#this is FAR FAR from the worst bit but I refuse to give spoilers

[butterfilledpockets]

Butter, what can we expect?

Will we cry?

BUTTER, PLZ TELL US WE WON'T CRY!!!!

[awearywritersworld]

i was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend

sukuna x reader summary: you persuade sukuna to play go fish. the two of you have a small disagreement (he really can't stay mad at you). he confides in you about his past as a sorcerer. w/c: 3.4k tags/warnings: the teeniest bit of angst. mostly fluff. banter. cursing. aged up!yuuji. slight yuuji x reader. not canon compliant. fem!reader. no use of y/n. no manga spoilers. a/n: the first section could be read as a brief(ish) stand alone. and for context, the world's shortest frankenstein synopsis: victor frankenstein brings a creature to life using dead body parts and thrusts him into a world he doesn't understand, then promptly abandons him and wishes him dead. alone and regarded as repulsive by every human he comes across, the creature begs frankenstein to create a wife for him too. when frankenstein refuses, the creature is further driven to hatred and violence. series masterlist // masterlist

"we should play a card game!" you exclaim as if you've just had the world's greatest idea.

"i'll pass."

sukuna sounds listless, like it's quite possibly the worst proposition he's ever heard.

"why's that? scared i'll beat you?"

"i'm opposed to mind numbing boredom, more like."

"you really need to expand your horizons," you suggest, making your way over to where you keep your playing cards. "all you do is read and brood."

"it's gotten me this far."

you don't respond, too busy rifling through your bookshelf. just as you spot your cards, a book catches your eye and you pull it from its place.

making your way back over to him, you drop it in his lap. "since you found jane eyre so insufferable, here's one you might actually like."

he surveys the cover, which reads: frankenstein or the modern prometheus

you take a seat across from him at the kotatsu table and shuffle the deck, while sukuna flips through the pages with new found intrigue.

"what's it about?"

"the dangers of playing god. should be right up your alley."

"your subtly never ceases to amaze."

"i'm just kidding." you laugh. "there's a lot more to it than that— revenge, loneliness, personal responsibility..."

he turns the book over. "it's written by a woman?"

you raise your eyebrows at him. "what, you don't think women have enough depth to write about those kinds of topics?"

"no, it was just an observation," he says off handedly. "you are evidence enough to the contrary."

he doesn't say it as a compliment, more so as a statement of fact. you hope your astonishment isn't written all over your face.

clearing your throat, you begin dealing while explaining the rules to him.

he takes up his cards and seems to understand the game after only a turn or two, but you're narrowing your eyes at him soon thereafter.

"go fish," he says for the fourth time in a row.

your gaze shifts down to his hands. there's just no way. "show me your cards."

"wouldn't that defeat the purpose of this stupid game?"

"not if you're cheating, now let me see."

"no."

you reach across the table, hoping to snatch them from his grasp, but he just holds them out of your reach.

swiftly rising to your feet, you launch yourself at him in a sad attempt to catch him off guard.

with only one arm extended, he easily fends off your attack. "do you actually think you have a chance here?"

you sink to your knees in defeat and sit with your legs folded beneath you. "not really, but i have to know if you'd stoop this low."

"that so? had you believed me to be above cheating?"

you gasp. "so you admit it?"

"i told you i didn't want to play," he deadpans.

"that doesn't mean you had to cheat! now we have to start over!"

he carelessly tosses the cards onto the table. "i don't think so."

"please?" you lean forward, jutting out your bottom lip.

he just stares at you with an air of disinterest.

sukuna can be so haughty sometimes, and frankly, it drives you a little crazy. you'd give anything to wipe that look from his face— to prove that he doesn't find this as miserable as he lets on.

leaning forward even further, your hands meet with the carpet to support your shifting weight. now he's watching intently as your face approaches his, your eyes flicking down to his lips.

unbeknownst to you, sukuna's breath catches in his throat once he sees your gaze shift, though his mind struggles to catch up. it happens so fast that he hardly registers the quick peck you place on his lips (though maybe it's not the speed of the occurrence, so much as his shock).

"please?" you repeat.

he looks off to the side and stays silent, though his demeanor is indicative of some heated internal debate.

sukuna can't let you win, not that easily. you'd be under the impression that you actually have power over him! and for what? some measly kiss?

no, he simply will not allow that. "i already told you—"

grabbing him by the chin, you cut off his words with another kiss, but this time it lasts a few beats longer. your lips don't move against his, they just linger there in a way that that makes him question whether all of the oxygen has vanished from the room.

when you pull away, you're looking at him expectantly with the same pout still playing on your lips.

"fine!" he barks, grumbling something afterwards that sounds a lot like "evil little minx."

"human earthworm two is definitely still the best."

you're walking home with yuuji after a late night showing of the newest movie in the series.

"no way," you contend. "this one was even better."

he gawks at you. "in no world is the seventh film in an anthology the best! you're crazy—"

sukuna's mouth appears, always eager for a chance to undermine his vessel. "she's right, brat."

yuuji can't believe his ears. "what?! you haven't even seen it!"

"i don't know," you interject slyly. "i'm willing to look past that. it really seems like he knows what he's talking about."

"you mean the guy who's existence predates cinema?" yuuji asks, his eyebrows furrowing as a thought occurs to him. "what'd you do all day anyway? watch plays?"

"..among other things, yes." sukuna answers.

"if you look at it logically," you reason, "we probably wouldn't have movies without theater, so we should definitely consider him an expert in this case."

"oh please, baby. when the topic is ancient civilization or being a homicidal maniac, i'll be sure to solicit his opinion then."

"i resent that," sukuna declares, his conviction forcing a giggle from your lips.

"why?" you question. "was it the part where he called you old as shit, or the part where he called you a murderous lunatic?"

yuuji brings a hand to his mouth to stifle a snort, but you're freely laughing now.

sukuna scoffs indignantly and bites back a comment about how partial you seem to be toward said lunatic. "and to think i defended your opinion."

his response has you clutching at your sides and struggling to see through teary eyes.

but perhaps karma is real, because not a moment later, you step off the curb in a way that sends a sharp sensation through your leg.

you gasp in pain and brace yourself for the impact of falling to the concrete, but it never comes. instead, you're left with fingers clamped tightly around your wrist and a strange sense of deja vu.

you turn your head just before the dark lines fade from yuuji's arm completely.

"tch, watch where you're going idiot," sukuna scolds, his mouth disappearing as soon as he finishes speaking.

"are you okay?" yuuji asks worriedly.

"absolutely," you claim, but when you try to put weight on your left foot, you let out a hiss.

yuuji's hands find your waist, hoping to keep you steady. before you know it, he's crouching in front of you with his back turned and beckoning you to wrap your arms around his neck.

once you do, he hooks his arms under your thighs and easily stands up. "this okay? you comfy?"

"yeah. i can't believe i just did that." you hide your face in the space where his neck meets his shoulder. "thanks, yu."

when you get home, yuuji sets you up on the couch with icepacks, heating pads, three different drinks, two different books, and the tv remote.

he still asks if you have everything you need several times, then kisses you sweetly before heading to bed.

around thirty minutes later, sukuna's leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed.

"hey," you greet. your eyes never leave the tv, as you're privy to the slight tension between the both of you.

he skips the evening's pleasantries. "i could heal it, you know."

you finally turn to face him. "really?"

"of course." he rolls his eyes. "some of us can actually use reverse cursed technique."

"and you've just let me hobble around the past hour anyway?"

he shrugs. "you pissed me off."

you blink at him a few times, rubbing at your temples. "well what about now?"

"i don't know," he begins, making his way over to you. he towers over where you're seated on the couch, so you have to crane your neck to look up at him. "just doesn't really seem like something a homicidal maniac would do, but maybe if he were to receive an apology..."

you cover your face with your hands and groan. "i didn't say that. this is really something you should take up with yuuji—"

"i don't make a habit of conversing with the brat, so if that's the way you're going to be..." he turns on his heel and starts for the bedroom, but you grab onto his sleeve just before he's out of reach.

"wait. please don't go."

just like that, your words have his resolve crumbling and any of his lingering irritation ebbs away. he urges himself to stay strong though, especially after the go fish debacle.

when he doesn't speak, you let out a breath.

"i'm sorry, sukuna." he can tell right away that you're being entirely sincere. "i would never purposefully hurt your feelings. i only meant to tease you, but i can see how i was being mean."

are those... are those tears swimming in your eyes? are you in that much pain, or did he just make you feel that badly? in any case, he endeavors to remedy it immediately.

moving around the couch until he's in front of you, sukuna kneels between your legs. he grabs your left foot gingerly, situating it on his thigh before hovering his hand over top of it.

he sighs. "i don't care if you tease me and you weren't being.. mean." the words sounds so juvenile to him.

you weren't necessarily wrong either, goes unsaid.

well, he'd like to consider himself a little more sophisticated than 'maniac' would imply, but that's beside the point.

"then why are you upset with me?"

his jaw flexes as he tries to find the right words. "i would prefer you do that when it's just.. us."

"oh." realization dawns on you, as does another heap of guilt. you know he despises being trapped in yuuji's body, and you completely failed to consider how ganging up on him might make him feel. "i'm... fuck. i'm really sorry, sukuna—"

"stop apologizing," he urges you in a low voice. it's partly because what he just said makes him feel pathetic, but more than that, it's because the look of self reproach you're wearing is akin to a thousand needles in his chest. "it's fine."

he can't believe you're sitting there with so much remorse over a man like him because you... what? wounded his pride?

he probably deserves it anyway.

why should you give a shit when he's done things a thousand times worse, a million different times?

oh, right. because you care about him.

you can't see the cursed energy at play, but you can tell it's working as your pain begins to dissipate.

once he's finished, he carefully moves your foot to the floor and looks up at you. it's not unlike the way a person might gaze at one of the wonders of the world, like they're lucky to be there in the first place.

with the intensity of his gaze, it feels like he can see right into your head— read your every thought and pick apart every emotion. has anyone ever looked at you like that before? you're having a hard time remembering. you're having a hard time thinking of anything at all, really.

so it goes without saying that you don't think about it when you lean forward and kiss him.

it's not at all like when you were trying to convince him to play cards. no, this isn't light hearted or frivolous.

and it's not like the other two kisses you've shared either. it isn't heated or desperate, nor does it leave you gasping for air.

it's tender. it's so fucking tender, in fact, that sukuna wonders whether he's going to crumble beneath your touch.

he grips the area just above your knees, as if needing something to tether himself to before he withers away completely.

his lips move with yours in a way that's slow and careful.

your hands are on either side of his face, ghosting over his skin as a testament to your hesitance— like you're not certain if this is something he would want.

he wonders how in the world you could ever second guess yourself.

when you pull back, you examine his face for a moment before a small, shy smile tugs at your lips and you murmur, "thanks 'kuna."

he just peers at you wordlessly and it makes you nervous, so you attempt to fill the silence. "it feels so much better. a-and i'm sorry again abo—"

his hand finds the back of your neck, pulling your lips against his for a moment longer. "don't mention it, angel."

ever since you gave sukuna your copy of frankenstein, he's spent a decent portion of your nights together reading, his brows drawn together in concentration.

upon finishing, he stares at the page after taking in the final line: "he was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance."

he's deathly quiet and wearing some unreadable expression. his eyes seem far off.

you leave him be for a little while, as it's clear he's lost in thought, but eventually you grow a bit concerned. it's been nearly half an hour since he last moved.

"sukuna?"

he turns to you. "why did you think i would enjoy this particular book?"

you consider his question carefully, his mood evoking your own seriousness. "it's... elegant and tragic. i suppose i appreciate the moral grayness of it. why do you ask?"

"no reason."

"did you enjoy it?"

"yes."

"why?"

he ignores your question. "frankenstein— do you like his character?"

you can't help but feel like you're answering some sort of riddle. "i think he's foolish and arrogant, but i guess i pity him to some degree."

"and the creature?"

"i'm much more sympathetic toward him. he's very... complex and certainly less culpable for the events of the novel than his creator."

you're surprised when he laughs. "of course you would think that way."

and with that, he's flipping through the pages of the novel. you move to sit beside him and once he finds what he's looking for near the middle, he begins reading:

"remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my joints more supple. but i will not be tempted to set myself in opposition to thee. i am thy creature, and i will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me. oh, frankenstein, be not equitable to every other and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and affection, is most due. remember that i am thy creature; i ought to be thy adam, but i am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. everywhere i see bliss, from which i alone am irrevocably excluded. i was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. make me happy, and i shall again be virtuous.”

his voice is strangely even, almost bordering on robotic. you're struck with the notion that he's attempting (with rare difficulty) to mask his emotions.

you regard him quizzically and wait for him to speak. the last thing you expect to hear tumbles from his lips.

"you know they called me the disgraced one?" you nod. "do you know why?"

"i know the story that sorcerers have passed down."

he hums. leaning back into the couch, he looks fixedly at the ceiling before continuing. "i was just a boy when i was orphaned and no one knew anything about my heritage, including me. jujutsu society took me in and raised me as a sorcerer."

"and you didn't care for it?"

"oh, quite the opposite. i reveled in it. my strength was unprecedented, that much was clear from the start. i surpassed my teachers with ease, and eventually, i took to training alone— reading primitive texts and honing skills that they couldn't teach me."

your hand finds his thigh, hoping to offer him some consolation before beckoning him to continue. "then what happened?"

