#thats a bit convoluted. i see one person actually just looking for friends like me and feel relief

[trauma-bot]

ouuuu i need the lore... i love selfships so much.... nuze lore please.... if you want..........

YAY YAY YAY. im gonna try so hard to keep this somewhat brief to leave room for any more questions but we'll see how that goes <3

so to preface this E does have a toyhouse bio that you can look at if you're curious! it has a more in-depth look at his personality and whole deal. you can also look at his gallery if you'd like; thats where his references and other artwork for him are stored!

ALRIGHT. RAMBLING UNDER THE CUT

a lot of it is very much to fulfill my weird convoluted fantasy of "what if i lost all hope for a future that i exist in and was convinced that i was going to succumb to the claws of my trauma and rot there forever (basically dooming myself in my own narrative) thus becoming the absolute worst version of myself in what i believe to be my final moments only for someone (two someones in this case) to love and believe in me so much that, despite it all and despite everything that was done to me and that ive done myself, gives me enough hope to undoom myself". i'm normal i swear.

also just generally im a big big sucker for stories about survivors of trauma being there for each other, and in that way i get a lot of comfort from nuze.

SO. NUZE LORE... (once again shout outs to my bestie night for coining their ship name lol)

i guess ill break it down like this, starting with N/E. (alt. ship name being pupE love (coined by another bestie of mine charlie)) E knew N back at the manor and they were close friends then, N was the first person E came out as trans to (by that i mean. N helped E work through his tumultuous robo gender feelings in real time) and N was the only one E really felt comfortable around. (other than tessa! E was also friendly with V back then as well<3)

however, E was also badly traumatized by his time in the manor, and of course Canon Events happen. E, as a disassembly drone, is now much more muted, detached, numbed, and devoted completely to their directive. he's very very very repressed and his specific brand of memory issues as well as the fucked up memory dreams causes him to dissociate and spiral a lot. he also distanced himself a lot from N for reasons even he isn't entirely privy to. something in his hardwiring just told him that N would be safer the less E stayed with him. and N is!!! really saddened by that!!! its normal! E has to learn to not be an emotionless object and actually let himself feel and need and yearn, and N is a big help with that (uzi is as well ofc!!)

i have to skip past a lot of things for the sake of not making this post so many words long but regardless; N/E is really special to me because they are two people who are in a very similar and scary situation and have had to see each other get hurt or even killed in many clone instances in many reset memory files. and its the just. the willingness to love despite knowing what happened to you and even witnessing it at times, to say "this is not all we are" and break free from those iron chains despite knowing how much it'll hurt and how dire everything is. E is so convinced that its all worthless and he couldn't be anything more than what he's used for, while N desperately wants a better life for himself and those he loves, and he's gonna drag E kicking and screaming to hope and healing. <3

NOW. UZIE :3 (alt. ship name is angelfangz)

E is MIA from the squad until like right after episode 3 canonically happens and is found by uzi and N. uzi does not trust E at first not one bit LMFAO. she doesn't hate him but like. her only frame of reference for murder drones besides N is V and J. and also E is like. he's weird and says weird cryptic things and is not exactly the easiest to talk to due to how off-putting and repressed he is. at first E is like "why is there a worker drone. in the spire. and we're all okay with this" but after actually getting more context behind Everything he's curious about her more than anything. he has to be swayed into betraying his initial directive (kill all worker drones. yknow) only because thats like all he knows how to do and would feel aimless without it, but once he is he's loyal to his new directive (help uzi figure out what the hell is going on with this solver business). yeah he treats himself like an object that can only find worth in being ordered around but we dont have time to unpack all of that right now. he unlearns it later i prommy.

uzi is like. spitefully resistant to getting to know E on a deeper lever, but this is uzi "no bonding thing" doorman and she cannot help but care about E and be concerned about his behavior. she will notttt admit that however and stubbornly holds her ground. it isnt until post-episode 4 when E and uzi are fully vulnerable around each other.

uziE is. so so very important to me. uzi has been outcasted and isolated for so much of her life, she's been treated as a weirdo freak monster by her classmates and becomes outwardly prickly and aggressive to cope with how little affection and reassurance she's been given. i know she's internalized it to mean there is something wrong with her that everyone else can see, and its only a matter of time before those who actually care for her see it too and leave her. and i know that the events of episode 4 confirmed it in her mind, that she is a freak monster and everyone was right to avoid and hate her, even though she never asked for any of this. thats a very familar feeling to me- and by extension E. E recognizes the feeling of being made into a monster against your will, of fearing and being unable to trust yourself, and of feeling like its best for everyone's safety to hide away. E and uzi find solace and comfort in each other for that. they dont see each other as broken irredeemable monsters, so maybe they aren't.

im stopping here because holy shit this got long but THERES A LOT MORE LOLL. tldr nuze altogether is very very important to me and i could talk about them forever and ever. they love each other all so much and they grow and heal and forgive and aaaaughhhgh<3 im normal.

[docilepillow]

April 2024 Media diary

yea im good thanks PSEUDOREGALIA

by part this game and by part not really this game's kinda burning me out lol like the games objectively good i think its just the game style and some of the design choices that kind of abbrasively make me not like this game as much as i should like i love goats i love platformers i love metroidvanias but after finishing this game i dont really say i lik it persay but at the end i can only bring myself to only hate aspects of it , more then anything? like the ccombats ok its nothing flashy. and like. the main mechanic of this is wall kicking, whicch feels cool as hell . the movement in this game is great. but with how hands-off it is , and in combination with the nonlinearity and intended sequence breaking you can do, it is * horrifically * easy to get lost. i hear an earlier version of this game didn't even have a map, which is awful for this genre in my opinion. id describe this game as very frustrating and it feels like 90 percent of the time you're hitting your head against a wall trying to go anywhere, which, for some people, is absolutely fantasstic. im sure trying to fedangle around with this moveset is awesome. but i spent most of the game just wanting to get the full moveset as soon as possible, because, allthough a completely deterministic game as far as i'm aware, progressing from place to place feels really convoluted. i feel like in between grunting " ugh " and " I want this to be over with " and " god i wish there was an upgrade for this " and " i'm SO lost..! " the game has great ambiance and area design and theres plenty to do, i just kinda wish you had like . a few more quality of life features in the game. like . idk. like an area completion counter for each area, or a cursor for where you're located on the map.... Then again , i dont think thiss game was designed with that in mind, so i think it's just a shame or for people that just aren't like me. Yea, sybil is cute, i guess. ill give credit for that. i just cant really see that over what's , for the bulk of it, a stressful affair that feels like guesswork and trail and error. if this game ever gets a big qol update, i'd probably love it a whole lot more, but once again, i'm pretty sure thats an intentional artistic decision to reflect the era it's from . i went into this wanting to like it a whole lot more, i promise, but this is like a 5 out of 10 game ( for me personally ) ... i basically spent alot of it mentally appologizing to nmh2 for some reason. i need a break for today. i'm kind of really dissapointed right now THE CROODS video game movie

its cool

Also, on the topic of mario maker 2, which, technically, i finished last month, i DID in fact finish mario maker 2's story mode! i simply neglected to before andd i think it's okay. i think its a little bit better then the 3ds version's array of levels, and, playing them so close together, i'm honestly surprised they didn't try to impliment the acheivements you can get in those levels in this game, given the fact that so much is tracked by clear conditions in MM2. i wonder if that was a prototype feature they tried early in 3ds before implimenting it in the sequel? Oh well. i'm glad they just ddint implliment the clear condition where you cant get grabbed by claws, those are just the absolute worst..!

Daemonis Algebra

https://gothbingarbage.itch.io/daemonisalgebra

This one's actually nice and special, because i can say some friends of mine made it! It's for a gamejam, so it's pretty simple, but i think it's relatively effective for the kind of hectic gameplay they were going for with it. I'm actually a little bit clumsy when it comes to assembling the little " creature " you're putting together by running around the map, and, i get the sense they're supposed to match,but, given my luck / level of coordination, my creatures usually end up looking something like this --

Oops. It very much affectionately reminds me of older styled flash games you'd find on coolmath, though it's definitely a lot more polished then most of the ones i think of aestetically and mechanically. You just kind of dash around and collect charming little monster parts. It's a little hard to figure out what part's a leg or an arm or the like sometimes ( I actually thought my animal's head was an arm ); but i'm really confident in saying thats a genuine creative decision- it's kind of like a cute little cartoon dilema. i absolutely love this game's cute spritework and music!!!!!!!!!! go play it right now stupid!!!!!

( I Got Sidetracked And Am Doing The Entries For Everything Below At The Last Minute Because Of Nocturne ) THE PRINCESS BRIDE

I've seen this movie before, but i think it still holds up good. An overall solid movie with basically everything you could want from a classic film. Very very watchable with people or alone. You can't really complain with the film at all but i dont havve any new thoughtss on it or anything pokemon scarlet violet epilogue

TLDR; techniiicallly i've finished scarlet-violet a long, long time ago, and i mostly just.... forgot about it up until decently recently, after the prior movie i think, and was prodded to give it a try by a friend. I think some of the writing at the start is charming enough and it's not completely a waste like the rest of the game , but i'm still of the strong opinion that this dlc isn't even half the bar set by Swoshi's entire DLC lineup, which is a little bit sad.... I guess that's what happens when you rush out an open world supermassive entry in a series known for scopecreep and capital interest..? That seems a bit cynical, but I don' t really remember much of my thoughts about it in retrospect, now. It's a little out of the way, but i'd hate to see what happens to this event when servers go down and you can't get pecharunt's item anymore.

POKEROGUE

There isn't really a good image to represent this game, so just the logo will do, i guess. TLDR, I think this is a fangame with a cute idea, and psudo-decent execution , but it's definitely still a work in progress. the earlygame grind where you're just trying to get started is absolutely brutal in a way that is simply just---- timeconsuming and not that much fun at all. If you want to check out the game yourself, I reccomend catching a paldean tauros as soon as possible so you can use it at the start of future runs. The basegame is set to last around 200 rounds, so it's definitely a massive time commitment to try, but once you do get a run going, it can be fun. I still think the earlygame needs ironing out and some of the moves aren't fully implemented yet because it's still new. I'll be honest and mostly say i jumped on this one out of a bandwagon. If you're curious to see me try a run, this clip might still be up for anyone to watch, but i wouldn't count on it forever - https://streamable.com/44j2v2 STRONG BAD'S COOL GAME FOR ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE

( The first 4 episodes, out of 5 . I ran out of time, once again, thanks to nocturne. Oops! )

SBCGFAP on wiiware is a game based around homestar runner, which i've mostly come to appreciate only recently this year. I got into it around February, where me and my boyfriend incidentally started watching it around the tail end of our trip. A few months later, and i'm super endeared by this show's writing style! It sort of feels like how something like Castlevania or Spore feel like to me now, in that it's not really a thing that's upkept anymore that much, with sparing crumbs of new stuff to see thrown out in little rations . So, when i got home, and, having recently re-modded my wii u ( And, with a Vwii setup, in part due to my sister wanting to play the overseas unreleased Mystery Dungeon games, the means to play wiiware in a way that i'm sure would've been fine to set up, actually, because dolphin is also awesome, just, more convenient for me because it wouldn't be taking up my laptop's storage space ) ; i proposed playing this game with him in call , which we did for a while! I'd say as a complete novice to the Point N' Click and also Telltale Game genre that the writing was pretty suitable. The scenarios are mostly just standard homestar runner stuff, and it did keep a big smile on my face. I actually think my favorite episode so far was the first one, looking back on it, considering how much Homestar is in it and how the puzzles ended up being lighter, but that's to my own preference. I think these games are worth looking into if you have a modded Wii U around, which im sure some people do. I imagine most people getting into HSR would've already watched a lets play or something on youtube already..! Anyway, i think this is good. i think people should give it a try even outside the inherit fact that this game is nearly lost media. I didn't get to finish the trogdor episode more then halfway before getting sidetracked by college preperation stuff. Sorry.. PORTAL 2 - COOPERATIVE TESTING INITATIVE ( technically properly capitalized! )

I've actually never finished any of the portal games! I'm too stupid to finish them ! But my boyfriend is hella into it and I know the story stuff already! And we both haven't done the co-op stuff before! So we did ! On a whim ! And i don't QUITE feel comfortable putting it on my backloggd until i at least finish the singleplayer campaign as well, so that puts me in a neat spot! id like to think i wasnt ccomplete dead weight in this playthrough but i was a little dumb. this game leads to fun banter and silly fun though it lends itself well to being coop and it's not as confusing as it would be when you're working with someone compitent who can backseat you as you completely misinterpret his directions. I'm honestly shocked how high the steam statistic for clearing this mode is , look at this ---

Do a fifth of people really play this???? I can kind of believe that but really ? damn! ! ! ! thats pretty cool you dont usually see numbers like this for modes like this. I'm a little bit sad there aren't more multiplayer co-op experiences like this, but that's kind of what makes them special in the first place. SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI III - NOCTURNE

This game has been one i've been procrastinating on trying since finishing SMT IV and IV-A nearly a year ago now, just in part because of it's reputation as a brutal, arduous journey of an RPG. I've heard many good things about this game. I've heard many bad things about this game. I've heard many things about this game's remaster, and I have it bought on both Steam and PS4. I dunno. Just because it was an SMT game on PS4. The primary thing that's making me finish it now is mostly just in part due to the only game i'm looking forward to, shin megami tensei V - Vengeance, coming out in around a little over a month as of typing this-- and, considering V on switch was how i got into the game, i MOSTLY know what to expect. Though, i never got to finish the DLC in that game . AND if i finished nocturne, i could confidently tackle every ounce of that game's new content under a fresher lens then JUST a series newcomer. I have really high hopes for V-V, but that's not really what this game is about. I knew already in advance that i would need to section off a very large period of time for this game going in , so I basically ended up sticking to logging in a couple of hours over the whole month when not fixating on anything else media wise or when not doing important college preperation shit that I need to get done and in fact STILL HAVE THINGS TO DO FOR. And still i only just barely about had enough time to do it!!! SMT nocturne , for the most part, and as long as you have some expectation and experience in the traditional RPG genre, isn't actually that bad difficulty wise. Like, as long as you're prepared, you'll actually fare way better then in some of the other games in the series that i've played, which is nice. Like, outside something like a super unlucky light / dark magic oneshot hitting you once and a while, as long as you're dilligent and prepare and use the systems you're given, you'll live. Like, i'm not gonna say this is how you get into SMT, but it's reputation is only MOSTLY overblown as unfair and stupidly difficult. But, because i'm stupid, and dont understand the ramifications of my actions, i went for the best ending on my first playthrough, cus, once again, i'm using it as a thing to do before SMT 5 V comes out so i can fully enjoy both. Now, apparently, for most people, it takes 110 hours or so to do the " true demon " ending, but i mostly went in , i dont wanna say rushing, but i mostly went through the game with as little as i'd need to thrive, i guess. optimized? Idk. I think most of the game is very intuitave and very enjoyable. its very somber and very dungeon crawly, and i think its gameplay rules. i think i like IV more still but i think this game is cool most of the time when you don't get cosmiclly unlucky . but like. the final bosses of this game are just fucking cheaterss that kill you . the last dungeon of this game took me like 10 hours by itself its insane thats like my only gripe. like. sometimes id pull up a guide when a boss has like null physical and it kills me because the game doesn't let you double check matchups like the games after it, or when theres a particularly convoluted way forward ( Note - by convoluted, i mostly just mean, i'm too stupid to navigate most 3d games without getting lost at some point unless it's perfectly linear ), or just for convenience, but it's a very fair level of challenge for most of the way if you know what to look out for. my only regret with this game is i'm sorry about any friend discussions ive completely halted by bringing this game up all the time in conversation. oops... That and it takes a surprising amount of effort to go through alos idkd idkd ddikd i just wnana get this log done its way too late at night also i was assuming naively that Nocturne would be my 100th logged game since i've started documenting my own media diaries, but because of how things turned out, it's closer to the 97th on backlogged. Oops! That's an arbitrary achievement only i care enough about! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aloi9Cj6wFA

