#this whole situation just feels like a piece of horror where the main characters just

[silly-shark-surfer]

The whole Oceangate submarine situation just makes me think about how invincible billionaires believe they are. How strongly they think their wealth and power shields them. And on land, generally, it does.

But they left land.

In an experimental contraption that was not approved by any safety or regulatory measures, made from poorly constructed parts, controlled by a literal gaming console and sealed from the outside. You need to have a special type of self confidence in your own personal value to not only willingly take that risk, but to pay a quarter of a million dollars for it.

And so they left. But the ocean is not the land. It does not care for your riches, or your power within society. It simply takes what has been given to it.

Obviously, there are people who are dead/dying in this whole situation. Families and loved ones will mourn. And that is a tragedy.

But the fact remains that it was an extremely avoidable one.

The fact that this whole thing is getting more coverage than the hundreds of refugees who died/are presumed dead after a mass drowning just further demonstrates the power those in that submarine have.

More information for the refugee story:

[candyskiez]

for the thingy, do tma based on what youve listened to so far?

Okay full disclosure to anyone reading this I am not done this podcast!!! I am on season three episode 87, and haven't finished that episode, please do not give me any spoilers or hint at any. Thank you!

Favorite female character: Melanie King. She's just so ridiculously likable. A thing I've noticed is she's very clearly Used to a certain amount of misogyny with her being in the industry that yk, gets you called insane. She's so immediately defensive whenever she thinks she's getting perceived as crazy or lying and you can tell that's something that's happened a million times, especially recently with the whole. Yk. Arrested thing. It's just a detail that's very well implied that idk. It's something I've been thinking about with her even though its not the main reason I like her. Idk how to explain why I like her she's just very very likable. She feels like a person I'd actually run into and she's just some random person going through the Horrors, just another ghost hunter that got really really unlucky. It's one of the big appeals of TMA to me, they all feel so much like just...people. Not like the authors forcing them or like they're Special because Author Says So. They're just random people and how they got into this situation is pretty believable. I love her dynamics with everyone, if an episode has her in it you know it's gonna be really good, she's just a damn good character and I'm really excited and terrified to see where she goes. Please don't kill her rusty quill.

Favorite male character: Jon Sims. He's just so GOOD man. I like when characters become mean not because of not caring but because they care so much and everything is so awful and everything keeps going to shit and it isn't fair! I love characters who are angry because of a deep love for the people around them! He cares so much about everyone and he hates it so much and man. I don't care how many times it gets done I love it so much. I love his development so far. While with Melanie I'm going "don't hurt her give her hot chocolate and take her far away from this mess just let her be happy PLEASE" with Jon I'm like "I need to see him shatter into a million pieces and try to put himself back together with bleeding hands." And from what I understand I'm in for a treat with one of those wishes and fucked with the other. Whoops. He's just a really good protagonist and just...God. This will not be the last time you hear me talk about how much I love Jon. Also an honorable mention for this spot is Tim. If I don't say how much I love Tim soon I'll die. He's just a guy! He doesn't know what the hell is happening and suddenly everything's fucked and he responds so realistically to it and he's just so interesting to me man. Every horror story has a character who knows absolutely nothing about what's happening and Tim does that so well because like. It feels like. Yeah, obviously. If I knew what he did, I would've done that too.

