#this concludes my character death boards!!

[aftonkidkin]

"Kids vanish at local pizzeria- bodies not found." (The Missing Children's Incident/MCI !FNAF! Stimboard, Self-indulgent?)

(X) (X) (X)

(X) (X) (X)

(X) (X) (X)

[vespertin-y]

OKAY I FINALLY WATCHED GRAVITY FALLS. TEN YEARS LATE I KNOW. i was expecting to have to power through a bunch of boring kid stuff to get to the actual interesting drama and i was so so wrong i locked tf in and finished it in two days. it's so good what the actual fuck. heres my thoughts on the main characters

mabel: when i was the actual target audience for this show i saw a bit of mabel while flipping through disney XD and i immediately concluded that she was annoying af and i would never watch this show because of her. i would like to repent for this evil evil take by flinging myself belly down onto shattered glass. MABEL MY BABY GIRL...if they ever put her in another Situation or Scenario ill kill someone fr. she's a little too selfish and a little too pushy sure but so genuinely KIND and SWEET and so willing to make a fool of herself to pull her dumb brother out of his head. that unicorn doesn't know jack i hope she gets everything she wants forever

dipper: if i had watched gf as a kid i would have been in very real danger of naming myself after this guy (which doesn't even work bc im not nearly as cool as him!! the woodland creatures would have eaten my ass). it would've been so easy to give him a generic gaining confidence arc but he is never a coward when it really matters and i think that's great. he may not be able to talk to a girl but he can and will beat a gnome to death with a shovel for touching his sister!!! also yeah he is extremely transgender.

stan: OUUUUUGH. STARTS SOBBING. stanley pines the man that you are. i assumed at first that his plot would be about Learning To Love but no he is 100% on board with being the world's best grunkle from minute one. he definitely fucks up sometimes (putting waddles outside comes to mind as does. The Other Thing) but he always tries his very best to fix it. every action he takes just oozes with care for his family. every time i thought he had a motivation that wasn't his family they pulled the rug out from under me and revealed that it was, in fact, just his family again. he would give everything for them. AND HE LITERALLY DOES??? im gonna vomit. he hand stitched fishing hats 😭😭😭

wendy: definitely my least favorite of the main cast im sorry wendyheads...i just feel like there isn't a lot to get into here. every time they imply there's something more going on with her or her family they just snap her right back into The Coolest Girl In The World which might be fun but it's not that interesting.

soos: SOOS MY FRIEND SOOS!!!! i wobbled on him during the middle of the show bc i felt like they were making him Genuinely Dumb instead of just a good babysitter but they pulled his characterization back around by the end i think. he is like me in that he would also die for the mystery twins without hesitation or regret 💖. a lesser show would've been really mean about soos but gf is BASED and SOOSPILLED so he gets what he deserves. he does not have to lose weight or drop his "childish" interests or stop living with his grandma to WIN AT LIFE. awesome girlfriend! dream job! big house! stan using that boat to hunt down his bio dad and kill him, probably!

ford: ill be honest and admit i hated this guy at first but eventually i learned to live laugh love about his massive incredibly fragile ego ruining everything all the time and now i am a big ford enjoyer. what a FREAK oh my god. he believed his journals to be capable of destroying the world and still refused to destroy them because they're His Life's Work????? he had the painfully obvious option to tell bill he didn't know the equation and stall for time and chose instead to say that OBVIOUSLY he knows it he's the SMARTEST MAN ALIVE he's just not TELLING YOU 😤 and then immediately got tortured????? he spent most of his screentime projecting his relationship issues onto an Actual Child?????????? he needs to go to therapy and learn he's not the main character of the universe but he will not be doing that so i can only hope the boat fixes him. if i was stanley i'd've fed him to the shapeshifter.

bill: SIGH. YES OKAY HE'S MY FAVORITE. I KNOW I'M FUCKING PREDICTABLE DON'T @ ME. i spent 90% of his screentime cracking up and the other 10% making Homosexual Detection Eyebrows at my brother! the ideal ratio!!!!! i can't wait to get my hands on the book so i can poor little meowmeow him more efficiently. i knew i was saving that barnes & noble gift card for something important.

[allwormdiet]

Arc 2: Insinuation, Concluding Thoughts

God, was this arc just one day? You're telling me it's only been like 72 hours since the start of the story and where we're at now? It feels like so much more somehow, so I guess let's get digging

Let's do the broad strokes and then go chronological through the chapter details, I don't have any kind of structure or template for this stuff but that's as good a way as any right here

I know there's so much fucking ground left to cover, but at this point I think I'm confident enough to say that I like Worm. I don't know if I'd recommend it to a friend, exactly, because I think it's rude to trick someone into reading more than a million words and also because the list of content warnings I'd have to provide up front would run longer than my forearm (I knew what I was in for going in but I also made this choice mostly independently), but I feel like there's a difference between liking a work and recommending that work to others. I think Midsommar is one of the best horror movies I've ever seen, but it also removed all the oxygen from the living room where I watched it via sheer oppressive malice so I don't really tell people "oh you should watch Midsommar," y'know what I mean?

(I don't actually know if Worm is at any point going to fill me with the same kind of yawning dread that Midsommar inflicted, so this might not be an even parallel to draw, but I'm not going to completely dismiss the possibility)

More on topic though. No fight scenes this time, but that left more room for delicious and filling character interactions. I'm so on board with the Undersiders so quickly, I love them all, the things they're going to be made to suffer are going to agonize me for years to come I think.

It also left more room for Taylor's day at Winslow High, and... okay we'll get there. Let's do this chronologically.

The Hebert family feels like it's a broken heart in the shape of a house. I wish that they could reconcile with each other, but I don't know if they manage that, or if they even can manage it. I think Annette's death tore a wound between them that never fully healed, or maybe it was on the mend before Taylor started getting bullied and now that process has just stalled out

...Speaking of which

Winslow High is a fucking pit. Like Jesus fucking Christ that was so agonizing to read. Everyone at this school feels either useless or brimming with malice, and for the life of me I cannot puzzle out why. I mean, okay, I get the mechanisms at least, the main three girls are popular and Sophia is a Ward and with that together they can bend the students and faculty around like putty, people are often willing to go along with a heinous status quo if rocking the boat puts a target on their back, yadda yadda. But just. What the hell is going on with the main three girls? You could maybe read Sophia as some kind of sadist, but that doesn't explain why she's taking to this with such gusto, and I don't know if this kind of behavior wouldn't be caught out by the Protectorate if she's acting like this around other Wards. Madison I don't even know, so far I don't actually know if there's any meaningful depth there beyond acting as a complementary force to the other two.

Emma, though. Fucking Emma. I was just talking in an aside about how I distrust any argument that paints a mostly realistic teenager as some kind of soulless monster or evil mastermind, and I'm trying really hard to cleave to that, but I just don't get what drives Emma to behave like this, how she justifies it in her own head. She's torturing her best friend, she triggered her power's awakening for God's sake, and I just don't know what can happen in a week or month that could ever make this explicable or justifiable. Maybe I'll learn something that makes it all make sense but for now it's just some kind of incomprehensible monument of cruelty

That last twist of the knife with the line about crying to sleep at night is also just. God. Like, fucking credit to Wildbow, I feel some amount of stress writing about this all like the day after reading it, that was a really really well written sequence, I just also hated every word of it.

Let's change to a happier topic

Love the Undersiders, they're all great. I love that Brian works so hard to meet on a level playing field, to be open about expectations and show vulnerability to make Taylor feel more welcome, and I like how he seems to take pride in being The Normal & Responsible One even though I somehow doubt that's the case. I love Lisa being so friendly and so quick to assure Taylor about what's going on and what it all means for her, and I literally can't stop thinking about what she must be reading off of Taylor with her powers. Alec is a snarky little snot and I love that about him, I really want to see him open up further. And then Rachel... oh Rachel. You might end up being my favorite once we manage to move past the whole "siccing dogs on the new teammate" thing.

And now Taylor's a part of the crew, and she's immediately second-guessing this decision because she's realizing that it had deeper repercussions than she'd initially thought! Like she already felt betrayed by all of them over a slight from Rachel, even though her entire goal of joining them is as a means to take them down from the inside and hand them over to the Protectorate, and that irony is absolutely not lost on her! She's terrified of being found out as a rat but still lets herself be vulnerable around these people in a way she hasn't even allowed her dad to see, and before the Undersiders he was basically the only person she still trusted for anything.

This is like, either the best or worst decision of Taylor's life, I dunno which. I'd like to think best. I'd really like it to be best.

And I think I already said this but I could gorge myself on just reading about the Undersiders fighting and growing and bonding together for the entire length of this story, and I want it so bad, and I'm not getting it until I dig up the appropriate fanfiction to that end so I'm just gonna have to cope with that

Basically fell in love with Victoria the moment I met her, I wish her the best and hope she learns to cut down on the accidental spine-breaking (if she breaks a spine on purpose they probably deserved it)

Amy... at this point I mostly just feel bad for Amy. She's gonna do bad things and a lot of it's gonna be her own damn fault but somehow I doubt she was born a monster.

New Wave in general I get weird vibes from. Like the Protectorate are cops, yeah, and cops suck no matter the uniform, but New Wave does it with nobody watching over their shoulders to check their work except for each other, and we see in their first on-page appearance how that's kinda fucked up!