[hanarutos]

naruto and sasukes rivalry at the end of part one and the beginning of part two is so well written i think its sort of crazy

i wrote this on mobile so idk how to add a read more. sorry

the way in which the later half of part one the conflict becomes mostly about sasukes growing insecurity after itachi shows up and doesnt even acknowledge sasuke instead looking for naruto, and then sasuke immediately loses after training so hard, and itachi retruamatizes him into a fucking coma. but then naruto learns the rasengan and helps save tsunade (this part of the search for tsunade arc sucks cuz its riddled in misogyny and also frankly, boring, but like. finally seeing naruto learn the rasengan is epic) and so we are finally seeing naruto's underdog protag bit really start to pay off. we are finally seeing him starting to reach his full potential. But instead of this being good for his relationships, in a way it is part of what causes sasuke to leave. because the moment sasuke wakes up, he's already insecure bc itachi not only beat him in an instant, he didnt even care about itachi. he was after naruto. and then they have the rooftop fight and sasuke is relieved to see he made a bigger dent than naruto until he sees the back and he fucking punches a wall he's so upset that he's falling behind. and like. thats the reason he goes to orochimaru. because hes insecure about his lack of power as naruto starts to outpace him (and also cuz he has some crazy convoluted methods of self harm. he wont allow himself to be happy cuz he thinks it makes him weak. but like we all knew that)

and i think its interesting that sasuke has a very quick turnaround from openly insecure and upset at his own inability after search for tsunade, to confident by the time vote rolls around, because of his curse mark fully evolving. sasuke just gets a sudden power boost with minimal work put into it, although its painful and he did have to get locked in a jar for a bit there. he still clearly cant bear to actually kill naruto in vote1, and again his actions of choosing to go to a person who he knows is trying to use him and cutting himself off from his "precious comrades" naruto and sakura is absolutely an act of self harm. but in terms of actual ability, i dont think sasukes initial cockiness in vote1 is fake. its part of why he really freaks out when naruto gets his nine tails chakra cloak. every time he seems to surpass naruto, naruto somehow catches up. that terrifies sasuke. that he wont be good enough to kill his brother. that while he's been making friends and feeling somewhat happy again, he's forgotten his purpose.

sidebar. before itachi showed up again, sasuke really wasn't upset by narutos growth at all. remember when he said "i really want to fight you too" to naruto in chunin exams and naruto was super happy because sasuke was acknowledging him as an equal? sasuke also doesnt get that upset when rock lee beats him in their spat. sure he acts cocky beforehand, but when lee immediately annihilates him instead of having a like breakdown or smn, sasuke just steals aspects of his technique from lee, and improves. itachi alone is responsible for sasukes spiral from i think the mentally healthiest point we see him in the series (late chunin exams, konoha crush) where he openly admits he cares about his teammates, to sasuke denying himself affection for them to the degree he cuts them off entirely (or tries to anyways). so like. fuck itachi lol

but anyways, i think when sasuke says "theres no way youre going to be able to land a single scratch on my forehead" he really thinks he's going to come out of this fight on top. which is why narutos sudden power ups freak him the fuck out. at the same time though, by putting on the forehead protector, he actively acknowledges naruto as an equal. he respects (and loves) naruto, and hes open about this: "it wasnt meaningless, to me you have become my closest friend"

i remember watching naruto blind when i was 12, i was so certain naruto was going to win in vote. as he went into ninetails mode and threw sasuke around it seemed so obvious naruto would win. after all, the narrative so far has been about naruto catching up to and then surpassing sasuke. there was no doubt in my mind naruto was going to take sasuke home. other ppl can say what they expected watching naruto blindly (like truly blind. like u never knew sasuke left) but to me it seemed so clear sasuke was gonna lose. he'd basically lost the rooftop fight, he'd relied on naruto to protect sakura in konoha crush, even if his curse mark was fully activated and he upgraded his sharingan mid fight (smn that can only happen when u experience either extreme happiness or loss, so the fact sasuke felt like he was losing naruto to such a painful degree when naruto wasnt even dead is....yeah) theres nooo way this was going to end badly.

and yet sasuke wins. sasuke fucking wins. and i think this and the beginning of shippuden are so fucking cool because of this.

part one is about naruto getting stronger and beating his rival, to the point his rival becomes insecure. the underdog story finally pays off. of course we want naruto to win; its obvious sasuke isnt in a good frame of mind and is being manipulated, and that going to orochimaru is a bad idea. the guy literally wants to kill and use sasuke, and sasuke is aware of this and still so desperate for power that he's going to go. (before anyone says naruto just wanted to like. have sasuke stay in the village rn under the gov that killed his clan. nobody knew that at this point in the series. honestly i highly doubt even kishimoto had come up with that plot point yet) its always wild to me when ppl try to act super Deep and say naruto was in the wrong here. if your friend was about to jump off a bridge, any decent friend would do their best to stop them. sure narutos methods r a bit unsympathetic and violent but like theyre 12 year olds trained to kill ppl. grow up.

anyways the natural conclusion if we dont think about there being a ton more of the show left, would be narutos underdog story finally cumulating in him beating sasuke. after all, this is the first time we as an audience get to see them fight each other directly (? im pretty sure). all previous fights get interrupted (rooftop, which it seems to be implied by the water tower destruction naruto would have won) or were just them showing their abilities against some external opponent.

honestly, looking back, if naruto had won, there really wouldnt be anywhere to go from there. even if sasuke still left another way, if naruto clearly surpassed his goal of beating sasuke, a goal he talks about almost as much as being hokage, any further power growth from naruto would feel unfulfilling. from the pov of continuing the story, of course sasuke wins. but naruto still gets a scratch on his forehead protector, to indicate that they are much closer in ability than at the start of the series.

and so the end of part one effectively returns us to the original status quo of sasuke being stronger than naruto, although only barely, compared to his far superior abilities at the beginning of part one.

cut to part two/shippuden. narutos been training with jiraiya for 2/3 years. him and sakura nail the bell test with kakashi with ease. the narrative sets up naruto to be this new and improved stronger smarter version of himself. we cant wait to see what kind of new stuff he can do!

it turns out he cant do anything really.

in the gaara rescue arc, naruto's words are the reason chiyo ultimately changes her beliefs and entrusts things to the younger generation by sacrificing her life for gaara's, but fighting wise? naruto does like literally nothing. he yells at deidara a bunch and runs after him while sakura kicks ass

next, during that part where they meet up with orochimaru and he says "my sasuke" and narutos like "dont talk about sasuke like he belongs to you, especially in front of me!" it's exciting because oh hell yeah previously when naruto went into fox mode serious shit went down. he is going to wreck orochimaru. you feel it.

he doesnt. in fact he makes things worse by hurting sakura, and burning all his own skin off. orochimaru gets away. naruto effectively threw a gay temper tantrum and nothing improved.

then we get to naruto and sasukes reunion. after so long training in order to get sasuke back we're ready for another major vote style show down. weve seen how sakura has improved in the timeskip, and we are about to see how sasuke has improved (in fact, we maybe already have. i forget where the scene of sasuke surrounded by unconscious bodies is. if its before this scene then we've seen his improvement as well). its time to see the fruits of narutos training with jiraiya.

naruto and sasuke reunite. they stare at each other. sasuke comes down, and takes out his sword to kill naruto. and naruto. doesnt. do. anything. sasuke legit says "dont you want to be hokage? you should be training instead of chasing after me. im going to kill you now." pulls out his sword, and naruto just stands there and says "someone who couldnt save one friend hardly deserves to be hokagesai is the one who blocks sasukes sword. and sasuke even has a kind of obnoxious quip about "you used the correct block" also then he fucking goes into narutos headspace or whatever and fucks kurama up, all while insanely calm and seemingly apathetic. sasuke in part one tried to be unemotional but he was very prone to anxiety or anger. but now hes legitamitely (as far as we can see anyways) totally confident and totally unfeeling. (ofc we know this isnt true. but thats only cuz of later scenes.)

sasuke leaves, magically in fire, which is a technique we never see again, and naruto starts crying. so does sakura, who also did not do anything, but lets be real thats kinda standard for how kishimoto writes her. the fact naruto doesnt fight sasuke, after two previous fights where he actively didnt do anything really, sets us practically back to page one. juxtaposed with sasukes clear leaps and bounds in ability (knocked like a bajillion dudes unconscious -- ppl he coudlve easily killed but didnt want to -- somehow fucking can see kurama in narutos brain and also destroy the guy) naruto is seemingly stagnant. and even if its just due to emotional reservations, naruto clearly is not sasukes equal right now. he hasnt done a single actually useful thing for like all of part two so far.

and i just think thats. so incredible and engaging. because its not like naruto lost all his abilities or something -- he still can do rasengan, its clear in the second bell test hes better at strategizing snd teamwork -- but theres some new obstacle. not only a lack of ability compared to sasuke, but a lack of willpower as well. of course, its kinda obvious to me sasuke is incapable of actually killing naruto himself, but hes a hell of a lot better at hiding that, and we'd have no way to know that on first viewing. so its not a total retcon. but it also returns us to our old familiar rivalry between the two, except both naruto and sasuke have changed as people, and as a result, so have the contours of their relationship. but we have returned to the fundamental idea of sasuke being far stronger than naruto.

this is part of why part two/shippuden feel so romantically focused. the focus shifts a lot from becoming hokage to getting sasuke back. i mean naruto literally was basically like theres no point in being hokage if i cant save you *lets sasuke kill him* like. mentall illness aside thats so clear his focus is on sasuke above all else. something that will repeatedly be established throughout part two.

i also think its so human? kishimoto has always excelled at writing children like children and teenagers like teenagers. narutos actions as a 15 year old mainly consisting of crying, throwing a tantrum, trying to be threatening, resigning himself to others, and making things worse as a result is essentially how i acted at 15. its the kind of thing that speaks to the fact that he's still just a kid. and while we see less of that from sasuke, the ways sasuke interacts with taka, or the fact he blows up an entire portion of the hideout cuz he got woken up from his nap, also remind us these are young teens that we are looking at. theyre gonna act crazy.

by showing narutos not necessarily relapse but lack of growth, it perfectly sets up sasuke as his goal once again. something that everyone and their mother seems to notice and want to talk about. as naruto trains for the rasenshuriken kakashi thinks to himself about how sasuke is narutos sole motivation. naruto himself says "you became my goal" in kage summit. as we see naruto start to improve again and get to sasukes level we also see that sasuke is no longer insecure (he like smirks when he finds out naruto saved the village from pein singlehandedly) about his ability, and naruto catches up again. he doesnt surpass him this time though, which is made abduntanly clear by the fact that in vote2 they both lose and arm and are beaten to a pulp by the other. they are truly equals. blah blah blah.

but i just think it was so smart of kishimoto to find a way to keep sasuke as narutos goal and to return us to the original dynamic but in a new way. i think he nailed the crazy insane way 15 year olds act just like he nailed how 12 year olds act. he also made it so we would get to actually see narutos improvement happen, rather than it happening offscreen which would he pretty unsatisfying for our titular character. he also showed us how the core aspect of naruto that was impulsive and emotional and not super strategic still remained. i also think some part of kishi was aware sasuke as a motivator for narutos growth was way more compelling and interesting than ninja president, even if some ppl wanted naruto to become hokage eventually (i know i did). but yeah i just. i think its so good tjat instead of bringing naruto back stronger post ts or something, kishimoto had the awareness to let us see naruto fail and struggle just like he did in part one, because that struggle and determination are part of why we root for him. and he was also smart enough to make it obvious sasuke had improved a ton, so we'd have a readon for naruto to get stronger, only this time his desire to get to sasukes level wasnt out of a desire for acknowledgmenet, but out of a love for sasuke and desire to help him. like by doing that kishimoto showed the lengths to which narutos love goes. and also humanizes him and reminds us of his age and ARRRRGH PART ONE AND EARLY SHIPPUDEN WERE SO GOOD

anyways thanks no real thesis statement i just think aspects of naruto are so well written sometimes

[chuuyagum]

♡ Anime I'm Watching With Friends ♡

anime i'm slowly getting through with friends, probably better titled "anime i'll finish eventually. one day. i think" since there's usually large gaps between our sessions. i have no idea when i'll actually get around to finishing anything on it with said friends

(as of now i'm watching these with @lunagardner however i have plans to start anime with other friends so the list will grow eventually)

---♡---

Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu /Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- - Spring 2016

i'll be honest, this started as a hate-watch. i never understood the hype behind this series, given that so many other top teir and incredibly popular anime aired at the same time. however @lunagardner convinced me to try it since they picked up the light novels and were enjoying them. well it certainly suprised us both that the anime doesn't follow the LN's closely in any sense, and the mystique and intrigue i felt hearing about the story as it is in the LN's evaporatorated pretty quickly. a convoluted but also really boring first few episodes, paired with how obnoxious of a main character Subaru is, makes this one hard to enjoy. i know Rem is the popular one here, and beyond grown adults lusting after a teenager i can't really see the appeal of her character. of the female characters the only one with an ounce of personality is Beatrice. Ram is sidelined entirely, and Emilia....well i've seen blank pieces of printer paper more interesting. when we eventually do finish this and pick up S2 you'll definitely hear about it

Kami no Tou / Tower of God - Spring 2020

although the drop into the world and setting is a bit sudden, this anime is simply so much fun. the setting is intriguing and having to learn about the environment at the same pace as our protag makes this really engaging. none of the characters look like they're in the same series at all, yet thats part of what makes it all make sense. i plan to start reading the webtoon soon even though we haven't finished the anime yet

Ishuzoku Reviewers / Interspecies Reviewers - Winter 2020

this uh....definitely isn't the type of thing i would pick up normally. the only thing keeping me watching is the simple absurdity of the premise, Crimvael's unfortunate decent into degeneracy, and seeing @lunagardner 's reactions as we try to get through it. if we manage to without becoming so uncomfortable that we just give up that is

---♡---

[itissadbutitsmy-life]

the funniest jokes in bfdi

flower’s announcer crusher that she just. has, and everyone else just uses it too

trying to put out a fire by holding ice cube’s recovery center over the fire so she just falls into it endlessly

every single one of yellow face’s products, including but not limited to

fork attractant, for when you need a fork but don’t have the cutlery on hand

headphones you cannot change the volume on or remove

money slips, you just write an amount on them, and it counts as legal tender

“thats a pentagon!” “yeah! like if you took my name and added ‘Tagon’!“

in like episode 2 when they all run away from something and a second later flower casually power-walks away from it instead of running

when balloony deflated and a while later cloudy flies over and goes “i cannot believe it! this is a dead body!!”