Favorite season: Man idk I'm only three seasons in. I guess season two? It was a really good season. Jon's spiraling was done so well and him becoming more compassionate just when it was a little too late for that KILLED me. Also TIM!!! Tim was a huge highlight of that season for me, he and Jon's relationship made me want to tear out my own organs. Their fight was just so. I understand exactly why they were so furious at each other. I understand exactly why Tim was so mad at Jon. "He's not wrong you know!" "I know." And Jon having to restart the statement because he's too emotional??? Kill me man just kill me. It just was a really excellent season. Jon and Tim were the biggest highlights for me but Martin was also incredible that season and I loved that scene in shit what was the episode. Hide and seek. With the Tim and Martin conversation. Everyone thinks Martin doesn't care just because he's trying to make things better and because he wants things to be okay it's assumed that he's taking sides or doesn't care that these awful things are happening or that he isn't hurt by it too, and like. It's an understandable assumption. I've made that assumption about people in the past, though I'm not proud of it. And it hurts Martin so much because Martin just wants things to be okay, he just wants to be safe and for his life to stop falling apart and for from what I'm understanding the only real connections he seems to have right now to stop tearing each other apart, and people just assume he's Okay with how Jon's acting, or that Jon wasn't also unfair to him because Martin was worried about him. And it's just. Ough. Martins whole Thing in that season had me Thinking about some shit he made me feel some emotions that's for sure. Can't wait to see what happens with him. Oops this was long.

Favorite episode: Okay I'm gonna be honest with you. This is the worst question you can ask me about this show because I for the life of me cannot fucking choose. There are so many good episodes. So I'm just gonna uh. Talk about a bunch? I've narrowed it down to four but it was so hard guys you don't even know.

Hive: This is just a really really good episode and it makes me batshit insane. I think a really good choice was making her actually not a very easy person to get along with. It would've been so easy to just say that she was nice and she tried so hard but she was alone because people were Mean :(. And I think that this makes the statement hit a lot harder especially as someone who's struggled with mental illness for a long time it's just. She hurt people and she can't wrap her head around it. All she takes away from it is I was left alone. All she sees is that nobody gets her, nobody cares about her, everyone hates her now, or did they always hate her? And I can see the exact thought process that led to her being so taken in by the worms. Like okay here is this thing that needs her, that can't leave her because they need her to survive, so they love her. They love her and they don't care that she's apparently toxic, she doesn't know what that means, she doesn't know what she did, but whatever she did doesn't matter because why would it matter to them. They think she's beautiful, that she's perfect the way she is, they make sense to her and she doesn't have to change. It doesn't matter that she's not a good person, because it doesn't need her to be. It loves her. Like. I'm not saying 2023 me would've absolutely been down to get possessed by worms but at that point in my life I would've absolutely stuck my hand in the nest too. Like. I get it, man. Especially off the hinges of July or November I was a fucking wreck man. I get her. I really like how this show portrays distress. It's not cute. It's not pretty. People do horrible things because they don't know what else to do. Sometimes you blow up every relationship you have, sometimes you stick your hand in a wasp nest to be loved by the only thing you can imagine still loving you. It happens.

The smell of blood: MELANIEEEEE. She stole my heart in this episode. I was so determined not to like her and I was sold by the end of the episode. Her dynamic with Jon was so fun and also just. The insight into how she thinks! I love the statements that are more like a conversation the most anything character interaction heavy is bound to make me eat my own limbs. The...OK I don't wanna say chemistry bc that implies romance but I also don't know what else to call it? They just bounce off each other really well they're SO similar and because of that their defenses against a Lifetime Of Bullshit will clash so hard but then when they can actually talk to each other earnestly they click so well. And just. God I don't even know how to explain why I love Melanie. She's just so??? She puts her show first until she suddenly can't anymore, she immediately expects hostility or doubt and it closes her off from any help or connections and she can't quite get that actually sometimes people just genuinely are worried about you. It's avain it's really clear she's been in the industry for a long time because she's so used to mistreatment she immediately lashes out at anyone who gets too close to acting like that. Shes clearly been through a fuck ton and I'm really excited to learn more about her. That's another thing tma does well the characters are so shaped by their experiences and they make so much sense.