...Like the guy was a Nazi so fuck him, but I don't have full faith it'll be a Nazi every time, y'know? God knows there's every chance Glory Girl or Brandish or whoever else decides to play this kind of hardball with someone a lot less guilty and a lot more sympathetic

And then speaking of the repercussions of Taylor's actions, again I'm looking at the threat of destabilization and gang warfare facing the Docks and wondering how much of the story's escalating danger is going to be a natural response to her deeds. Somehow I don't think Leviathan's attack is going to be Taylor's fault, or that she called up the Slaughterhouse 9, but she keeps making calls that are good but have unintended and dangerous consequences.

Call me crazy but I don't think I'm gonna like what those consequences look like when she acts to save the world. I'd rather she be happy than the world's greatest hero, but she wasn't even happy before she became a cape, so. Maybe she gets a legacy in the doing.

If that falls through I guess I'll just go read more fanfic.

[allieshouts]

SCOTT THE WOZ necessary lore videos

dedicated to my friend @coolboy12345. exclamation marks denote videos of absolute critical lore importance. if a video has no blurb / explanation, assume it is important. it is recommended you watch all of these videos.

I'm sorry for throwing a todolist-shaped rock at your head, coolboy. I really am.

THE INTERNET AND YOU -- not canon, but it's Scott's first true masterpiece and it features a lot of his friends who you will see later

FIRST TIME VAPE SHOP -- Scott introduces Joe, Dom and [Sam]. contains the first instance of the phrase "Hey all, Scott here!"

NINTENDO SWITCH WISH LIST -- the first traditional video in the "Scott the Woz" format

NINTENDO SWITCH PRESENTATION 2017 -- pepto bismol

HISTORY OF SMASH BROS LEAKS -- Critique That Leak & Dick Vitale

TINDER -- really funny

A LOOK BACK AT THE NINTENDO 3DS -- This game blows!

BREATH OF THE WILD ISN'T PERFECT -- Scott ruins his credibility

POLYBIUS -- a pivotal moment in Scott's production value

! A VERY MADDEN 08 CHRISTMAS -- introduces a majority of the main cast

THE GUY GAME -- I just think coolboy will like this one

THE WIIWARE CHRONICLES I , THE WIIWARE CHRONICLES II , THE WIIWARE CHRONICLES III , THE WIIWARE CHRONICLES IV , THE WIIWARE CHRONICLES V -- optional

GAME COMPILATIONS COMPILATION -- send-off to Old Location McGee

SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2 -- introduction to New Location McGee

! GAME STORES -- introduction of Chet Shaft

AS SEEN ON TV -- funny

! IT'S AWESOME BABY!

! HOMECOMING -- introduces new main character

SHOVELWARE VARIETY HOUR ROUND 2 -- provides a good introduction to Data Design Interactive. also, as a side note for coolboy, this is the episode that got me to buy Truth or Lies

! THE GREAT MYSTERIES OF GAMING -- major character deaths, both temporary and permanent

! IT'S A BARGAIN BIN CHRISTMAS -- continuation of murder arc

ANIME GAMES -- battle between Scott and Dr. Anna May

WE DARE -- establishes link between DKBB and anti-virginity

! THE DARK AGE OF NINTENDO -- introduces new main character

! THE DARKER AGE OF NINTENDO -- introduces new main character

! THE DARKEST AGE OF NINTENDO -- introduces new main character; conclusion of "This game blows!"

GAME SHOW GAMES -- my personal all-time favorite episode

! THE TRIAL -- "concludes" murder arc

MARIO PARTY -- very funny romp with Scott, Jeb Jab, and Rex Mohs

! MEMORY CARDS -- major character death

! SPEED DATING -- introduces new main character

! YOU'RE NOT AN RPG GUY -- whole gang get-together

! BORDERLINE FOREVER -- critical to lore

RIDE TO HELL RETRIBUTION -- Scott plays a terrible biker game

! MOBILE GAMES ON CONSOLE -- beginning of robbery arc

GAME BATHS -- funny

! GAMING REVIVALS -- resurrects a few characters, sets up some stuff to be revealed later

TOYS TO LIFE -- very funny romp with Scott, Jeb Jab, and Rex Mohs

MARIO PARTY 2 -- very funny romp with Scott, Jeb Jab, and Rex Mohs

! THE FUNERAL -- sees off a main character

! THE GIFTS OF GAMING -- whole gang get-together with some lore additions

DONKEY KONG BARREL BLAST -- Scott finally faces his virginity

IT CAME FROM THE NINTENDO ESHOP -- introduces Prison Employee

BOARD GAME VIDEO GAMES -- very funny romp with Scott, Jeb Jab, and Rex Mohs

THE COMMERCIAL FAILURE -- ends with a stellar musical number

MERRY CHRISTMAS, DATA DESIGN -- whole gang get-together

CANDY GAMES -- whole gang get-together with temporary character death

! HAVE A BOOTLEG GAMING CHRISTMAS

[anti-dazai-blog]

my actual opinions on today’s episode (under the cut because spoilers)

As I said in my last post, I actually really liked Fukuchi’s development in this episode, and I think this was a really satisfying way to conclude his story.

everything else though? Tbh I’m not the biggest fan. I’m gonna hope that all of the things that are out of character for BSD as a story to do are anime only, and the manga will have a better resolution to this arc.

Fyodor dies without any ability reveal— what does that mean for the series? If Asagiri’s on board with this, does this mean that his ability will be revealed and explained after his death, or is this a way to get out of revealing and explaining his ability at all?

Fyodor alludes to a different opponent he fought who was nearly a match for him. Is this a way to shoehorn in another person for Dazai to have his quasi-super genius quarrels with? Is this a way of saying “Fyodor may be gone, but Dazai still has someone out there he can play the numbers guessing game with”?

The episode pulled one of those “Dazai knew everything all along” moves, which really makes the entire Meursault subplot meaningless. There was no conflict. There was no back and forth strategizing. Dazai knew everything from the start and everything went exactly according to his plan. Dazai’s injuries also don’t matter, since he’s up and about immediately after sustaining them.

What was the point of Dazai choosing Sigma. Was there a point? He left him behind at the end. Sigma didn’t do much of anything to help him or harm Fyodor (nothing that affects the plot at least).

Dazai being all-knowing also adds to his accountability in everything. Which I mention fairly often, but I hate that this final episode is proving me right. There’s this issue now of at what point did he contact Chuuya and arrange this plan. If it would be too far in advance, you’d have the question of how and why he’d know about vampires and that Fyodor and the decay of angels is planning on using them. You have the question of why he wouldn’t warn Ango, the one person he’s contacting who’s conveniently in the Actual Japanese Government, about a potential World War 3.

If Chuuya wasn’t a vampire this whole time, that means he brutalized all of the Meursault guards on purpose. It also doesn’t explain the panel where he’s struggling and breathing heavily, dragging two dismembered corpses of guards. What does that panel mean in the context of Chuuya be conscious? The struggling could be an act, but what was Chuuya’s conscious reason for picking up two corpses he brutalized and dragging them around with him?

And that epilogue. It looks like a cliche shonen boss fight. There better be a solid explanation to why we’re reverting to beam attacks after having such a long series presenting us with some of the most unique abilities found in anime/manga.

[lemonhemlock]

https://twitter.com/itadorimaid/status/1618940932812083200?t=fbHXYyIphhYCxL5CDQ_1Og&s=19

Greetings , any thoughts on this? I do think there are some contradictions in Daemon's actions so you could argue either side.

Another old ask and I'm gonna try and answer this as indulgently as possible for the sake of old man GRRM who really wants us to like Daemon. So there's a lot of (insufferable) narrative bias with which GRRM surrounds Daemon, while insisting that he is equal parts light and dark and whatever. IMO that may be true for the Daemon that lives inside GRRM's head, but when it comes to what he actually wrote on the page, things get a lot murkier.

Nevertheless, I do not think there was authorial intent into making Daemon an absolute monster, a sociopath, a sadist, a villain and a devil, like ChatGPT would say if you were to piss it off. But, in that vein, it would be a fair assessment to assert Daemon is a schemer. A plot hatcher. He can reasonably construct plans for the short and medium term. However, they are often foiled in some way. So he regroups and tries again. He can't get out of his first marriage, tries to take a second wife, is denied, so he kills Rhea and frees himself. He can't get Rhaenyra for his wife, so he marries Laena, the next best thing. He is denied as heir, so he marries Rhaenyra, the heir. If you listen to Ryan Condal, he can't be with his brother, so he gets together with his niece instead, etc.

However, I don't think Daemon is the best at long-term planning. He is not a Littlefinger/Varys type of character to sit pen-in-hand and painstakingly plan out an entire plot spanning years and years, carefully moving each piece on the board at the opportune moment, constantly calculating several scenarios playing out. He truly is an agent of chaos. He's more come-as-you-are, take-it-as-it-goes, more of an improviser.

It's also important to note that in the books, Daemon is linked to 4 ? different murders: Rhea, the son of the Sealord of Braavos, Harwin and Laenor. They had him outright murder Rhea in the show, but I hear people contesting this for the books. I wouldn't bet all my money on it. Yes, he is fighting in the Stepstones when Rhea dies, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have hired an assassin. I say this because he is fighting in a literal war, his own war, and he drops everything to rush to the Vale to claim Rhea's inheritance, an act so outright rude that Lady Jeyne has to literally kick him out of the Vale. Now, this is a woman he deeply dislikes, whom he hasn't seen in ages. I am not buying this whole idea that he came to Runestone to arrange her funeral. Rhea has her own family for that, she doesn't need Daemon. News also doesn't travel instantly in Westeros, so somehow Daemon got to the Vale just in time for Lady Jeyne to still be settling the Royce succession. It's at least a little fishy.