“he’s not dead, he just needs a little help thats all! (starts reinflating him too fast) but i agree, he is a hindrance when he is deflate- ohh noooo”

hollow jawbreakers that sound can come into but can’t go out of

when they stuck loser in a jawbreaker they inverted it, so they can hear him talk to himself but he cant hear anything around him

no one seems to know that thats why they can hear him

one time they all ended up in space. because of budget cuts.

actually every time budget cuts lead to something that seems way cooler than their previous stuff, like sparkly purple lasers instead of a mechanical arm to eliminate people with

the consistently bad cake at stake prizes. one time it was just a block of ice cut into six pieces. one time it was dirty shovels.

the magical die of judgement

when freesmart drove across the ocean in their van and they managed it by holding their breath and each time one of them died they just recovered them and threw their corpse out the back

golf ball messing up naming her team by saying things like “we need to be another name” and ending up on teams called Another Name and A Better Name Than That

one team was formed entirely around learning to not kill people. pillow overhears them say “youre against killing?” and goes “:D did someone say killing??”

tennis ball admonishing rocky for not knowing how to write: “no arms is no excuse”

they had to find a needle in a haystack and needle just turned herself in, successfully

when they started using a board with the points written on it on flaps of paper instead of a computer screen, but due to budget cuts, it could only display two digits per contestant, so anyone who went over 100 started immediately dropping to the bottom of the rankings

when ice cube was sleeping at the cake of stake podiums and got shot up into the air at like 3000 mph

2763

when the eliminated contestants tried to escape the loser chamber and they just rolled it off into the ocean

theyre saved because the sun rises and picks them up out of the ocean

also apparently the chamber opens for like five minutes a day for sunlight, but instead of just climbing out during that time, which they seem to be capable of doing, they do a much more convoluted thing

they were sick of four so they got rid of him by multiplying him with donut, and it worked

ruby has some really weirdly specific ideas of beauty and coaches flower

the line delivery of “killing a bubble is as easy as one, two, th(pop)” “i just learned two things about bubble: she can be su i c i d a l and she’s S O D U M B she CANT even count to T H R E E!”

a few episodes later bubble angrily shows them she CAN count to three if she lives long enough to do so, and pencil and match are both like :O :O

bubbles first line in season four is her rapidly counting to ten before getting popped

the way each team breaks their jawbreakers

8 ball just goes “MNYAH” and bites it in half

"okay black hole, do the thing”

leafy tries to use woody’s tongue to lick it open even though rocky and balloony were doing just fine using acid

iance just going ‘bwehbwehbweh’ all licking the same one

team ice cube was doing a mix of bwebwhbehbbwehbw and loudly drilling it open with naily

when four loved so hard he shot eraser off over the horizon

when they’re discussing team names in season one  and theyre all talking over each other so you cant hear what theyre saying, except match, who grabs a megaphone and screams “SMOKY HOT FIERY BUNS”

when needle made a cake and put so much yeast in it that it breached earth’s atmosphere and astronomers apparently began classing earth as part of a three planet system (”consisting of the earth, the moon, and something called ‘needles cake’”)

“it’s ice cube! and she’s shrinking?” “she’s falling”

saying “(x character)! wake up!!” when it’s unclear (to the audience) why a character looks silly or apparently isnt responding

blocky’s sleeping pose is him with his eyes wide open, sporting a big goofy grin and hugging his legs

david’s sleeping pose is him with X eyes

one time the contest was to fill a tank with water from crying, and golf ball immediately ordered tennis ball to cry. he couldn’t do it on command, so golf ball tried, and cried her first ever tear, just... her first one

when the prize was fortune cookies, the fortunes were bracelety’s notes about how much she loves ice cube

“four, where’d you get these fortunes again?” “dumpster!”

“lightning always forgets to fly, so he had to be the fake”

when they were flying paper planes and stapy accidentally stapled his teammates into theirs, and he just hovered next to it while he was talking to them before they all started to plummet

the entire scene where liy tries to use ice cube to force teardrop to talk

“i’ll hold teardrops jaw open and you wiggle her vocal chords”

“i hate you” “yeah i hate her too!” “no. i hate you.”

“ice cube will only stop when she WANTS to stop!” “i want to stop”

“YOU SAID YOU WOULD HELP ME! YOU SAID YOU WERE COOL!” “so r r y (starts wiggling)”

“ICE CUBE! I AM APPALLED!!!!!”

ice cube gets bitten and starts screaming while bracelety is yelling “YEAH ICE CUBE! I CANT HEAR YOU, LOUDER!!”

apparently everyone who hates golf ball gets physically sick when they get near her (or at least, ruby does and snowball did once he knew she was there)

blocky got eaten by a monster in episode two but it turned out the monster missed him by a bit so he was fine

taco’s teammates thought she was dead forever and wrote eulogies for her, and once they found out she was alive lollipop threw hers away, but saw kept hers because in her eyes they’re still valid!!

when things started to get dramatic in the s1 finale, and leafy called announcer on the phone and he was in a ball pit

loser’s trapped in a jawbreaker and the only thing with him is donut’s diary. the next time you see him he’s reading it furiously and it’s filled with color-coded sticky notes

pillow decided if you wave your arms it means all your “care spirit” is getting sucked out your arms and sent into space (”a true indicator that person doesn’t give a fluff”)

remote got hacked and her FIRST INSTINCT is to send the hackers a bomb

“if theres an announcer recovery center now, that means we can kill the announcer as much as we want and he’ll still come back to give us dream island!”

they ask black hole to push them in their swing and he says he can’t push, but he can pull like there’s no tomorrow

“no i can literally warp space time so that there will be no tomorrow” “yeah,h don’t do that.”

when they have a tiebreaker announcer pulls out a silk tie and goes “first team to break this tie wins”

the second time, almost before he finished speaking, snowball just reached over and ripped it in half effortlessly

“proves you don’t need frills to make a feast for the eyes!” “more like taco doesn’t need to be dead to be deceased in my eyes!!!”

they had a race where everyone on each team had their legs tied together (like a three-legged race, but with like six people on a team)

pen’s team was doing fine but he wasn’t, so they just dragged him along behind

snowball tied his team into a ball and dragged them himself, to predictable results, and wouldn’t stop until he got to the finish line even though it took him until after the sun went down

he failed, actually, and him and his team plummeted down a ravine when he passed out

“the opposite of dream island! night...nightmare moon!!”

donut stuck his arms through a one way camera to the moon (it transmits matter as well as light), and to fix the fact that his arms were on the moon and his body was on earth, he pushed the entire earth through the camera

the moon is smushed up against the earth now. it has not been resolved yet

“gelatin and firey tied their legs together and fell off” “ya, seems like the kind of thing they would do”

pencil got caught by a monster and couldnt get away, so they had to kill her so they could recover her somewhere else, and they let her pick how they did it, which lead to everyone just sawing her in half while she grinned ear to ear. she was singing too. iconic

but first, match, her best friend, started waggling a big butcher’s knife around at her going “hoohoo hoeheehee im killing pencil loookat me” and pencil said “match put your butterknife away, you have to ACTUALLY kill me”

and when they were sawing her in half bubble had the BIGGEST, most BLISSFUL grin, with her eyes half closed like a happy cat

bell asks for help making people stop climbing her string, and snowball assures her he can do it, but he’ll have to climb her string to get to them

then like twenty people followed him up

when writing utensil characters use themselves to write with

sometimes they have tiny versions of themselves (sans limbs), but sometimes they just like, pull their caps off and write with their heads

(the same scream noise they use every time a group of people screams) “HONESTLY! (grabs a new can of fork repellent from hammerspace) are you guys going to scream like that EVERY time i use up a can?”

dodecadangit

OH THANKS AN OCTADECILLION, MATCH

they were basically playing hot potato where if you look at someone who was glowing you’d catch the glow, and most teams ended up just chilling with their eyes closed, but golf ball yelled “EVERYONE GET ON MY ROCKET” and she and her team just left earth entirely

this did not stop them from catching the glow

someone’s like “the communicator dish still works” and book goes “oh,” dips a chip into the communicator dish and splashes dip everywhere, “THATS what this is?”

the, like, five minute long end-credits scene of ice cube falling off a cliff eternally

pencil tells ruby which button to press and she keeps getting it wrong, partly because NEW BUTTONS KEEP APPEARING

the poison antidote that has the side effect of making the recipient eat one other contestant

pencil coaching her teammates on how to jump higher

“MMR? I love measles, mumps, and rubella!”

“golf ball knows how to do, like, everything!” (cut to golf ball) “i don’t know how to do, like, anything”

basketball invited 8 ball to be on her team cuz they’re both balls, then 8 ball said “sure, and let’s adopt these three” in reference to three other ball characters

loser said when he was younger he used to play with a toy that was apparently only just invented an hour ago, and everyone, like 60 characters, immediately disowned him and started a turf war over the situation

“black hole, you’re strong! open this jar for me!”

(as the world is literally ending) “FLOWER! WHATAVE YOU DONE??” “i got this jar open!!!”

whenever a host dies or is otherwise put out of commission and the contestants just keep trucking along until they remember no one can get the prize if the host isn’t around to give it to them 

that time announcer used like ten negatives in a sentence 

the way announcer says “wow!” with more emotion than anything else he says? idk if it’s intentional, or even a joke, but it’s the best thing 

(slow mo) “i want to cry now, i really do”

“and i cry acid”

ruby died of sadness and book made it big by selling her remains 

when they say some line that’s just regular words in a slightly unique way, and then the line gets repeated throughout the series 

announcer accidentally-on-purpose got everyone killed, except david (who’s immune to bugs), and he had a david cloner, so he just went ahead and replaced everyone with davids in costumes

halfway through cake at stake, the original contestants show up unexpectedly and explain that they “faked their deaths! obviously.”

“ive decided to not cancel bfdi!” “aw, seriously?”

the noises david and dora make when they do things, like clattering, or sprouting leaves 

bubble and match pretending to be trees

“NO BUBBLE! TREES DONT SAY THAT!” “OH, RIGHT! FSSHHHHHH! FWWWSHH!!!!”

when nickel and coiny get close together bad things happen

“how’s the tree-climbing going?” “it’s okay, but it’d be easier if you helped. (swoop) okay, just got to the top” 

“yes! I am the first one up the tree!” “that’s NOT true, I was here FIRST” 

i guess we’ll just have to use this trebuchet tennis ball built before he died 

“wha! yhad this the HWOLE TIME, I DIDN EVEN HAVE TO CLIMB THE TREE?” “physical exertion builds character :)” 

when everyone’s begging four to bring back their dead teammates, especially saw, who lost her entire team, and four is like okay I’ll bring back one (1) person, and saw very reverently starts to ask him for her dead team leader, but grassy says “tennis ball!” and four listens to him instead, and everyone immediately starts nagging four again to bring back more important people 

leafy, about to melt ice cube down for metal scrap: “ice cube, come on down! you can be my alloy!”

they met a new character and they’re like “who is that?” and pie’s like “I dunno, try squishing it” 

“theres another one? whoa! it totally has a different texture from the first one!”

8 ball beginning every single statement with things like “although I don’t have a favorite number...” 

“I do this!” (grabs pin and turns her, screaming, into a squiggly pile of lines) “pretty cool, dontcha think?” 

“can,,,, you bring her back?” “no” (five seconds later) “HEY CHECK THIS OUT! (brings back pin)” 

pen high fived black hole and his arm spaghettified 

“what are you doing?” “im going to die!” “hi needle! he’s not going to die.”

iance was trying to dig their way up out of the ground but they couldnt because golf ball kept blocking them from the surface

“maybe theyre trying to communicate with me?” “yeah they’re telling you to stop”

“they raise a very convincing argument. BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH!” “OH what a pain!!”

she accurately guessed the fact that there was a group of people underground running from some lava who “clearly value avoiding [golf ball] more than their own safety”

“ohhhh so THIS is golf balls idea of fun!” “(sigh)... yep”

they looked through a camera and couldn’t see donut (the zoom wasn’t adjusted) and marker went “donut’s a vampire too?” 

too???

“meh, I’ve still got other evidence”

one time the eliminated contestants got to vote who to eliminate and snowball was like “ice cube, cuz it’s really hot in the TLC and I can’t be the only one cooling it off” 

like four other people were like “oh man he’s right” and did the same thing

“wouldn’t it be cool if the last word of the last episode was the same as the first word of the first episode?” “yeah :)” 

“take. a deep breath. you know. A DEEP FRIED BREATH” 

at the end of the episode he shows up with some boiling oil and is like “LIKE THIS! ONE, (sizzling and screaming noises)” “COINY NO” 

leafy was about to throw a knife at them but watched this happen offscreen with horror and then left them alone

david’s human, and that’s just weird

“im still mad you killed bubble” “youre one to talk, you were about to impale TWO WHOLE teams” “yeah, but bubble’s life? is special”

pen’s like “okay we three need to stick together while we’re picking teams!” but then eraser hears some other team has free food, so he runs off and pen very flatly goes “okay, we lost eraser.”

“well let’s not pick pen, he’s still two hundred bigintillion dollars in debt” which is mostly hilarious without the first three seasons of context, but even with context it’s hilarious. he looks so shamefaced when they say it too. i love pen

once someone finally picks him he IMMEDIATELY perks up and takes charge

the hphprcc went into self destruct mode and everyone started frantically trying to figure out what to do, and book’s like “okay it’ll either just disappear without a trace, or blow up and kill us all, 50/50 chance” and then of course, it exploded, and ruby started screaming, and then book was like “ruby, stop hallucinating! see? it just disappeared, without a trace!”

“YOuuOURE HalLUCINAATING!!” “DON’T do that!! it is K-R-E-P!”

pin tried to knock everyone off the eiffel tower by shaking it and book was like “who does she think she’s kidding? it’s the eiffel tower we won’t fall off”

“name ONE! name ONE friend you haven’t gotten extremely angry at!” “thats not fair,! there isnt even any of them!”

8ball was saying the opposite of everything golf ball was saying, up to and including calling the members of their team, a better name that that, “worse namers”

“is this because i killed you last episode?” “what?? no, i dont care about that!”

“life is CHEAP! get me a BANANA!!!”

flower bit off half of announcer’s head and he couldn’t make the K sound anymore

“have this -ashew” “bless you”

“no i said -ashew. -ashew. -ashew. -ashew.” “wow you must be allergic to something”

“maybe announcer’s allergic to this cashew? here bubble, you can have it!”

pencil won the staring contest because david’s allergic to sunrises

freesmart was making video diaries during the three year hiatus, but apparently did absolutely no editing or even rewatching of the videos, because they found out three years too late that ruby left the lens cap on every time she used the camera

when four played the cake at stake song in the classroom he played it on a low-quality portable tv instead of cutting to a fullscreen video

“iknowafasterway!” “NORUBYYOULLDIE!”

pin said she didnt want to halve the votes she got because she hadnt done anything that would make people want to vote for her, and it immediately cut to a series of old scenes of her throwing people under the metaphorical bus

literally nothing is funnier than “i mean, i havent done anything to make people vote for me” (cut to flashback) “there’s too much weight on this sinking ship!!! we need to throw someone OVERBOARD!!!!”

one team got stuck doing their nine-piece puzzle for a MONTH because all the pieces were the same dark brown color

the pieces were upside down

a month

“the finish line! it’s only twenty or so yards away!”

two people talking and using the word “needy” twice and pausing to throw their hands up protectively and go “HNnnnynGH”

“why do i have filling, but also a hole?” - donuts diary

in 5b theyre talking to some npcs and theyre like “well dont hurt us, because we just got finished being punished in lego brick’s dungeon” and the npcs were like “oh yeah he does that. he’s a great guy, but he does that.”

also in 5b when book met lego brick the FIRST thing she asked is if he’s “safe to look at” which,???

they did a trivia contest and multiple questions were in complete gibberish

presumably this is an actual language in canon since like three other people answered correctly, also in gibberish, but still

“you’ve got this, bubble, you’re great at mental contests” “question one: ooba grooba, grooba shmooba?” “HUH?”

“but tennis ball -- oh... tennis ball....--”

team naming, especially in season four

“we’re not ALL in the alliance!” “well, if you take ‘the all’ out of the alliance, you get...”

“and what is your name?” (everyone says their own actual names at once)

ice cube is not on team ice cube

Death Prevention And Creating Trust

“let’s be called The Losers!” “awww! you didn’t have to”

wheel ooze a hole bunch. WOAH bunch!

“but then it sounds like youre saying free-DUMB!” “and we are so like totally not dumb!”

when the losers decided to use iance’s idea to win the swing contest and it was styled like an overenthusiastic science video 

“WHOA!!! iance just had a RADICAL idea!!!”

“TREASON! TREASON! TREASON!” “im in what?”