Hide and seek: Godddd. I love this episode. I love this episode!!! Where do I even start!! I mean okay Jon and Tim are a major focus in it so obviously I'm gonna be having a great time. Like. God. Where do I even start. First off Tim's view of Jon is so AUGHHHH this episode because. It hurts and also I cannot blame him at all even a little bit for a second. There are so many good lines in this episode. Also Martin and Tim's interactions in this episode? Insane, so good, told me so much about both of them and anyone who knows me knows I love character analysis so you KNOW I was eating my phone the whole time. I don't even know how to explain what's so good about this episode because it's just. All of it. All of it is so good. It's just a really good episode what else can I even say here. Jon apologizing to Martin and Tim when he thought he was about to die killed me. Every Tim moment this episode killed me. If I was held at gun point I'd probably say this episode is my overall favorite but like. Don't make me choose okay.

A guest for Mr Spider: When I say this statement completely changed how I see Jon I mean it completely changed how I see Jon. It changed how I saw literally everything he's done throughout the podcast. Everything he does makes so much sense with this context but especially his actions regarding the not Sasha. Of course he sent everyone away. Of course he felt like he had to solve it all by himself. After all nobody else could get hurt, because it's His responsibility and He didn't notice and He should be the one dealing with the consequences anyway. He has this view of himself where he's like I'm the only one that should deal with this and yet. It's not arrogance or not entirely. It's this mess of I have to do it by myself and i cannot trust anyone else with this they WILL mess it up but it's not even that he thinks highly of his own capabilities he just judges (fears) everyone else so much. And his trust issues make so much damn sense in retrospect like. His sense of safety was completely shattered when he was so young, and he grew up feeling undesired and like a burden and. Of course he assumes any act of kindness is an act, of course he's so suspicious of anyone who tries to get close, he never had those connections. This episode is just. So good. It explains so much about him and is just a really good start to the season and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Favorite ship: So far, Jonmartin. Yes I know I've been very basic with all these but like. It's common for a reason they're so interesting?? Like yes very sweet but also they're so fascinating. There's something going on there I can't wait to see what happens. But also I'm eyeing a bunch of other ships too. I am a multishipper by trade. I will whack any character together. I'm kinda eyeing jontim very closely. I will probably whack any interesting protagonist/antagonist dynamic together before you can do anything because they intrigue me.

A character I'd die defending: Honestly all of them. I get all of them. They're just people. Most of the decisions they make are ones I would've made in their situations, I can't get seriously mad at any of them.

A character I can't sympathize with: So far, none.

A character I grew to love: Melanie. She dragged me in kicking and screaming.

My anti otp: So far, none!

I once again ask you don't say any spoilers or hints, thank you!

[chimaerakitten]

hello! will laurence for the character ask? have a good day!!

First impression

Oh cool, I have seen Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) and this guy is obviously basically that guy! I feel like I know him already!

(Sidenote I have since read the first book in that series and I think the differences between what young!Laurence must have been like and young!Aubrey are fucking hilarious. If Laurence ever in his life said even one of the things Aubrey says loudly at parties in that book he would never have met Temeraire because he'd have spontaneously combusted on the spot out of embarrassment.)

Impression now

There is something so wonderfully, horribly compelling about placing a character into a situation which forces them to do the one thing they would never, ever do, and then not only forcing them to live through it, but also completely reconstruct a new sense of self from the shattered pieces. Fucking great arc for a protagonist.

Favorite moment

SO hard to pick. Obviously the treason is up there, and he has some extremely funny comedic introspection (realizing that actually he is Temeraire's purse Chihuahua in crucible of gold) but I think the crown might actually go to him calmly giving orders while one of his own supposed subordinates holds a sword to his throat in LoD, neatly resolving a number of threads in his arc in the process.

Idea for a story

SO many. there's that body horror one I've talked about before, and like, a dozen basic post-canon or missing scenes, and also @elexuscal and I have lost our minds a little and started multiple AUs, of which the blood au is the only one posted so far but probably won't stay that way for long...

Unpopular opinion

While I like all his main ships either because I genuinely ship them or think they are very, very funny, his core relationship is with Temeraire and I am kinda dying for more Laurence & Temeraire gen content. This is possibly why elexuscal and I have started so many AUs.