The son of the Sealord of Braavos he openly kills in a duel for Laena's hand. With Harwin and Laenor's deaths he is linked. Now, I'm not even saying the author necessarily intended for Daemon to be responsible for all of these people's deaths, but it's very suspicious that all these events are so convenient for Daemon and he profits so much off them. So, I definitely think it was authorial intent for us to become aware this is a dangerous person, an ambitious character, and most likely even a ruthless one, who will go all the way if he needs to. I really, really don't think we were supposed to look at this context and conclude Daemon is a poor misunderstood malewife, done dirty by historians.

Perhaps Daemon's PR image in the fandom would have been different had he outright killed Laenor, instead of becoming the most unlikely gay rights activist. But his stans' insistence that Jace, Luke and Joffrey would be 100% safe in Daemon's hands and not even take this possibility into account is absurd.

I'm not of the belief that Daemon was plotting to have them murdered since they were babes at Rhaenyra's breast or even ever since he married her. But does he really have to? I do believe that he does love Rhaenyra as much as he understands love and wouldn't outright do something as awful until he absolutely had to or at least he would try to postpone it. A lot of things can happen until Rhaenyra ascends, that he might not even have to get his hands dirty in the first place. Her bastards might get outed somehow. They might die somehow, without Daemon's intervention. Rhaenyra herself might die in childbed or by disease. Daemon might die, in which case he doesn't have to worry himself further. Maybe Daemon and Rhaenyra only have girl children, etc. As it happened, the war killed off the Strong boys and Daemon didn't even have to do anything.

However, if Rhaenyra were crowned and they came to the problem of her heir - I think this is the time Daemon might start plotting. They've had their honeymoon holiday period, but I very much doubt Daemon would sit idle while a bastard takes the throne away from his firstborn, who just so happens to be Rhaenyra's actual legal heir. Now, I think murder would be a last resort for Daemon, but I don't think he'd shy away from it, though I could see him trying to subversively work behind the scenes to create unrest at the idea of the Strong boys being in the line of succession as obvious bastards. Rhaenyra could somehow be forced by the political situation to disinherit them and name Aegon the Younger heir. Problem solved. If not, well, accidents can happen. Assassins can be hired. Luke, for example, would be in Driftmark surrounded by Velaryon "cousins" who have every reason to hate his guts. Maybe he falls down the stairs one day. Maybe a combination of all of these things.

This doesn't preclude Daemon for feeling regret for his actions, but he has already done many things he would regret later (like his fights with Viserys, his many exiles), but still went through with them because, in his head, he believed he was doing the right thing. And putting a pure, legitimate Targaryen prince on the throne would definitely feel like doing the right thing to Daemon.

Also? He could still kill those three and feel sorry afterwards! Those things are not mutually exclusive. And it would fall into the whole conflict of the human heart, because he would be doing it for his own son. The motive is there and it's very alluring.

There's also the argument that he wouldn't need to, because his blood would already be on the throne, with Baela as Queen. But being the Queen's father isn't the same as being the King's father. And!! He could be both! What's to say he couldn't marry Baela to Aegon III? Baela was born in 116 AC and Aegon in 120 AC - there's a 4 year age difference between them in the books.

So to address the points in that tweet:

"brother legitimize lucerys claim to the driftmark throne" - It would look mighty strange if, at that point in time, he wouldn't be supporting his own wife in hiding her sons' illegitimacy from the world. 🤷‍��️ Luke is, honestly, the easiest target. By all means, let him rule over Driftmark and let his Velaryon "relatives" assassinate him themselves. Daemon doesn't even have to lift a finger for this one.

"an eye for an eye, a son for a son. lucerys shall be avenged." + k words toddlers for lucerys - This honestly feeds into Daemon's disposition towards cruelty more than anything. If he were truly seeking retributive justice, he would have targeted Aemond, Luke's actual killer. Anything else is not justice, regardless of how Daemon tries to paint it. Not to mention that the actual retribution was way disproportionate to the crime.

k words aemond - But Aemond wasn't killed for Luke, that's the whole point, that's what makes B&C so atrocious and evil. By that time, Aemond was a military threat for the blacks that Daemon was neutralizing. To think that Daemon went to God's Eye set on avenging Luke yet again (even though he had already done that once, inordinately, too?) is a spurious reading.

[justforbooks]

In a spoof obituary written while he was still in his 40s, Barry Humphries, who has died aged 89, described himself as “an ancient comic” who had long since become “a self-indulgent and inaudible has-been” with no sense of progressive social relevance.

The Republic of Australia’s Art Squad had, he said, banned Humphries’ work in his native land. He had endured his last years of “exile and obloquy” in the tarnished splendour of “a Lusitanian spa”, where he occasionally gave clandestine performances to his dwindling, reactionary and hard-of-hearing followers. He was survived, the obituary concluded, “by innumerable wives, great-grandchildren and creditors”. It was a generally appropriate death notice of a satirist who delighted in guying both himself and his critics.

Never a genial humorist, there was always a whiff of sulphur in his comedy. “What is there to say about me?” he would gull his interviewers. “I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I am Church of England – I wash my car on Sundays. There must be some way you can jazz me up.” This was Humphries disguised as a candid interviewee. Being oneself, he would add, is a form of disguise.

There were many other disguises. One minute he would be a monocled Edwardian dandy or a mad scientist or a sad, sexless suburbanite. The next he would assume the mask of a beach bum or a shady art dealer or an embittered intellectual. But the most famous masks of all were his hellcat, the housewife megastar Dame Edna Everage, and his alcoholic political freeloader, professional adulterer and family man Sir Les Patterson.

Humphries grew up in suburban Melbourne, the son of Louisa (nee Brown) and Eric Humphries, a prosperous builder. He was an old boy of an exclusive school (or as he put it: “self-educated; attended Melbourne grammar”) and was briefly a student at Melbourne University. He began his extraordinary career on the back of an arts council bus touring the country towns of Victoria in 1954. It was his first professional role – the lovesick Duke Orsino to Zoe Caldwell’s Viola in Twelfth Night.

At each town, a patron of the arts, often the lady mayoress, would welcome the company over refreshments. Later, to help pass the time on the bus, Humphries invented a character to lampoon these municipal occasions. She was a drab, mousey and relentless hostess, simply named Edna.

The character was thought amusing enough to try out on stage in a Christmas revue in Melbourne. So it came about, on 13 December 1955, that Mrs (as she then was) Edna Everage made her stage debut – a volunteer hostess for the Melbourne Olympics, six feet tall, with brown basilisk eyes and a large chartreuse cabbage rose pinned on her charcoal suit. Her family – husband Norm, son Kenny, daughter Valmai, and mother (in a twilight home) – were given honourable mention, although their miserable fates in Edna’s triumphal backwash were not yet evident. Humphries, then as always, wrote the script.

The sketch was only a moderate success, but enough to point Humphries away from dramatic acting and towards the revue, music hall or cabaret. Also in 1955 he married Brenda Wright, and the following year they moved to Sydney to join a London-inspired theatre of “intimate revue”. He had found his metier, although Sydney satire was still too bland and self-congratulatory to satisfy his dandiacal rage. What Australia still needed, he said, was not mild satire, but a heroic act of espionage.

He finally found it playing the anguished Estragon in a 1958 production of Waiting for Godot. Humphries tramped the streets of Sydney in a sandwich board advertising the play, stuck Godot stickers on posts and windows, and scoured the scrap yards for trash with which he designed the stage sets. The audiences received the play with overwhelming indifference, but Humphries said it changed his life.

When he returned to revue, it was a new Humphries and a new Edna. She became at last a fully ad-libbing monologuiste, teasing if not insulting her audience. This was Edna’s breakthrough. She never looked back.

Australian theatre, however, remained in the doldrums. One critic said there was better theatre in a march-past of lifesavers on Bondi beach. In London, meanwhile, Beckett, Brecht, Osborne and Pinter were leading “the great uprising” from Sloane Square to Stratford East. Humphries found it irresistible.

His first marriage having come to an end after a couple of years, in 1959 Humphries married the ballet dancer Rosalind Tong, took a steamer to London – and into a decade of obscurity (and deepening alcoholism). He found some small parts, notably the undertaker in the original production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! (1960). But his future fame lay with the one-man shows which at that point only his faithful Australian audiences would even contemplate. Three years after arriving in London, he returned to Melbourne and staged, in mid-1962, A Nice Night’s Entertainment, in which he again paraded Edna and her family, along with some of his other creations, from a tortured, expatriate-hating journalist to a nose-picking, guitar-toting beatnik.

The popular success of the show emboldened Humphries to try out his characters in London – at the Establishment Club in May 1963. It was a flop (or as he put it, “a highly successful five-minute season”). He returned to small roles, notably in Frank Norman’s A Kayf Up West, at Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Royal, Stratford East (1964). He also created for Private Eye the randy hobbledehoy Barry (“Bazza”) McKenzie, whose boozing, vomiting, urinating adventures, narrated in comic-strip form in a largely invented vernacular, reflected and mocked Humphries’ life in the swinging 60s. A film based on the character, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, was released in 1972, and a sequel, Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, two years later, with Humphries taking several small roles in each; in the latter, the Australian prime minister of the time, Gough Whitlam, apparently invests Edna as a dame.