“seriously why are so many people drowning? it’s not even quicksand, or anything” - announcer, responding to five people drowning in a basket of bread

they were whispering with “susuusus” noises and cloudy whispered “zuzuzuzzuz”

the spaceship with the sign that says “this spaceship runs on big squishy contestants” or whatever and after the credits it slowly flips over to say “this spaceship runs on VOTERS”

“stop shooting at me!” “no way! i got these cannonballs on sale and IM GONNA GET MY MONEYS WORTH!!!”

eggy and cake’s argument over who has a deeper spiritual connection with loser

“my connection is so strong that when i crack, i bleed loser’s COLOR”

playing catch with a star they plucked out of the big dipper, and leafy’s horror over it

adding “ey” to people’s names (personal favorites are announcery, fourty-four, flowey, treey, and belly)

blueberries are EXPLOSIVE, including the ones inside pie, so sometimes she just explodes

“but over a year ago, four said you dont need frills to make a feast for the eyes, so that means hes okay with trash!”

the anti-advertisements advertisement!

four ate a whole team and they just sort of stood around inside him sticking their arms out his mouth and laughing hysterically

“again! again again again !!!!”

“we could be leaving!” “yeah, but when’s the last time you saw remote this happy? this is good for her!”

book, three episodes into season 3: hey, what is it we’re even battling for?

(iconic voice): dwream island,??

when they had a beauty contest and firey speaker box and flower speaker box just immediately chose firey and flower to be the winners without a second’s hesitation

“book! come help us catch a criminal!” “no thanks, im good!”

donut tried to punish people for getting the wrong answers when he was hosting, but it turns out a recording of four screeching doesn’t work... quite as well as the real deal

four zapping gelatin

ok ok ok this is insanely long but please add more if u have any favorites i missed

[the-everlasting-dream]

No - Drake x MC

Summary: Elizabeth’s reaction to King Liam’s request from Chapter 2 of TRH

A/N: Oh look who’s alive and decided she remembers how to write. Thats right, I’m back with some subpar fiction and I hope you like Elizabeth’s honest reaction to the fiasco that was the beginning of this book. Some lines are obviously from the dialogue.

Word Count: 3408

Warnings: Swearing.

Tags: idk who even reads anymore so  @chantelle-x0x , @choicessa​, @mariamulroney , @drakewalkerwhipped​ , @quartzandarrow​ ,  @mfackenthal​ , @srawesleyghuewrites​ , @topsyturvy-dream​ , @enmchoices​ , @gardeningourmet​ @debramcg1106​ , @alesana45​ , @meladoridarcy, @blackcatkita​ , @tmarie82​ , @annekebbphotography​ , @lizk77​ , @jayjay879​ , @tornbetween2loves​ , @akrenich , @theroyalweisme , @likethetailofacomet​ , @sleepwalkingelite​ , @littleblossom-18 , @ooo-barff-ooo​ , @drakewalker04​ , @mkatschoicesblog​ , TRR only: @speedyoperarascalparty , @carabeth​ , Drake: @fairydustandsarcasm , @drakewalkerisreal​

‘To ask us if our future baby would be the ruler of Cordonia?’

The words rang in Elizabeth’s ears, the sound of her own voice alien to her as what Liam was alluding sunk in.

‘Liam.’ Her mouth moved but it was Drake who spoke, tone laced with disbelief.

‘I... I don’t know what to say. My kid sitting on the throne...’

My kid. Our kid.

They’d talked extensively about kids in the past month, agreeing that while they still both wanted children, it would be nice to spend some time together first as a couple. Surely Drake would say no. The next words that came out of his mouth shook Elizabeth to her core.

‘I mean it would be an incredible honor.. I don’t know what to say..’

She turned to gape at the man she now called her husband, remembering vividly how he’d described how excited he was to take their little one on the same camping trips like his own father had done, teaching them the art of making the perfect smore, giving them the life he wished he could have had. That picture of a little boy or girl with Drake’s hair and her eyes, a perfect mix of the two of them firmly planted on his shoulders seemed to evaporate when she heard those words.

‘Elizabeth. What do you say?’ Liam’s blue eyes turned on her in expectancy.

‘No.’

The word was out of her mouth before she could control herself but she didn’t want to take it back. She watched both their faces fall and straightened her spine, swallowing hard. ‘No. No Liam. I wish I was sorry but I am not. I’m not giving my child up for anything.’

‘Walker,’ Drake started, reaching for her hand but she wrenched it out of his grasp.

‘No. I said no.’

Seeing his mouth open again presumably to reason with her, she turned on her heel and stormed off down the beach. Anger boiled in her veins like never before, searing hot; she could barely think straight. Liam to coming here  — on their honeymoon, no less — and asking them for their literal unborn child was insurmountably selfish.

Hadn’t she giving up enough already? Was getting kidnapped, shot at multiple times, having the man she loved almost bleed out in front of her not enough? Was she to sacrifice her future family just because the king of Cordonia couldn’t get a date?

These and a thousand other venomous thoughts were swirling on her mind as she stalked off, heading in no particular direction except away from the conversation.

‘Walker wait up.’

Elizabeth did nothing to slow her pace as she heard Drake jog up to her. ‘Walker would you just stop for a minute? Elizabeth!’

Jerking to a halt, she waited until he was in her line of vision before fixing him with a poisonous look.

‘Jesus what was that?’

‘I could ask you the same damn thing. What the actual fuck Drake?’ She spat, not caring if anyone heard her.

‘Liz c’mon. It’s not like the kid wouldn’t be ours still.’

‘Drake do you even hear yourself? I thought you of all people would be with me on this. You’ve spent your entire life hating the nobles for their stuffy ways, you’ve ranted to me on enough occasions about how pretentious and prim and stuck up and snobby they are. Now you’re turning around and saying you’d sign our child up for that without a second thought?’

He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. ‘Walker, c’mon you know it’s not like that..’

‘Then tell me what it’s like!’ She screeched, her voice shrill as it no doubt carried down the beach to where the rest of their friends were waiting. ‘Because to me it seems like you’re willing to drop and show your belly every time Liam asks you for something. Have you forgotten you have a wife now or does my opinion weigh nothing?’

‘You know that’s not true Elizabeth,’ he snapped back angrily and some part of her was glad to see the reaction, any reaction. ‘He’s got a good reason. We married for love. Don’t you think Liam of all people deserves the same?’

‘I do. You know I do. But his happiness shouldn’t come at the price of ours.’

Drake ran a weary hand over his face. ‘Don’t you care about the future of Cordonia?’

She paused momentarily thrown by his question. ‘What I care about is the future of my family. Something that you obviously don’t share. I don’t get it Drake. I really don’t. You of all people know how dangerous the life of a monarch is. Assassinations, poisonings, coups. Did the situation with Anton teach you nothing? And the worst part is that you didn’t even think to talk to me about it? You’re happy to just agree with whatever ridiculous demands he dreams up!’

Drake glared at her. ‘That’s bullshit and you know it.’

Hot tears pricked the back of her eyes as Elizabeth met his gaze. ‘We promised each other that we would have each other’s back. All the time, one hundred percent. All we talked about after this whole wedding shebang was to have a normal life, the two of us and the family we would have together. At least that’s what I thought we both wanted.’

The look on his face told her that her words had been driven home. They stared at each other in silence for a long moment.

Say something. This is our first real fight. Say something. She begged him silently, watching as Drake opened and closed his mouth several times but no words came out.

‘I’ve got a beach ball here with both your names on it!’

Maxwells voice cut through the tension. ‘What better way to work through some newly wedded strife than to slap a ball at each other huh?’ He shot a grin at them before wrapping a hand around each of their arms, leading them toward where the others had all gathered.

‘Beaumont this is hardly the-‘

‘Splendid idea Maxwell,’ Elizabeth interrupted, snatching the ball angrily out of his hands. ‘You’re on my team.’

-

Tensions boiled hotter than the afternoon sun as the game took place on the sand opposite the villa.

Elizabeth barely made a sound the whole game, concentrating her entire effort on hitting either Drake or Liam in the face. It would have solved anything but it would have made her feel a whole lot better, she decided, spiking the ball towards her husband. She rolled her eyes as he flawlessly intercepted it, sending it sailing over the net to Hana. She didn’t forget how Liam was readily avoiding her eyes, tapping the ball sympathetically over the net towards her as some kind of convoluted apology. She hit the ball again, harder this time, treacherous thoughts of Rumplestiltskin and baby snatcher rolling through her head.

What kind of person asks another person for their baby? Go make your own goddamned baby. What do I look like? The baby making machine? He may be a king but I am a duchess and my body is mine and so is my child.

‘Elizabeth heads up!’

The warning was too late and she was midway through turning her head toward the sound when something slammed against the side of her face, the impact hard enough to knock her off balance onto her hands and knees on the sand.

‘Walker!’

‘Elizabeth! Oh my god! Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ she answered, brushing aside Hana’s hands, her ego wounded more than anything. Regaining her footing, she avoided all eye contact under the pretense of brushing the sand from her skin, keenly aware of Drake’s gaze on her.

‘I think I’ve had enough volleyball for one day.’

‘Elizabeth -‘ Maxwell began but she silenced him with a hand.

‘Max just... don’t. I want to be alone. Please.’

-

Steam rose off the bubbling waters of the outdoor jacuzzi as Elizabeth sunk deeper into the tub, trailing a hand through the churning foam, the other against her reddened cheek, her thoughts reflecting the same image.

This is my baby. Our baby — she corrected herself. Mine and Drake’s.

‘I want a little girl with your eyes and my hair.’

‘Not my hair?’

‘Hell Walker, you’re so perfect I’d take an exact copy of you.’

She laughed and they shared a cheesy smile as they both stared out at the waves crashing on the sand. She took another sip from her wine, feeling Drake’s eyes on her.

‘Something’s on your mind.’

‘What? N-no.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I may have only been married to you for a month but I know when something’s bothering you Walker. So what is it?’

Elizabeth heaved a big sigh. ‘Its just… We didn’t get a ton of time as a couple before the whole wedding debacle happened. We’re still learning about each other.. And I know we’ve got the rest of our lives to do that…'

‘But?’ Concern leaked into his big brown eyes and she could tell he was trying to hide it so she cleared her throat resolving to just say it once and for all.

‘A baby means a big change. For us. As a couple and as ourselves. And I…’ She faltered.

His hand slipped into hers, squeezing comfortingly.

‘This last year has been amazing, me coming to Cordonia, becoming a duchess, marrying the love of my life, so many things have changed. I could do with some normal before another big change happens and shakes it up again.’

Drake tugged on her hand and she took the opportunity to climb into his lap.

'I only just got you. Is it selfish to want you all to myself for just a little bit longer?’

Elizabeth felt his lips on her head, pressing a gentle kiss there.

’Not at all.’‘I know you’re excited for a baby — I am too but I… I’m just not there yet.’

She buried her face in his chest, worried about what he was going to say next. ‘Its okay Liz. Its okay. We don’t have to jump into this thing head first.’

He hooked a finger under her chin so she’d look at him. ‘When it happens, if it happens, it doesn’t matter. All I care about is us. As long as we’re in this together, I’m down for anything with you Elizabeth.’

As the memory replayed in her head, Elizabeth couldn’t help but feel a sense of betrayal. Did all that mean nothing? Or perhaps Drake simply put more stock in Liam’s opinion than her own?

Now THAT hurt to think of. She was very familiar with the bro code but surely that didn't still apply after freaking marriage?

Why us? That was another puzzle, she couldn’t solve. Why Drake and I specifically? Wouldn’t it make more sense if Liam absolutely HAD to appoint a heir to appoint one from one of the longer standing noble houses? What made her so special?  

For the briefest moment, another thought crossed her mind. Surely he can’t still be in love with me...?

Elizabeth shook her head, perishing the thing from her mind. That door was long closed. If a public wedding wasn’t a big enough sign of rejection, she didn’t know what was. Was there something she was missing here? Something everyone knew about except her? Why did it seem logical to everyone to take someone else’s child and make them heir when you are perfectly capable of making your own?

‘Got room for one more?’

Elizabeth picked her head up to see Hana standing in the doorway, a pair of brightly coloured cocktails in her hands. She shrugged in reply, gesturing to the space beside her, gladly accepting the beverage. The cool liquid soothed her dry throat and she sipped it appreciatively, feeling marginally better.

‘Thanks Hana. You always know what to do to make me feel better.’

The other woman smiled softly. ‘What are best friends for? We missed you’

‘I missed you guys too.’ Elizabeth could not help the corner of her mouth lifting for a moment before it dropped back down, her somber mood settling back in. ‘Are things back home as... turbulent as he says?’

Needing no clarification, Hana’s pretty face crumpled in regret. ‘Truth be told Elizabeth, things are more tense than Liam let’s on. As soon as Anton’s trial was over and you guys left for your honeymoon, we received delegates from our neighbours Monterisso and Auvernal. I’m not sure if Bertrand taught you the history behind those countries.’

When Elizabeth shook her head, her friend continued.

‘Back then both countries were at odds with each other, always fighting, always trying to undermine each other. Cordonia was in the middle. The neutral ground so to speak. So it was only logical that each of them would try to win us over to their side so they’d finally gain the upper hand over each other. Constantine’s reign was the only thing stopping either of them from overwhelming us. And when Liam ascended the throne…'

‘Power newly transferred is the easiest to be taken,’ Elizabeth finished.

Hana nodded. ‘Since Liam doesn’t have an heir or any marriageable prospects really, he looks weak. And as a new king, in the middle of a political battlefield, he looks easy.’

‘But why me Hana?’ she burst out. ‘Why does it have to be us?’ She watched her friend’s pretty face crumple in through for a moment.

‘Because he trusts you and Drake the most. All the other houses, other nobles. Sure they might be happy to give up one of their own for the throne if Liam asked, who knows what agenda they have… I’m not telling you to do anything. Just keep all that in mind okay?’

Hana placed a comforting hand on her leg. ‘I’m going to get out before I turn into a prune,’ she joked, getting to her feet. ‘Bertrand would be horrified if we showed up to dinner in this state. You coming?’

Elizabeth nodded vaguely, turning over the new information in her mind. ‘I’ll be right there.’

-

Dinner was a tense affair. To make things worse, the conversation immediately ceased when Elizabeth took her place at the shared table, next to Bertrand. After a few moments of sporadic mumblings and pushing her food around her plate, she stood up abruptly, making her excuses and leaving, ignoring the gazes of her friends behind her.

The sea wind whipped at her hair, tousling it beyond taming as Elizabeth stared out into the dark horizon, kicking at the sand as she ambled down the beach. Her mind still turned over Hana’s words from that afternoon, now that she’d had time to process it, she was beginning to see the reasoning.  

‘Can I join you?’

She shrugged, not needing to look up to know that it was Drake. ‘There’s nuff beach for the both of us.’

‘How’s your cheek?’

‘Its fine.'

They continued like that for a little while longer, walking two feet apart, both of them silent as she ignored the way his eyes begged her to look at him. Rubbing her arms, Elizabeth shivered slightly as the cold sea air nipped her skin. She turned her head to see Drake already shrugging off his denim shirt, having noticed.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Just take it. You may be mad at me but I’m still not going to let your stubborn ass freeze.’

He stepped closer, his hands were warm when they touched her, settling the fabric over her shoulders protectively. Their faces were inches away and for the first time since that afternoon on the beach, she dared to look up into his dark eyes.

‘Thanks.’

He shook his head in a gesture of dismissal, pausing briefly to gather himself. ‘I’m sorry about earlier.’

‘Me too.’

The crashing of the waves on the beach was all that could be heard for a few moments. ‘Is that really something you wanna subject our kid to?’ She said finally, breaking the silence. ‘Liz…'

‘I’m not mad anymore. I just… I wanna understand where you’re coming from.’  

Drake let out a huge sigh, tipping his head back to the night sky above them. ‘I know its out of character for me.. that I’m the last person who would want this.’

‘No kidding. You’ve spent your entire life hating that place. Two days after we met you were warning me about the nobility and how toxic they were and now...'

‘You’re right,’ Drake admitted, lacing his hands behind his head and staring up into the sky, sighing in defeat. ‘You’re right.’

