#that got SO long

[campbenji]

jwct s2 thoughts after first watch (spoilers under the cut!!!):

ok.... look, i'm just gonna say it: i put my expectations too high for this season and i ended up slightly disappointed. it's not a bad season or anything of the sort, but i guess i just didn't enjoy it as much as i did s1.

individual thoughts now, starting with the good:

-brooklynn. she's always been the camper i ignore most because i've never been able to connect with her but HOLY SHIT they really changed that this season. i desperately need to know what's going through her head, i'm so glad we got to see a good part of her pov from before and after the attack, and how she's adapting to losing her arm. i can't wait to see where she's going after that finale, the stakes went off the roof fr

-THE ANIMATION??? THE WET HAIR, THE RAIN, THE DINOSAURS LOOKED MAJESTIC, THE WAY YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE THE CHARACTERS TREMBLING NOW IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL

-ben's arc. the amount of stress i felt for him he was going through it </3. the moment i realized he always wanted to tell them broke my heart, he knew it was a huge thing and tried to be careful with how he revealed it but never got the chance. i really wanted them to address other things about him but this will have to do

-episode 7 seems to be the best episode in every season now. yaz getting a solo adventure was something i didn't expect, and it was interesting to see how another one of their own going missing affected the group.

-kenji being reckless and putting himself in danger for other i dreamed and feared of times like these i shit you not. this was his entire arc in a jwcc s4 rewrite i made, i've been waiting for this for so long. it didn't go exactly like i wanted but i still found it interesting

-BEN AND KENJI SCENES BEN AND KENJI HEART TO HEART I'M QUITE LITERALLY SHAKING. that was the best part of the season actually (heavy /hj btw). them finally getting to open up to each other, the gyrosphere callback, them bickering around in the last few episodes, and the fight?? i really hope they're setting up a good continuation for that next season, i need more moments with them

-kenji taking care of speckles (bumpy's egg) so much throughout the season was lovely, he's such a proud father omg. the day that egg hatches is gonna be the happiest day of his life

-loved to see more of ronnie, it was kind of obvious that it was her who saved brooklynn and talked to her through dark jurassic but it was nice to have it confirmed

-it's still so weird to me to have a recurring cast who isn't just the villains, but i'm growing quite fond of them

-the blind baryonyx from episode 9 sent chills down my spine, my sister and i were fucking terrified. i would've loved to see more of it

-THAT FINALE HAS ME DEVASTATED. brooklynn giving them the egg, i hate that everyone was right about "i'm not the same brooklynn you knew", i have no idea if they're coming back from this one because what the fuck

now to the not so good stuff...

-darius felt, and oh my god i hate to say it, sidelined. again. so much of the season was centered around others that even crucial moments like him realizing brooklynn is alive were underwhelming. there was barely any followup to his issues from s1, it felt like he didn't even have an arc this season, he was just there.

-they dragged a lot of stuff in the middle of the season. i can't pinpoint it exactly but everything from the a plot in episodes 4 to 7 is a blur in my head.

-there was nothing about sammy either. it's still heavily implied that she's on bad terms with her family (her crying when aminata hugs her and her almost sibling-like bond with zayna), but she just doesn't get to talk?? about anything??? i'm so tired

-although i really liked her character, i feel like they could've done so much with zayna?? they had this girl joining them on the adventure who's around the same age as them when they got stranded, and did... nothing about it. sammy mentioned her age, but that was it. with how much they doubted her knowledge sometimes, it would've been interesting to see darius approaching her and making sure she's heard, with him being the youngest in jwcc and whatnot. the group making sure zayna didn't have as bad of an experience as they did could've been a great subplot.