Humphries did two more Australian tours before testing the water in London again. The first – in 1965 – was the triumphant Excuse I, which filled huge Australian theatres for weeks on end. No one-man show had ever done such business in Australia. It was on this tour that Humphries introduced the gladioli-hurling finale. The next tour – the 1968 Just a Show – introduced further variations. Edna now abandoned her dowdy appearance and came on stage smiling like a shark in a red Thai silk coat over a green dress. (“Am I overdressed?” she asked, looking around. “No, I don’t think so.”) She also began entering from the stalls chatting to her “possums”.

The enormous success of Just a Show encouraged him to try again in London – at the Fortune theatre. Once again the show was a flop. Harold Hobson dismissed it in one devastating sentence: “Most of Barry Humphries’ Just a Show will give pleasure to most Australians in London.”

The great turning point in Humphries’ career came in 1970 when he collapsed, an alcoholic wreck. That June, he was arrested in the streets of Melbourne’s leafy, affluent Camberwell and charged with being drunk and disorderly. A sensible magistrate adjourned the case for six months, ordering that charges be withdrawn if there were no further “incidents”. Humphries booked into a private hospital specialising in alcoholism. The man who for more than 10 years had started the day with a “grappling hook” (brandy and port) became an abstainer – and one of the great comedians of his age.

Still he had not yet conquered London. His Australian shows of the early 1970s (A Load of Old Stuffe, in 1971, and At Least You Can Say You’ve Seen It, in 1974) further refined Edna. She was now a name-dropping predator of radical views and treacly-trendy sentimentality, wearing glittering scarlet hotpants split to the groin. Soon critics were ransacking the dictionary for adjectives to describe her: psychotic, hysteric, Dionysiac, Amazonian, crypto-fascist, anally obsessed, a piranha, a hectoring Medusa, a blue-rinsed beast of Belsen, the Australian daughter of Torquemada.

As her curtain raiser, and to incarnate his disgust with alcoholism, Humphries also created a new character, half Sir Toby Belch, half Apeneck Sweeney – exuberant clown and revolting drunk, the cultural attache Sir Les Patterson. Staggering down the aisle, whisky in hand, he would invite his audience to give Edna the clap she so richly deserved.

In 1976 had come yet another assault on the West End, this time succeeding sensationally when Housewife-Superstar opened at the Apollo. It ran to packed houses for four months and almost 500,000 people saw it.

This was the first of Humphries’ enormously popular one-man shows in London, which included A Night With Dame Edna (1978-79) and Back With a Vengeance (for a number of seasons 1987-89 and 2005-07). Critics now acclaimed him as the greatest one-man showman since Charles Dickens and perhaps in the history of theatre.

He reached an even wider audience on British television, including two series of The Dame Edna Experience (1987-89) for LWT, a highly successful comedy chatshow in which Dame Edna interviewed celebrities – or delivered monologues interrupted by total strangers, as she herself described it. On both stage and screen a silent, doleful background presence was provided by her “New Zealand bridesmaid” Madge Allsop, played from 1987 to 2003 by Emily Perry.

The US took longer to conquer. In 1977, Humphries presented Housewife-Superstar at West 55th Street, off Broadway, where the critics dismissed it as “abysmal”, “pointless” and “like the litter on 42nd Street, something worth missing”. It was to be 20 years before the New York critics submitted to the Humphriesian tornado. In 2000, he was awarded a special Tony for the “theatrical event” of the year – a category invented for the occasion since his show, Dame Edna: The Royal Tour, was neither play nor musical. His success led to subsequent US tours, and a role in the TV comedy drama Ally McBeal in 2002.

In March 2012, Humphries announced a farewell stage show, Eat Pray Laugh!, which toured Australia, the UK and the US. It featured his best-known characters – Dame Edna, the stoic old convalescent Sandy Stone, and Sir Les Patterson (with a bit part for his brother, Gerard, a paedophile priest). But in an eerie finale, there were glimpses of other unforgettable creations: among them Lance Boyle, the trade union racketeer; Brian Graham, the 1960s Sydney executive and closet homosexual in navy blue shorts and long white socks; and Phil Philby, the lefty experimental film-maker.

Before the final curtain, Humphries himself took the stage, thanked the packed house, and ambiguously urged them to come to his final “farewell”. In a wave of emotion while the band belted out “Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye”, his tearful fans delivered a standing ovation.

In 2015, Humphries was artistic director of the Adelaide Cabaret festival, where, with characteristic panache, he announced that he had banned the use of the word “fuck”, which too many comedians, including some good ones, use in a desperate attempt to get a laugh. (Humphries himself had often done so.) The patrons, he said, would be relieved and delighted by his new espousal of censorship.

As intended, the resulting controversy generated enormous publicity for the festival, but nonetheless he continued “to defend to the ultimate my right to give deep and profound offence”. Remarks of his on transgenderism – including dismissing it as a fashion – led in 2019 to the Melbourne international comedy festival dropping his name from its major prize, the Barry award.

Perceptions of what was considered either cutting edge or decadent in the jazz-infused music of Germany of the 1920s and 30s had fascinated him since finding a bundle of sheet music in Melbourne. In Australia in 2013 and in London seasons in 2016 and 2018, he explored it in the show Weimar Cabaret, with the chanteuse Meow Meow.

Humphries was based permanently in London from the late 1960s, although he visited Australia frequently, maintaining good relations with fans, friends and family. “To live permanently in Australia,” he would say, “is rather like going to a party and dancing all night with one’s mother.” He collected art and books, describing himself as a “compulsive bibliomaniac”, and owned 25,000 volumes.

Over the years, he made recordings, wrote books, a novel and a volume of verse, and in 2007 he held an exhibition of his paintings in Melbourne. He had roles in several films, including Finding Nemo (2003) and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012). He dismissed most his books as trifles and promotions, but not his autobiography More Please (1992), which is less a comic story of an actor’s life than a de profundis or an alcoholic’s almanac; it is also noteworthy for its piety towards his family. It won the JR Ackerley prize for autobiography in 1993. Humphries was the subject of several biographies, including John Lahr’s Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilisation (1991), One Man Show (2010), by Anne Pender, and my own book, published in 1991, The Real Barry Humphries.

He was appointed OA in 1982 and CBE in 2007.

From his marriage to Rosalind, Humphries had two daughters, Tessa and Emily. In 1979, he married the artist Diane Millstead, and they had two sons, Rupert and Oscar. Following his third divorce, in 1990 he married Lizzie Spender, daughter of the poet Stephen Spender. She survives him, along with his four children.

🔔 John Barry Humphries, comic actor and scriptwriter, born 17 February 1934; died 22 April 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[highfantasy-soul]

NATLA - Episode 1: Aang (4/4)

[Masterlist of my NATLA thoughts]

An explanation of what I'm doing here and my history with ATLA.

Of course, full spoilers ahead.

<previous/next>

Aang gives himself up once he realizes the fire benders have no issues harming the village, showing how he's willing to try a different angle to fighting - having no intention of staying locked up, but rather getting the fire nation away from his new friends - keeping true to the animated series.

I love the talk he and Iroh have where Iroh is very careful to say 'some believe' and gives alternative reasonings for this war - reasons that are explained in later books in the animated version, but does a good job at showing new viewers that the fire nation isn't just a flat-manically evil villain: they're just like real-world colonist nations that don’t see themselves as the bad guy even while they're doing objectively evil things.

I also enjoy him stealing Zuko's journal - I like giving Aang something to work with rather than having him just be at a loss in this brand new world with no info to go off of.

A lot of people feel that, especially the first part of book 1 in the animated series was a bit aimless - they don’t even go to Kyoshi island for Avatar reasons, they do it to ride the giant koi fish. This is compounded by the fact that the only goal they have is to reach the northern water tribe so Aang can learn waterbending, but along the way, they don’t really have a goal.

This way, they have another goal while they're traveling - figure out the Avatar state and what the Avatar is supposed to do, exactly - it gives the characters information to work off of rather than just wandering around - something that can work in episodic shows that are 20 episodes a season, but needs to be a bit more focused when there's not space to give each character moment/theme/lesson a full episode.

Sokka immediately turning over command to another villager while Katara is trying to convince him they need to go after Aang was so pitch perfect it was insane. It was just as great of characterization as when they had Sokka on board to rescue Aang in the animated show, but I love the addition of Sokka turning over his command instead of just inviting Katara into the canoe.

I like how they changed Aang going into the avatar state after falling from Zuko's ship to him being caught by Katara and Sokka as they come to rescue him, and just like in the animated version, Katara helping out with her waterbending. In the animated show, she showed her power by breaking apart the iceberg, in this one, she shows her power by stopping Zuko's fireball with a comparable amount of waterbending.

I think that, since we conclude this episode with the third episode of the animated version, having Aang go into the Avatar state twice in a row would make the second time feel cheaper, like it's super easy for him to get into it and show the control he did messing up Zuko's ship.

In the animated show, there was a whole episode separating the instances of the Avatar state - in the live-action, that would have been like, 10 minutes tops between them (plus him going into the Avatar state at the beginning to create the iceberg - so three times in one episode is a bit excessive), so I think the choice to nix him Avataring in the water and focus on him assuming it as he's overcome with grief and rage at the death of the airbenders was a good choice.

