she/ has to be the one to kill Zeno. And that Zeno had to fall this low, plead her, for her to react this way. Like I know we had more information than her about the dragons etc for a long time but idk I wanted to punch the gods for nothing more but the dragons existing just for Hiryuu and forced to wait forever for them and the crimson illness so i'm a bit yes it's nice she's angry and wants to speak with the gods! But why did it take so long...I don't think it was the intention but in the end it's like she wasn't really concerned before it became a problem to her personally. I know it's because she was busy with the plot so I get it on a writing level but on a character level I'm well yes that's what we've been saying for many many years and should have been a topic much sooner.

Also really weird how no character brings up the Crimson Illness when it's definitely connected to all that. On a practical level again I understand that Kusanagi wants to do things step by step but it doesn't feel very natural for the characters to not mention it at all. Again, it makes it like they don't care because it's not their problem. But I feel like the way Yona spoke in ch258 hinted at her having some kind of idea about the illness? so wait and see. My guess for now is to resolve this issue Yona will have to let go of Hiryuu's soul and let it return to the heavens, except she needs that connection right now to save the dragons so she's leaving that for after that's done. Maybe.

I don't think her avoiding the difficult choice is bad though. Like it feels coherent with what akayona is about and the point of all these parallels between Zeno and Suwon. It's all about finding another solution. Zeno is so convinced there's no other solution because he can't conceive fighting against the very fundations, the roots of what made things this way. But Yona has that power. Zeno's plan was doomed to fail because of how he actively tried to avoid involving her and absolve her of her responsibility in all this because of his affection for her and Hiryuu. Even if admittedly Zeno was killed by Yona, that would be only be like playing the gods' game. They would get something from it no matter what it is. Nothing would stop them from creating another Zeno. It is fate. Submitting to the choices pushed on her would be the easy way for everyone. The execution is just whacky for now lol. The story going straight to make her a cool hero without showing much internal struggle and avoid any conflict with Zeno about her decision in 257 is the problem. Like you said, even if yes everything is originally because of the gods, I still wish she would feel some responsibility in all this...That's why I really wanted Hiryuu to be shown to be flawed and partly in the wrong for coming down in the human world in the first place too, but well. I won't get that visibly. At least not for now and I'm not expecting it anymore.

I just...Yona feels so distant lately (lately being at least 3 years tbh lol). We're in her head technically, but it's more for her reactions to what she sees directly and for exposition than it is to really explore her thoughts and feelings. I want to be closer to her again. I don't want to observe her from afar and praise her when she's midly badass, I want to be with her. I personally don't really care if Yona is "such a Queen" or whatever, I just want to feel her experience. I don't think everything will be resolved after one talk with the gods so I'm very curious of where it's going next but yeahhh...I hope it will give us more with Yona's character. I feel like the gods will ask her to return to the heavens in exchange for sure and a conflict can be created from that? wait and see.

i can’t help but interpret this as a selfish act.

what, so she meets with the gods, yells at them a bit, and everything is fine? she’s allowed to avoid making the difficult choice to spare zeno’s suffering even if it pains her? she still hasn’t acknowledged her hand in this either. i hope she has some sort of internal struggle, that she doesn’t get to swoop in last minute and play savior, pinning the fault entirely on the gods. imo that would cheapen both her development and zeno’s betrayal.

[canaryatlaw]

okay, well today was fine. I initially woke up at 9:45 to my alarm and played my game for a minute lol but then went back to bed because nobody was up yet. I woke up at some point after that (but before 10:45 when I had reset my alarm for) but don't remember exactly when. I ordered bagels which were delivered. my driver dude texted me and our family friend who coordinates these things (he used to own a limo company that said driver worked for but now works for the irs I think? wild) saying his wife and son had been diagnosed with covid on like wednesday but he didn't have any symptoms and asking if I still wanted him to come, I was slightly irritated he hadn't brought this up when I texted him Friday night about the flight time changing?? but I just asked if he had tested and he said no so I was like yeahhh (I mean tests have been hard to come by but still, I did a second at home this afternoon and tested negative again) I'd rather not because we just had an exposure too so our family friend ended up taking me to the airport at 3 because he didn't want my mom to have to do it...he's nice like that. so that was interesting. the security line took fucking forever but ultimately made it through without any issue. shake shack for dinner because somehow I'm always in the same terminal at laguardia (because there's only one shake shack), then the flight ended up taking off at like 6:42 (or that was the estimated time when we boarded) instead of 6 because of just residual delays I guess but I didn't really care as long as I got out of there lol. flight was uneventful but fine, when we got off the plane it was right by the security so short walk to the baggage claim, that was easy. It was cold AF and I was expecting a slightly long walk to the uber section now that o'hare has it only in front of one terminal (which is fucking stupid) but thankfully it actually spans from where you exit terminal 1 to where terminal 2 starts (which is never going to actually come in handy again because I'm always just in terminal 3 and have a long ass walk but whatever, I'll take it for tonight) and I think they changed the set up to where they're having them wait so it only takes like 5 minutes once you submit the request instead of like 15 like it used to so that's an improvement at least. got in the uber alright, interestingly enough it seems like this apartment is a shorter drive home from the airport despite not really being closer to it?? it's a weird set up with how the roads intersect but I think the explanation is that more of the drive is highway this way around so it goes quicker as opposed to a prolonged drive down a normal road, but it's definitely pleasantly quicker than I was expecting so that's nice. I grabbed my keys from the lock box and settled in a bit, and roommate eventually came out of her room where she was pretending to sleep and we chatted for a bit and watched kpop videos of course until she went back to bed. kitty was very happy to see me despite not initially coming to the door when I got in lol but she's been very affectionate so that's nice, I missed her. and yeah, I eventually showered, the fucking shower curtain pole fell down and I struggled putting it back and I'm pretty sure it fell again once I've been in my room but if it did I'm going to ignore it because clearly I can't put it back correctly. And now I'm here and it's 1 am, so I'm going to bed now! I just evaluated and realized I wasn't tired and concluded I hadn't taken my meds yet because I didn't unpack them yet, so I'm glad I realized that now at least. Goodnight friends. Hope you have a decent Monday.