-i DESPISED the dinostar flashback scene and everything they added to it. i needed to be convinced on dinostar, not completely drawn away from the ship! the implication that brooklynn was with darius ONE WEEK and darius was already head over heels when he wasn't before is insane; of course she wasn't ready for a relationship, SHE BROKE UP WITH KENJI LESS THAN A MONTH BEFORE WTF. anyways canon unrequited dinostar is out long live fanon qpr dinostar

-atp i hope they don't make dinostar canon or set brookenji back together, they should all be single for a while after everything that's gone down, although i can't help but be a little mad because then why make darius go through that, the grief was strong enough as purely platonic

-where was the handler. i'm not even obsessed with her and i missed her

-i think it was slightly obvious that soyona was going to be the broker so i'm a little confused as to why the promo made such a fuss about it, but anyway

-dr. sarr was wasted potential, those creations were insane and admitting to having fed the rest of the crew to the baryonyx felt straight out of a horror novel. that was some good horror stuff and then it got all thrown away in one episode.

-something i noticed a lot is that, even if there were barely no clips, they still revealed a lot about the season from just the trailer. half the trailer came from the last three episodes and there was a lot of spotlight to things that in the end didn't amount much to the plot (*cough* the DLN *cough*). i feel like that may be one of the reasons i didn't enjoy this season as much

that's pretty much it, sorry for being a hater about it but I had a lot of mixed feelings that i needed to get out. it's still not the worst season ever, it would take something truly awful to defeat s4 in my heart, but it's definitely in the lower middle.

[serenescribe]

re: chapter 8 of glaciers

I know riz shooting adaine broke the dominate person spell, but did it also somehow break the dragon madness? I don’t remember what exactly breaks dragon madness in brennan’s lore except for getting rid of the hoard, but adaine still had the jewelery and stuff on her at that point

just a little confusion on the mechanics of it or if it’s a narrative choice, though both are good!

hi anon!! this is a completely fair question tbh and i'm surprised it took a while for someone to ask me it. the tldr of this is "the way i'm writing dragon madness is convoluted as fuck but i think it makes sense when i break it down" so here we go! under the cut. spoilers for glaciers chapter 8 eventually.

with regards to sophomore year, brennan never goes into full detail on how dragon madness works, save for the fact that it hinges on knowledge that the treasure comes from a dragon's hoard (hence adaine being explicitly aware that the gifts she's getting from oisin are from his hoard in glaciers). the thing is, in sophomore year, there was a weird conflating of the nightmare king's curse (the coin) with the dragon hoard — i interpreted it as using the nature of dragon madness to transfer the coin curse through the hoard being distributed around. so what they did in giving the hoard away in sophomore year was more to avoid the influence of the coin curse from affecting them — and later on, the curse they broke was the coin curse, not the dragon madness itself.

as for how i interpret it... there's a small paragraph in chapter 7 of glaciers which actually clarifies it a fair bit:

To do what, exactly? What more can Riz do, at this point? He’s done what he can, is doing what he can. All of them are. There’s no cure for dragon madness — no instantaneous one, at least, as far as Aelwyn has learnt, digging into the archives of Compass Points throughout all of today. It’s a battle of wills, of swatting away the influence draped over one’s mind, of struggling to parse a dragon’s desires from their own. The rest of this is up to Adaine now — and Riz hates it.

i view dragon madness as this stupidly complex curse-but-not-a-traditional-curse. i view it more as a battle of willpower, raging between the will of the person perpetuating the dragon madness (oisin, in this case) and the person afflicted (adaine — because somewhere deep inside her chest and at the back of her mind, she knows this isn't right. you see that inner conflict all along, sprinkled throughout the narrative, only to get squashed by something oisin says or does because he had a lot of influence over her!)

the last stand to me is an important tipping point in glaciers because it could have gone either way. i think if riz's shot didn't work and adaine didn't snap out of dominate, she could've easily fallen back under the full influence of dragon madness. conversely, though — and what actually happens in chapter 8 — the shot going through (and adaine succeeding on her save against dominate person the second time) gave her enough strength to finally snap out of the influence of dragon madness.

it's a combination of the physical pain of getting shot, and also specifically oisin using dominate person on adaine. you can argue that geas and modify memory, though enchantments, lack the outright control that dominate person gives — there's a reason why i made adaine repeatedly mention, over and over, in chapter 7, that oisin didn't use dominate person on her. i think for someone as strong-willed as adaine, an outright control spell would enrage her, being her final straw. she's so fiercely in control of herself, insisting that she's in control of herself, that i think stripping that from her fully is probably the catalyst for her to finally realise "this is so, so fucked" and break out of dragon madness.

that got long — but i hope it clears things up a little bit! but yes, our girl is free from dragon madness. not that i don't think there'll still be some lingering effects, but for the most case, she's free.