"the men who had been my teachers, who had been the only.. family i'd ever known.. they scorned me. deemed me reckless and dangerous to jujutsu society. plotted my demise."

your voice is small when you ask, "were they right?"

he wants to hate the question— wants to hate you for asking it— but he knows that it's warranted.

"no. i admit i was forward thinking and a bit.. unorthodox, but i wasn't..."

"what they thought you were?" you offer gently.

he nods. "not until they made me that way— not until they abandoned me and backed me into a corner like some animal."

you struggle to find the right thing to say, if any such thing even exists. you're amazed that he's confiding in you, and while it makes your heart swell, you really don't want to fuck it up.

he looks back down at the book, his eyes scanning the paragraph before repeating, "i was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend."

he says it as if he's coming to terms with the circumstances of his life for the very first time.

"the creature was remorseful at the end of the novel," you recall somewhat bravely. "are you?"

sukuna thinks for a great deal of time before replying. you wait patiently for him.

"no," he answers decidedly.

looking over at you for the first time since he began his story, he's relieved to find your face is free of rebuke. instead, there's a warm willingness to understand him. a sadness because of the way he was alienated.

he's curious whether anyone would be able to read the sentiment on your face, or if he just knows you better than most.

is that a privilege he's worthy of? he doubts it.

"you didn't deserve what they did to you," you whisper, reaching up to rake your fingers through his hair, nails grazing his scalp before your palm rests against his temple.

his head leans almost imperceptibly into your hand, and any regret or unease he may have felt at relaying his past to you disappears. watching a single tear slip down your cheek, he wipes it away with the pad of his thumb.

he means to say "don't cry. not for me," but the words die in his throat.

for once, your tears are for him rather than because of him and it's utterly riveting. the fact that someone like you would cry on his behalf seems to contradict every horrible thing he's ever been told about himself.

he could sit here and bask in the feeling forever— he's always known himself to be selfish after all. and you know it too, don't you?

his eyes flicker between each of yours, studying your face. "do you want to know why i don't regret the things i've done?"

you tilt your head to the side. "why?"

"because even if it's made me into a monster..."

for a moment, he contemplates not saying anything more. he considers forcing himself to pull away from your touch, even if it's the only comfort he's been given his entire life. he might still be able to salvage whatever tiny, laughable pieces remain of his pride—

"all of my actions have led me to you."

your eyes soften before you're wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing your body to his. he returns the gesture after a few seconds pass.

you know he's awful. you know he's cruel. you know that what he's been through doesn't excuse his actions. but still— you want so desperately to take away his pain. to make up for all the things in his past. to wipe the blood from his hands.

as you embrace such an incredibly complicated man (one who is infamous for unrivaled wickedness, yet has his face buried in your hair), you ponder the creature's plea: "make me happy, and i shall again be virtuous."

a/n 2: if you're still w me, thanks for reading!! i'm not sure how i feel abt this part, so feedback is both welcome and appreciated!! also, how do we like sukuna using angel?? in my head he picked it up from the "my good angel" line in jane eyre, so i hope it doesn't seem too unnatural. alsoooo, highly recommend frankenstein. it's one of my favorite books!! mary shelley popped off and literally created the entire genre of science fiction at 21! anyway, thanks for all the love yall, it means the world<3

taglist: @96jnie @ay0nha @sad-darksoul @bbysatoruuu @luciiferian @risuola @lirasmoon @disaster-rose @archivist-ghoul606 @creative1writings @sloppyzengarden @omismicrowave @cecesharktales @tanyeonn @hiqhkey @ruixrei @yellowsubiesdance @thefallofruins @anything-and-everything-here69 @emzalot @thepup356 @browneyedgirl22 @lantsovheiress // users in bold could not be tagged. if i forgot to tag anyone, my apologies!! just give me a heads up.

[xxlady-lunaxx]

platonic uzusane :3 i love these two so much — btw very spoiler-y

Over the years, Tengen and Sanemi had developed some sort of relationship. A sort of brotherly relationship, maybe. Often, Tengen found himself feeling like an older brother to the Hashira, which were almost all younger than him. But this feeling became more mutual with Sanemi throughout their time as Hashira together. They confided in each other, in some ways. Really, to anyone else, it would seem like very minimal ‘confiding’. But to the Hashira, it was a great step, letting trust and attachment build between two people prone to die at any moment. They spoke little, however, depending on the atmosphere to write their emotions in the air for them. It wasn’t hard for them to find connection after they got comfortable, especially since they held a mutual hate to their fathers (though only Sanemi’s was deceased).

When Tengen retired, Sanemi found himself almost alone for a while, staring uncomfortably at the empty spot in the Ubuyashiki’s garden during one of the biannual meetings. It didn’t necessarily impact him greatly because he rarely saw the Hashira at regular intervals anyway. But the days when it was hardest on him were the days he felt like absolute shit yet had no company to keep him from the thoughts, nobody he felt would ask no questions and continue a steady conversation away from anything sensitive. He really did not know what to do.

After the war, it was endlessly easier. Of course, the toll of it all and the amount of losses was so great, often Sanemi slipped back into his drinking habits. But Tengen was always there by his side, gently prying the bottle from his shaking hands and embracing him, soothing the worst of the pain until Sanemi was passed out in his arms. This became their routine for a while, nearly a year, until the grief became an endless, yet dull bruise in the back of Sanemi’s mind, though resurfacing easily if prodded. Nevertheless, his wounds scabbed over, making life more bearable. He would help out at the Uzui household often to keep himself busy, especially when there was a child on it’s way. He found the work and chores comforting, really, reminding him of the normal life he used to have before demons stepped into it.

The years droned on with a sense of tranquility that he made sure never to take for granted, clinging on to every bit of genuine happiness he felt. Two, three, four, years passed. They had lost Giyuu, but Sanemi refused to let himself spiral in the last months he had left. Tengen made sure to give him the best he could, though keeping a careful, parental watch on him. Summer came and went. Autumn crept fast on them but disappeared quickly into November. As Winter approached, so did Sanemi’s birthday. He fell ill, as Giyuu had before his death date.

It was a dreary birthday, in any normal circumstance, with rain pouring ceaselessly and a cold chill entering the house. But it wasn’t a normal circumstance, not with a certain death awaiting him just around the corner. Yet the birthday was possibly one of the best in the last few years—save for the one where one of Tengen’s children were born the same day, giving Sanemi a birthday twin with the baby’s cheerful laughter filling the air (it seemed to never cry, really).

Sanemi’s last birthday was by far one of his favorites, despite the weather and the ache in his lungs as he struggled to breathe through mouthfuls of blood. He was practically clinging onto Tengen as Suma helped him swallow the last bites of ohagi that had been homemade by the Kamado’s. Blankets engulfed him in warmth as the Uzui’s surrounded him, the children kept out of the room by Hinatsuru. As he gasped for his last breaths, he met Tengen’s eyes, the eyes of the man who had held him through possibly everything since his time as a Hashira. He had spent most of the last few days being nurtured by Tengen, but it made him feel safe and that alone was the most wonderful feeling. He smiled, and it came easily, even when he was barely forcing himself to suck in the final blissful moments of air. He sank down into the covers, his hand still holding Tengen’s as it fell limp.

To say this hurt, would be an understatement. But Tengen held himself together, despite watching one of the last friends he’d grown so close to die, practically in his arms. He stayed together when his wives helped him get the body to its burial sight. He kept strong through the funeral. But when night fell on the marking end of the first week of Sanemi’s death, he breathed in slowly and let out the breath with a shaky sob, bringing the stump of his severed arm up to meet the hand of his intact one, covering his face and shaking in his futon, unable to hold on any longer.

He had always been the stronger child, it seemed. Keeping everyone sane. With the Hashira, with his teasing banter that, despite other claims, made them feel almost regular, worrying about hearing another of his stupid jokes instead of the amount deaths they had seen in the last week. At home, training to be a Shinobi and lasting longest (save for his final living brother), pulling himself back together as quickly as he could and save face in front of his wives. He had been there for every Hashira’s death, from Kanae’s to Sanemi’s. He had been there. He had stayed true to his word to being loyal to the Corps, even when he had retired, continuing to do his best to help the Ubuyashiki’s.

But now? He felt meek, alone, and utterly helpless. In the dead of night, he heard shifting and the change of breath in Hinatsuru, meaning only that she had awoken. He wasn’t quick enough to stop his crying, still gasping for air when she slipped into his futon next to him, embracing Tengen in her gentle arms.

She spoke quietly, knowing that asking if he was alright would do nothing. She pressed her lips gently to his forehead, whispering small words of comfort and love. He barely registered the actual words, simply leaning into her motherly care. She cradled him in her arms, holding him as if he was a child, allowing himself to break down for the first time in his life. He let the grief and sorrow overtake him, burrowing in her hug as he drifted slowly off to sleep.

[dragonfly0808]

The Trix’s Fates

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE END OF SEASON 3 AND WHAT HAPPENS TO THE TRIX

Well well well… I’ve got some explaining to do.

I knew from very early on that I wanted the Trix to have a tragic ending, with one of them dying, one of them going crazy and one of them just being utterly defeated at the loss of the other two. After some debating, I pretty quickly knew who would end up with which fate.

So… I’ll go by parts, going from oldest to youngest, starting with:

Icy

Icy is the one who goes crazy, losing her mind.

I chose her for this since she’s the leader and the oldest, and losing one of her sisters leads her to fully going off the deep end, she goes too far, gets in too deep.

At the beginning of her story, Icy is very controlled, very paicient and has a full plan. She’s crafty, resourceful and has a family history with dark magic and the dragon flame.

But what sets her off the road is no longer fully being in control due to being out of balance after losing a sister and no longer caring about what happens to her. She has no real end-plan, she has no real goal other than to get back at the Winx and hurt them as much as she can. She was no longer interested in the Ancestral Witches until her plan of collapsing Andros was thwarted.

Icy has a lot of warnings, the very first being when Darcy decides to leave, refusing to stay and watch Icy get herself killed. Instead of letting go and running away like Darcy begs her to do, Icy chooses revenge.

She goes to her home planet, her uncle tries to dissuade her, to warn her of the dangers of the magic that has taken the lives of too many family members, she kills him in order to access that same magic.

She has chances to stop, but she chooses revenge, she feels like she has no other purpose, no other road to take other than to finish what she started the very first time she attacked Bloom.

Icy goes crazy and loses control because it’s the complete opposite of who she was when the story started, she loses everything, included herself.

She choses revenge, choses to continue her family’s mistakes, choses to take the risk of awakening the Ancestral Witches but in the end, she loses it all to those very choices.

Stormy

I went a bit deeper into Stormy’s fate in another post but I chose Stormy to be the one who dies to show her being a bit of a self-fullfiling prophecy, her rage, the very thing that often gives her an edge in battle and helps her in her power to become stronger, is the very thing that kills her.

I chose Stormy to be the one killed also because I had very specific storylines in mind for Darcy and Icy but as for Stormy I just felt like dying would actually be the most interesting, unexpected thing I could do with her.

I thought it could be a very tragic thing to see Stormy, who we know to be fearless and brash and impulsive… die due to a mistake, die in fear of something that she created.

In case you somehow haven’t noticed, I love angst

Darcy

Darcy is the last one standing… well… ‘standing’. I thought that my version of Darcy would be the most devastated to be left alone.

Darcy in my rewrite, has never really been alone. At first she had her brother, then she had Riven, then she had the Trix.

She’s the youngest, the one that they want to protect the most.

To her, being alone is truly the worst case scenario, which is why I chose her to have that fate cause I am cruel. Darcy herself tells Riven in their final goodbye that she’s not used to being alone and that she isn’t good at it.

She gives up. A big part of her dies with her sisters and she turns her back to the ideas of revenge and dark magic.

She was always the ‘lesser evil’ of the Trix, which I feel makes it even more tragic that she ends up so very alone.

Darcy is betrayed once by her brother, being left alone, then she betrays Riven, leaving him on his own, and in the end, Stormy is killed and, seeing Icy is heading down a road that will end in death or worse, Darcy can’t bring herself to watch, to keep going.

————

The reason why I wanted to overall make the Trix’s fates so drastic and tragic was for 2 main reasons.

First off, as a contrast. We see the Winx keep growing and becoming more powerful, while the Trix, as a commenter once said, peaked in high school and have just been going downhill, not truly developing their power after becoming convinced they were at the top of their game in s1.

The second was to show consequences and how high the stakes were for s3. To go all in with the angst and show how, the very first villains of Veiled Wings are destroyed by s3, while our heroes are very much affected and nearly destroyed by s3, but manage to prevail.

[solsays]

here we go again. serious post time. This one is about a very serious topic, and could be very sensitive for some people (cw: manipulation, domestic abuse). if you aren’t aware, this is about Shelby (and Wilbur, which is mainly who this post is about, but reminder that THIS IS NOT HIS STORY. TOSS HIM ASIDE. LIFT SHUBBLE UP.). There is a TLDR at the bottom, as well as a comment regarding my fics.