Favorite relationship

As per the above, Laurence and Tem! (Lol Tumblr autocorrected that to Tim. thats right my fav Laurence relationship is with my OC Tim who I just invented right now) I love their intense codependent somewhat queerplatonic relationship, and all the ways they shape each other throughout the whole series, both when they're in perfect alignment and when they're going through a rough patch where they still love each other but can't help on their own.

Favorite headcanon

I think his life post-retirement turns into a baffling reverse-Austen novel where the single man in possession of a fortune is NOT in want of a wife, thank you very much, and you had best not mention it in his dragon's hearing. I also think he'll probably end up more involved in Temeraire's political career than he necessarily plans, because the man just Cannot let injustice slide, even when he would really rather just be Tharkay's kept man...

[rayshippouuchiha]

Sorry Ray, this is the anon that sent a message asking for permission to ramble vaguely spoiler-y info about my favorite character at you ages ago. Not sure if you even remember, since it’s been a few weeks since you gave the go-ahead. It took me a while to get all my thoughts in order, because at any given time I will start spontaneously frothing at the mouth over thoughts of this character but I’ve never tried to put all of those feelings into words at once, so I kinda procrastinated a bit that first day, and then work got freaking CRAZY and I just couldn’t even get back to it until now. I think I was finally able to put it all together in a way that kinda makes sense, so here it is at long last. I do have to warn you it's gonna get pretty long though, so get ready, bc here we go.

Let me paint a picture of the scenario for you. We’ll start by imagining the typical "Groundhog day" deal; usually we can expect the people involved to be classified into two categories – first, the main character, who remembers everything and whose actions cause (and eventually stop) the loops, and then everyone else around them, who all remember nothing and don't even notice anything except for the "final" timeline.

Following the typical Groundhog Day tropes, we could expect our main character to either wish for the loop/wake up in it or some other such situation, then spend the remainder of their time in it trying out various different scenarios and getting into a whole host of shenanigans trying to escape it, while the rest of the cast react in various ways, usually starting out funny/light-hearted, then sad or angry as our MC fucks up more and more, then finally all becoming happy by the “final loop” where the MC gets their shit together and achieves the loop-ending conditions (usually by making everyone happy). In this particular piece of media I’m so obsessed with, however, our MC is not trying to escape the loop – they’re delighting in it.

We the “audience” don’t realize the true horror of such a thing at first, because we’re delighting in the joy of every one of the (masterfully crafted) characters reaching their happy ending, but it turns out that for the person with the time powers, finding the “happily ever after” is not enough. They’re used to the power of the loop now, are in full control of it, and are having the time of their life finding out just what happens whenever they try to change anything. They’ve been at it for so long that the people trapped in the loop with them have stopped mattering, and they’ve gone on to try literally everything they can think of to try, up to and including killing everyone, because they figure why should they care? No one would remember anyway, so they get to use their time powers to the fullest, no consequences, right?

Except, no, not in this case. Because there is a third category of character in this particular Groundhog day nightmare; one person trapped in the loop, but not controlling it, who knows.

At first, both MC and us the “audience” don’t know this. This character acts like a carefree, goofy, lazy jokester, pulling pranks and making puns, generally having laid-back fun all the time – the last person you’d expect to be going through something so awful. But pretty soon, signs start to appear that there’s more to him than meets the eye. If you watch him veeery carefully, it looks like he might have some kind of power over time and/or space? And then he gives a sort of cryptic warning that makes you go hmmm but then stop thinking about, because he goes right back to pulling harmless practical jokes on people as if nothing’s wrong.

But then there’s a sudden shift – he tells the MC that if he hadn’t promised the opposite they would have been dead already. It is an incredibly chilling moment, seeing this generally laid-back guy become downright menacing, but even then, some of the people seeing this unfold might not yet realize the horror of his situation because this happens during one of the “kinder”, initial loops. They might wonder why he would say such a thing, either not yet understanding the implications of the MC’s power or not getting where his hostility could come from, since up to that point he mostly behaves in pretty much the same friendly fashion. Other people can end up thinking he’s being too harsh, because the MC is using their powers for good, right?