[slylittlewizard]

〈 continued from here. / with @cnradfisher 〉

a frown curves glossy lips, expressing the disappointment alex feels when she gets whatever he's going through really must be a serious thing. a really deep deep serious thing. "aw, come on." a sad pout. "what about the point of... banana splits? or chocolate cake? there's no point in even those?" she gently nudges with her elbow, trying in her playful best alex way to get him out of this rut. where was someone who knew the right things to say when she needed them? she's never had a talent for words. just quips and sassy comebacks were more her area of expertise when it came to how to say things. being vulnerable and living outside of her 'hard edge' facade, well... alex found herself helpless.

after a moment of studying his features, she eventually comes to the conclusion maybe that's exactly what she had to be. since, she didn't just want to leave him alone with whatever's bothering him so deeply. "i know what you mean." brunette blurts, wondering if it's a good idea to continue on or not. then figures it's too late for that so she continues on, "well, maybe not really? but in some sense, i think. like how... i try so hard to compete with my older brother who does-no-wrong and yet... i STILL always end up as the failure, the biggest family disappointment. the things my dad says really... hurts a lot.." she admits, to herself first probably for the first time ever AND then the other.

"but i keep trying," she softly stresses, "and so eventually... i too, get to rock bottom and feel like it's not worth it anymore. that i should just accept it, that maybe i am a failure. but a part of me knows i can't think like that, because it's not true. it's not true about you either, it's just those sad thoughts in your head making you feel that way." she has no idea when she got so chatty on just EXPOSING her entire feelings on how being treated by her family feels, but apparently there's something she can trust about him to blurt all that out & risk telling just to hopefully show she can understand where he is coming from even if she's trying to help make it better. "this isn't even about me," she knows when to not be selfish, which is why she's actually trying to help. "but that's why i'm telling you this. because you're not alone in that really horrible feeling." she explains, doe eyes staring at his side profile then comes a hesitant way of asking, "what... exactly happened, anyway?"

[itsscaredycat]

so ok yeah fine i watched gravity falls again and read the book of bill

[gongyussy]

make men slutty again.

HEAT STROKE | GQ CHINA Photographer: Wintam; Editor & Image: Shawn Gao Ding; Makeup: Lucas; Hair: Tao Liu; Art: Grade 2 & Lei Min; Art Assistant: Jiang Mi; Models: Kim; Ye Hao, Yu Hang, Ho Jun; Fashion Assistant: Yiyi, Coco; Photography Assistant: Li Zhenxi; Song Luanyi

bonus as rightfully added by @polyabathtub:

[jomo-is-here]

how long you think it'd been since he'd last seen his reflection?

[chloesimaginationthings]

Poppy playtime should have more Harley Sawyer ngl

[datcravat]

DANDADAN

[daeyumi]

I am what you made me 🩸

[raffi-cat]

red crowned crane grian

[kingzombear]

Can I Axe-ya a question *audience laughtrack*

Anyway she should've been given the axe, fuck the hypocratic oath

[andminnequin]

He’s been dubbed therapist ™️

[mllenugget]

The exact opposite of being doomed by the narrative

I discovered this game while playing with a group of friends on Halloween, and I must say it was quiet immersive because we each wanted different things so we always had to argue together on what to do before the Voices would Took 3 days to complete a single run

[greykolla-art]

Ooooh careful, Alastor! Your line between manipulation and genuine care is getting blurryyyyyyyyyy 👀!

I missed drawing them man! Miss Sweet and mister Scary in situations together is my favourite! ❤️ (but did it have to span 9 coloured pages I almost died?!)

(No I won’t do a part 2 😘!)

[incredubious]

MODERN AU ACESAN !!!! first impressions with a guy who barely passes the No Shoes No Shirt No Service rule

[idcaboutart]

I'm sensing a pattern here