Shelby (Shubble) recently spoke about an ex boyfriend who abused her. People were guessing it was Wilbur, but she couldn’t say the name due to legal things, but today the scumbag posted a response.He tweeted an “apology”, that spoiler alert, was not an apology. Here is his sorry excuse of a reply if you’d like to read for yourself:

There are some things I’d like to point out here. First of all, he made this about himself. It’s not a damn apology, it’s a lousy attempt at avoiding taking responsibility. Second, he refers to the abuse as an “allegation.” It is not.

He locked her in his filthy ant-infested house. He refused to give her house keys even when he made her clean up after him and pay for the materials. He went two months without unpromptedly complementing her. He bit her so hard that it bruised and she would scream out their safe word. At the safe word he would sometimes bite harder, or grind his teeth against her skin. He joked that she looked like she was abused.

By the way, human bites are more dangerous than an animal bite. They’re incredibly dangerous due to the amount of bacteria in our mouths and can easily kill someone. Oh and also? That reply has an 85% match with AI generated content on TurnItIn, a website used for college papers.

Here are some responses to his “apology” from other CCs, as well as Shelby’s response:

You hear Shubble. They don’t accept it, meaning neither will we. 

As far as other response go especially Freddie and Billzo’s are incredibly concerning. Do not, I repeat, do not pressure Tommy in particular to respond as quickly. He was one of the closest people to Wilbur. He was very young when they became friends, and Wilbur clearly has a history manipulating teenagers. They went through a friend’s death together. Maybe he did have a soft spot for Tommy, or maybe Tom received the worst treatment of any of his friends. 

Phil is currently out of the country and off of Twitter, so he might take a bit to reply as well as the fact he may only now be realizing that he was close friends with an abuser. If he supports Wilbur, we drop him too.

Wilbur does not deserve support. He is a terrible person. He manipulates people for his own benefit, “abuses those he loves”. If you’re abusing someone? You do not love them.

I have dealt with plenty of people like him, and it is so easy to miss the signs. Especially if they’re good at what they do. They gaslight, they lie, and they trick you. Do not assume that anybody knew about his abuse just because they were friends with him. 

Go support Shelby. Encourage her. Follow her and watch her videos. She’s so incredibly sweet and funny, and they’re a joy to watch. Shelby is asexual and uses she/they pronouns.

There is no excuse for supporting him. I have followed Wilbur since late 2020. I was there for the first Lovejoy EP. I was there for YLYL. I have merch from Lovejoy. He has been a huge comfort to me through some of the hardest times of my life. When this came out, I have blocked both Lovejoy and Wilbur on Spotify. I have taken down every piece of merch or posters I own. Don’t support him, period.

He did not care about her. He is a terrible fucking person, and deserves to be deplatformed entirely.

As far as my fics go, I will be (once again) removing his character entirely from any story I have. It may take a while as I’m incredibly busy at the moment, but I will be doing it as quickly as possible.

One final reminder: This is about Shubble. This is NOT about Wilbur. Let Shubble take her time to process this. Support them every step of the way. She is a wonderful person and deserves the world, and the best thing we can do is focus on them and their strength through all of this. They don’t want to be known for this. Let’s get him gone and focus on lifting her up <3

TLDR: Wilbur basically admitted to abusing Shelby in an incredibly self-centered and manipulative excuse of an “apology”. Do not support him, go support Shubble.

[anitoko-17294]

Hot take & question

If Venoct had a panic attack

You think he would try to handle it himself (Like how he usually prefers to handle most situations), even going as far as to try and avoid worrying his li'l dragons on his scarf (Kuro & Shiro) or would he be subconsciously trying to reach out for help?

Like, I know this sounds pretty silly, but hear me out for a moment: Venoct, with all due honesty…doesn’t seem like the kind of per—YOKAI to typically ask for help from others and tends to feel humiliated when he’s helped by another person/yokai (Like in Wakuwaku Nyanderful days (Vol. 1, Ch.6 more specifically), when he was less than happy about being helped out by Katie after he had overworked himself to the point of passing out)). Plus, Venoct also looks like the kind of yokai who’d scoff at first at the idea of anxiety, let alone panic attacks.

(Below is gonna be a LONG ASS infodumping, so get comfortable)

Well…until he’s the one having a panic attack, that is, but even then, he’d probably be in a bit of denial at first and try to convince himself it was something else…only to end up making it worse cause if you know how panic attacks work, you know that trying to think of it as something else is only gonna lead one to thinking of every worst case scenario in that moment, and end up only making said panic attack worse.

Now, let’s just assume that Venoct did understand what a panic attack was, as well as a panic attack's symptoms. Naturally, his first instinct (probably) would be to try and control said symptoms…which you should NEVER do, as you’re not only going end up thinking you’re having a heart attack, but you’re also just going to end up making yourself freak the hell out even more, which in turn, makes said panic attack worser than it need to be.

And if, despite ALL that, Venoct still ends up refusing help and thinks that he can handle it, then…well…it’s only gonna get worse from there cause spoiler alert: While panic attacks usually tend to only last for about 5–30 minutes, in the worst case scenarios, they can last for up to an hour

Which, to the person having said panic attack, can feel like a SHORT ASS time due to how one's perception of time speeds up a bit when there’s adrenaline coursing through one's veins, due to how the brain has less time to process shit when anxiety is in the damn control room, which can give off the perception of time speeding up. It’s like turning up the speed on a YouTube video, and giving the subtitles less time to display what the people in said video are saying.

Now, with all this said, this is basically the turning point where Venoct eventually takes off his scarf, both to give himself more space to [try to] breathe and to also not get Kuro & Shiro all worried up over him, but in the end, he’s either going to end up eventually passing out from hyperventilating or he’s gonna cave in and called shadow Venoct for help (Illuminoct looks like the kinda guy to also get scared if his older brothers get scared, I’m not sorry)

My final thoughts? Venoct needs some therapy. What are you guys’s thoughts?

[purplerakath]

MiyagiDo Karate and Protagonist Morality

So when I watched the first two seasons this bothered me and then last weekend I watched everything else (thus far)... and this still bothered me. So here we are.

Spoilers for all five released seasons of Cobra Kai (although I'll mainly be talking about Demetri, Sam, Danny, and Hawk).

Before I get started...

As much as I'm criticizing the writing of these characters, I don't think the characters are bad, or hate the show. I just think more could be done with them, or in the case of Sam they could have started the ball rolling sooner and she could be a better character than she is.

Except Demetri, they really screwed the pooch on his writing.

Protagonist Morality

So I guess I should explain this term. Protagonist morality is where a show doesn't question the behavior of it's protagonists, assuming that whatever action they've taken is morally correct (for the setting). In a video game, you know all those unguarded chests full of stuff for you. The ones all across the countryside and in towns and often people's houses? The ones you can loot freely and nobody cares or is concerned with all the robbery you're doing?

That's protagonist morality. If the game labels you a thief and you get run out of public spaces for your actions, then the game is labeling your actions as maybe less than a paragon of virtue, and giving you reason to think about it. (Then you do it anyway because it's really nice loot.)

So what about the ACTUAL protagonists?

Johnny, Miguel, and Robby are questioned and judged by the narrative constantly. They generally do things right for them, but not universally seen as correct. And generally the narrative is about them moving forward and making less questionable calls.

The whole point of the start of S2 is that Johnny realizes "No Mercy" is a bad motto, because it just gets people hurt, and changes his teachings to match this bit of character growth. Characters backslide, Johnny and Robby both crash spectacularly at the start of Season 3. Each needs to dig themselves out of the hole their in all through Season 3 (Johnny) and 5 (Robby).

So the show never treats them as not needing growth, as the show is all about their growth.

Daniel

Danny is a hyper-judgmental asshole due to unresolved trauma from his youth and it's a problem. But also the show would be a lot less interesting if he worked through all of this in a timely fashion. Primarily the issue is his reaction to "Cobra Kai" just being back at all, and how he never once gets pushed to question if Cobra Kai in Johnny's hands changed.

Some of this is miscommunication, which is the cornerstone of the Unresolved sexual Karate Tension with Johnny. But his absolute refusal to see good in Cobra Kai had a direct hand in breaking up Sam and Miguel in Season 1 and Danny... came out of it believing he was right.

And when he goes out of his way to try and destroy the S1-2 era of Cobra Kai, the narrative never once actively punishes him for his prejudice. He's also never forced to face why he's like this. It's kind of shit but very much a plot lodestone.

Sam

Like her father, Sam often rushes to a moral judgement on bad info and never goes back. Even if she's wrong. So much of her Season 1 behavior is swept under a rug so that other characters (Kyler, Yaz, Miguel) can be her personal villain. And the worst being Season 2 with Tory.

Sam rushed to 'all Cobras are evil' while in a plot trying to fix her friendship with her best friend, she instigated things with Tory, and blamed Tory for all of it without having to think about why she's following her father so readily. Of course, with the end of Season 2 it didn't matter what her behavior was prior, she had every justification to treat Tory as her own personal satan.

Fortunately for me, and everyone else who likes Sam, most of the later seasons focus real hard on having her grow as a person. Maybe not facing all of her personal failings, but she does grow past them in respectable ways. And while her behavior toward Tory is... still bad, Tory is her personal anxiety attack she's allowed it now. (Unlike someone else.)

She also unpacks some of the prejudice she learned from her dad. Sneaking off behind his back to learn Eagle Fang and figure out before Father Dearest that balance is better than pigheaded arrogance of your own greatness. Leading to the Season 4 finale and her mixed styles.

Demetri Hawk

Before I rant about Demetri, I need to explain why Hawk's narrative, regardless of his failures, is better. Eli starts the show with a clearly defined failing (confidence and courage), focuses hard on overcoming it (through Cobra Kai Karate), and turns him into someone new.

That new person is a loud abrasive asshole, but it's a growth arc.

When Hawk behaves badly, it's treated as a start of darkness. As he grows to love having the power his weaker nerdy self lacked. His acts of vengeance make sense as the flexing of power he's never had before. To the point he becomes the sort of bully he feared. His reactions are all overreactions and that's good writing. You understand why he beats Kyler's flunky to a bloody pulp, it's cathartic but also framed as an act of pure violence and destruction. He needs to live in his anger, his violence, listening to the whispers Kreese offers.

Season 3 is Hawk struggling to choose between good and evil, and in the end he chooses good. Leading him on the path toward balance and being better than either side of him before. Honestly of every character in the show his path is the best defined.

Now Demetri

Demetri is a anxious pessimistic leech. He feels he'll fail before he starts, and therefore doesn't try. He rides the coattails of his friends as they become cool and popular and Hawk was right to call him out. But rather than investigate that, he becomes the target of Hawk's new villain arc, and rushes to the arms of MiyagoDo.

Where he proceeds to never actually face who he was, and just... get to be a cool martial artist with a hot girlfriend as the show sweeps his negative traits under a rug and never touches them.

The narrative never confronts how 'it's fine for me to reap the benefits of your hard work' (start of season 2) or 'I can humiliate my best friend by spilling all his secrets then hide behind my badass martial artist friends' (late season 2) were bad calls, because at the end of the season he just... gets to beat up Hawk to establish the full defeat of Johnny's Cobra Kai.

Directly into Season 3 where he's just as aggressive and antagonistic as Sam is, while neither is treated as being 'over the line' by the narrative. Which is all before Hawk breaks Demetri's arm, meaning he doesn't have the extant trauma reason Sam has.

By Season 5 Demetri is a pretty cool person, but as there's no actual focus on how he got there, it feels cheap. Which really sucks.

What I'd Write-

I don't want to rewrite the whole show, and that makes Danny hard to fix. As so much of him is that paranoia of Cobra Kai. Like- best I could ask for is him going to therapy and trying to work past it (and just being bad at it).

Sam the easy answer is Aisha not forgiving her (at least during S1-2). Where Sam tries to get Aisha back, but every time she either says something about Cobra Kai, or Miguel, or Tory and Aisha points out Sam hasn't given any of them a fair shot, and that Sam has no room to talk after dating Kyler and being Yaz's friend.

Bonus points if Sam also gets taken to task for her going after Tory when Tory was working. Because Amanda already got Tory fired once, but she felt bad about it.

Demetri has a similar route of 'best friend does not forget.' A simple 'why should I ever trust you again' after Moon's party would go a long way to rub Demetri's face in what he did, how he was as bad as everyone who made fun of Hawk's lip at school. How Demetri, for one brief moment, was worse than Kyler.

I want all the characters to either get the kind of care in how they change direction that Miguel has, and failing that being absolutely perfect like Devon (the only person to join Silver's Cobra Kai and not turn evil).

[lia-land]

From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

3/5

Spoilers for the first book in the Blood and Ash series*

I cannot start this review with anything other than how bad the audiobook is. This is an incredibly slow book for about 250/300 pages, as lots of fantasy series tend to be, so I wanted to get the world building over with on the audiobook. I could not continue listening to the narrator after the first few chapters. Hawke’s voice and accent combination is the worst thing I have ever heard and I can’t believe there was no one else who could have narrated this. Give me a microphone at this point... It’s like she was purposely trying to make it sound bad. I don’t know her name but I refuse to believe that she is not Jennifer L. Armentrout’s biggest hater.

Hawke is a relatively sexy character and maybe a little bit like ACOTAR’s Rhys, but this narrator completely ruined him for me. I can’t even read the books without hearing that stupid voice she gave him. I won’t even digress about every time she says ‘Oh my Gods…’ but I do like that this story eventually acknowledges the Gods that it’s referring to.