Pretty soon, as we watch more loops unfold where the MC gets increasingly violent, we end up seeing that thought is wrong, and they absolutely deserve his hatred. Even so, this guy’s response to the ever-escalating brutality is actually… way too chill? Most other people in the world try to fight back at one point or another, but he never does. In fact, unless the MC has actively killed his family in that particular loop, he never stops acting friendly, even when other friends and acquaintances have died. This is of course, very intriguing, and we can’t help but wonder what his deal is as we go along this journey.

Then we reach the worst possible scenario, where the MC has killed every single person for miles around, and when he makes a final stand to try to stop them once and for all, we find out the whole truth - He reveals that he has known what the MC has been doing all along, has been dealing with similar loops for a long time, and as a result has become somewhat nihilistic.

After all, he has been at the mercy of this person (and their predecessor with a similar power) for an incredibly long time. Just, imagine what that would do to a person. This is not your typical “Groundhog day”; it’s not limited to a few loops lasting a week at most. Remember, these people are actively trying to do literally everything that could possibly be done. They’ve not only tried every iteration of everything there is to do in this place, but also talked to and killed every person in every possible combination, just to see how their loved ones or acquaintances react, to the point where they no longer see them as people. How long would that take? Depending on how creative and determined they were, it could have taken years, especially if they spent several days or weeks on every loop, as they surely would have.

Just imagine, what do you do, if you know time is looping, but it could take days, weeks, months, or years, before time loops back around to the “starting point”, but you never know and have no way to tell or predict when any loop will end? You can expect everything you know and worked for so hard for the past however long to disappear, just like that, like a snap of your fingers, and you have to accept it. There is nothing you can accomplish, you have no power to do anything. Any effort can be reversed, at any given time, at some points for no reason you can understand because everyone was happy, but still this being, this… uncaring demigod, resets again. And again. And again. So nothing you do matters, nothing you try changes anything in the long run, not really, because this apathetic, unsympathetic, almost sociopathic person controlling the lives of you and everyone around you cares about One Thing, and one thing only; their own enjoyment. Their curiosity. The “need” to know what happens. A need that drives them to do the unthinkable time and time again. Because, again, who cares? As far as they know, no one can remember, no one will know, there are no consequences. So they loop, and they loop, and they loop, over and over and over, until it must have been decades, maybe even centuries, since the loops started.

And I just, whenever I think too hard about this piece of media, and this character, and what you can find out about him, it wrecks me, okay? It just, destroys me. Because when we think about it, taking all of this into account, his behavior makes perfect sense. Characters around him talk about how he gives only the bare minimum effort, call him lazy, but of course he is. Of course being caught in an eternally-looping hell cycle would wreck your motivation, because why put anything beyond the minimum required effort into anything, if it could all be lost in an instant with no warning? Why try to stop this person, if any progress towards that goal could be turned back whenever the person with the time powers wishes? Also, of course he acts aloof and laid-back - he seems to have taken refuge in apathy, trying to show that he cares as little as possible, because how would caring help except for making him hurt more?

How do you process all of that? Even if he doesn't completely remember (and we have no way to know whether he does or not, because why would he let the MC [and the audience with them] know that he remembers, when they might use that against him just to see how he reacts to further loops? I know I wouldn’t), how do you deal with the knowledge, the weight of thousands of lives lived and lost, thousands of deaths for yourself and everyone you love that you can't help, that you can't stop, that you have no way to control or prevent, that no effort made and no dream fulfilled ever matters because nothing lasts? How do you stay sane?