Speaking of the episode 3 content: while I do miss Aang's denial that anything happened to the Air Nomads and him trying to act like everything is fine and just playing his games at the temple, I can understand why they didn't have the time to drag out his denial and just jumped right to how the loss of the Air Nomads affected him.

Honestly, it doesn’t make much sense for Aang to be so sure that his friends - especially Gyatzo - are still alive after 100 years like he does in the cartoon. It's some hard-core denial he's in and I can see why that just wouldn't land in live-action over the course of a single episode.

Episode one had a LOT to set up and solidify and I think it did a great job. Of course, long form media will be able to take it's time with stuff and add different dimensions, so I'm very glad they exchanged his denial with us actually getting to spend more time with Gyatzo.

Starting with him and Aang at the beginning and bookending the episode with his assurance to Aang that he's going to be a good avatar and he'll always be his friend was a great way to show how important Gyatzo was to Aang - something we don't actually get so much in the animated version.

Deepening that connection and having the memory of Gyatzo pull Aang from the Avatar state, I feel like is much more earned than if Katara had done it like she did in the show.

In the animated version, we had 3 episodes of Katara interacting with Aang - and even though it was still really just the same amount of time they had together in both versions, our minds trick us into thinking she'd known Aang for longer due to three vs one episodes. Honestly, her talking Aang down in the animated version is a bit unearned and I can see why they changed it to be Gyatzo here.

I think it hits harder and makes more sense that it's in the finale that Katara is the one able to bring Aang back after he's merged with the ocean spirit - they've built a real connection and so before, it was Aang's connection to his past that brought him back, in the finale, it's his connection to his present and a possible future that does.

These are all fantastic ways to really show that the Avatar is both of this world and beyond - when in the Avatar state, they must be tethered somehow to the mortal plane or they'll get lost in their spiritual essence.

And then finally, to the 'goal' of the story: Aang needs to master all elements so he can bring an end to the war and bring balance back to the world.

Pretty much the same as the show, but they get to the meat and potatoes of the story a bit quicker - there's not exactly a ticking clock yet, and I think that's ok since in the animated series, with all the 'side quests' the gaang does, it can feel a bit…like they aren't really too concerned about ending the war soon. It's not until season 3 that the timeline really starts to affect the story - and only in some episodes. Keeping that aspect out of it for now, I think is a perfectly ok choice.

Intercutting Aang's speech about how we never know how important something is to us until we lose it with Zuko was a great choice - really setting up how the two of them are mirrors for each other

For Zuko and Iroh - I love how Zuko has a whole Avatar red-string wall! And a diary (sorry, notebook) where he's been studying and gathering all the info he can about Avatars, really perfect characterization right there.

I do wish they'd included Iroh talking about the breath of firebending, not the muscles, during Zuko's practice, but alas. Iroh is really the only character I'm still ruminating on - he feels the farthest from his animated counterpart, but I'm not mad at it. I just have a very, very, very specific version of Iroh I have solidified in my brain that, obviously, no one can replicate, so it's just something that I have to accept.

I guess the best way to put it is that this Iroh feels a bit more…casually intense than the animated version. The animated version always felt like he was relaxed at all times, very drunken master esque, and only in a few moments did we see that there was a lot more going on beneath the surface he wasn't showing us - in the live-action, I felt that simmering tension beneath the surface much more often than I did in the animated show.

Zuko's anger and obsessive need to capture the Avatar is shown so clearly in every scene he's in and, as he was the most interesting part of the animated series, it's no surprise he's the most interesting one in the live-action too.

His story and character just gives you so much to chew on and watch as he grows and changes so it's really no contest - where the other characters have pretty straight forward character motivations/arcs that don't really change through all three seasons, Zuko has the most going on and the most winding path, so yeah, every moment with him is so juicy

The opening of episode 2 with his tantrum and him screaming 'HE RAN' just shows how much the writers GET him - our pathetic cringe-fail loser angry boy <3

So that's my overview of episode 1 of the live action! I thought it was pretty strong, though as I've seen the animated a whole lot, the emphasis on exposition did drag it just a bit for me. Not because I thought the exposition was bad or unnecessary, but just because I, personally, already knew the stuff. Honestly, the stuff that deviated from the animated version was the best for me: the entire opening, Sokka and Katara's convo on the canoe, Sokka giving control to another villager to go save Aang, and Gyatzo - all of Gyatzo.

I think it did a phenomenal job at setting up the world, the stakes, and the characters - creating a super solid foundation to jump off of in the next episodes where the timeline of events from the OG show will be played with and altered. A solid foundation helps smooth the transition for us OG fans to see how many individual episode plotlines can be woven into a single episode.

[raptorladylover6969]

Again back to my last EOA post, and a comment I saw on a repost of it, I am 1000000% on board with the idea of the whole plot of Elena of Avalor, and some of the things in it, being a whole metaphor for Elena trying to keep herself from being driven to insanity aka becoming an evil dictator. Based on the personal research I’ve done, and connecting the dots to Elena’s character, I’ve noticed some key things in the show that sort of represent many “symptoms” of what a “clinically insane” person goes through.

Elena witnessed her own parents death right in front of her eyes. This alone should be traumatizing enough, but not even like 5 minutes later, Shuriki blasts her, but the amulet pulled her inside of it to save her. (Or at least, I like to think she did die, but her soul was sucked into the amulet, thus her possessing it, Five Nights At Freddy’s style). Elena is now sitting in the amulet, in what I think was a sort of state like Locked In Syndrome? Because when she did get out the amulet in Secret Of Avalor, she looked like she was sleeping, AND she forgot how to walk, hell even move around. So I think since she was in there for so long, she started “fusing” with the amulet, thus falling into a sort of coma, but still highly aware of whats going on around her + outside the amulet, but thats besides my point. She spends 40+ years, isolated from the world, with no one to talk to, no source of brain stimulation, no form of movement, just NOTHING. Shes trapped in a void. (*Void by Melanie Martinez starts playing*). Now looking at irl facts, there is no absolute way Elena didnt go insane in the amulet.

Looking at neuroscience, and the world of EOA, we can see the way Elena interacts with the world, and apply those statistics to Elena herself. In an article from The Royal Society Publishing, The Article titled “Perceived Social Isolation, Evolutionary Fitness and Health Outcomes: a LifeSpan Approach.” Written by Louise C. Hawkley, and John P. Capitanio states: “A sampling of recent studies shows that socially isolated housing of various social animal species at various stages of life and for various durations results in altered behaviour (e.g. anxious, depression-like, aggressive, passive, cognition/memory), physiology (e.g. changes in basal or stress–reactive corticosterone, blood pressure, inflammation, immune responses, hippocampal function) and mortality (e.g. post-stroke outcomes)” In the show, we can see Elena suffer through majority of these affects. Especially when it comes to her cognitive ability and critical thinking skills. We see her struggle hard in the show to solve problems, regarding the kingdom, and when communicating with other people.

I will also talk about the fact Elena can see ghosts, and Spirit Guides. I know, she has this power because “The amulet gave it to her.” But think of it this way: The amulet; her trauma, and Elena had to face “the trauma” for a LOOOOONG period of time. Another key factor when it comes to isolation, hallucinations. An Israeli adventurer/author Yossi Ghinsberg spent 3 weeks stranded in the Amazon rainforest (they actually made a movie about him‼️) Ghinsberg stated, due to him being isolated from society without any social contact/interaction, he experienced hallucinations. So what if metaphorically, Elena seeing the Spirit Guides, and ghosts, are her having hallucinations from spending 41 years away from society?

Elena’s dress. That goddamn dress. Its mentioned earlier that isolation can affect the brain’s cognitive abilities, and emotional health. So you basically would have trouble regulating your emotions, and your emotions would be all over the place. RING ANY BELLSSSSS⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️ Her magic dress is a metaphor for her decline in her cognitive skills.

I now conclude my essay on how crazy I am about this damn kids show. I love Elena sm shes such a complicated character and I LOVE ITTTTTTTTT

[batsplat]

adsfdfgjk spuffy are kinda my eventual post s7 endgame and I mostly ship just them, even tho as a lesbian I obviously see the vision w faith/buffy. but I also don’t really read any spuffy fic at all bc I am mostly satisfied with what we got on the show and how it all concluded - clasped hands ingulfed in flames?? the “I love you” “no you don’t” WHO DID IT LIKE THEM. but many fics just want to flat out ignore s5-7, and specifically s6, and there are lots of like time travel aus or spuffy getting together earlier etc. and obviously I am not judging anyone you do you and have fun but that’s not my jam at all. like if there is a spuffy fanfic that mets my super specific expectations I would love to read it but overall I’m fine as is!