The world building was dragged out and I was very bored until around 50% in. I didn’t love that the book immediately jumped into spice; it gave me the impression that this series was just going to be porn with a weak plot, but I was somewhat wrong. Not entirely wrong, but the plot was stronger than I expected.

Then there’s the bad writing. The story is okay after chapter 15, but the bad writing outweighs it. I was constantly aware that I was reading, especially during the dialogue. It didn’t flow naturally and felt really forced. As many others have said, this book would have benefited from a good editor. Get Grammarly on this at the very least. The dialogue reminded me more of a TV show script where they quickly refer to/recap a previous episode since viewers might have forgotten. In this book, the dialogue sometimes referred to things that happened only a few pages or even sentences ago. I wanted to know what would happen, but I didn’t want to actually read it because the writing was really dull. The publisher is Simon & Schuster, by the way. Not sure how this met any standards of such a big publisher. Update: I've since seen a few people say that JLA doesn't have an editor at all? That should have told me all I needed to know before even starting this series.

Poppy was boring. She felt less like a character and more like a device for us to see the story unfold. Of course, every character has that purpose to some extent, but the only interesting thing about her is that she is the Maiden, and we still don’t even fully know what that means. I’m far more interested in the other characters. 

I thought Hawke was probably the Dark One after he made out with Poppy, otherwise he would just be really bad at his job as a guard. I was even more convinced after the Duke was stabbed with a cane right after. It seemed too obvious. Poppy is a very dumb character and I think the purpose was for readers to maybe relate to her? No clue. I could probably justify this partially by house secluded she is from other people, but the cane in the Duke’s chest right after her and Hawke made out was too obvious. Not sure how she didn’t pick that up in any part of her endless inner monologue. There's a big thing now about author's treating readers as if they're dumb and it was very clear in this book. I've also mentioned before that I don't base my reviews off of who authors are as people and I haven't, but if you feel like doing a deep dive into JLA's interactions with her readers, she does indeed think we are all dumb.

This isn’t a bad book, but it’s not good either, in my opinion. There really wasn’t that much plot. It’s just a bunch of repetitive inner dialogue with maybe 100 pages of things actually happening. I was so ready for this to be my next obsession, but it just wasn't for me.

Update: Tried reading the second book but it was just too boring. DNF at 12%.

[whinlatter]

author's note | chapter 7: caged 🪽

thank you for reading chapter seven of Beasts! this chapter, we see the fallout from the controversial punch, watch harry and ginny go through about ninety bottles of ink writing precisely one bazillion letters to one another (my loves), and fret as the residents of grimmauld place fight a losing battle with pixies that may or may not be a metaphor for our characters’ own multiplying traumas, chasing everyone around and refusing to be contained. pray for our babies, for no-one is thriving - let's chat chapter seven! (plus a sneak peek of chapter eight, which includes a letter from a character yet to make his Beasts debut...) 👀

✨ spoilers for this chapter below the cut  ✨

writing notes and headcanons:

vibes: this chapter, i wanted the vibes to be claustrophobic, tedium, all hogwarts, real focus on ginny and her restlessness and over-it-ness, her starting to write a lot, both to harry and to others, and her starting to push the boundaries and rebel now she's lost her sense of purpose in returning. (@pocket-lilacs brought up pandemic-era uni vibes of 'what is the point of studying when all this is going on' and that is exactly the energy here). the politics is more a backdrop to ginny's arc in this chapter, though the thicknesse trial has uncomfortable echoes for gin's own set of experiences, and i'm having so much fun but also banging my head up against the wall/grappling with turning up/turning down the volume on the different macro/micro plots in different chapters to try and get different effects and to follow ginny's own engagement with the Big Questions of the postwar wizarding world. scale is hard, who knew!

quidditch: by far the hardest part of this chapter to write was the quidditch scene. it was 3000 words long originally, and i had to go at it with a sledgehammer to bash it into bits, dump most of it, and then just keep the most important parts to fold into this much quicker, punchier scene. the worst part of writing is spending days crafting a section and in doing so learn that you don't need it lmao. so yeah that's why this chapter was a week late. this one was a nightmare but we got there in the end lmao

the forest detention: our first flashback to the war year at hogwarts! why haven't we had more? answers on a postcard, all will be revealed, including the context for the silver trio's forest detention, but for now will just say the fact that snape sent the gang into the forest with hagrid for detention after stealing the sword has a) always had me in a chokehold because all of the endless ginny/forest foreshadowing but also because i've never been satisfied with the explanation that the detention was just an obvious easy option. can't wait to share more !!!

harry and ginny: all i want to do is write more letters for those two. 'sneaking out of grounds, booze, leather gangs' - that was how @madammalkins23 summed it up beautifully, getting at the vibes i keep coming back to with both of these characters: the sirius-black-shaped elephant in the room, basically. escaping from hogwarts with buckbeak? the risk being what makes it all fun? harry fixing up the motorbike? fighting a war against grimmauld place and getting on the whiskey? the looming shadow of molly weasley? it's truly giving padfoot. the idea of harry and ginny in cahoots, as partners in crime, really kept me going when writing this chapter - like, what if harry for the first time did have another person in his life who was of the 'fuck it' school of thought? (i even went back and read that jkr short story of sirius and james on the motorbike lol). basically, the sirius echoes just sort of ended up writing themselves, as they always seem to do in this fic. when it comes to the letters, it's striking to me that in canon harry is very preoccupied with who does or doesn’t write to him - at the dursleys', but also after sirius' death ('It’s just hard,' Harry said finally, in a low voice, 'to realise he won’t write to me again.' - HBP). i've never really got fics that have harry as a non-loquacious letter writer in the post-war period, especially to ginny - harry seeks huge comfort and reassurance in getting letters from people who care about him, and channels his worries about people he's close to into letters, especially people he views as family (sirius, ginny). that harry and ginny would become a bit emotionally codependent through letters seemed in some sense a natural choice, basically, and although they're still being very avoidant, in some ways, i think they're building a foundation towards becoming each other's person in ways that's important. (i am putting together a sirius and ginny parallels meta playing with these ideas and character-trait overlap that i'll share hopefully soon, so stay tuned on that one)

why won’t ginny open up? by far the question i've been asked most this week! i am really really excited and happy about the arc i’ve got in store for ginny on this question, so don't want to reveal too much, but there have been some beautiful insightful guesses in the comments section about why ginny is struggling to come clean with harry or her family. here we see harry begin to see through gin's defences, a little bit, but also show his own blindspots that come from him not having asked the right questions or always probed about her interior life before now. i'm always so grateful and blown away by the trust readers have put in me to deliver on all these protracted question marks but this week especially i felt v glad for readers' compassion towards these characters and especially for ginny and hermione, as they fuck up and get it wrong and struggle yet still get grace in the comment section. both are on a journey, but i know more impatient readers could be sick of waiting for them to get there, so just to say i am really glad everyone is getting it and seeing where both characters are at with empathy and kindness, because ofc what they’re both doing is frustrating (and, when it comes to gin, harry is beginning to think so, too)

plus thicknesse: had a long chat with @saintsenara about ol thicknesse, because he's kind of a baffling figure - ex-auror who gets successfully imperiused, becomes minister and then goes on to actively commit horrific war crimes while under yaxley's control. what's fun about the trials, though, is that you can use them as a conduit to raise these big moral questions for postwar wizarding society - in thicknesse's case, it's questions about agency, free will, and culpability, in ways that has real implications for ginny's reflections on her own experiences. so cheers pius love u

harry's patronus: i am salivating at all of your theories for this one - obviously i'm saying nothing for now, but keep them guesses coming, i live for em! and if you guess right, i'll come up with some kind of prize lmao

detention, career advice (and graves' apathy): back in the site of former detentions, ginny shows her remarkably sparse knowledge of wizarding careers in a scene that i hope shows her trying on for size different role models/authority figures and seeing which ones she feels most like. (i like the idea that ginny would actually be a bit interested in being an auror, if only she'd been in of age and able to benefit from kingsley's hiring amesty after the battle). having ginny hover over the idea of being an unspeakable was particularly important for me, because i like the idea of the dept of mysteries being quite a formative space for her (i feel like all i do is say 'wait and see!' but... i have things to do and say with this dimension i swear!) graves is like, do what you want, babe, i don't care. i'm here for the pension, frankly

michael corner: 'surprise bitch!' - michael corner, probably. do i think michael and ginny were mates after the breakup end of ootp? no i do not. but i have always been so struck that ginny and michael must have actually spent a lot of very intense time together during DH as die-hards in the DA (michael is the only character we hear whose torture by the carrows after attempting to rescue a younger student is described as particularly severe, which i think suggests his level of commitment to the cause). readers will recall my open disdain for michael corner up til this point - i have described him as the jack berger of hogwarts quidditch, for my satc fans - but i'm afraid to say i have now decided i quite like him and am excited for him to rock up in person real soon. i think he's a know it all softboi but with a goodie core. also as a writer there's something quite refreshing about bringing in a character who is an ex who probably can see through some of ginny's shit by virtue of having spent a lot of time with her but no longer needing to/caring about impressing her, placating her or keeping her on side lol

hermione: alaskanastro left a comment that summed this up: 'Man, Hermione is really just doubling down on the whole "I'm going to try desperately to control something in life to feel like I'm in control even if it's my friend's life" isn't she? Or at least trying to'. yep, that's what she's doing! we still don't know all that hermione's going through, but this hit the nail on the head fr. i feel bad that this fic is ginny pov at this stage in its arc, because i think ginny sees hermione in a particular way rn (their final conversation in this chapter really speaking to these tensions - ginny does not want to feel mothered, at least not by hermione...), but these two have a long way to go to get to a point of mutual understanding. wanna write a meta on their friendship soon, hopefully will get chance to before i finish chapter 8. but anyway - wonder what's going on with her and ron... hope we find out soon... hope someone tells us... :) :) :)

everything but the ghoul: the dumbest pun, but had to use this joke in a chapter where ginny skips school (everything but the girl's most famous song is called 'missing'... get it)

songs from the playlist for this chapter:

girls getting grouchy and teenage in their feelings is the big ol mood this week:

the middle of the world - nicholas brittell | sidelines by phoebe bridgers | difficult by gracie abrams | simulation swarm by big thief | crisis by elizabeth m. drummond | delete forever - grimes | chinese satellite (copycat killer version) by phoebe bridgers

i did promise a sneak peek didn't i...

From the desk of the MINISTER OF MAGIC Whitehall, London Dear Ginny,  I hope you’re well. I’d like to meet with you on Saturday the 12th of December at 11 o’clock. It’s important that we’re discreet. Please vanish this letter after reading. Sincerely, Kingsley

[gonzague-if]

i just played both demos of gonzague and i was wondering if there’s any way to actually kiss peyrolles at the end, or if it’s inevitable that they pull back ( ╥ω╥ ) i tried both resisting and giving into gonzague’s worst instincts and nothing changed, so i was curious if there was something i was missing if it is possible.

on that note, does it negatively affect peyrolle’s route if gonzague gives into their worst instincts? what about if they refuse to read aurore’s letter, get angry after reading aurore’s letter, or lose their temper after reading the blackmail letter? i don’t want to negatively affect peyrolles’ route but i love the scene where they bandage up gonzague’s hands (￣▽￣*)ゞ

i was also wondering if peyrolles is amab? i understand if you don’t want to answer that or my previous questions in order to prevent spoilers, though! so, here are my other, (probably) not spoiler-tempting questions:

- do chartres and peyrolles like kids? matter of fact, do aurore and nevers? i would assume so, since they have one, but liking kids typically isn’t a requirement to have them so it’s still a question worth asking i’d say. what would they all do if they had to interact with a child (whether they like kids or not)? peyrolles, to me anyway, seems like they could be either very intimidated by children or very good with them, and chartres seems like he’d get bullied by children.

- in a modern setting, what do you think aurore, chartres, nevers, and peyrolles’ jobs would be? what about gonzague?

- in a modern setting, how would they all meet?

- what are all of their hobbies in canon? what would their hobbies be in the modern world?

i really love gonzague, and i don’t know the original series (i didn’t realise it was actually based on and not just inspired by a novel until i was scrolling through this tumblr) but you’ve really made it your own! i hope you have a good day and best of luck (⌒▽⌒)♡

(p.s. is the gonzague from the novels the real phillipe de gonzague, or did he also murder his brother like your gonzague did? i’m not finding a lot about the plot online, so i can’t really tell.)

Hi anon! That's a lot of questions you got there! Thank you so much for your interest. <3

I'll answer them under the cut to avoid the post to get too long.

First of all, in the current demo you can't kiss Peyrolles regardless of your choices, the near-kiss is all you're going to get for now! Their romance will need to progress a bit before any real kiss happens.

Peyrolles is the one character whose romance is not too affected by your choices of giving in or resisting to your worst instincts. They're accepting of most MCs and only how you treat them personally will affect your relationship with them. None of the choices in the demo so far will prevent you to romance them.

Peyrolles is amab, yes. Gonzague knows it, so I figure I might as well confirm it. They pass as a man for the rest of society (at the moment anyway), few people know they don't identify as a man and Gonzague is one of those few.