‘So what changed your mind?’ Elizabeth watched her husband think for a long moment.

‘To be honest,’ he said finally. ‘It was you. You were the one who showed me that a person could go through that place and still be the same honest, down to earth girl I fell in love with. What you’ve done to this country, in the last year, generations of nobles couldn’t achieve in decades. You showed me that there’s more to the nobility than gilded walls and politics.’

Drake’s eyes took on a faraway look now. ‘Yeah when you got that duchess title, I was a little scared that you’d finally be one of them but you’re not. You didn’t let it define you, you used it to make a difference like you did for me, the court… hell, the whole kingdom. So when I thought about how our home needs our help… how my best friend needs our help, I knew that with you by my side, if anyone could raise an heir with a good head on his or her shoulders, it’d be us.’

Elizabeth dropped her head to hide the small smile that broke through. ‘You’re doing it again.’

‘What?’

‘Making me fall in love with you.’ She looked up at him. ‘A little prince or princess raised by two former commoners could do a lot of good around there.'

Drake didn’t say anything as he wrapped his arms around her and she gratefully sunk into his embrace, finally feeling at peace for the first time all day.

'Promise me something.’ Elizabeth spoke up, her voice slightly muffled by his shirt.

‘Anything.'

'From now on,’ she pulled back to look him in the face. ‘We make big decisions like this together. We’re gonna be facing a lot of tough things as duke and duchess and we gotta have each other’s backs. Because if we don’t, who will?’

‘Promise.'

‘I guess we should go talk to Liam now huh?’

‘I guess we should,’ Drake replied, lacing his fingers through hers, preparing to lead them back to the villa before Elizabeth tugged him back to her.

‘Actually wait, I just thought of something.’

-

'Liam I am going to be frank with you,’ Elizabeth towered over where he was sitting on the couch, a menacing look on her face. 'What you asked of us today was a huge overstep of personal boundaries. You may be king but you have no right whatsoever to be so presumptuous especially with such a life changing decision.'

'I am sorry Elizabeth truly I-'

‘Do not interrupt me Your Highness.’ Elizabeth’s tone seared through the room as she fixed him with a fierce stare. ‘You had crossed the line and frankly it is only your best friend’s negotiation skills that saved your ass here.’

She paused, watching his blue eyes widen slightly at her use of the word before she made her demand.

‘Five years.’

Liam’s brow furrowed in confusion. ‘I-'

'I’m giving you five years to find a wife and put a baby in her. Drake and I, we care for this country and we care for you but we have to prioritise our own family first. So in the interest of compromise, we’re giving you until our child is five years old to marry and produce an heir of your own. In that time, Drake and I are fine with our kid being the centre of all the media attention and political nonsense as long as you understand that this arrangement...’

Elizabeth paused to gesture between them. ‘Is temporary. When your wife is pregnant, we will withdraw our child as heir and yours may take its rightful place. Those are my terms.’

Liam rubbed his jaw, eyes flitting from Elizabeth’s determined eyes to the floor as he thought it over for a moment before turning back to her.

‘I accept your terms.’

[theaetherwitch]

Ethics in Magick: A Gray Understanding

- from my grimoire

An Important Thing to Note

As preface to this article, i would like to say these are simply my own opinions. These opinions are based off my own experiences, and things that I have learned throughout the years. This article is meant to be thought provoking and informative, which can make it lean on the more controversial side. Morality and ethics are very complicated and very touchy. There are many ways to view the world around you and this is simply how I personally view things. Don’t ever feel like this is exactly how things are or how they are going to be, because it’s not. Gray doesn’t come in just one shade, it comes in many.

Everyone views the world around them differently, so take this article with a grain of salt.

Things are More Then They Seem

When talking about ethics in magick, it can be easy to see things in a very black and white manner, ie: good is good, and evil is evil. This is why we see terms like “White Witch” or “Black Magick”. At some point during the long history of The Craft, someone felt the need to draw a thick line between positive and negative aspects. If something is one way, then it must inherently have an opposite. The sun and moon, masculine and feminine, light and dark, black and white, yin and yang. These are all things that have a counterbalance with each other. But as time passes and ideals change, these aspects begin to meld to create something entirely different. The color gray, or as my covenmates like to say “Androgynous Energy”. Energy that is nothing and everything all at the same time. It is not good nor is it evil, it exists in a completely neutral state. And that’s where we’ll begin.

Evil Good, and Good Evil

I’d like to really delve into this topic by saying, yes. There are good things in the world, and there are evil things in the world. No denying that at all, but for the majority of things, theres much more to it. A good example would be someone who shoplifts. On the surface, this is a crime and seen as wrong, and I don’t disagree with that, but take into consideration other things as well. Does this person have food, clothing, and shelter readily available to them? Do they have mouths to feed? Can they afford to support themselves? In some cases, no they don’t, and the only way they can keep themselves or the people around them alive is by stealing. This is still very much a crime, and I don’t condone it, but for some people its all they can do.

You can look at magick much the same. Take hexes for example, something that specifically meant to harm another person. But have you even considered why people hex? Sometimes there is someone or something in your life thats toxic, abusive, and just down right nasty to you and you need to find a way to cut it out or make it understand the error of its ways. That’s where a hex comes in, and why they’re not evil by nature. Sometimes harm is necessary for your own, or another persons well being.

On the other side of that coin are regular spells. Something that is usually used for something positive, but even that has gray areas. Lets say someone casts a wealth spell. Are they doing it because they truly need money coming their way, or are they doing it for greedy and more materialistic reasons? These are questions that you must always ask before jumping to conclusions about someones actions. You never really know what someones intent is, unless they explicitly tell you. Good can very much be evil, just as evil can totally be good.

Think about this scenario. You’re a refugee in a warzone and you have a group of people with you, and you’re hiding and trying to escape death or capture. One of the members of your group is a baby and it begins to cry. Do you cover the babies mouth and risk suffocating the baby, or do you let the baby cry and risk the whole group being found and captured or killed?

What would you do in a situation like that? It’s complicated right? That’s what happens with morality in general. Things can get very convoluted and very hard to understand, that’s why looking at things from someone else’s perspective is very important. Nothing is black, just as nothing is white, there is always going to be more to a situation then just what you see on the surface.

Black Magick vs. White Magick

Personally, I do not like these terms. They make people think that these are the only ways to practice their craft, and gives a very limited view. It can scare someone away from magick, and that's the opposite effect we want. The craft has already almost died before, we want it to grow and prosper and that requires people who practice, but that's besides the point. There is no inherant good or bad magick, there are only good and bad intentions of the practitioner.

Think of fire. In the wrong hands, fire can devistate not just a home, but an entire neighborhood or even city. But in the right hands, it completely changed how people grew and evolved. But just because fire can cause harm, does that make fire bad? No. What can make fire bad is someone who is handling it without proper knowledge of how to use it. Magick, like fire, is a tool, and it's up to the person using the tool to use it properly

Ethical Hexing: A Summary

Hexing, while commonly seen as a negative thing can very easily be turned on its head to become something positive. Honestly, Im going to make an entire seperate article on this, but I can give a really good example of how a hex can be positive. And I want you to think about this one and when/if you decide to perform a hex.

One of my covenmates has a hex that he will use if someone has done something majorly wrong to either him or a friend (things like abuse, assault, or manipulation and lying). "May they see the error of their ways" is the name of the hex. Yes, it is still entirely meant to cause harm, but that is only a short term effect. Someone realizing they've done something wrong can be a hard pill to swallow and open up alot of regrets in a persons mind, but in tern that gives them the chance to fix what they've done wrong and start becoming a better person. This hex can help turn someones life around.

If you're going to hex someone, think about how you're going to word it and think about what your true intentions are. Pick your words carefully and really think about how you want it to affect this person. Remember the wise words of the wendigo "The anger in your heart warms you now, but will leave you cold in your grave". Things that go around have a tendency to come back around, so when hexing someone make sure you're doing it for the right reasons, and not to just hurt someone for the hell of it.

And when it comes to hexing, I see nothing wrong with it in the long run. Negative emotions are something that everyone deals with, everyone. And sometimes you need to find a way to express these emotions, especially if there is a particular person who has caused them. Hexing, in the right context, can help you release this pent up emotion and keep you from exploding. Magick doesn't always have to be unicorns and rainbows.

Ethics of Love Spells

This is another place where magick can very much become gray. Love spells are something that I see plently of people on Tumblr practicing and honestly, my responce to that is a positive one, because I haven't seen (so far at least) anyone trying to force a particular person to love them. And thats very important when it comes to any matters in love. When making a love spell, don't try to force a specific person to bend to your will because it has very high chance of failing completely and blowing up in your face. Love spells work best when they're as vague as possible because that gives the universe the chance to bring someone to you that you actually belong with instead of just someone you think you belong with.

If you're making a love spell at a particular person, try to consider that persons feelings too, and put yourself in their shoes. Would you want someone creepily trying to force you to love them? Probably not. Other peoples feelings are just as important as your own. This brings me to my last topic.

Consent

Like in the physical world, consent in spiritual matters is just as important. Someones spiritual life and being are sacred to them, and unless they tell you it's okay to start meddling. DONT. Never try to perform any sort of healing or psychic surgery on someone unless they have given you explicit permission, because you could seriously hurt someone in the process. Whether that was your intention or not, it can happen. The spiritual and physical body are heavily connected, and when one is messed up, so is the other. Always, always, always get someones permission if you're doing anything to them other than just sending general positive vibes.

And that's about it! I hope this article made some of you think and that it helps expand your world view a little bit. If anyone has any sort of questions, please feel free to ask.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Do you really think current Cas couldn't end up being The Empty? I don't necessarily believe that because I think Cas is not acting like himself but the "All Magic Comes with a prize"-stories, of there being a downside to major "mircles" like resurrections are pretty common, plus having a newly introduced major foe that looks like Cas (+ can access his memories) thats not explored yet, plus being told that Cas would be back "slowly" or "at least his most important parts"

*shrugs* I mean if they’re doing it they’ve basically wasted an entire episode of supposed Cas stuff plus 2 previous ones that only made sense with Cas’ reactions and actions if it was him, so the only way it would happen is if we do already have our Cas on screen, but there’s a catch or some consequences yet to hit about the resurrection and Cas BEGINS to belatedly suffer side effects which retroactively cast into doubt how much he was here or just suggest something was wrong with him all along and waiting for some reason to activate, as he’s not currently being depicted in any distress whatsoever. I agree the clothes are suspicious and I was saying all along since the beginning of the season or before, mostly as crack posts since I don’t like speculating, that if Cas gets handed an outfit out of thin air instead of picking it for himself, that concept fits what I figure would be symbolism warning that Cas has ongoing problems, but as someone who deals with speculation in about that much vagueness I really don’t have any sort of solid ideas beyond that.

For me, talking about TV shows isn’t really fun to guess what will happen and I would just want to end up writing it myself or go down convoluted threads that the writers wouldn’t keep up on, and trying to stay in the lines of what might actually happen is an enormous headache and no one is particularly great at it unless they’re extremely vague or only analyse the very obvious threads and offer generic scenarios they could play out in, e.g. how we could predict a reverse crypt scene, because it was basically a looming issue not a wild speculative idea, but being threatened for most of the season subtly or not. 

I mostly live entirely in the moment for TV shows if I can help it, and I prefer watching things I’ve had at least mild spoilers for when it comes to things I would want to get emotionally invested in, even if it’s really just scoping out the personality of the thing. Watching Supernatural as it airs is pretty messy for my anxiety about not knowing what comes next, and after a little while in fandom I realised how pointless speculation is for ever making you feel better about anything. If you’re right you’ve bored yourself out of the story, if you’re wrong you’ve made yourself annoyed or built up your expectations. 

And if you’re super invested in a fictional character and scour the internet for spoilers about them because you’re worried about their well being, and analyse every inch of the show for clues about what might happen to them while creating potential worrying scenarios, that play out or not, you mostly get into a huge panic about them, start treating your imagination as if the horrible stuff has already happened, and lose a lot of objectivity as you start to perceive the writers going out of the way to do bad things to your fave because you’re super focussed on what bad stuff will happen to them, and blah blah character stanning cycle of being protective and angry etc. I’ve seen it consume too many people since I got to fandom :S 

So… Something is probably about to happen to Cas or because of Cas, and the trip through the Empty seems like it maaaay have been too understated or an under-utilised resource (but I also have immediately made my peace that that’s all we’ll see of it, even if it isn’t, because I just can’t LIVE like that with expectations and serious plot demands and trying to construct versions of the season that only make sense if X Y and Z are in it and then getting upset when they aren’t) and we missed a few important steps between bargaining and resurrection considering the new clothes and Cas’s moment where he took in that he was dressed in them. There’s also left over weirdness about him and Jack which also has a lot of unexplained things he and Dean need to talk about and may or may not cause a serious problem now Jack has legged it.

I don’t think he’s acting strange, because there have been no blatantly obvious cues for the people at the back about him acting strange, e.g. lingering shots where he was pulling weird faces, lines in the Empty to indicate it wanted anything other than to go back to sleep, or hints that anything is particularly coming for Cas based on the MotW obvious mirrors (which have been pretty low key because the MotW have been very secondary to the emotional drama so far). Billie never hinted about Cas more than that he was dead because he killed her, and now we have spoilers that it seems most likely the Winchester knocking over the house of cards will be Jack seemingly motivated on his own steam to do something good, so that literally covers every doomy portentous line this season that wasn’t completely incidental, although I have been joking about some, I don’t really get into conspiracies about them… 

We’ve had lingering shots with Cas squinting in a very familiar Cas-like way with understandable exasperation at whatever’s going on, and he’s had emotional moments with all his family and generally been presented as mostly fine and not visibly perturbed or confused by not being able to heal the guard for example, just resigned that it was too late for him to do anything, and he hasn’t been dangerously put in any crosshairs in the symbolism. I can’t think of anything really at all that’s threatened Cas in the symbolism or foreshadowing and nothing he’s done on screen has been suspicious about his personality or characteristics or actions. Dean’s not suspicious. Sam is a little concerned about *how* he got back but not *if* he is Cas.

Like, of course they might blindside us with something, but considering they spent time on emotional moments with Cas dealing with ongoing characters arcs between him and the rest of them, it makes no sense a fake out Cas would be getting Cas’s emotional development. Unless it was laden with dramatic irony. Remember in 11x11 when Casifer was talking to Dean? Even if you didn’t know that he was Lucifer and pretend they never revealed that detail and this is the first time we see him since, there’s a billion things wrong with his interactions with Dean in that scene. There was stuff visibly wrong with him before we knew for sure he’d been possessed in 11x10 just in how he hung back from the team and watched them all very, very carefully, and took too long to reply while weighing his options.

Cas already did come back slowly because it took him until episode 6 to actually be back in the game, even if he was restored in episode 4, so at this point I figure that spoiler was being careful about revealing how Cas’s appearances in the start of the season were spread out, and not commenting on Cas’s internal stuff.

I don’t know, bad stuff happens to them all the time on the show so of course I just assume something is coming, but I’m not worried about it like it might happen to a friend or something because it’s just a part of the story so I don’t get being worried about stuff happening to your faves as if it’s the end of the world… Cas is currently occupying the very centre of the story along with Jack, possibly MORE important than him since he’s important to Jack in turn. I feel like Cas is the actual beating heart of the story in season 13 so far based on his entire blanket presence in the empty spaces caused by Jack and Dean’s need/want for him. It’s a bit ridiculous to now hope because he’s back he’s going to just settle into the family with them and have no troubles, though of course that’s a point I’m always happy to be proved wrong on, it’s better just to use bored eyes and just… ¬_¬ something’s gonna happen to Cas… ¬_¬ your way through the story. And it will be something that’s probably super important to the main arc because Cas has been so far, in a deep, intrinsic way, so whatever happens I’m down for it, unless it’s some randomly abject level of awful that no one could have called, and his treatment in the story, against all odds, is somehow really horrible.