and in general this seems to be happening quite a lot when it comes to het pairings for me? like no matter how frustrating/painful some parts of it are, as a whole it makes sense that x and z can’t be together at this point in canon (but maybe they could in the future). maybe it’s bc i gravitate towards more unconventional het pairings and quite a few ppl’s ideas of a happy ending/happy relationship are too white picket fenc-y? perhaps but🤐

right righttttt yeahhhhhh I think a lot of fans like an idea of the relationship that didn't actually happen? to be clear I'm ON BOARD with the spuffy post s7 vision, I don't need to choose between that and buffy/faith in my mind, I'm just... hm, even as someone very anti the idea of redemption equals death, I'm also kinda okay with the idea they can't really find a happy ending with each other? like it's kinda the brevity of that relationship also provided it with meaning in canon, it's two people who did love each other in a weird way and found comfort in each other in a weird way and gravitated around each other and... can that work, can it not, could they ever have made it 'work' in a long-term sense, who knows!! but it's the canon specifically that I'm into rather than kinda... the hypothetical version of the relationship spike and buffy could have had. I wouldn't want any changes to canon!! I couldn't see them get together earlier with each other!! it's very. all power to you lot. do whatever. but to me there's one version of that relationship that works - and it's the one that's the mess it is in canon. spike is a vampire without a soul who falls in love! he has a chip that makes him impotent! he ends up getting a soul and a trigger! he's basically just one big experimental test tube used to explore what identity even means, what behaviour tells you about identity, what the conditions of morality are and so on... buffy dismissed him, then finds herself leaning on him, then eventually finds herself needing to confide in him as she is alienated from her own humanity... I don't know, one thing I've always really loved about buffy as a show is its flexibility, how playful it is with genre and what roles the characters fulfil in a way that still provides consistency in characterisation. I really like how that relationship has a completely different vibe in every single season!! I think spike is kinda uniquely well suited to that flexibility, that malleability of identity, and it's cool! I don't really want something that messes with that!

and yeah big agree on enjoying unconventional het lol. the thing is, right, I consume a fair bit of het (something that sounds a bit weird now I've typed it out but I'm keeping it). part of that is just how I, y'know, like women, which definitely doesn't mean I DON'T engage with plenty of m/m slash but I would quite like stuff to occasionally have women in it? and whichever you slice and dice it, the femslash pickings are just slimmer and often doesn't get produced about characters I'm particularly interested in... or just ends up falling into. weird. boring tropes when people are writing for it. but also het is fun!! I like playing with my het couples, I love doing a gender on them. I like spike and buffy doing a gender!! one of the big things with spike is constantly being emasculated, he's doing weird genders, I'm not saying the het relationship is Actually Not Het but idk I like the gender stuff!! like yes threaten him with those stakes!! straddle that evil vampire!! I'm enough of a romantic to occasionally want my doomed hets to have a happy ending, but like, yeah! don't white picket it!!

[saiakv]

Post-Suguru's departure, do you have any headcanons surrounding him and Gojo crossing paths or intentionally seeking out one another? Or if they just kept a distance for the most part?

Roleplaying wise this depends on the portrayal of Satoru to me. Personally I'm more of a 'reactive' roleplayer, in that I work with what my writing partner gives me, so I don't really have headcanons pertaining to relationships because I don't see them as pre-established.

However since this is an interesting question ( and I'm virtually kissing you for it btw Bug ) I'll talk about Suguru's disposition towards that possibility.

Based on JJK0 we can deduct that Suguru didn't really think Satoru would be interested in talking to him again and maybe even hated him at this point. In the movie's end we can see he seems genuinely surprised to hear a nice word from his old friend's lips. Even though he, himself, didn't seem to have personal beef with Satoru for not being there during his time of need, he recognized and accepted that 'not everyone was going to agree with him' and there was nothing he could do about it, other than keep going.

I also want to point attention to the fact that a lot of people talk about how 'below the belt' Suguru's question to Satoru was, but from Suguru's pov what Satoru said to him was just as hurtful. He was at the point of making this new resolution for himself ( we, the readers, of course, know that his logic here is deranged af ) and, again, from HIS point of view, Satoru shot him down in an arrogant fashion.

As much as Suguru is an empathetic person by nature, Riko's death had driven a wedge between them. Moreso than that, I headcanon that Suguru never really came back from hearing the words 'I killed Gojo Satoru'. Even if his friend was still alive, it didn't feel like the same person — and in many ways, it wasn't. Additionally, the mere experience of that momentary grief and the subsequent loss from Toji was so traumatic to Suguru that he simply never recovered. Toji just beat his ass into an identity crisis :')

To conclude, I don't think Suguru would reach out first. Certainly because he was the one who ended things essentially, so what right would he have to indulge his own nostalgia and craving for his friend? I do think he missed him, a lot, and secretly wished they would have been on the same page. But it's not in his character to try and force it. And, lastly, there is one other major reason why I think he would have never reached out first.

Self-affirmation is one of the most important things to Suguru. So to him, losing this treasured relationship was the price he had to pay in order to pursue his ideals. Because if you want to win, you first have to lose something, otherwise it's just unrealistic to expect that you will win without having to lose anything of your own, right? Easy victories are not a realistic option to him; exactly because he is the other side of the coin to Satoru, for whom everything in life came easy. Suguru always had to fight and suffer to build character.

And, being a curse user, he understands the nature of jujutsu very well; it is an exchange. It's all in the science of binding vows. The bigger the sacrifice, the higher the output. He saw the end of their relationship as something necessary to achieve his goal; and maybe if he finally managed it, Satoru would join him in the new world among the other sorcerers.

( I do however believe that if Gojo had made the first step, he would be open to it — though it would entail a lot of caution and suspicion on his end initially, being that they are on opposite sides of the shogi board. Suguru would not let his emotions cloud his judgement and prioritize the safety of his family in that case, probably feeling conflicted over the situation because he did genuinely care for and miss Satoru as well. )

[sleepsonfutons]

angst prompts!! angst prompts!! what about... ❛ why does it feel like this is goodbye? ❜ ????

Sorry for the delay!! Gotta say this one was a challenge, but hmmm 🤔

Cw: lost at sea, major character death

Hob faced him on the pier, emotion barely contained behind the impassive set of his mouth. Though his golden man could not contain the slight tremor of his hands before hiding them away in his pockets. Dream sighed in frustrated affection. "This is not forever, Hob." He smiles at his lover and wishes they were alone so he might stroke the fine silk of his beloved's cheek. "I will return after my studies on the continent are concluded and you surely will find I have become twice as insufferable as you once thought me. And surely you shall again 'sort me out' in your skilled manner."

His flirtations do manage to draw out a slight rise to Hob's brow and a hungry little smirk, but it falls away as quickly as it appeared. Hob drags his hand over his face before scrunching his eyes closed and pinching the bridge of his nose. He sighs and turns a sad smile on Dream. "Then why does it feel like this is goodbye?"

Something in Dream rears back at the question. It unsettles him and in no small part because Hob does have an uncanny sense for these sorts of things. He has accurately predicted his last farewells with several of their acquaintances and friends before they've gone on to fall in battle or to some sickness or even once to an errant run-away carriage. Dream shakes himself and smiles as brightly as he can at Hob, though he's not sure it's as solid as he would have hoped. "Don't be daft, Hob. I've just told you I'll be back, though don't be a fool and waste your good fortune by waiting around by these docks for me. Be sure to live well so you have much to tell me upon my return. Take care."

He claps his lover on the shoulder and then hurries aboard his ship as the crew yells out the last boarding call. And in his haste he can almost ignore Hob's soft voice trailing behind him, "Farewell, friend."

--

It's not been two months since Dream set off to the continent when Hob receives the morning post that he's been dreading. He opens the paper to read the headline he's feared would come and had hoped against hope wouldn't, despite unavoidably knowing it would.

All Souls Lost In Tragic Shipwreck.

The Jessamy of the Pied Crow Shipping Group was lost at sea to an unseasonably severe storm, not two days from its final port.

Hob doesn't bother finishing the read and instead slumps in his chair, head falling into the cradle of his hands. His tears fall freely into his now lukewarm cup of tea. He chokes on his sobs before managing to curse, "Damn it all, Dream! I told you! I told...you...it felt like goodbye."

Angst Prompts~

[felixcloud6288]

Higurashi: Festival Accompanying Chapter 20

This chapter revealed a lot of things about Mion that I never knew.

Irie had been doing so well in the last several chapters. Could he please just not be a creep for one arc?

Rika decided to just go straight to Irie and tell him that Takano plans to kill her. Understandably, he finds it hard to believe because that would be the worst thing that could happen to her research.

I'm kinda surprised about how much he's willing to reveal to Rika when she asks though. Telling her their research is to be concluded in three years is one thing, but actually admitting that there is an emergency procedure to kill all the villagers if anything happens is not something you just admit.

And Irie says Emergency Manual 34 would be used "in case the villagers ever show signs of a mass outbreak." I should remond everyone that the Queen Carrier hypothesis is absolutely 100% incorrect as proven in Cotton Drifting and Eye Opening. In fact, the VNs make it even more definitely true because the Eye Opening epilogue reveals all the secondary characters were still alive and well 20 years after Rika's death.

Kinda wild that those arcs on a cosmic level are the "good" endings since they're the only arcs where Operation Apocalypse failed, the village was spared, and Nomura did not get what she wants.

Irie also survived those arcs as well. So I wonder if part of the reason he was targeted by Operation Apocalypse wasn't just to pin the blame on him but also to keep any medical experts on Hinamizawa Syndrome from being able to prove that a mass outbreak wasn't going to happen.

Now that Rika has more information and less understanding why Takano would kill her, Hanyu suggests doing what the story has kind of said you should always do at times like this: Go ask your friends for help. But Rika, understandably, feels like no one would ever believe her. Maybe she wouldn't feel that way if she had her memories from Massacre. Hanyu is so confident that they'll believe Rika because she saw them believe her before.