Actually, Chartres has already 2 daughters by 1699, when the story starts, you'll see them in the next chapter! But he's actually pretty good with kids and gets along very well with his eldest daughter. Peyrolles has been around some children in their past, but they were never very comfortable with them. They prefer avoiding them as much as possible. Not that they don't like them, they just don't know how to interact with them. Nevers loves kids and enjoys playing with them. He definitely has some 'fun uncle' vibes lol. I think he would be a pretty good father, not a perfect one (who is?), but he'd do his very best. Aurore doesn't really know what to think of children and hasn't been around any until her daughter was born. She's got a lot of mixed feelings about the whole thing that we'll explore later. But I can tell you she's terrified of being a bad mother.

It's hard to envision those characters in a modern setting, their lives and characters are very much shaped by the world they live in. I don't know how they would meet but I can take a guess at what jobs they would have. Peyrolles is not very artistic in their original setting but that's mostly because it was an interest that was inaccessible to them in their youth. So I think in a modern setting they would at least try their hand at being some sort of artist. Maybe an independant movie maker. Chartres, being the rich, aristocratic brat he is would likely have access to high diplomatic or political positions. That he probably would try his hand at for a little bit before dropping it all and trying something else. Maybe influencer lol. Nevers I could picture as a professional athlete. Maybe even a fencer lol. For Aurore, the possibilities would multiply in a modern setting, so much so that she would probably feel a bit overwhelmed by it. Considering her interest in reading, I feel like she would lean towards something academic, but also something that allows her to get out and be active. Maybe archaeologist?

In the current setting, some of their hobbies are: Nevers: fencing, obviously Chartres: partying lol, drawing, playing music and composing Peyrolles: playing with knives <3, people watching Aurore: reading, learning I don't think their hobbies would be that different in a modern setting.

In the original book, Gonzague is the real Philippe de Gonzague, yes, there aren't any stories about a brother, it's an addition of mine. I added this backstory both to humanize the character and allow the player to choose their gender.

Once again, thank you for your questions. <3

[sweetmage]

WIP Wednesday 🎉

Heeeey I'm writing Disco Elysium fanfic for the first time! ✨I always get nervous and overthink it when I start writing for a new fandom so I figured I'd start small and casual for practice!😅

Anyway, this takes place a few weeks after the end of the game when Kim and Harry haven't had much of a chance to follow up with one another since then. A little cafe meet-up to check in before they get back to business.

Contains big spoilers for the end of the game, of course!

Little could compare to the satisfying kla-thunk of the Kineema's door, save perhaps for the steady whir of the engine when it roared to life. Kim hadn't been out in a while, it was all paperwork and boxes for the final stretch, calls between the 57th and 41st to square away his transfer. It was nice to be back behind the wheel. He could almost feel himself deflate in his seat. When the frost had left his windows, his foot hit the gas and he was on his way.

The roads felt unfamiliar when he wasn't patrolling them, like if he spaced out for even a moment he'd wind right back up at his former precinct or perhaps the world would spontaneously rewind and send him back to the site of his last case...

A deep breath. He flicked on the radio and tuned it to something mellow, letting the noise fill the car and quiet his mind a touch until nothing remained but but his destination. The legendary Precinct 41... he whistled long and low to no one in particular, then settled back like he hadn't.

He'd do fine there, he knew that—better than fine, if he could help it—but he still wasn't without his trepidation. His career as an officer of the law hadn't exactly been smooth sailing. Fifteen years forced to oversee delinquent teens while his peers were out there solving real cases... the 'real case' that netted six dead despite their efforts... He shook his head.

He wondered how Harry was doing. They'd kept sparse contact in the following weeks, recovery updates and the like, but he rarely let them stray too far from professional. Whatever anecdotes or personal tidbits he had brewing were best saved for today.

Quaint neon lights and humble bricks greeted him as he pulled in to the café where he'd agreed to meet Harry. After all, they'd be partners again, in a way. Harry would give him the lay of the land, get him acquainted with everyone (perhaps more a test of Harry's memory than any true orientation) and Kim would oversee his progress during his probationary period, keep him on track. He tried not to dwell on how much that sounded like another kid-sitting job.

He found his way inside and was met by the gentle warmth of a well-loved interior and air smelling faintly of berries and cheap coffee. There was already someone in the corner booth, a man with a large frame and wild hair who was asleep. The waitress gave Kim a nervous smile and pointed her pen at the sleeping figure.

"Sorry ma'am," he sighed "I'll wake him."

The waitress' face softened a touch, but she didn't look pleased. "Yeah. You do that." She shuffled back behind the counter and left him to it.

Of course, Kim expected the worst. Painkillers, alcohol, both maybe? He'd been injured after all, and gravely so. It would only take one little slip up and...

"Harry," he said, his voice firm as the hand with which he shook his shoulder. "It's time to get up. Have some coffee, you'll feel better." Harry mumbled something in his sleep, a name? A refusal? Kim shook him again and he woke with a start and a cough, hands splayed upon the scuffed table and eyes wide like an animal before he focused and relaxed, slumping into the booth like a deflated balloon.

"Whu-?" He blinked up at him, squinted, then blinked again. He was unshaven and his hair was unruly, but he seemed sober, if only a bit tired. "About time. Traffic must have been killer, huh?"

Seating himself across from him, Kim cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. "I'm early."

"Heh, so am I." He grinned, though he looked sheepish even as he reclined casually and threw an arm over the back of his seat. "Trying to impress you with my punctuality, but I lost it there for a minute. Feel free to still be impressed, though."

"It's good to see you up and about," he said, glossing over his request. "How are you doing?"

"Great! Fantastic. Feeling really good."

Kim eyed the dark circles under his eyes, the slight hunch of his back. "Really?"

"Really really. I'm a changed man, Kim. Totally reformed. No more of that... y'know," he waved his hand, "nasty shit. I'm going to be the most perfect cop. You're gonna be proud, you're gonna tell everyone, 'hey, I knew this guy when he was a big fuck-up. Now he's a great cop. What happened, you ask? I fixed him. That's right, he's my prodigy.' That's what you'll say."

"I don't think I'll be saying any of that. But, yes. I'm glad to hear you're on the right path. You seem happier, like the lights have come on." He raised a finger to his eyes to demonstrate his meaning.

"Still dark as hell when I close my eyes," he said, doing so with a deep inhale but then his smile went crooked and the glimmer came back. "But I gotta keep shining, baby. Light up the sky, you and me, right?"

"Right, keep shining," Kim agreed, nodding sagely, the slightest of smiles tugging at the corners of his lips. "And how are your injuries?"

"Only hurts when I run. Or walk. Or sit down. Or stand up. So, pretty much always. The scar will look cool, though. Like I'm a badass." He mimicked a few gunshots with his hand then let them drop to the table. "So, yeah, not great. Still healing. Still sore. You know how it is." His eyes darted to the side, then back. "How are you?" There was an earnestness in his voice, and... something else?

"You should take it easy for now. Your leave is up in a week, and I'll need you to be ready." He didn't answer his question, and the waitress chose that moment to arrive, notepad and pen in hand. "Do you know what you want? I'll buy." It was unlikely Harry had the funds anyway.

"I'll have what he's having." He flashed her something between a smile and a grimace, throwing in a wink for good measure, he supposed. She rolled her eyes. Harry looked a bit put off but recovered quickly.

"Alright then." She turned her attention Kim, pen at the ready. "What will you be having?"

"Just a coffee, ma'am, thank you."

Nodding and turned to retreat, she was stalled when Harry's hand came down hard upon the table.

"Wait!" He called to her, "I'm changing my order." The waitress sighed, exasperated, but he forged ahead. "I'll have what he's not having. Gimme whatever. Surprise me."

"He'll have an omelette, ma'am," Kim interjected, then turned back to him. "Please behave yourself."

"I think I'm the least of your worries this time," he countered, leaning his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand.

"How do you mean?" Though he asked, he had the hair raising feeling he already knew the answer. This was Harry, after all, he had that way about him.

"You'll do great at the 41st, just like you did at the 57th. You're the type of guy who could walk into any precinct, start handing out orders, and people would listen." He spoke like this was a well known fact. "You'd be great anywhere."

"I... thank you," he replied, caught a little off guard. "I hope you're right about that."

[crowning-art]

TGCF SPOILERS!

------------------------------------------------

Ohhhh today we get into some lore bits!

As annoying as Pei Ming is, this was so funny that I actually liked him for 0.2 seconds lmao

Pei Ming was probably also startled by her, and was in shock for a long time before he spoke.

“You are…”

Xuan Ji sneered coldly.

Yet unexpectedly, after a pause, Pei Ming asked, “Who are you?”

Wait this line.....

Pei Ming’s voice came. “His Highness’ spiritual device is pretty useful. I’ll have to forge one for myself too, sometime.”

“If you knew how it was forged, you wouldn’t say so…” Xie Lian thought.

I remember reading a spoiler by accident but wasn't Rouye his mom or smt?? Lmao did he kill his mom or smt? I don't think he would do that tho...

UNLESS THEY GOT THE HUMAN FACE DISEASE?????

I CANT BELIEVE THE WHOLE THING I SAID ABOUT XIE LIAN WATCHING EVERYONE LIKE IT'S A SHOW WITH POPCORN BECAME CANON LJDJDJDJDNFJFK

“Yeah, I could feel that female ghost’s love has morphed into hatred, she’s going nuts!”

“I don’t think so. I’m sure she couldn’t do it. Want to eat some melon seeds?”

“Give me another handful, thanks.”

“How can everyone be in the mood to munch on melon seeds?” Xie Lian frowned.

“Your Highness, didn’t you munch a bunch too?” the people said.

“Huh?”

Only then did Xie Lian realize that while he was so focused on the show earlier, he unconsciously received a handful of melon seeds they had passed over, and he’d eaten them all. He slapped his forehead.

Lol I was so confused like wait Yushi Huang is a female??? I thought it was a male this whole time? But then I realized it was because she was addressed as Lord Rain Master instead of Lady Rain Master! She seems cool so far

MAN MY PREDICTIONS ARE COMING TRUE...ish

I mean I did say Lang Ying was bad news a year ago! I mean he hasn't even shown up yet BUT STILL

“What did he look like?” Xie Lian pressed.

“It wasn’t clear,” the Rain Master said. “Because his head was wrapped in bandages.”

Head wrapped in bandages?!

Xie Lian was dumbfounded. “Was it Lang Ying?!”

WAIT I JUST HAD A THOUGHT! WHAT IF THERE ARE TWO WHITE NO FACES! AND LANG YING IS ONE OF THEM????? OR ATLEAST THE CAUSE OF THE DISEASE FROM YEARS AGO????

Anyways, reunion when?

They are living in a rom-com and completing every trope for reals lmaoo current trope: sleepover!

Xie Lian walked off for a bit and had wanted to just find a tree to lean against and lie down for a bit, but Hua Cheng dug out a bunch of ropes and cloth from who knows where, and set up two swinging hammock beds between two trees. The two of them climbed in, and there was ample space, very comfortable to lie in.

Ok, just like the others, Yushi Huang's story was so tragic! Not as bad as the others (but also theirs did take a turn for the worst later on and there might be a later on with her story too...) ALSO GENERAL PEI??? WHAT??? HOW IS HE EVERYWHERE THO??? I wonder if Yushi Huang ever liked him....

The people at the bottom saw someone stuck on top of the roof, unable to come down, and all thought it funny. Even the princesses and princes of Yushi were snickering with their mouths covered. It was only a general of Xuli who, after chuckling, leapt up and brought her down.

This general was of course Pei Ming.

HOLY OH MY GOD I HAVE TO APPLAUD THE GENIUS OF RONG GUANG'S PLAN That was literally so chillingly well thought out and beautiful that I kinda just HAVE to appreciate it, yknow? Like genuinely stunningly beautiful and genius

The Xuli troops brought over hundreds of felons on the death row from Yushi, dressed them up as normal civilians, and dragged them before the palace gates. Then, he told King Yushi: if he should come out himself and kowtow three times to show penance for oppressing his people, and kill himself in atonement, then he would let those civilians go and not lay a single finger on any of the remaining members of the royal house. If he should refuse, Pei Ming would chop off those civilians’ heads. He gave the royals three days’ time, and every passing day in those three, a new group would be killed. After three days passed, they would invade the palace to kill the royals, then kill the rest of the civilians.

If King Yushi refused to come out, then he was selfish and didn’t love his people. The awkward thing was, King Yushi had always publicized that he loved his people like his children; if his words and actions didn’t match, it would for sure produce resentment in the people, thinking they’d been deceived. “Didn’t you say you loved your people like your children? Why would you turn around and have the civilians be sacrificed for the sake of royalty?” This would then destroy their loyalty to the Yushi royalty.

OK WHAT I LOVE THO IS THAT FOR HOW PERFECT AND WELL THOUGHT THE XULI PLAN WAS, THE YUSHI HUANG PLAN WAS EVEN MORE STUNNING FHFJFJJFJGJF

Thus, in less than an hour, in the crudest and most rushed succession ceremony in the history of the Kingdom of Yushi, the monarch who was the least likely to become queen was born.

The new Queen of Yushi slit her own throat, and blood poured like a fountain; no doubt, beyond saving.

Like Xuan Ji had no right to disregard her as Queen after everything she did

Rom cooooooommmmmm this time the trope is: cute motorcycle/bike ride (well ox in this case lmao) while holding your beloved's waist lmao

The black ox sped rapidly, and Xie Lian’s body was leaning back slightly from the force, almost like he was sitting in Hua Cheng’s embrace. He smiled as he listened.