Aside from horrible character-trashing worst case scenarios, though, the manner in which is happens is, to me, completely arbitrary as a non-speculating blog that just analyses what ends up on my plate and occasionally wonders what the OBVIOUS cues mean without committing to theories beyond musings and wondering out loud with obvious disclaimers that I’m just thinking and don’t care if it does or doesn’t happen. 

Like, I’m analysing all the themes as they show up and I assume whatever happens will fit the themes and character arcs and whatever. At the moment I see Cas as being Cas because I just got handed an incredible Cas episode on a plate where Cas was being very Cas-like all over the place, and his biggest problem was Jack, who was not directly threatening him at any point, and if anything it seems like Cas futilely chasing after Jack trying to stop him getting intro trouble (nearly shot by Dean, actually shot by Dave the Cowghoul) would be the one theme I’d wonder has any actual suggestion that Cas is going to have Problems, but that’s not directly happening to him, that’s just his issue with not being able to help Jack and stop him getting in trouble. And, I guess now, chasing after him before he does that. And based on episode descriptions for upcoming stuff, not very successfully, so we already know that symbolism pays off, however Cas ends up going about this :P

So that’s my one and only reason to be worried about Cas right now… Granted, I’ve only watched the episode twice while extreeeeemely woozy with a migraine but I’ve been reading my dash all day and seeing discussion of most parts of the episode and all the Cas bits and I’ve been rewatching bits here and there and nothing is leaping out at me that anything is currently trying to warn us to brace for Cas, except the general sense of ¬_¬ about something inevitably coming his way because of course he’s not in every episode - but he could just leave entirely of his own agency to go look for Jack off screen and even without the worries about what Jack may or may not have done to him in season 12, given what they set up, it would be entirely understandable for him to do it just because he’s Cas. 

[imaginejamesandsirius]

Hi, so im not sure im doing this askk/prompt thing right but im going to give it a shot because i love your works so so much. So could you please write superhero school AU about their (James/sirius) first kiss? So like lots of mutual pining,tiny angst and fluffy end? That would be super cool to see. Im not sure what kind of superpowers they would have or how it would work but i imagine something like the x-men school, or BNHA. But if thats not your thing thats totaly okay :)

((A/N: I think this is the first time I’ve written promiscuous James without a Sirius to match, which feels kinda weird. This was fun :D Though I do think it might have a little more angst than you asked for…))

“What the fuck is this?”

“What?” James asked, looking up from his football magazine.

Sirius was holding aloft a pair of pink lace knickers from the tip of his wand-- It’s not a wand, James, it’s a stick. Yeah that you use to channel energy, Pads, it’s a wand-- wrinkling his nose at them before glaring at James. “You said you wouldn’t bring birds back here anymore.”

“No,” James corrected, “I said I wouldn’t bring birds back here while you were here anymore.”

“That’s not what we agreed.”

“Yes it is.”

“Not it’s not.”

“Yes it is.”

Sirius rolled his eyes and flicked the knickers at him, landing them on James’s leg when he didn’t move. “Well don’t let them leave their bloody underthings here, it’s disgusting.” He frowned, looking at the area of the room where he’d found them. “Wait a tic, why were they over here?”

They were over there because previously they’d been in James’s bed, but he didn’t know that until he was trying to sleep and rolled onto them. In his tired and annoyed state, he hadn’t thought about what it was or that Sirius would find it, he just grabbed the offending item and chucked it away from himself, and promptly forgotten about it until right now.

Instead of saying any of that, he shrugged. “How should I know? Alice is into a weird sort, everyone ones that.”

“Yeah I don’t think Alice would leave her unwashed knickers by my dresser, she likes me better than that.”

James raised an eyebrow, more committed to the lie now that Sirius didn’t believe him. “Are you sure?”

Sirius rolled his eyes again, but not playfully, more like he was actually upset. “Well when you bugger people in the future do it in their damn room.”

“I-- okay. Sorry.”

Sirius gave a tense thank you, grabbed his bag, and left.

James sighed, his head banging against the wall behind him. He brushed Alice’s knickers off his leg absently. He and Sirius used to be close, closer than anyone, but then… he didn’t even know. They’d gotten to the age of sleeping with birds, James started to do so, asked Sirius why he wasn’t, and Sirius said he wasn’t interested in them. Sirius had looked hopeful when he told James he liked blokes, but James must have said the wrong thing because the next day there was this distance between them that hadn’t been there before, and they never recovered. He’d even tried telling Sirius that he was sorry for whatever he said, that he hadn’t meant to be a homophobic arsehole, that he would be better in the future, and that Sirius could hit him in the head any time he said something off. That just made him angry, and left James more confused than ever.