But that’s not all! Now, the hidden hostility is the one that makes sense, while the friendliness he showed most of the time is the questionable one. Why bother acting so inviting? Turns out, as we find out during that last terrible fight, that it’s because he figured that maybe this person that has caused him so much pain, this individual whom he should see as an unfeeling demon, might be doing all of this because they were unhappy. He was secretly hoping they could be friends, so they would be so happy they became satisfied with their reality and let time run its course. And doesn’t that just break your heart? Even after everything, he hasn’t lost his caring heart, even showing at times that he’s worried about this monstrosity that has the potential to doom him, that he can never know which facet he’s going to get next; the friend or the killer. He sees this person who has caused untold amounts of pain to him and everyone he knows, but he still held on to hope that they might change, that they could be better, that the friend he found in the kinder loops was lying there beneath the surface somewhere; so he offered food and laughs and friendship and hoped for the best. GODDAMNIT *pounds fists against the walls*

Extra-heartbreaking fact: We can find out later that he has a way to keep track of events between loops – a place exclusively for him that time cannot touch. During one of the happier loops, where everyone’s dream gets fulfilled, he gets a picture with all of his friends and family together, including the abomination that made it possible, and he places it in the only location where the loops will not erase it - because he wants to remember this forever even if it hurts, even if the loops reset and they lose the memories, he wants to keep this… which means we know for certain that if the MC decides to reset time after reaching the happiest possible future he definitely knows they betrayed him. I am in agony goddammit. Like, I just imagine how he felt the times when the anomaly resets the loop and does it all again; everyone’s dream is fulfilled, everyone is happy, and he races back to that place, to put a picture commemorating the happiest day of his life in a spot where it will never go away… but there’s already an identical picture there. Can you imagine how that would feel? This person who’s earned your trust has betrayed you, maybe even a thousand times over, and whatever they said they feel this time they don’t care, they can’t, not really, or they wouldn’t have done something like this. It’s awful why am I thinking about this again why am I doing this to myself asdfghsrgsdfd *crying screaming frothing at the mouth*

Okay, going back to his final stand, knowing everything we know now, why does he try to stop the MC in that final battle, if nothing matters? Simple; turns out if the MC succeeds and murders everyone, they’d get strong enough to end time itself, and despite it all, even though he’s dealing with what must be severe depression, even though he holds no hope for himself and has nothing he looks forward to, he still wants the best for his family and friends. He still cares about them, wants them to have at least a chance to be happy, even if it’s just temporary, so much so that he’s willing to use every last bit of his considerable powers, every trick up his sleeve, every ounce of willpower still in his body to fight what he knows is an unwinnable battle, over and over and over, just on the one in a thousand chance that he can force the anomaly to stop, or convince them to try any other possibility. It just explodes my brain every time I take even a second to think about it *weeps*

Anyway, thus end my entirely-too-long rant about my favorite piece of media and character. Hopefully you enjoyed it even a little. Maybe think of it as an AO3 oneshot in this trying times? Lol

Thanks for hearing me out, love ya!❤️

Forgot to add one thing to my crazy long rant about my favorite character just now (see the previous “Groundhog day” ask if you need context sorry but I just had to add this):

It doesn’t help my obsession that I see people misinterpret him so often. It’s infuriating; they fall for the mask he wears and the role he plays, the ways in which his circumstances have forced him to act, they say “he’s so strong, how could he be so apathetic? How dare he not try from the beginning to stop this nightmare?” or “wow he’s still so aloof even when his friends die, he really doesn’t care about anyone but himself” and I’m just like… are we looking at the same person? Are we interpreting the same piece of media? Where have they been? How have they not noticed the million little ways in which he shows he cares? He clearly appears to be coping with serious mental health issues; he wants nothing, finds it hard to do anything but joke or sleep, may be eating less, doesn’t bother with getting anything for himself, and doesn’t seem to be able to honestly find anything to look forward to most of the time. He is a deeply hurt individual struggling basically alone (because no one else is aware and they can’t be made to remember, not for long) to survive a horrifyingly bleak situation but still he makes sure his family has everything they could possibly want or need, still takes care of his friends to the best of his ability, still makes sure to bring joy to others even when he admits he can no longer feel it himself, still finds it in himself to care about the “harbinger of doom” (so to speak), and is still a fundamentally kind person, who cares so, so much despite his best efforts to the contrary and I just- I love him, I love him so so much, and it makes me so angry how others fall for his façade of apathy and brand him as uncaring. He deserves the world, I know he’s fictional but I’d die for him.