“There sure isn’t anything San Lang doesn’t know; it’s like no tales or classics can trip you up.”

Hua Cheng smiled too. “Is there anything else gege wants to know? I’ll tell you everything, if it’s within my knowledge.

Obsessed with the imagery here! Just putting it here so I can find it again in the future lol

The reason why this mountain looked like it was dyed in the colour of blood was because the forests on this mountain were all red. They weren’t maples, but they were crimson like maples; the colour of blood. Xie Lian could also smell the stench of blood. It seemed the nutrients of the plants here consisted of plenty of resentment and human blood.

OK THERE IS TWO POSSIBILITIES: so it's Jun Wu as White No Face OR Lang Ying since they both have strong connections to the human face disease incident

“Since this person destroyed the other two murals, then why didn’t they destroy this one too?”

Hua Cheng asked. “Why did they leave just this one? And it just had to be the one of the Human Face Disease?

NEVER MIND! THIRD POSSIBILITY! IT IS A WHOLE NOTHER PERSON

“The third possibility is, it wasn’t that this person didn’t want to destroy all the murals, but they didn’t make it in time. Just as they were destroying the other two, we came in. So now, they’re hiding in the grand hall this very moment.”

Ahhhhh I wonder who it can be~ I'm gonna be sitting with anticipation the whole day tomm!!! And I imagine tomm's read will go a lot like this lol

[vinxwatches]

the owl house 3-3 watching and dreaming

seen some scenes small in thumbnails, but going into this largely blind. HYPE.

oh we're getting right into it. almost just going of the last scene from the previous episode into the next. ""we only have 55 minutes, no time to dilly dally."

the subtitles said father titan? and hooty is coming out of it's missing eye? WHAT? oh, and luz is bellos now?

oh fuck, that's a revelation on a bridge i remember rather well.

dream sequance? i worry not. that'd be too simple. illusion? maybe? doppelganger? hopefully. trying to teach a lesson the hard way? best case scenario. don't know if Luz can take this affirmation of her worst fears though.

ok, everyone is getting their worst fears.

combining bellos and raines voices are just... so very wrong.

he... doesn't understand mortality... that's just so scary.

i've not said "oh no" and "oh fuck" so many times in such a short time.

"this is so bad" on so many levels

ugh. UGH!..? no, no no no no you can't do this. i refuse to believe. this isn't real.... right?

hearing king roar... wow.

what? who the fuck are you?! you can't just show up. WEARING THAT?!

"oh fuck, oh fuck. HOLY SHIT!" genuinly did this out loud. there's no other way the owl house would have done a powerup. the BEST colour scheme!

this is the only show where i'm barely surprised the hero's attack the literal hart of their enemy. not metaphorically, not with friendship. no the literal beating heart is what needs to be destroyed.

belos disappearing from all of the isles. symbolism?

10 minutes of wrap up? awesome. that's what a good series deserves. it's what made the mlp finally work so well.

oh no. did they realy have to do that? why that for Luz? why can people never keep nice things? "our own way of doing things" ok, so not completely? Luz will figure out a way to do magic, one way or another?

also Luz is goth now? or at least a bit? i mean looks good on her of course. also not really surprising, yet still odd and cool and ?

fandom headcannon of willow and hunter is cannon? \o/ HOLY SHIT new Amity holy Lilith and more fandom ships seem confirmed i do also love that scars are allowed to from on good guys without it being a big deal. people just have scars, especially those that go through a lot. Holy Shit Eda YES, i love the king thing (no spoilers on that)

HOLY SHIT THAT WAS GREAT. not just finishing the story, but finishing off the story. that's something that many shows suck balls at. finishing the story in a satisfying way, but then not giving full closure, so even though the story is over it doesn't feel over for the characters, there's more you need to see, things you feel should still be resolved. but that did that amazingly too. they truly completed it. allowing you to move on. i mean i'll probably buy/download all of it or at least watch all of it again sometime not too far away, but i have the option not to.

[cyarskaren52]

these are the ten best tv shows of this year (and three of the worst)

The 10 best TV shows of 2023 (and 3 worst)

The year's best TV featured dazzling debuts, first-rate farewell seasons, and the funniest show about an organ-harvesting ring you'll see all year.

Updated on December 8, 2023

Even though the TV industry was shut down for 192 days this year due to a pair of strikes, it was still remarkably hard to narrow this best-of-2023 list down to 10. Shout-out to a few runners-up, which would also be worthy additions to your watch list: Mrs. Davis (Peacock) is a religious experience for fans of Betty Gilpin (a.k.a. everyone); Queen Charlotte (Netflix) will have your Bridgerton-loving bosom heaving with bittersweet sobs; and Yellowjackets (Showtime) delivered a killer ending after an occasionally wobbly second season. With that bit of housekeeping over, let's get on with the show(s).

The 10 Best Shows of 2023 

10. 'Judge Steve Harvey' (ABC/Hulu) 

ABC/Erika Doss

Steve Harvey is not a real judge, but he plays one in this reliably funny and life-affirming (yes!) quasi-court show featuring everyday folks facing off over small-claims complaints. Judge Steve Harvey highlights interesting but low-stakes cases that hinge more on interpersonal relationships than money. Think a husband suing his wife over her obsession with pickleball (including $500 for pain and suffering due to his loneliness); a mom suing her son because he broke his promise to cut his hair; or two factions of an a capella group suing each other over costly (and sequin-covered) costumes. Harvey — a comedian, veteran TV host, relationship advice author, and self-described “full-blown Christian” — nimbly draws out the issues at the root of these conflicts in a way that emphasizes how the people we love are far more important than material things. The host ensures there are plenty of feel-good moments on the docket by frequently surprising the litigants, like a hard-working stay-at-home mom or a couple whose wedding was ruined by COVID, with lavish gifts and much-needed cash. And everyone leaves the courtroom with a valuable dose of tough love. “I think you all need to find your way back to each other,” Harvey tells a pair of siblings squabbling over a dating app profile. “Because when all these men come and go, y’all still gonna be sisters.” The verdict is in: Judge Steve Harvey is comfort TV at its finest.

9. 'The Curse' (Paramount+ with Showtime) 

Richard Foreman Jr./A24/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME

Spoiler sensitivity precludes me from saying too much about this tenaciously peculiar kinda-comedy from Nathan Fielder (The Rehearsal) and Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems); only four of 10 episodes have aired so far. But taken as a whole, The Curse — starring Fielder and Emma Stoneas married TV hosts — leaves an indelible and thoroughly disquieting impression. As hosts of HGTV’s Flipanthropy, Asher and Whitney Siegel’s stated goal is to bring upscale, eco-friendly homes to the working-class city of Española, New Mexico. The locals aren’t enthusiastic, including Nala (Hikmah Warsame, a little star in the making), who puts a curse on Asher after he renegs on his promise to give her 100 dollars. But The Curse’s real curse isn’t some childish hex; it’s Asher and Whitney and Dougie (Safdie), their wretched producer, all of whom refuse to be honest with themselves or one another about what they really want. Come for Nathan Fielder’s (prosthetic) micropenis; stay for the merciless satire of colonialist greed masquerading as modern allyship.

8. 'Harlem' (Amazon Prime Video) 

Amazon

One scene in Harlem’s second seasonencapsulates everything there is to love about Tracy Oliver’s snappy, savvy comedy about friendship, femininity, and finding yourself. Having just landed a small part in a Hallmark Christmas movie, Angie (Shoniqua Shandai) arrives in hair and makeup to prep for an upcoming party scene. The white stylist (Ursula Abbott) tentatively pats Angie’s natural curls. “I’m thinking it’s perfect!” she chirps, before breezing her way out the door. A stunned Angie sits in silence, flanked by posters featuring the white casts of (fictional) Hallmark films, including Christmas Sail and You’ll Tide Me Over. 

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(Tagline: “Sometimes, you have to settle.”) She’s on the brink of walking out when beloved sitcom diva Countess Vaughn appears to her as a vision. “What about that brown girl that is hooked on the Hallmark Channel?” she asks Angie. “You want her to see you, right?” A buoyant tale of four BFFs — anthropology professor Camille (Meagan Good), fashion designer Quinn (Grace Byers), queer tech exec Tye (Jerrie Johnson), and aspiring actress Angie — Harlem examines the realities and nuances of life as a Black woman with frank insights and savage pop culture parody. Don’t call it the new Sex and the City — seriously, don’t. (The characters literally roll their eyes when someone mentions SATC in the finale.) Just know this: If you’re looking for a delightfully smart, funny series with an authentic point of view, you don’t have to settle.

7. 'Bargain' (Paramount+) 

 TVING Co/Paramount+

A fast-paced fusion of body horror, disaster drama, black comedy, and psychological character study, Bargain packs a lot of payoff into its six sleek episodes. The Korean survival thriller opens with an unsettling vignette: Park Joo Young (Jeon Jong-Seo), a teen girl wearing a short black skirt and a private school blazer, meets an older man named Noh Hyung-soo (Jin Sun-kyu) in a remote hotel room. They proceed to have a detailed discussion about the technical status of her virginity. It’s excruciating, which makes the pandemonium that follows — a black-market organ-harvesting ring! a catastrophic earthquake! murderous gangsters on the hunt for any surviving witnesses! — all the more exhilarating. Writers Jeon Woo-sung, Choi Byeong Yun, and Kwak Jae Min don’t use the natural disaster to vault Joo Young and Hyung-soo into something as predictable as a redemption arc. Instead, they send Bargain’s assortment of venal and untrustworthy characters on a survival scramble that’s so deranged and giddily suspenseful, watching it play out is priceless.

6. 'American Born Chinese' (Disney+) 

Disney+

On the night before his big soccer game, stressed-out tenth grader Jin Wang (Ben Wang) has a dream. He’s on the apartment set of Beyond Repair, a corny ‘90s sitcom whose wacky neighbor character, Freddy Wong (Key Huy Quan), is as problematic as it gets. Just as Jin confesses that he was too scared to help his friend Wei-Chen (Jimmy Liu) find the mythical Fourth Scroll, Jin’s immigrant parents, Simon (Chin Han) and Christine (Yeo Yann Yann), appear and beckon him to the dinner table. “You have to be brave, Jin,” Christine tells her son. 

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“You are all the pieces merging into one.” Based on Gene Luen Yang’s acclaimed graphic novel, American Born Chinese itself merges a variety of fascinating pieces — ancient folk tales, wuxia-inspired martial arts action, pervasive racist stereotypes, and a portrait of one Asian-American family’s experience — into an electrifying, heartfelt saga about high school, friendship, and saving the world. Sandwiched as it was between a raft of Marvel spinoffs and Star Wars brand extensions, American Born Chinese broke through with its stellar cast (including Michelle Yeoh as Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy), endearingly relatable characters, and a beautifully simple message. As Freddy explains to Jin in his dream, “A hero doesn’t always have to have superpowers. A hero is someone who goes on a journey, shows courage, helps others.” Fingers crossed that the execs at Disney+, which has yet to renew ABCfor season 2, are listening.

5. 'The Bear' (FX/Hulu) 

Chuck Hodes/FX

“Yo, you ever think about purpose?” Standing in the basement of The Original Beef sandwich shop, 45-year-old Richie Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) admits to Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) that he can’t see a path forward. “What’s my purpose?” That question — both existential and maddeningly practical — is the emotional catalyst pushing Richie and his restaurant family forward in The Bear’s propulsive and poignant sophomore season. Creator Christopher Storer and his writers balance the ticking-clock narrative of an impending restaurant opening with remarkable stand-alone episodes: Marcus (Lionel Boyce) finds inspiration and his confidence in the meditative “Honeydew”; Carmy, Natalie (Abby Elliott), and Mikey (Jon Bernthal) navigate a tumultuous family Christmas in the claustrophobic “Fishes”; Richie realizes that hospitality is his raison d’être in the sublime “Forks.” Serving up powerful moments of hypnotic quiet (Ayo Edebiri’s Sydney lovingly crafting the platonic ideal of an omelet for Natalie) and turbocharged chaos (Carmy, a victim of his own procrastination, gets trapped in the walk-in freezer on friends-and-family night), The Bearfound meaning in the madness of family.

4. 'Reservation Dogs' (FX/Hulu) 

Shane Brown/FX

When we first met Bear (D'Pharoah Woon-a-Tai), Elora (Devery Jacobs), Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis), and Cheese (Lane Factor), all they wanted was an escape — from life in their sleepy reservation town of Okern, Okla.; from the constant (and often cryptic) advice of their elders; from the pain of losing their best friend Daniel (Dalton Cramer) to suicide. Two years and 28 magical episodes later, the glorious coming-of-age comedy from Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi ended with the rez dogs understanding and embracing the gift of community. The past was a constant presence in the dreamy, penetrating final season: The Deer Lady (Kaniehtiio Horn), a spirit who enacts vengeance on amoral men, returned for a chilling episode focused on the U.S. government's abduction and abuse of Indigenous children through federal "boarding schools." The trippy “House Full of Bongs” gave us a glimpse of Okern’s winningly eccentric elders — Big (Zahn McClarnon), Brownie (Gary Farmer), Irene (Casey Camp-Horinek), Bucky (Wes Studi), Fixico (Richard Ray Whitman), and Maximus (Graham Greene) — as indolent teenage shitasses. And in “Elora’s Dad,” Ethan Hawke dropped by and absolutely nailed the fidgety, earnest energy of an estranged parent trying to make up for a decades-long absence over a cup of diner coffee. It's painful to say goodbye to this little marvel of a show, so I’ll just echo the words of Willie Jack in the finale’s funeral: “I know I didn’t get to spend enough time with you. But mvto for everything that you taught me.”