James missed him, missed him so buggering much, but he didn’t know how to fix anything between them, and he certainly didn’t know how to go about spending time together without fixing whatever he’d buggered up. Gods he missed him. It’d gotten to the point that any time he saw Sirius happy his stomach erupted in butterflies.

~~~

Sirius glared at James as if it was his fault they were stranded in the middle of whatever buggering forest with no way to contact anyone. Which was ridiculous since they both were very aware it was the fault of Peter’s as of yet fully fledged powers that sent them here. Hell, poor Pete had such little control right now they were lucky they didn’t get zapped to the middle of the ocean. All things considered, Peter was doing amazing with his powers, but that didn’t make them any less stranded.

“Do you plan these things?” Sirius asked, throwing up his hands.

James blinked in surprise. Sirius was temperamental at the best of times, but really, what the hell? “How do I have anything to do with this?”

Sirius glared at him again, then chose a direction and random and started walking, leaving James to scuttle after him.

“Sirius!” He jogged a bit to get in front of him, halting his progress-- if ‘progress’ could even be applied to this situation. “What are you so mad at me?”

He looked away and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Kinda seems like you do,” James countered.

Sirius tried to move past him, but James stopped him. He kept trying but James blocked him at every turn. Eventually, he stopped trying, and grit his teeth. “Don’t you have something better to do than make me feel like shit?”

James flinched back as if Sirius had slapped him. “What?”

Sirius squared up, settling in for a fight that, in his opinion, was long overdue, even if he had been the one avoiding it. “Alright, Mister I’m-so-much-better-than-you, you want to know why I’m upset? Because a year ago I told you I fancied you, and not only did you reject me, you pretended not to know what I was saying! And then you went on about not wanting to offend me, and then you started fucking girls in our room and acting like it was no big deal!”

James wanted to say something back, had so many things he wanted to say, so many that they all jammed between his brain and his mouth and he didn’t say anything.

Sirius sneered at him. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Shouldering past James, he started storming through the forest again.

By the time James’s body woke up again, he had to run to catch up. He stopped in front of Sirius, forcing him to stop again and making him sigh aggravatedly. “You never told me you fancied me,” he claimed, but even as he said it, it felt like a lie- which, what? “You didn’t!” he defended, though Sirius had yet to react to his statement. “You said you liked blokes, and then you were looking at me like I’d done something wrong, so I apologised!”

Sirius sighed, head tilting back like he was looking to the gods for patience. “I told you I fancied you,” he grit out, “and you said ‘sorry’.” He glared at James again, but there was more hurt than anger there. “And now you’re doing shit like leaving Alice’s knickers in front of my dresser. Believe me, James, I got your answer loud and clear the first time.”

“What- that’s not- that was an accident,” he managed to get out. Sirius fancied him? Fancies him?

Sirius snorted. “Sure it was. Do you think I can’t tell when you’re lying to me?”

“It was an accident!” An accident he should have taken care of admittedly, but had mistakenly thought wouldn’t matter-- and also hadn’t remembered, but then if he knew it would matter, he would have remembered.

“Maybe, but you lied about it the first time.” Guiltily, James stayed silent. It had seemed like the best course of action at the time, but he wasn’t going to say that. “That’s what I thought.”

A beat. “You told me you fancied blokes, not me,” he muttered, heart going the speed of light but fuck if he knew why.

“Whatever,” Sirius said, starting to walk. It felt like some convoluted emotional game of leapfrog, all this running and stopping and continuing, and the only thing they’d accomplished was getting angry with each other, which wasn’t exactly something they needed help with these days.

Although, if what Sirius said was true, and he did fancy James… then James was the massive arse here-- had been for a year-- and Sirius hadn’t done anything wrong. Shit. Fucking buggering shit. He needed to fix this, but the last time he tried to apologise to Sirius before thinking everything through, it blew up in face. And this- he didn’t know how he felt about this. He felt light in a way that had nothing to do with his powers, and his heart was still beating an irregularly loud rhythm in his chest.

Slightly ahead of him, Sirius stepped over a large log, his hand going out to touch a tree for balance and James felt a familiar spike of desire that he’d been close enough for Sirius to use him instead of the tree.

He froze, feet fumbling across a large piece of moss covered bark.

Sirius paused, glancing back. “You okay?” he asked tentatively, like he wanted to still be angry but cared more that James was okay. Merlin and Morgana, James was an idiot.

“How do you know when you fancy someone?” he blurted. That wasn’t what he meant to say, not that he knew what he had meant to say.

“You- I dunno,” Sirius said, looking thrown. “You want to be around them all the time and make them happy, and hold them and stuff.”

“Eloquent,” James said automatically, but his mind was spinning. “So- er,” he swallowed, “I think I fancy you.”

Sirius’s face hardened. “That’s not funny.”

“Wasn’t supposed to be. I thought- hell I thought that was just how you felt about your best mate.”

“Wait.” Sirius walked towards him. “You want to kiss me and you thought ‘oh that’s just what people want to do with their friends’?”

“No-”

“Oh right, just your best friend. Did you actually think that?” he asked incredulously.

“Well it- made sense at the time,” he stuttered out as Sirius moved into his personal space.

Sirius put his hands on either side of James’s face and leaned in. “You are such a fucking idiot,” he whispered, pressing their lips together.

“Rude.”

“Oh?” Sirius said, sounding far too prepared for this vein of conversation. James kissed him again, but it didn’t dissuade him. “I’m not the one who can fly, and forgot about that so wholly that we ended up walking through the forest for an hour.”

James’s face flushed with embarrassment, and as much as he wanted to deny it, there was nothing he could say that Sirius would believe. “Well, hey, you remembered that I could fly and didn’t say anything.”

“That’s because any time I try to talk to you about something serious you run away, and I knew you wouldn’t leave me here by myself.”

“...I feel played. Did you and Peter team up?”

Sirius rolled his eyes, his arms still hanging off of James’s shoulders where he’d left his hands after kissing him. “The day me and Petey team up against you will be the day of the apocalypse, right after Remus lets loose and decides to kill us all.”

“What about me?”

“Well you’ll already be dead.” He pat James’s cheek. “Don’t take it too hard Jamsie, but Remus would wolf out and you wouldn’t even notice. First casualty of war, but don’t worry, I’ll try to avenge you.”

“Try?”

“Moony is scary when he tries, and I frighten easily.”

“You do not.”

“I could,” he argued, as if offended.

James snorted, shaking his head. “It’s like the last year didn’t happen.” Now that they were talking, they clicked back together like those crappy magnetic friendship necklaces Benjy liked so much.

“Not true. We spent that year not talking and I learned all the ways you’re a dumbarse. Leaving Alice’s knickers in front of my dresser? Really? That wasn’t on.”

“It was accident,” James whinged. “I forgot to pick them up after, I swear.”

“Yeah, don’t think I’m letting that fade into obscurity. I love you and all, but you were a giant fuckwad for a while there.”

“I know. Lots of forgiveness and penance, I’ll come prepared.”

“Good.” Sirius kissed the tip of James’s nose. “Now you wanna fly us out of here or what?”

[shrack]

the coffee kingdom

note: this is my first fic for taz, and its about a small character that needs more love. thats the funheist brand, friends. ill be adding a second part soon, i just wanted to spread it on tumblr as well! coffee shop au that nobody asked for.

Lucas needs money for his experiments. Taako doesn't mean to be the worst customer. [ AO3 mirror ]

If Lucas had a choice, he would spend every day working on his experiments. He's close, the robots he's been tinkering with for so long are coming together, No. 3113 may look scrappy but he's proud of her, his first steps toward making a difference in this garbage world, but...robots cost money.

He debates selling his work, but that goes against everything he's worked for. Goes against the Miller family name. Lucas wants to be able to help, to teach kids things that his mother taught him. Hodge Podge could do that, he knows it, but his supplies have run low (and that might be because he's trying to build so many other things, too).

He begrudgingly gets the job at the uppity coffee shop in the middle of Neverwinter, the 'Help Wanted' sign taunting him every time he would walk past and get himself groceries. It's been a few months, and he's made a few...acquaintances at the shop, but he's not there to make friends. They're nice, his manager is a woman that he would be scared of in any other circumstance--a tall, orc woman named Killian who he goes out of the way to smile at because if he doesn't, he's positive he'll get suplexed through the counter. 

"Hey, Luc!" Killian says cheerfully as he walks in the back door, and he flashes his best not-annoyed smile at her as he grabs his apron off its hook. Motherfucking robot couldn't just work, had to blow up in his stupid face; he's just glad that he got his arms over his face before pieces of metal went flying everywhere.

"Rough night?" Lucas grunts in agreement, fixing one of the band-aids on his forearm with a sigh.

"Just your average robo-explosion."

Killian chuckles and pats him on the shoulder, muttering something about that not being normal, but Lucas doesn't pay it any mind. He didn't sleep at all, his eyes hurt from being open for so long, and his head throbs in time with his heart. If he can just get to a coffee machine before--

There's a line before he can even say hi to his coworker. He has to stop the groan that threatens to come out as he's told to start making orders, puts on his best I-don't-want-to-stab-myself face, and starts shouting orders.

By the time he can breathe again, his hands are shaking. Should he sit down or something? He glances at the line, just one person now, and makes himself a black iced coffee to down in record time. When he looks up again, Carey and another guy he hasn't bothered to learn the name of are staring at him like he has four heads, and he just raises an eyebrow back.

"Yes?"

"I don't know if I should be impressed or worried," Carey says on a laugh, looking at the other guy, who nods.

Lucas glances between the dragonborn and the now-empty cup, and back up at Carey as he fills it up a second time and starts to drink it. Carey makes a face and gags, shaking her head.

"Jesus, dude, have you ever slept in your life?"

"Probably."

He's forced into small talk as he starts to clean up the counter, a taller man named Avi coming over and clapping Lucas on the shoulder, telling him that "you drink coffee the way my dad drinks beer!" which he...is not sure how to respond to. But the guy seems nice, smiling too much and sipping out of a hot coffee cup that Lucas can tell is not full of coffee.

Lucas is left alone up front when Avi and Carey head to their breaks (Lucas insisted that he could handle it on his own, rarely did people come in at this time), and he's adjusting one of the bandages around one of his knuckles when someone enters, the bell making him jolt up and put on his best face. Which immediately drops, when the person walking in is clearly not paying attention. He speaks loudly on his phone despite it being right next to his mouth, and Lucas isn't going to let himself get angry. He's had a long morning, he hasn't slept, his hands are shaking, but he's not going to get angry.

He's not going to get angry when the elf says, "Hold on, bubbeleh," to the phone and puts it down, flashing a toothy smile at Lucas. He's not going to get angry when the elf peruses the menu for a solid five minutes and creates the most convoluted, disgusting order known to man. The elf finishes his order with a drawl, and Lucas is about to repeat the order, when he gets cut off.

"I'm confident that you're gonna get it right, my guy. Slap the name T-double-a-k-o on the side and you got yourself a masterpiece."

He's not going to get angry.

Lucas grits his teeth against the sugary stench of the creation he's making, debates why this guy would even get coffee if there's barely any coffee in it, and then. And then.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm back, sorry. Gotta get my dose of sugar and caffeine before I brave you and Barry being gross all day, you know how it is."

Lucas wants to drop the whole fucking drink into the garbage.

"Taako," he says, loudly, staring the elf in the face. He's not paying attention. Awesome!

"Taako!" he tries again, louder, and Taako jumps before turning and taking the drink off the counter.

"Thanks..." he follows Taako's eyes as they look for his nametag, and part of him wants to hide it, "Lucas. Lucas! Thank you."

He slides a gold piece onto the counter and leaves with the concoction in one hand and his phone in the other. His anger has subdued a little, enough to notice how well-dressed this elf is on his way out, and he doesn't know why it makes him feel so bad about his stained jeans and fucked up t-shirt, but it does.

God, he needs to sit.

 The next few times Lucas sees Taako, he seems...apologetic. He comes in around the same time, orders a drink that's still disgusting, but Lucas learns that he doesn't really taste it so he likes to switch it up. He always tips well, and after the sixth time (who's counting?) he doesn't move when Lucas slides him his drink.

"Tell me about yourself, Luco."

It catches him off-guard--the nickname, the question--and he realizes he doesn't know how to answer. Has he ever even told anyone...about himself? Killian asked because she interviewed him and he had to, but that was all the standard stuff. He works in his lab alone, he needs money for more parts, and that's about it.

"I...make robots, I guess."

"Wow, your life is real fuckin' interesting, huh," Taako muses, taking a sip of the drink that makes Lucas cringe, and he flashes that toothy smile again.

"I don't know what you're expecting. I work here to make money for my experiments. I have a lab on the outskirts of town. That's pretty much it."

"Woah, slow down, I got lost in the story." Lucas laughs and he realized that...he hasn't done that in a while.

Sure, he chuckles when No.3113 accidentally bumps into the doorframe when she's adjusting to her new modifications, or triumphantly when something doesn't blow up in his face. He busies himself with a machine to hide the fact that he's so surprised by something so mundane.

"What about you then? You have a story that'll blow my mind?" Lucas tries, stumbling over his words only a little bit, and he's interrupted by the door opening and people walking in.

When he gets to look over after the family of four leaves, there's an empty cup on the counter. He's about to get mad, but when he picks it up, there's a phone number and a name scrawled neatly across it. Obviously magically done, but Lucas still looks around for any sign of Taako or Killian before pulling out his phone and punching in the number. Does he wait? Does it seem to eager if he sends a text right then and there? No, he's at work, he should be responsible. But...he wants to talk to Taako. That's a first for him.

Lucas knows a lot, but he doesn't know the first thing about feelings.

Their conversations aren't too in-depth over text, but Lucas looks forward to it. Sure, it slows down his progress on Hodge Podge a lot, but he likes having someone to talk to. No.3113 notices and tries to bug him about it, will make comments when Lucas drops a screwdriver and grabs his phone when it buzzes, and Lucas comes to two more realizations.

He has feelings for Taako. And he feels incredibly lonely.

It's weird to look forward to going into work. He walks in and Killian notices that he's actually eager to go out front, he doesn't take much pushing, and it takes all of two seconds to figure out why.

The door opens, Taako enters, and Lucas visibly perks up. Killian shares a look with Carey, who doesn't hesitate to step in.

"Hey, Taako!" she says cheerily, and Lucas jumps when Killian comes next to him and leans down to whisper in his ear.

"You should go for it."

Lucas yelps and blushes deeply, turning around to look at Killian, who's laughing. "Wh-I don't-what?"

He turns back around only to be met by Taako staring at him incredulously, that stupid toothy grin on his face, and Lucas is pretty sure his face is on fire.

"You good, my man?"

"Great!" he says too quickly, picking up a large cup and a pen, "What can I get for you?"

He misses when Carey and Killian high-five behind him, but he nearly drops the cup a couple times in trying to get Taako's order written out on it.

Lucas can feel Taako watching him as he makes the drink, and he has to make sure his hands are steady as he goes through the steps that he has memorized by now. All the drinks have the same components, just in a different order, and he doesn't mind that this order is particularly long because he doesn't know if he can face Taako after that.

"Um, Tay-ko?" Lucas jokes, pushes his glasses up and pretends to squint to read the name that he doesn't have written, and Taako laughs loudly.

"That was a joke! You made a joke! I'm so proud!" Lucas bites his bottom lip and smiles, sliding the drink over and watching Taako wipe at his eyes dramatically and take it.

"Thanks. First one ever." Taako grins and Lucas heart flips, and suddenly he's blushing as hard as he was a few minutes ago.

"I'd like to take you out sometime," Taako says after a moment, and Lucas gapes at him. This gorgeous, confident elf, taking him on a date? Somebody pinch him.

"Close your mouth, you'll get bugs," he teases and Lucas does, and Taako winks at him, "I'll text you the details, sugar."

"I-uh-y-yeah! That's...awesome!" Nice. Nailed it.

Lucas watches him as he leaves, and he doesn't even notice Carey come up and grab his shoulders. "Holy shit, Luc!"

"Did that just happen?"

Lucas' heart leaps that night, when he's writing notes down in the dim light of his bedroom and his phone buzzes next to him.

call out tomorrow. i have a plan.

Lucas is terrified.

[strelitzicae-arts]

I made a voltron sky high boku no hero academia AU! I’ll put all their powers and outfit designs notes under cut in case you can’t read my handwriting. Feel free to use these designs and idea, just credit me and either @ me or msg me that way I can see whatever you make. However, please ask before reposting the above artwork.

Okey lets start with all my long convoluted explanations.

Allura: 

Power: She can sense, drain, and replenish energy. I chose this cause she restores the Balmara’s energy, and her arc has a lot to do with “healing” (recovering from the death of her people). I didn’t want to give her a straight up healing quirk though, so I decided to have her be able to both heal and steal energy.

Outfit: Her outfit is pretty basic, I tried to mash her dress and wonder woman’s outfit and added a cape. She has a little tube thing with a button on it that, when pressed, turns it into a staff. She uses this to fight when she has to, but avoids actual physical conflict as much as possible. It attaches to her belt.

Other stuff: I designed so that she just graduated (around 17-18) and is a sidekick to a hero, but is planning to go solo soon due to overwhelming public support. She also interns at Altea Academy, the school she went to and that her father runs. 

Shiro:   

Power: He was born without a power, but after capture by the evil organization GALRA he was given an artificial quirk. He is now able to manipulate metal, and usually metal bends his arm into a weapon to fight.

Outfit: He has a mask that he usually wears, and of course the metal arm. His markings on his outfit don’t mean much, they’re more of a reference to voltron’s colors and look cool. The purple sleeve covering his non-robot arm is also more for style.

Other stuff: I’ve been playing around with a bunch of ideas for him. I think he should start off as a police investigator, he wants to help people and set a good example for his adopted brother Keith. He learns something he shouldn’t when investigating GALRA, and the GALRA capture him and use him as a test subject. After a person from the Blade of Marmora (a vigilante organization) saves him, I think he either joins the vigilantes, or becomes a librarian or smth at Altea Academy to hide from GALRA.

Lance:

Power: He has xray vision (or something that gives him good vision to see what others can’t). I also thought about giving him water/ice powers but I decided against that because it was too obvious and didn’t give me something to fill my sniper Lance cravings. Basically when he uses his power he gets a light blue sheen over his eyes and his pupil turns neon blue. When using them he can see vitals of other people, things far away, or just see a person’s body parts and internal organs.  

Outfit: He has a pair of pilot goggle that belonged to his late grandfather, he wears them for style, to protect his eyes, and to help keep others from realizing where hes looking.He has two handguns and a sniper rifle, he attaches them to his belt. He also has a bunch of pouches holding ammo. He has a breastplate under his jacket to help protect him, he did it to appease his worried mom. I like to think his mom and little sister helped design the outfit, while his dad and older siblings helped him make the guns.

Other stuff: He has a huge family, but was the first to develop a power. His family was ecstatic when he said he wanted to be a hero, and are very supportive. He just barely missed the cutoff for Altea Academy’s hero course, but is still in the general studies course and in the same class as Shay. Keith and him were in the same class at Garrison middle school, but didn’t get along. After Keith got into the hero course when he didn’t, the animosity grew even if he didn’t intend to take his frustrations out on him.

Hunk:

Power: He can reinforce other objects. He is a strong boi and helps others, so I thought more of a support skill would suit him. Of course, he can fuck up some bitches when he needs to, but usually he creates shields etc. using his power.

Outfit: He also has some pouches to hold stuff. To fight, usually he reinforces his gloves and throws some heavy punches.

Other Stuff: he also tried out and didn’t make it into the hero course. He took it much better than Lance though, and is an engineer in the support course. He and Lance are neighbors and childhood friends.

Edge Lord Keith:

Powers: He can manipulate flames. He can also make them, but it drains a bunch of his energy so he usually carries a lighter, and increases the flames intensity. After a few incidents, he started focusing his flames on either his blade or sword rather than let them needlessly burn everything.

Outfit: All his clothes are frayed, and he has a bunch of flame designs to match his birthmark.He has two sheaths: 1 carrying his katana, and the other carrying his blade. Very edgy.

Other Stuff: He is the adopted bro of Shiro. he has a flame birthmark. His mom was a vigilante in the blade of marmora, and gave him her proof of membership (the blade) before she was murdered by a double agent GALRA. He and Lance went to Garrison middle school together, they got into a bunch of stupid arguments, and Keith had a bit of an attitude, so they didn’t get along. Keith sorta regrets it and wants to apologize but he also thinks that would be p awkward so he’s conflicted. Shiro getting captured made him want to be a hero.

Pidge:

Power: She can combine items to make new stuff. Thats p much all there is too it. I chose it based off her episodes on the forest planet where she made stuff with that headband thing. 

Outfit. That screen goggle thing can show her possible item combinations and their results. Her breast plate has a battery powering that, the knobs don’t do anything yet, but shes planning on adding a speaker system to her outfit to rickroll her enemies. I didn’t draw her a weapon, but she can pretty much make a weapon whenever she needs one. Eventually she probably will get one similar to her weapon in the show.  

Other Stuff: She was always plannig on joing Altea Academy’s support class but decided to do the hero course test too cause why not. She did better than she thought, but didn’t get in. IDK whats going on with Matt, I think he was either captured along with Shiro, never left, or smth else.

Random Stuff:

Altea Academy is basically UA academy from BNHA

Lance, Pidge, and Hunk are all moved to hero course after shenanigans

Alfor is principal of Altea Academy