But Hanyu does manage to come up with a framing device to get Rika to talk about the situation:

This made me do a quick dive into what manga might be around at this time. In June 1983, Doraemon, Akira, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind were all very early into their serializations. Meanwhile two works of Osamu Tezuka's, Buddha and Black Jack, would finish serialization a few months later. Speaking of which, Tezuka was still alive at this time so maybe Rika was into Phoenix. Unfortunately, Tezuka passed away before he finished it.

Another manga I found that piqued my interest is Touch. It's a manga about two identical twins and the neighbor girl wanting to become professional baseball players. It ran from 1981 to 1986.

I have just learned some very interesting things about Mion right now. I can imagine her having the managerial skills to handle things like story-boarding, promoting, and publishing; but I'd never guess she has drawing skills or any ability with typesetting.

Rika tells them the plot points she's come with for her "manga" and I bet Keiichi realized she's just copying the plot of the Higurashi VN beta that the regulars at Angel Mort have been sharing with each other (No seriously, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni's beta exists as an actual visual novel within the Higurashi universe).

When Rika asks for help about the "evil researcher's" motives, Mion suggests there is someone else manipulating her, and even though the "evil researcher" is doing something that doesn't benefit her, it would benefit the mastermind.

And Mion was exactly on point about what is going on.

It's a minor detail, but this moment really exemplifies Rika's "frog in a well" status that Massacre kept calling her. Rika has only known the village and the people living in it. When trying to understand Takano's motives, she isolated her thoughts entirely to the village and the villagers. She never considered someone completely unconnected to the village might be the reason for all this.

So did everyone realize that Rika was asking for help from the start or did they realize after Rika asked for help to figure out how the protagonist of her "manga" can win?

The very first thing Mion brings up is Satoko has built a whole trap mountain. Way back in Curse Killing chapter 1, Keiichi said Satoko could take on an army within the mountains and we're soon going to find out how true that is.

But just as Hanyu predicted, Rika's friends believe her and are ready to help. Now comes the time to plan their counterattack.

back

Spoiler Discussion

Near the end of this arc, we discover that Takano is beginning to suffer the symptoms of Hinamizawa Syndrome. At this time, she's very likely already low-level symptomatic and is experiencing the symptoms similar to Satoko's: Calm exterior with a burning internal hatred.

Hanyu said one of the ways to keep symptoms at bay is to go to others for help. We saw that at the end of Atonement when Rena calmed down because Keiichi was able to convince her that he cared about her.

In a far darker sense, Nomura is doing the same thing to Takano. She's convinced Takano that she cares about her and her research and Takano is becoming dependent on Nomura to keep from falling victim to Hinamizawa Syndrome.

And maybe finding out Takano is being manipulated is what affects Rika's motivations at the end of the story. Takano and Hanyu both have a wish that oppose one another. But at the end of this story, Rika will make a greater wish stronger than both of them, and her will shall be the one that wins.

[enquire]

———————————————————————————

**Spoilers / images for The Clone Wars Season 7 ahead.**

———————————————————————————

I've been revisiting The Clone Wars series lately. It's gotten me reflecting on the impact this show has had on me. The mark it has left is difficult to encapsulate in words.

In particular... how it ends.

Throughout the finale, there's an ever present tension.

In the peaceful moments, before everything shatters.

It's an incredible final result, a knife suspended over the characters, and viewers, that still gives me chills.

I have nothing but respect for the people who worked to create this. They all put so much passion and thought into each little choice and detail of their craft.

You can see it in each soft change in Ahsoka's face, the gentle movements of her hands. It's in each and every scratch on Rex's armor; in the parts where the color has faded, the little changes he has made to it over time.

It's there in the familiar sounds on board the Resolute, or the way many scenes, faces, are carefully cast in partial shadow.

You can feel it in each quiet moment overlayed with haunting music, or in the hope in Anakin's voice when he talks about Ahsoka being back; because maybe now, at last, things could go back to how they're supposed to be.

But unfortunately, they aren't the same. They can't be.

A story that means so much to me, going away, then eventually being concluded in this way, it just... it hits hard.

It's strange to think about, but in some ways, it was a relief not reaching the end of it all in the original run.

As though, if we just don't get to that point, it won't happen at all. That things could stay like this, forever. Each coming day remaining in stasis, in a box separate from the events to come.

Even though you knew it was going to. Even though you knew, eventually, it had to.

Because somehow, it never really felt like it could.

Returning to this world and seeing it all fall apart, there's a clear sense of finality, like turning the last page of a book long left unread.

And even after watching it all happen, it doesn't feel real.

Not until Vader's reflection grows distant in a helmet once worn by a now long dead trooper, does it start to sink in.

That it really is over, and there's no going back.

To me, as someone who started watching this show at a young age, it feels like a reflection of my own experiences.

It's final, uncertain. And there is a deep grief interwoven there. A door closing. A period of life ending that won't ever return.

You have to accept that, and continue. You can't take it with you, even if you desperately want to.

Even if you aren't quite sure who you are without it, or what will come next.

Even if the pieces you do get to keep are no longer how you remember them.

They're different, warped, or even broken.

It's an endeavor to succeed in doing so, and we don't always do so. Sometimes, we can't.

But even though each wonderful and terrible thing leaves a mark on you, no matter how many scars might stick around, the past itself will always go away.

You can't change the fact that the Resolute will never fly again; or that the wreck will eventually be buried in snow. You will live through the deaths of your brothers, whether you accept it or not.

If you want to continue on, you have to leave that lightsaber behind.

[sebastianshaw]

𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍

———  BASICS! ♡

(PEN)NAME:  90smun, 90s, RodentFanatic, RF, Rodent, Ratty, Ratmun, Ms. Rat, Shawmun

PRONOUNS: She/Her

ZODIAC SIGN: Libra Sun, Capricorn Moon, Virgo Rising

TAKEN OR SINGLE: Single

———  THREE  FACTS! ♡

1 -  I’m a quarter Ukrainian via my maternal grandmother. She was first generation, and like many children of immigrants, she wanted to be as “American” as possible. To this end, she absolutely never allowed her children to learn Ukrainian, practice the culture, etc. Since her death several years ago, my mother and I both have been trying to get in touch with this side of our heritage. Each of us does it in our own way according to our areas of interest My mother is mainly concerned with things like our specific family history and family tree, while I’m more focused on the history of Ukraine, as well as general East Slavic folklore, charms, pantheons, etc. 

2 - I’m one of those “cis plus” people who did examine their gender identity to see if they were trans, but concluded I was not. It was when I was 16, and I had read up everything I could about trans people and being trans and gender identity and gender dysphoria and so on in order to do proper research for a transgender character. And I thought, I should probably consider this. So I sat down with myself in the bathtub and thought...and it was just a resounding “nah”. I don’t even think I can say I “questioned” my gender identity at all, because there was no question, the answer was right there loud and plain. I checked back in now and then after, but haven’t in years because I’m pretty sure I’m solidly cis ^_^

3 -  I really want a dog some day and I’ve worked out that a Great Dane is probably the best pick, and many dog people agree. I absolutely LOVE big breed dogs, especially gentle giants that still LOOK intimidating, but I also don’t have the energy to exercise and stimulate most large breeds. But, Great Danes are actually great apartment dogs!

———  EXPERIENCE! ♡

PLATFORMS USED: Tumblr, RP boards, and Discord servers (I am NOT taking more run)

PLOTTING / WINGING IT / MEMES: I love memes and asks galore at random as ONE-TIME interactions, NOT as thread starters. For actual threads I strongly prefer pre-plotted 

———  MUSE  PREFERENCE! ♡

GENDER: I prefer to write as female muses with female muses, but I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m not exclusive about that. But I have my leanings, clearly. 

LEAST FAVORITE FACECLAIM(S): I will NOT write with E.lizabeth O/lsen or M.ichael F.assbender or J.ohnny D.epp FCs. I tend to be pretty lenient about problematic FCs because it’s not like we’re paying the actor or whatever, and they’ve all done or said SOMETHING, but those are my hard limits. There are also some who there’s nothing WRONG with as people I just roll my eyes at them for whatever reason, but I think it would be mean to list them. 

———  FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT! ♡    

FLUFF: Not...really. Shaw’s not well suited to it. Another character like Haven, I’ll happily do it for asks, or talk about it OOC with folks and we understand it’s happening offscreen, but I just don’t dig whole threads of it.

ANGST: I’m not really into angst either. I’m fine with dark things happening in threads, but angst for angst sake just pisses me off. 

SMUT: Nope. Nada. None. Never. I absolutely will do everything leading up to sex itself if it makes sense for the direction of the thread, and I’ll do innuendo and fade to black and so on, but writing the actual act is a total no-go. I don’t even want to write kissing tbh. 

tagged by: @southern-belle-outcasts

tagging:  go for it!

[sunnyie-eve]

Devastated || 12. Remorseful

Paring: (Christopher "Sully" Sullivan x Original Female Character Mance!)

Word Count: 2101

Warnings: slight language, death, unnecessary guilt

Last: Motive | Next: Unfortunate

After some time, Henry goes into the room to check on Jennifer, "You okay now?" He asks her, so she just looks up at him.

"Taking it as Abby isn't adjusting well due to all the noise."

"Not as well as you did. I have some news... Jimmy and Sully agreed to sign a full confession. But they won't sign it unless they get to say goodbye to you and Abby. I just told her as well." He puts his hand out to help her to get up so she looks at it, "Come on. I'm not going to hurt you, Jen."