3. 'Barry' (HBO/Max) 

Merrick Morton/HBO

Staring with pleading eyes through a wall of prison plexiglass, Barry Berkman begs Sally (Sarah Goldberg), the love of his life, to forgive him. “I didn’t lie to you,” he rasps. “I just, I didn’t tell you the part I didn’t want to be true.” In the grisly final season of Barry, Bill Hader’s titular hitman sought redemption through revisionism, rewriting his homicidal personal history in real time rather than suffering the pain of true repentance. Though accountability hangs like an albatross on Barry and everyone else in his corrosive circle, they transform their regret into outward-facing rage, seeking vengeance on a world that allowed them to make such life-destroying choices. Season 4 of Barry was TV’s funniest tragedy, one that gave the exceptional cast the chance to plumb the true depths of their characters’ misery. Anthony Carrigan’s NoHo Hank, his polished façade stretched thin over a heart demolished by guilt over his soulmate’s death; Henry Winkler’s Gene Cousineau, a Hollywood wannabe done in by hubris; Stephen Root’s merciless Fuches, who emerges from his torturous prison stay with a violent distaste for dishonesty. A few additional accolades are required for Goldberg, whose Sally descends into an emotional hell of her own making, only to claw herself back to the precipice of peace.

2. 'I'm A Virgo' (Amazon Prime Video) 

Amazon Prime

“I’m either a villain or a clown,” laments Cootie (Jharrel Jerome), the 13-foot Black teenager at the center of I’m A Virgo. “I want to inspire people.” In his brilliantly offbeat debut TV series, Sorry to Bother You auteur Boots Riley sends his singular protagonist on a hero’s journey that’s equal parts provocative, uproarious, and inspirational. Emerging from a 19-year seclusion imposed by his overprotective aunt and uncle (Carmen Ejogo and Mike Epps), Cootie balances coming-of-age milestones — like falling in love with Flora (Olivia Washington), a comely fast-food cashier — with the ugly reality of the socioeconomic oppression his Oakland community endures. He’s immediately marked as a threat by a billionaire comic-book publisher (Walton Goggins, wondrously weird) who channels his intense despair into cosplaying as a vigilante crime fighter called The Hero. I’m A Virgo’s fearlessly outrageous narrative offers a dark (and darkly funny) critique of the over-policing of poor communities, the fetishization of law enforcement by pop culture, and the grim connection between crime and capitalism. There’s a lot wrong with the world today, but this year, Boots Riley delivered a dazzlingly original anti-capitalist fable on a platform owned by one of the most powerful corporate behemoths in the world. There’s no other word for it but inspired.

1. 'Succession' (HBO/Max) 

Warner Bros.

Five years after Logan Roy (Brian Cox) suffered a stroke and catapulted his children into a cutthroat, internecine battle for control of the family business, his son Kendall (Jeremy Strong) was struck with a profound and crushing moment of clarity: “He made me hate him, then he died.” In its miraculous final season, Succession laid bare the calamitous effects of Logan’s parenting style on Kendall, Shiv (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Connor (Alan Ruck) by giving the siblings the one thing they thought they wanted: Freedom. Prior to Logan’s astonishingly abrupt death in episode 3, creator Jesse Armstrong brought the Roy family together for fleeting moments of connection. “Holy s--t, did dad just say a feeling?” scoffed Kendall, after a somber Logan bemoaned his children’s absence at his birthday party. Was that “I love you” Logan offered his children in the purple glow of the karaoke bar real, or was the Roy family patriarch just feeding their starved hearts a few crumbs of affection to keep them from tanking the GoJo deal? Probably. Even once their formidable father was gone for good, the Roy children clung stubbornly to his toxic playbook, turning every interaction with one another into a negotiation — for power, for loyalty, for validation that they were, in fact, serious people, no matter what daddy said. Offering sufficient praise for Succession’s unparalleled ensemble is an impossible feat, but I’ll treasure Ruck’s wistful performance as Connor, an insider perpetually on the outside — and the only Roy child who almost understood that vying for Logan’s love was a zero-sum game.

The Worst Shows of 2023 

3. 'Citadel' (Amazon Prime Video) 

Amazon

Want to read a really depressing sentence? Here’s Jen Salke, head of Amazon and MGM Studios, lauding the first season of Citadel in May: “Our goal was always to create a new franchise rooted in original IP that would grow Prime Video’s international audience.” Corpo-to-English translation: We want flashy, conventional, easily duplicated content that we can own. Amazon’s plan worked: The overpriced, paint-by-numbers spy thriller starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden as sexy agents fighting a global crime syndicate was popular overseas, and the streamer is already replicating that formula with two international spinoffs. Television is a business, and I’m not naive enough to expect execs to value creativity and originality over profits. But man, at least they used to pretend to care about quality. As the industry melds into one giant conglomerate, expect more like Citadel — less a TV show than a mass-produced unit of “entertainment.”

2. Rehashed IP 

Netflix;Paramount+;CBS

Another year, another glut of unnecessary and uninspired reboots, revivals, and (a pox on this word!) “reimaginings.” Showtime’s Fatal Attraction and the Frasier revival on Paramount+trapped likable actors in flimsy creative constructs, while Netflix’s That ‘90s Show thrust once-likable characters into a purgatory of artless, laugh-track powered nostalgia. Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies on Paramount+ all but sabotaged its intriguing, feminist-origin-story premise with a desperate excess of Easter eggs, but at least it tried harder than CBS’ True Lies, which played like a 44-minute network note. A few IP re-dos rose above mediocrity: Night Courtearned big ratings for NBC, and Netflix’s anime Scott Pilgrim sequel became an instant critical darling. You know what that modicum of success means, folks: More rehashed IP! Heading into 2024, my New Year’s resolution is to keep an open mind about the new versions of Fawlty Towers, Matlock, Who’s the Boss?, Baywatch, Ally McBeal… [sobs quietly into hands]

1. 'The Idol' (HBO/Max) 

The Idol is a fascinating example of what happens when network execs give a hotshot showrunner carte blanche — or, as Abel Tesfaye’s character pronounces it with such confidence, cart-ay blanch-ay. The drama — which was co-created by Euphoria mastermind Sam Levinson, Tesfaye (formerly known as The Weeknd), and Reza Fahim — centers on Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), a famous but troubled pop star. Just as she’s on the cusp of launching a comeback after the death of her mother, Jocelyn falls under the sway of a charismatic and abusive charlatan named Tedros (Tesfaye). Behind the scenes, The Idol experienced its own power shift with the departure of original director Amy Seimetz, leading to extensive rewrites and reshoots under Levinson’s purview. What was apparently supposed to be a satire of modern fame and the exploitation of female celebrities became a laughable, affected, and morbidly fascinating exercise in soft-core porn. As an actor, Tesfaye is an excellent musician, and The Idol has nothing insightful or interesting to say other than, “Look at how many times we can get Lily-Rose Depp naked!” (It should be noted that Depp is a talented actress and clearly did her best with the schlock she was handed.) HBO wanted the next Euphoria. Instead, they learned a very unsexy lesson: When wunderkinds are left unsupervised, the results can be agony. 

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[arisaontheinternet]

Lets go I finished it and spoiler alert, I got at least one of my guesses right. :D But I got a 100 pages to post so here we go.

So Tomo is dead and its time for some backstory and you know its going to be juicy because the chapter is called "Atrocity". The 3 sisters gather everyone, the whole family minus Sayoko. Also Tamayo, Kindaichi, Tachibana, Furudate the lawyer, and Detective Yoshii are there. We go back 30 years ago when Sahei met and fell in love with a young factory worker Aonuma Kikuno. Matsuko says some very rude things about her here, but the facts are that Sahei did not love his daughters or their mothers so when rumors started to spread that he would make Kikuno his legal wife they got very angry. Matsuko threatened to kill both Sahei and Kikuno and then herself if this were to happen. This scared both of them, eventually Kikuno was so scared that she went into hiding in Ina in a farmers extra room. But she was already pregnant and gave birth while in hiding. But turns out Sahei had given her the heirlooms before she left, so after paying some people to find her, the sisters pay the farmer to leave for a bit and visit Kikuno. And by visit I mean they beat her with a broom and threw freezing cold water while asking her to give up the heirlooms. She of course refuses, but Umeko, the bitch that she is, takes a hot iron to the babies bottom, which gets Kikuno to give the heirlooms and eventually sign that the baby is not Sahei's. Before they go though she issues one last warning. Picture for effect.

Look its a motive, for murder :D

So you think you've seen a plot twist, you ain't seen nothing yet. We are revealing secret in "Tamayo's Identity". After the terrible story from last chapter we get an update from Furudate as to what happened to Kikuno and Shizuma after that. It turns out Kikuno is a distant cousin of Nonomiya Haruyo (Daini's wife) which may be why Sahei held her is such high regard. She eventually goes to live with distant relatives in Toyama City. Where she leaves Shizuma at the age of 3 to get married. Where abouts after that are unknown. Shizuma was adopted by the relatives and became Tsuda Shizuma. He attened school through junior high school and joined the military during the war. He was last deployed to Kanazawa, but after that no one knows what happened to him or his unit. Next we get everyones alibis for the time of Tomo's murder. Matsuko and Kiyo were with the koto teacher. Takeko and Umeko and their husbands were looking for Tomo, with mutliple witness. Only Monkey and Tamayo have weak alibis. We find out that the mysterious man Yamada Sanpei came into Hakata from Burma 3 days before Take's murder. Then they discuss the strange evidence, like the rope burns on the body, even thought the ropes were tied to tight for that and a missing button on Tomo's shirt. Then as we are wrapping up the priest Oyama runs in and declares that Tamayo's mother was actually the child of Sahei and Haruyo, not Daini. Making Tamayo Sahei's blood granddaughter.

As the plot thickens we get a bit of a breather and a summary of the events so far in "A Monsterous Riddle". And trust me its the calm before the whirlwind that is the end of the book. So apparently, Sahei and Daini were lovers the first few years. Daini was 42, Sahei 17, and Haruyo 22. But after a few years that stopped and Haruyo and Sahei had an affair. Feeling immensely guilty they tried to poison themselves but failed. Daini discovered their poisoning and the reason, said that it was OK. He had absolutely no desires for women and couldn't divorce Haruyo due to societal pressures, so instead he urged Haruyo and Sahei to continue since they loved each other. So eventually Haruyo had a daughter Noriko. The reason Sahei had 3 mistresses was to satiate his carnal urges since he was able to see Haruyo less and less and he did not want to fall in love with any of them since Haruyo was his true love. So he pitted them against each other, bringing out the worst in them. And finally at the end of the chapter, 23 days after Tomo's death, we find Kiyo's body chest down in the ice. Dun, dun, dun....

A short chapter, "The Blood-Spattered Button". The police are having a hard time getting the body out of the frozen lake and Tamayo wants them to test the body's handprint again. As it turns out Sayoko has our missing button from Tomo's shirt. Kiyo was strangled with a thin rope busting the theory about the ax, but it turns out kiyo written backwards is yoki (or ax) which is why his body is upside down.

Not done with the theatrics yet, Miyakawa Kokin claims she is in fact Aonuma Kikuno. The chapter is aptly titled "The Ill-Fated Mother and Son". Kikuno explains that she met Miyakawa Shofu while playing the koto, as he was also a koto teacher, and became his mistress since his wife was still alive. After she died he suggested they get legally married but she refused, worried people from her past would find her. Kikuno would visit Shizuma occasionally but he wasn't really aware she was his mother. Until the last time he got drafted, which was when Kikuno told him everything about her past. This promts Kindaichi to ask the question, did Shizuma look a lot like Kiyo? Seems our detective is starting to put some pieces together.

A short and sweet chapter, "The Three Hand Prints" we get some murder details. First, Kikuno affirms that Shizuma looked a lot like Kiyo and explains how she came to teach koto in that area. Another koto teacher became sick and Kikuno took her place as a substitute. She was teaching Matsuko koto the night of Tomo's murder and that was the night Matsuko hurt her finger, not the night after. Kiyo was murder by strangulation with a thin rope between 10 and 11PM. And was put in the ice about an hour later. But the body isn't actually Kiyo, because the hand print didn't match and Tamayo knew that would be the case.

Now we are getting to the meat, and more specifically one of my theories. The chapter is "The Yukigamine Mountains" and the real Kiyo has been spotted in the Yukigamine Mountains. The police are going after him. The night before he hid in Tamayo's closet and tried to strangle her until Monkey busted in the door and saved her. They corner Kiyo on the mountain in a shoot out, but are able to catch him alive. Kindaichi says to keep him alive he is not the murderer even if he insists he is.

Speaking of insisting he is the murder, the chapter is called "Confession". Everyone is assembled including Kiyo in handcuffs. He has a signed confession/suicide note.