IDK how lions play in to this, I think it could be something like Lance, Keith, Pidge, and Hunk being designated “call when people attack” squad (aka Voltron).

Keith, Hunk, and Lance are 15-17, Pidge is a year or two younger than them (she was moved up a few grades). Shiro is around 5 years old than Keith, at least 18 to be police investigator.

All BOM members are vigilantes, most used to be GALRA

A vigilante killed Allura’s mom, she doesn’t trust them. 

GALRA are after something at Altea academy, a secret, Alfor’s head, a student’s quirk, idk theres a bunch of stuff there to want.

I tried to make Shiro’s mask look like a lions face but without details and stuff. Just imagine its a lion mask.

If you can’t tell, Keith is biracial (half asian, half white) and Shiro is Japanese. I suck at skin tones.

I think I might make this a fanfiction, but please feel free to use any of this stuff. Again, credit me. And please please please message me if you write or draw anything for this AU, I would seriously cry of joy if anyone drew something for this small little AU.

I’ll update this post if/when I write a fanfiction for this AU.

[robotnik-mun]

can you elaborate on endgame? when did you realize it was quite bad and how so?

Firstly, my apologies that this took so long, as I had to gather up my thoughts and type them all down. 

Now to answer your question, it was during the lawsuit and after I had taken a look at Penders’ twitter and his forums and gotten a good look at what the man himself was really like. While it might sound like that I’m simply being a contrarian out of spite due to that fact, but the truth of it is that upon having my eyes opened, I was able to observe his work with a more objective eye than before, and separated from my personal feelings towards the man, it became clear that a lot of his work was objectively quite terrible. As such, re-reading Endgame with a more critical eye and a better understanding of storytelling, everything began to fall apart?

The reasons for that? Let me count them, though I am sure there are things that slipped my mind.

1) To begin with, the basic premise of the plot, namely Sonic being framed for a crime he didn’t commit? Had been done so many times by that point in the comic that none of the good guys really had much of a reason to believe it to be true. First there was the incident with Pseudo-Sonic, then the times with Evil Sonic and the Anti Freedom Fighters, and then there was the time Sonic got amnesia and was tricked by Robotnik into attacking his friends, and of course not even ten isues ago the whole “Mecha Madness” thing had happened with Sonic being accused of a crime he didn’t commit.

After all the times this has happened, nobody would have a good reason to be so convinced that it was actually Sonic who did the deed. It literally requires everyone involved to forget all the times that something like this has happened and just blithely accept that Sonic has murdered Sally for no discernable reasons. It’s particularly jarring in the case of Antoine, who had previously gotted ahead of himself with accusing Sonic of having deliberately gone to Robotnik in the aftermath of Mecha Madness, only to be proven *thoroughly* wrong. But no, Sonic’s friends and team mates just immediately believe it, despite having gone through all this several times already.

Compounding the matter is that they were aware Robotnik could build Robotniks that perfectly mimic the appearance and mannerisms of people- Tails encountered Fiona, St. John witnessed the Sally duplicate, and Sally herself surely would have told everyone about what had happened during that time, to say nothing of the Substitute Freedom Fighters who had similarly witnessed the same. It’s an incredibly glaring ommission that none of this was brought up by any of Sonic’s friends, with only Chuck acting as his advocate- and even then neglecting to mention any of the prior incidents at all.

In short? The basic plot is kicked off not because of how convincingly the premise is displayed, but because that premise is willed to work and the plot to move on by it due to the fact that the writer wills it.

2) Speaking of the frame job itself, the circumstances around it make less and less sense the more you think about. Drago managed to convince Hershey to put on a Sonic suit and sent her out into Robotropolis to do... something, and thanks to the costume having special lenses that made other people look like Snively, she thought she was killing Snively rather than Sally. This begs the question though of what it was Drago exactly said she would be doing in Robotropolis, and how the hell he managed to get her into the suit. That outfit was so perfect that it fooled everyone into thinking it was Sonic, so try and picture how it might look when not being worn by somebody. This meant that Drago presented Hershey with what essentially looked like a perfect replica of Sonic’s *skin*, and at no point did she see fit to ask questions about where he got it or why she had to wear it.

Similarly, while the deception of the ‘Snively Lens’ would explain how she could wind up killing Sally under a false pretense, it was never established if there was a similar thing going on with the ears- she might have *seen* Snively, but would also be in a position to hear Sally. And thats without getting into how she could have gotten into the position that she did without spotting anybody else in the Freedom Fighter group, despite it being a joint effort between the Knothole Freedom Fighters and the Wolf Pack and as such a lot more people being in Robotropolis than normal. It stresses the suspension of disbelief that she just happened to spot absolutely no one else in that entire time when she was in Robotropolis in the costume.

And getting past all that, it’s just plain *convoluted*. An easier and more believable explanation would have been that Robotnik just used a robot made to look like Sonic (particularly since he earlier managed to replace King Max with precisely that) or used Metal Sonic with a hologram or something like that. But paying off a traitorous Freedom Fighter to get his girlfriend to put on a costume with special lenses to trick her into killing off Sally Acorn? Say it out loud and tell me how that sounds.

3) Also, far too many bits and pieces of the story’s outcome hinge on coincidence and fortuitous happenstance. I firstly mentioned how somehow, nobody at all thought about all the other times Sonic had been framed, but that isn’t the only time when things happen because the writer wills it to happen, and in a lot of cases it is done to the heroes benefit. Firstly you have Sonic being sentenced to be imprisoned at Devil’s Gulag. On the way over though, Robotnik sends his forces to shoot down the aircraft carrying Sonic, which results in him surviving the crash and escaping. Ignoring the question of how the Freedom Fighters are even able to have and maintain a prison, Robotnik’s action makes little sense- Devil’s Gulag is far away and isolated in the middle of the ocean, it’d be a perfect place to keep Sonic away, and if he really HAD to kill Sonic, it’d make more sense to bomb the place when he was secure. Instead though, Robotnik’s actions only give Sonic a means of an escape, because of COURSE he would survive a crash that killed everyone else.

Then of course, Bunnie and Antoine are captured and rather than being taken to Robotropolis to be Roboticized, where we learn that Croc-Bot is a traitor who has planted an explosive upon one of his Combot guards and intends to use it to assassinate Robotnik. So naturally, Bunnie and Antoine are able to escape, make off with the explosive and later use it to destroy the Ultimate Annihilator. By tremendous coincidence their dire situation turns out to actually ultimately be for the best as they are gift wrapped important information and a means to deal with the problem.

Similarly there is the scene where Knuckles and Sonic start fighting due to Knuckles being informed of Sonic’s crime and, in his grief, not believing him and attacking him, only for Dulcy to declare that Sonic is telling the truth, and since dragons ‘cannot lie’, everyone just immediately accepts what she says. These details have never, ever come up before and are never references again- it is literally conjured into being for the sake of the story and in the name of making everyone magically trust Sonic despite being previously hellbent on capturing him. And you know, if that was the case, then why didn’t Dulcy say anything back in Knothole? Oh wait, that’s the logic talking, silly me.

Similarly, Snively’s sabotage is oddly limited- he sabotages the Ultimate Annihilator to kill Robotnik, true, but he himself hates the Freedom Fighters and would want them dead as much as he would want Robotnik dead. Why would he reprogram the thing to target only Robotnik and not take the chance to eliminate ALL of his enemies by simply leaving it unchanged save for including Robotnik and excluding himself? It’s a blatantly stupid move by the guy, one that is only made because the story demands that Knothole and everyone in it survives, along with Sonic.

4) Key plot details are badly, badly foreshadowed and explained, if at all. To begin with, Drago is only introduced a mere issues earlier, and his betrayal lacks impact because everything about him screams ‘Bad Guy!’ to begin with, and similarly, Hershey is only introduced in this arc, and as such we can not really be convinced of the significance of what is happening because we have little prior investment to help us actually feel the betrayal. Also, it is never made clear how Robotnik was able to capture Dr. Quack’s family without anybody noticing- again, this is this is the first time we ever see or have mention of them, but that aside, they live in Knothole, as does the doctor. It’s hard to believe that nobody would notice would notice that they were absent, especially given that its implied to have happened over the course of several days before Endgame commences. Then there is the matter of Snively- everything he has done is revealed AFTER everything has happened, and even in the ‘Director’s Cut’ there is only a single page to build up Snively’s actions.

Almost all the details pertaining to why Endgame happened and how it was resolved are explained via exposition near the very end of the series. It’s bad storytelling and incredibly lazy to boot.

5) Glaringly, this story takes a lot of beats from the Harrison Ford movie ‘The Fugitive’, enough that it becomes distracting. Sonic is falsely accused of a crime he didn’t commit, he’s being transported to a prison in a vehicle until that vehicle is waylaid and he manages to escape with his life intact, he’s forced to go on the run while being pursued by somebody who refuses to believe that he is innocent (with even less of a reason than in that film, ironically), and there is even a scene where Sonic evades capture by diving down a *waterfall*. I mean come on- there’s referencing, and then there’s just stealing shit.

6) On a more personal note, knowing Penders motivations for this story and his attempt to permanently kill off Sally even after SEGA told him no has severely soured my ability to appreciate even what it was trying to do, particularly since Sally’s death was done purely for the sake of motivating Sonic to ‘cut loose’... it’s a really textbook example of ‘Stuffing Women In Fridges’, even though that term gets overused a lot of the time, but it’s true- by his original statements, a major female character and love interest had to die purely so that it would motivate the hero and, as such, doesn’t get to play a real role in what was built up as the series finale. The fact that Penders has given several OTHER excuses for why she had to die only makes it all the more worse.

7) And finally.... everything that the heroes do in this story ultimately doesn’t really do anything to influence the results of how it turned out. Snively’s behind the scenes scheming ensured that Knothole was never, ever in any real danger to begin with, and Crocbot was already on the way to killing Robotnik. If Sonic had just stayed put in Devil’s Gulag, or if Bunnie and Antoine had never managed to escape when they did? The outcome would still be the same- Knothole would get zapped, but it wouldn’t actually be destroyed, and Crocbot’s explosive would have gone off anyway and Robotnik would STILL be dead, and Sally would still be alive in suspension. Every major event of the book is out of the heroes hands and, ultimately, the heroes just weren’t really needed. All that happenstance and coincidence has meant that the people we’re supposed to care about, are the least relevant factor in any of it.

In short? This story, which was meant to be the one where Sonic is pushed to his brink, is ultimately resolved not because of anything he did, but because of things that OTHER people did, and things ultimately still would have resolved themselves if Sonic had just sit down and done nothing at all. The Big Finale for the book, and Sonic has the least impact on anything. It’s pathetic.

So yeah, what else can I really say? The story is a mess. The plot points are contrived and forced, the characters act stupid in order to let things happen, the heroes are able to succeed more by coincidence and storytelling convenience than anything genuine, the writing is just plain bad and heavily derivative of an outside source, and in the end, none of it really mattered because nothing the heroes did really mattered when everything is looked at from a distance. There are a few moments that are genuinely cool, and the fight scene between Sonic and Robotnik is still my favorite fight, bar none. But that isn’t enough to salvage it. That isn’t enough to forgive all the horrible, glaring problems with the story, pacing and execution of this thing.

Hope that explains it.

[survivor-all-stars-blog]

EP 16: "Bitterness Breeds Bitterness" - Pat

JAKE’S EXIT INTERVIEW

Well, that was definitely some kind of something, huh?

The bitter 'I got outplayed so I'l just gonna spill everything’ speech is a hallowed tradition of Tumblr Survivor that’s been around for as long as I can remember. It’s gotten to the point where you almost NEED to gameplan for it. Personally, I’m thoroughly /*shocked*/ that it came from Jakey, who has already taken the personal attack route with me and others, and who enjoyed Naonka enough as a character to use her as an icon.

Anyway, I’m not upset by it half as much as some are. I think I’m pretty well-documented as being someone who never puts any stock in those speeches because, in my eyes, they’re not part of the game. And they can be so easily manipulated to serve others’ purposes. So I’d be a pretty big hypocrite to lend this one much stock, either. But I feel like there are a few things I do have to straighten out from that speech, in no specific order.

1. Wes isn’t “wiping my ass.” He’s the one who’s been taking me to account, probably more than anybody else in the game. Wes and I both have the same end goal, but our means of going about it are very different. I daresay I’d have an easier time of it without him acting as the voice of reason and dissent. Just because I was willing to take a risk to keep him safe doesn’t mean he’s a lackey. Far from it. Sorry you didn’t have any allies who cared enough to stick their necks out for you this round, Jake.

2. Kait isn’t “letting her game be run by a man.” Congratulations, you deduced that Kait and I have a strong partnership. But that’s the key word that you seem to be missing: PARTNER. Kait and I have discussed every decision we’ve made together. As a unit. I’m not telling her what to do, she’s not telling me what to do. If anything, this vote was exceptionally difficult because for the first time so far this game, our interests didn’t align. I think it says a lot about a strong partnership when both parties are willing to take risks to help each other out. Sorry your only strong ally wasn’t able to prevent voting you out this round, but that’s so far from anyone else’s problem but yours that it’s laughable. If your social game were stronger, you wouldn’t have had this issue.

3. Yes, I’ll fully admit to putting my game between Kait and Lydia. You got that part right, and that won’t be an easy decision when they do definitively split. But until they do… it’s gotten me farther than your strategy of putting your game between a rock and a hard place.

4. If I were running things, or if everyone were doing what I said, you’d have been out of this game four rounds ago. Slow your fucking roll.

And that’s the last bit of electronic ink I’ll be spilling on that.

Next order of business: reassure Jimmy and Jenn. I know the latter isn’t too pleased with me, and I need to rectify that whether she decides to come for me or not. I think I underestimated how emotionally some people are choosing to play this game and, for my money, no winner title is worth causing permanent damage to any friendship. I think it’s pretty telling that the game in which I got furthest is also a game with one of the tightest casts in the community. Moves were made because they were necessary, but not with malice or anger. Whereas you look at a season like, say, Sri Lanka… I don’t think they’re all that close, and that’s WITH the advantage of having tight duos prior to the game. Why aren’t they tight? The game got too needlessly contentious.

Anyway, I digress. My point is that bitterness breeds bitterness. I’m not about that life, and I hope I’m sitting in the final three so I can treat Jakey with kindness in a way that I don’t recall him treating anyone.

honestly thank god for the “day off” because i feel like just about all of us were at our wits end last night and especially with the ugly shit jake said when he left, i could definitely use a day to just relax a bit and search for this jewel thing when i have time.

i didn’t make a confessional leading up to that vote last night because i was too busy like focusing on the task at hand, which ended up getting away from me anyways because people just can’t keep their shit together.

Plan A was to vote MJ under the guise that we were all voting Jake end of story done. i don’t think it necessarily would’ve gone off without a hitch but i think we had the opportunity to do it and it got squandered because mj was telling jake he was gonna use his vote reveal on jenn, then telling lydia he was gonna use it on me. meanwhile i’m sitting here like why in the world is he telling all of this shit to lydia???? she really trying to replicate her animal crossing game and sit her ass in the middle of everyone again and lemme tell you i’m not about to let that happen again. i want to be in that position and i want people to be too afraid to do anything about it etc.

some highlights from yesterday - lying to mj’s face on call then turning around the entire conversation and watchign alyssa edwards videos on youtube, telling jake on call that i want to save him and don’t want him to leave (all true), but my hands are tied esp knowing that there was a plot to get me out last round started by mj (which was then confirmed by not only him, but jack later on after lydia and pat both told me), jack calling me immediately after and me accidentally telling him that wes is after the maslaysia fam so then jack IMMEDIATELY jumps into making this big ass convoluted plan to vote wes out this round which completely messes up ALL OF THE PLANS THAT WE HAD MADE, then he calls the COMPLETE maslaysia chat and then we’re sitting there talking in the jimmy’s angels chat like ………….what are we supposed to say there’s no way we’re voting wes. anyway i told pat about this and literally told him not to leak, which then of course he leaks immediately to wes and lydia so thats cool i love a good trusting partnership. we got it shut down p quickly and just told jack we wanted to still vote jake. sdgklsd idk I DONT KNOW

this happened later last night

[2/9/2017 8:00:02 PM] mj ultra . _/: Also, on a more serious note: I’m gonna be watching IASIP for the rest of the night and just kinda of, take a step back and reset my mind.

I know we weren’t in the same page, at all, this round. Mostly my fault. Hopefully you give me the chance to talk things through tomorrow.

Thanks for not voting me out [2/9/2017 8:00:29 PM] kait ~~/: yeah i was gonna say i think we both need t just like [2/9/2017 8:00:33 PM] kait ~~/: sit back and talk things out tomorrow [2/9/2017 8:00:38 PM] kait ~~/: thanks for not voting me out either [2/9/2017 8:00:50 PM] mj ultra . _/: LSHSKDJDJ [2/9/2017 8:00:54 PM] mj ultra . _/: Why are we like this… [2/9/2017 8:00:56 PM] mj ultra . _/: LDJSKDHSJDHDJD [2/9/2017 8:01:01 PM] kait ~~/: ;) [2/9/2017 8:01:12 PM] mj ultra . _/: “Thanks for not voting me out!” “Thanks for not voting me out… either!” [2/9/2017 8:01:25 PM] mj ultra . _/: There will never be another MJ/Kait… know that.

tfw you both know damn well the other was trying to get each other out last round and both failed miserably so you still gotta pretend to be best friends!! jk he still my buddy regardless of waht happesnjkgd but still

Drunk Lydia is my favorite Lydia

I think this format of Touchy Subjects in this game is a shame. Because of the way answers have to be given, there’s a very real chance that we won’t be getting what people are really thinking. And strategy is nice, but when you can’t answer two names it’s going to be a crapshoot full of throwaway names winning rounds and someone fluking into a win.

That said, here’s what I REALLY think:

Which player has absolutely no idea what’s going on? Jimmy. Possibly by choice? He seems like the type who thrives on social game far more than strategic.

Who is always left out of plans until the last minute? Would’ve said Steffen until this round… and actually, still will. Would’ve said Jimmy took the crown this round but he wasn’t even filled in. Which was not great.

Who here is hands down the biggest threat to win? Oh god. This is anyone’s game. I think people are saying me, but are you really such a big threat if everyone knows it and everyone will be gunning to take you down?

Out of everyone left, who least fits the category of “all star”? Based on past placements, me by a country mile. Still amazed that I was cast, even as an alternate, let alone that I got so far.

Who is the rudest person in the game? Each person will have a different answer to this. Personally, I’ve seen such limited amounts of rudeness from anyone left. Just a lot of tension and frustration boiling over. MJ by default, I guess, for being the only person left in the game who was involved in that ugly Logan vote.

Which player did not live up to your expectations? Jenn, unfortunately. Love her to death but our strategic talk has been so limited.

Which player do the hosts like the least? After the bitching I’ve done about this challenge and my obnoxiously long confessionals, I’d say me.

Which player does the Viewing Lounge likes the most? The VL always loves an underdog. But who’s the underdog? Steffen? Any of Malaysia? I’m inclined to say MJ because he seems almost like a lone wolf at this point.

Even though we’re only at Final 9, who here has zero chance of winning the game? Nobody. We’re all here, we all have paths to the end and to win. Some paths are more fraught with complications than others.

Who is the most manipulative? Either me or Kait. I bet Lydia gets a few votes here, too.

Who does not deserve to be here? Nobody. If you’re able to make final 9 of an all-star game, you absolutely deserve to be here.

If you could not win the game, who would you most like to see win? Kait, Lydia, Wes. Any of those three and I’d be over the moon. A Steffen win would make me happy too.

Who do you sometimes confuse with a piece of cardboard because they are so bland and boring? Heh. Me. I’m already frequently called a saltine, so just take off the salt and I fit this.

Who will never wake up and play the game? Jimmy… because he’s asleep when a lot of things are going on. :P Nah. I think he’s playing the best way he knows how, but he’s either not about the strategy game or doesn’t know how to segue into it.

Who is most likely to have an idol? I’m thinking MJ, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Wes had something.

Who is your best friend in the game? Kait. Sorry, Lydia and Wes, she beat you out by a hair. Y'all are still some of my favourite people.

Who will never win an immunity challenge? JACK. No, probably me. With this track record of no flash games (i.e., my one strong suit) I’m typically competitive but not the best.

Out of everyone left, who is the biggest fan of Benjamin “Coach” Wade? Um duh. Coach for life. Only person in the entire community who could fight me on this is Ari.

Which player is the most likely to have recently watched a Scooby Doo marathon? Steffen or Lydia, I think. No particular reason beyond personality.

Which player is too honest for their own good? Me. It’s what caused this whole mess this round. I couldn’t lie to anyone. The leaking put everyone I’m close to in a state of panic, and I still regret it.

I love you Lydia!!!!!!!!

I just enjoy this.

[2017-01-31 11:07:41 PM] Owen (Myanmar Host): gg jenn/jimmy/kait! [2017-02-07 10:14:03 PM] carson (tibet host): kait, jenn, jimmy? [2017-02-07 10:14:04 PM] carson (tibet host): good job [2017-02-09 10:43:02 PM] jakey: FUCK THE MALAY-CULT!!!!!!111 gg jenn jimmy kait

[ x ]

[09:50:43 PM] kait ~~/: I've been sitting here freaking because Lydia is so calm [09:51:14 PM] mj ultra . _/: isn't acceptance the last stage of grief