"Henry, if you could... would you have done this all a different way without killing people?" She takes his hand as he pulls her to stand up.

"No... there was no other way because they would all still be in the way." He sighs looking her in the eyes.

"You know, it wouldn't have taken much to get me. You know how close we were before coming here. I would've done anything for you then, Hen."

"And we're still close, Jen." He motions for her to leave the room with him, so she does.

They wait downstairs till Abby joins them, and he walks them to the guys. Abby goes to Jimmy, and when Jennifer was going to go over to Sully, Henry stops her, "One at a time." He tells her.

Abby apologizes to Jimmy for leaving him, and she kisses him. Henry becomes jealous and pulls her away from Jimmy. Henry slaps Abby when she tells him she loves Jimmy, making her fall to the ground.

Henry panics, feeling bad for hitting her, so Jennifer makes a run for it, so Abby stabs him in the foot with an awl before running out too. Henry chases them, grabbing the boarding knife on his way out.

After Henry leaves, Jimmy pulls the nail Abby slipped him out from under his tongue and used it to pick the lock on his handcuffs.

"Are you even capable of running?" Jimmy helps Sully get loose.

"I don't care if I die as long as I can protect her from Henry." Sully tells him, "I'm sorry for-,"

Jimmy cuts him off, "It's good, dude. We got to help the girls." He tells him and they go after the others, with Sully moving slightly slower.

Jennifer comes to a cliff and soon Abby almost runs into her but Jennifer stops them from falling off. Henry catches up to them and Abby concludes that Henry told Jimmy and Sully, he'd kill them unless they signed a confession. Henry denies it, stating he would die without them.

"Really? Then why do you have the boarding knife?" Jennifer says as she and Abby hold onto each other's arms.

Henry tosses it over the edge, "There. Now do you believe me? You two and this island are my home. The only thing that makes sense to me."

"None of this makes sense." Jennifer walks towards him and Abby tries to stop her but Jennifer knew he wouldn't hurt her, "You destroyed everything we love? You killed Abby's dad, our friends. Now you want to take Jimmy from us and Sully from me."

"BUT YOU HAVE ME!"

"WE DON'T WANT YOU!" She screams back at him and she can see how hurt he was so she steps closer, "You ruined everything, Hen. You ruined us for this." She tears up as he steps closer to her, and Sully comes running at them, tackling Henry off the edge.

Henry reached for Jennifer so Jimmy runs over pulling her back so he goes over the edge with the two.

Jennifer rushes to get down before Abby, rushing over to Sully first only because he was in bad shape compared to Jimmy, "You break anything else?" She asks him.

"I don't think so." He groans as Abby goes to Jimmy, asking if he was okay. "Jen," Sully sees Henry walking towards them.

"Jennifer!" Abby tosses the boarding knife to her, so she runs it through Henry's stomach, feeling bad deep down.

Jennifer's hands shake, looking at where she impaled him before looking back up at him with tears in her eyes, "Jenny." They both go down to their knees.

"I-I..." She cries to him because he was her best friend after all. She did love him, but it wasn't in the same way as his love for her and Abby. "Hen," She sees the hurt in his eyes.

"But... I love you." 

"I love you too." She barely whispers as he slowly dies.

Abby and Jimmy slowly walk over to them as Jennifer looks at her hands, "Jen?" Abby bends down next to her. "Jennifer..." She looks at Abby with tears running down her cheeks so Abby hugs her.

"Ow, fuck. Why did I tackle him off a cliff?" Sully groans as Jimmy helps him up.

"I have no clue. You were slow the whole way here, then suddenly, you slammed on the gas pedal. You almost took Jen, too so I took the fall instead." Jimmy groans as well. "If you ladies are ready, I'd love to go find help. I'm sure Sully really would." Jimmy holds him up.

"Yeah, we just have to walk a few miles." Abby says, pulling Jennifer up as she was still in a little state of shock.

Later after walking for a while, they finally get to help and the coast guard gets them on the boat to head to the mainland. Jennifer watches Jimmy and Abby share a kiss so Sully holds her hand, "You did what you had to do." He tells her.

"Why do I feel bad if he deserved it?"

"You've known him your whole life. You thought he was someone that would never hurt you or was capable of that stuff." He says as she starts to tear up again.

"This whole time... He was our brother. And I've always treated him like he was one. He knew we were his sisters, yet... he still loved us in a different way. He ruined everything because of something we said as kids. It's really our fault." She cries, so he holds her.

Abby and Jimmy go to the Seattle FBI field office, while Jennifer goes to the hospital with Sully and a few officers. They all were questioned about the whole thing from the first day up until now alone. At the moment, Jen was waiting for Sully to get out of surgery when Shea walked into view with Madison.

"I heard you and Sully would be here." She goes to sit next to her.

"I'm just waiting for him to get out of surgery. he was stabbed in the back, broke his arm and sprained his ankle."

"Henry didn't make it?" Shea says, not knowing that piece of info that he helped Wakefield.

"No, I killed him..." She looks at her and could see all the emotions going she was going through. "He killed Trish... and Ben, Fain, your dad, Richard, Malcolm, JD, and Katherine. He killed our dad, Wakefield. He was going to kill Sully too. His romantic obsession with Abby and I motivated him to lure us and everyone to the island was all part of an elaborate gambit to kill off everybody from his and our old lives so we could be happy together on the island forever. All for something Abby and I said to him when we were kids. " Jennifer cries to her.

"I don't blame you for his action because of his deranged mind taking something you said as kids literal." Shea says as the doctor says Sully can be seen now. Sully was glad to see Shea and Madison were safe and she thanked him for getting them off the island again before letting him get some rest with Jennifer.

"Since you are responsible for breaking my arm... I'm expecting you to help me." Sully drinks his water.

"You prefer to be dead right now?" She laughs at him.

"I guess I should thank you, huh?" He smiles.

"You guess?" She gets up, acting like she was going to hit him.

"I'm just joking." He has her sit next to him on the hospitable bed, "Thank you for saving my life. I'm really grateful you came looking for us." He takes her hand into his and he sees her getting upset.

"Everyone didn't deserve to die. Danny and Shane went out trying to save others. Trish was betrayed by someone she loved. Shae lost her family. Abby lost hers... Cal and Chloe were getting engaged. Booth was the only lucky one that died because it was an accident and not murdered by his friend."

"At least Henry and Wakefield are dead now and we know that's true." He squeezes her hand.

"Remember when Abby wouldn't kill Wakefield... I told her and Henry I'll be a killer if I had to, and Henry said I wouldn't. I said bet and I guess I proved him wrong by killing him." She tears up, "I hate that I still feel bad, Sully. I loved him like a brother and he was and I killed my brother. He deserved it, but I think it's the fact I hate hurting people's feelings even if they are a bad person and I'm not in the wrong."

"Jen..." Sully sits up more.

"The look in his eyes when I ran the blade through him... He was so hurt and I broke his heart." She sobs.

Sully grabbed her face so she would look at him, "I know it's because of the type of person you are. Like you said, you hate hurting people's feelings even if they are the bad person because then you feel bad but this is totally different. He killed our friends, Jen. He had a whole-ass elaborate plan to get us all somewhere to kill off. Don't feel bad for hurting his feelings when he hurt yours first."

A knock at the door makes Jennifer wipe her tears away as Abby and Jimmy enter the room, "How are you feeling?" Abby asks Sully.

"Okay, I get to get out of here tomorrow afternoon. Shae and Madison were here earlier. Jen told Shea everything. She thanked me for getting them off the island again" Sully tells her then looks at Jennifer looking down, "Tell her don't feel bad for killing Henry." He begs the two.

"Don't Jen... I know he was our best friend growing up and you two were even slightly closer than us, but he wasn't the Henry we thought we loved. He had to be stopped and that was the only way." Abby explains to her.

Jennifer just nods her head, "So you going to stay with Abby or?" She smiles at Jimmy.

"Umm, yeah. For the time being. What's your guys' plan?" It was his turn to smile.

"Apparently, I'm responsible for breaking his arm, so I'm expected to help him out for a while." She looks at Sully, who was nodding his head.

"Didn't she save your life?" Jimmy laughs.

"Thank you," Jennifer tells her brother.

"Don't push it, Sully. You finally got her after trying for eleven years." Abby gives him a wink.

The four spend some time together before Abby and Jimmy leave as it gets dark out and visiting hours were ending. "You're staying, right?" Sully asks as she goes through the channels.

"I'm not leaving you." She glances over at him then back at the tv.

"Come here." He pats his bed so she gets on his good side, "I love you."

"So I've heard and I love you too." She kisses him.

"Marry me," He says, making her sit up to look at him a little shocked, "Now isn't the best time to ask for many reasons. And we haven't even dated at all but I've loved since I laid eyes on you at the age of fourteen. Then tried making a move on you since we were seventeen, and then finally succeeded at the age of twenty-seven. I've learned life is too short so marry me, Jennifer."

"You're insane, you know that?" She giggles, "Our first kiss was like, what, a day ago? And now you are asking/ telling me to marry you because life is too short?"

"Exactly. You are all I want in life, Jennifer." He says, being completely serious about what he wants.

"We're not getting married on that island, Christopher Sullivan." She smiles, causing him to smile too.

"The hell we aren't, Jennifer Mance-Sullivan." He gives her a passionate kiss.