Kindaichi points out he could not have killed the lawyer in October, since he didn't get back to Hakata until November. He is also unable to give any murder details. Kindaichi seems to think Kiyo did not commit any of the murders and instead came to take the blame. Faking trying to kill Tamayo to make his suicide more believable. Which is a valid point, but why would he take the blame?

Finally its theory time, and man I love to be right. The chapter says it all "Shizuma and Kiyo". Time to break down the case. Kiyo did not kill anyone. Matsuko was the killer and Shizuma was the imposter Kiyo. All Kiyo did was cover up for his mother, posing and moving the bodies. He came back from the war and saw an article about the fake Kiyo. Turns out both Kiyo and Shizuma were stationed in Burma and met because everyone noticed their resemblance. They became friends, even knowing each others backgrounds, but when it seemed like Kiyo's whole unit was dead and Shizuma got a facial injury he decided to impersonate Kiyo.

Kiyo tells his side of each murder, in "A Series of Coincidences". The night of Take's murder he met Shizuma in the boathouse intending to switch places. But instead they hear Matsuko murdering Take above them, so Shizuma threatens to tell everyone of his mother's murder if he doesn't give up his identity as Kiyo. Shizuma is intending to marry Tamayo, as Kiyo, and get the inheritance. So Kiyo agrees and they switch places for a day. Since they want to cover up for Matsuko, they are the ones who pose the chrysanthemum dolls. Then the next night Shizuma sneaks into Tamayo's room looking for the pocket watch with the fingerprint. So when Shizuma is running away they switch back positions, with Kiyo knocking Shizuma out for show. And Matsuko admits she has the pocket watch, because she took it from Take.

On to the next murder, "The Inconsolable Wanderer". Kiyo saves Tamayo from Tomo and calls Monkey expecting him to take Tamayo and free Tomo, but he doesn't free Tomo. So later that night Tomo frees himself, after loosening the ropes, and rows back across the lake. At that point Kiyo is meeting Shizuma in the boathouse asking for money so he can go to Tokyo. They both witness Matsuko strangle Tomo. She strangled him with her kimono belt and cut her finger on his button in the process. After that they try to resucitate Tomo, but it doesn't work so they put him back and the boat and Kiyo, following Shizuma's plan, puts Tomo back where he was. Then he goes back to Tokyo. So it appears like Tomo never left his original location.

Now that Kiyo has told it all, it's Matsuko's turn to confess in Shizuma's Dilemma. Matsuko says she is the one who made Wakabayashi make a copy of the will. Its contents made her furious at Tamayo, so she tried to kill her. But she failed thanks to Monkey. Once Wakabayashi figured this out, Matsuko gave him a pack of cigarettes where one was poisoned, before leaving for Hakata. But after thinking further she decided the best way forward was for Tamayo to marry Kiyo. The facial injury put a damper on these plans. So she killed Take and Tomo leaving Kiyo the only choice. The hang up was that once it was revealed that Tamayo was Sahei's granddaughter, Shizuma realized he was her uncle and could not marry her. So as he was arguing with Matsuko (while pretending to be Kiyo) he ended up revealing the truth. And in her rage Matsuko killed him, and since now she figured out the real Kiyo was alive somewhere this time she tried to hide the body. Upside down in the lake. The previous times it had been Shizuma and Kiyo doing the cleanup since Matsuko didn't really care if she was caught before.

Time to wrap this whole thing up at last in "The Final Chapter". Kiyo explains why he gave a fake name at the port. He made a mistake while in battle and was ashamed and became a POW. Due to the shame he didn't want to use the Inugami name. Kiyo will still get some jail time as an accomplice to murder. Tamayo chooses him and Furudate presents him the heirlooms. Then Matsuko makes Tamayo promise to give half the Inugami fortue to Sayoko's baby since it is Sayoko and Tomo's child. After this she poisons herself with the poisoned tobacco. Thus ending the book.

So my feelings. I definitely called the Kiyo and Shizuma situation and I had a feeling about the koto teacher, but won't count that one. I did not call Matsuko so that was a good twist, that made a lot of since. She was a stone cold lady. Overall I think the story was good, if a little dense. I had trouble reading a lot in one sitting because it was so full of information. I think this would be something that would work well as a week to week read where you could dissect all the details of each chapter slowly. My only real complaint (besides the pacing) is that it would not stop describing Tamayo as beautiful. Got kind of annoying tbh. I'd give it like a 7/10.

So I'm Going to Solve a Mystery

So I've had an Idea. Not a particular new idea, but a fun one. I just checked out the English language version of The Inugami Curse by Yokomizo Seishi from my local library. All I know about it is from the back of the book, a wealthy man dies, and there is a bloody fight over his inheritance. I picked it up because it was referenced in Don't Call It Mystery. But my plan is to try to solve the mystery!

Opening the book, there is a list of characters. So before reading any more, I drew a family tree. I guess I should clarify that in the book, they use Given then Family name. But since it's a Japanese book, I've swapped it to Family and then Given, and I looked up the kanji because I find that helpful. For instance, Inugami is the characters for dog and God. Or the 3 daughters' names are highest, middle, and lowest child. Also pine, bamboo, and plum/apricot.

[justmenoworries]

Okay, let me pre-face this by saying: I love Transformers: Earthspark.

I love that it tries out new things with the franchise. I love that it brings in new characters instead of relying on legacy characters we’ve seen a thousand times before. And I love that it attempts to bring some much needed nuance to the Decepticon-Autobot conflict.

But! There’s one thing that bothered me throughout the first ten episodes I watched.

Major spoilers for Transformers: Earthspark episodes 1-10 under the cut!

Yeeah, the nuance I mentioned as one of the show’s highlights?

Said nuance seems to begin and end with Megatron. Megatron is the only Decepticon helping the Autobots and G.H.O.S.T. He’s the only ‘Con to respect and be friendly to humans, even if it doesn’t give him some form of advantage. He’s the only Decepticon actively advocating for peace between the factions and to recognize the war is only hurting everyone involved in it and was pointless overall.

Every other Decepticon that appeared in the show so far though? Very much still one-note villains/antagonists.

Swindle and Hardtop? Petty thieves, liars and incredibly racist and violent towards humans. Granted there is an attempt to make them a tad sympathetic with their unconditional sibling-love for each other. But “House Rules” has Swindle portrayed as the prime example of a “bad influence”-character. Someone who tempts Thrash and Mo away from things that are “good” (rules, their family, the Autobots) and pushes them toward things that are “bad” (rule-breaking, vandalism, the Decepticons). Him telling Thrash he could be a good ‘Con with his abilities is treated very much like a bad thing. And even the sympathetic angle built up by having him claim he just wants to free Hardtop is torpedoed pretty much instantly with the reveal Hardtop was not in the G.H.O.S.T. -truck Swindle wanted Mo to open. Even before that, it’s all but spelled out to the viewer that Swindle is lying his aft off about Hardtop and who they were before the war.  Granted, the line “Decepticons are only bad if they choose to be,” said by Dot after the whole affair is resolved, is good. I like the acknowledgement that being a Decepticon doesn’t automatically mean you’re a villain and nothing else. Still, it rings a bit hollow in an episode all about Thrash and Mo being sympathetic towards a Decepticon and ending up getting both a metaphorical and literal kick in the teeth for it.

Soundwave and the Cassettes? Chaotic evil jerks who cause destruction and trouble for its own sake and hate Megatron, because they see him working with the Autobots as an unforgivable betrayal. Because we know pretty much zilch about the war, we don’t know how or why the Decepticons formed and what exactly their philosophy or end-goal is. So we get no chance to maybe see why Cons like Soundwave, Laserbeak, Frenzy and Ravage carry so much hatred and resentment toward Autobots, aside from the stereotypcial “They hate Autobots because Decepticons hate Autobots”. For almost the entirety of “Decoy”, Megatron trying to show them compassion and refusing to mode-lock them with Restraining Bolts is treated as misguided at best, stupidly trusting at worst. Not once do either Soundwave or his cassettes show any hesitance in attacking their former leader or interest in solving things peacefully. Also, this is just pettiness on my part, but does anyone else here hate the implication the episode makes that Soundwave is absuive toward the Cassettes and that they only work with him out of fear? (Frenzy’s “We’re free now! You don’t have to follow him anymore!” to Ravage as he leaves to reunite with Soundwave in prison seems to imply that they worked with him only under duress and that he was basically imprisoning them.) I don’t know, it’s just bitter to see that, considering Soundwave’s genuine bond with his cassettes, especially Laserbeak, is one of those things that have been carried over multiple continuities and could have helped Earthspark bring in some of the nuance it is trying to show.

Starscream? Admittedly we don’t have much for now. But he’s literally introduced laughing evilly and emerging from the shadows, so I doubt we’ll get anything close to nuance there. (Also YESSSS, HE IS IN EARTHSPARK! MY BOY IS BACK AND HE’S VOICED BY STEVE BLUM AGAIN, I AM SO HYPED!)

Nova Storm and Skywarp? Appear in “Age of Evolution” basically to be terrorists destroying much of the goodwill Megatron and Optimus managed to build. Also, they’re Mandroid’s henchwomen. You know, the Big Bad trying to wipe out all Cybertronians? And they seemingly have no problem working for him either, judging by how deferential they act toward him. Yes, it’s implied they only work for him out of fear he’ll dismember them. But honestly, what exactly is stopping them from flying somewhere far away and going into hiding like most other Decepticons?

So far, we have a ratio of 1:10 when it comes to Decepticons and Autobots we can root for. There’s still about ten episodes left though, so I’m remaining cautiously optimistic, but I’ll be honest: So far, I’m kinda disappointed.

While Earthspark does ask some hard-hitting questions concerning Cons and Bots that haven’t really been asked in mainstream Transformers before, it still presents the topic in a very black and white manner. Autobots are still the default good guys, Decepticons are still default bad guys, except for Megatron, he’s one of the good ones. The only good one, in fact.

I guess it wouldn’t bother me so much if everything I’ve pointed out wasn’t so easily fixable with just a few tweaks to the episodes.

Imagine if, instead of lying to Mo and Thrash, Swindle actually did want to rescue his brother. Imagine if the bond Swindle formed with the two Malto-siblings actually was genuine, even with Mo, whom he grows to care for in spite of her being human? You could still keep the conflict grey by having Hardtop be the one who wants to get rid of Thrash and Mo once he’s freed. Swindle then tries to stop him, telling Hardtop what a big help Mo and Thrash were to him and how he never would have managed to get Hardtop back without them. Hardtop, however, still bitter about how him and his brother were trapped between a rock and a hard place for years, having to scavenge for food or go to prison without a trial, attacks them anyway. And that’s when Bumblebee and Dot arrive at the scene and come to the siblings’ rescue. Hardtop, realizing him and Swindle stand no chance, races off and calls for Swindle to follow him. Swindle hesitates, looking to Mo and Thrash, but ultimately chooses his brother and also drives off. Bam! Nuanced conflict that doesn’t paint either side as a card-carrying villain!

Imagine if Soundwave and the Cassettes still had an earnest, symbiotic bond and protected and fought for each other willingly, not because one side was threatening the other. Imagine if we were actually given reasons for why they’re so against making peace with either humanity or the Autobots. Maybe they’ve heard about Decepticons disappearing and think (not unreasonably) that G.H.O.S.T. has something to do with it. Mandroid mentions in “Age of Evolution” that the Autobots used friendly fire during the war, leading to a lot of destruction and injury. Yet Autobots are still treated as purely heroes. We certainly don’t see any Autobots being dragged off to prison based purely on the fact that they’re Autobots. Have Soundwave or Fenzy actually point out this discrepancy in how the factions’ survivors are treated and accuse Megatron of basically being a bootlicker, selling out his people to live a cozy life with no imprisonment. And finally: Have the Cassettes choose to stay with Soundwave because they actually care for him, not because they’re scared what he’ll do if they leave him. You can still have the ominous ending of the original “Decoy”, but now there’s a fair bit more grey here than there was before and, again: No side is portrayed as a moustache-twirling villain who is clearly in the wrong.

Imagine if Nova Storm and Skywarp were explicitly stated to hate working for Mandroid and only doing it because, the way they see it, they literally have nowhere else to go. Out there, the Autobots are waiting with handcuffs and restraining bolts. With Mandroid they’re at least free to go where they want most of the time. But have them doubt if this kind of freedom is worth it when so much as a single failure puts them at risk of being ripped apart by their employer. They don’t have to do a full heel-face turn, but maybe there could be hints that they’re leaving Mandroid behind. For example, when Nova Storm and Skywarp are arrested and before being taken away, they willingly give Optimus, Bumblebee and the Maltos the location of Mandroid’s hide-out, as a way to get back at him for how much he mistreated them. Making them a heck-ton more sympathetic and nuanced than they were in the original episode. They’re not good guys, certainly not, but they’re not evil for evil’s sake either and they have a somewhat understandable reason to side with Mandroid.

And last, but not least: Have an episode where an Autobot is the antagonist.

Let’s be honest: it cannot be only Decepticons for whom the war isn’t over. It cannot be only Decepticons who have disdain for humans. There have to be at least some Autobots who chafed at Megatron being given the deal he was. Some Autobots who have no love for humans and actually hate staying on Earth.

If the point is supposed to be that both sides have their jerks and good guys and nothing is ever as clean-cut as “this side is good, noble and heroic, this side only wants to kick puppies, spit on orphans and burn down flower fields” then show me that.