Ok, NOW I’m done. Sorry again, just made an already long ass rant even longer lmao but tbh I have no regrets I feel free uwu

~~~

I can tell that this has got you by the entire soul and after reading this I honestly can't blame you because hot damn that's a lot.

[rabbittwinrithings]

I’m finally making it, My Beyond Reach Review

Disclaimer: While I didn’t have the best time with this mod, that doesn’t mean you may not. I never want my opinion to sour someone else’s, and have the risk of them not playing the mod. So I highly recommend you check it out. 

I’m putting this disclaimer as well since my playthrough of the mod is a bit unfair. I played it with godmode (since I suck at game combat,) and after a while started to clip through dungeons to get them over with. This started to happen around halfway through as I found myself more frustrated with the mod and kinda wanted it done. I also played through only mostly the main quest. However, a friend of mine did tell me about one sidequest I do have a problem with. So keep this in mind with my review that I may be treating it a little unfairly. 

There’s also the point that mods are hard to make, let alone one of this scale. The mod author did an amazing job at creating this mod and I never want to invalidate that. With all that said, let’s get going. 

CW: Sexual Assault, Child Abuse, Ped*****, Cannibalism, and Harm Towards Women.

And Obviously Spoilers!

First off, I’m not the best at writing reviews. It won’t be wonderfully crafted or anything, just mostly detailed bullet notes of what I liked and disliked. While there is more I disliked, I did find some positives and will be layouting things in a sandwich review (that’s the right word?) going from positive to negative. Here we go!

This is a review for the mod, Beyond Reach by razorkid. 

Good: Grimdark. I will always love me some Grimdark. Hell, my current playthrough of Skyrim is currently a grimdark playthrough all with dead trees, gallows, horror monsters, ect. And while I think some parts of Beyond Reach’s grimdark-ness falls flat, most of it holds up and creates an eerie atmosphere. There were bodies hanging, creepy monsters, creepy dungeons, and a lot of stuff that fit the tone of the mod. However... some of it did not... 

Bad: A lot felt like shock value. In grimdark there’s always a tendency to add a lot of stuff for shock value, and sadly, BR had an abundance of it. I knew the mod got dark, but still I decided to play the uncensored version as I did want to get all the content. However, some it felt just... unneeded. At one point the player is tasked to go raid an Orc stronghold where there are legionnaire prisoners. However, you end up finding two of them, both women, one alive, one dead. The player can piece together what happened from that alone, and yet the mod goes as far as to have the alive prisoner wail at one of the soilders about how she was raped and would have an Orc child. The only purpose of this scene felt like to show how horrible these Orcs were. But why not just do that with dead prisoners (doesn’t need to be SA,) or why have her go on a whole speech about it.     After playing through this part I really was trying to rack my head around how it could have been done better. And honestly, after a day, I was reminded of Red Dead Redemption 2, and the scene were Arthur finds a woman who was also SAed. The only difference is that the scene added more than just “wow, those guys we killed were pretty bad,” instead, it added to Arthur's character. He helps the woman home. When she’s about to explain what they did he simply said “I know.” Subtly in situations like this tend to be the most powerful. As people our brains peice together what we want to see and having the woman simply say “They...” and the solider reply with “I know,” would have made the scene much more powerful. (She’s also naked during the whole ordeal, let me give the woman a blanket, something!)    There’s other darker themes that I felt like were shock value (mainly the ending place with some children, however, talking about will just make me sick. So I think I’ll just move on. Basically, some stuff happens to kids and again I feel like it’s only there to prove how bad someone is and doesn’t give much of anything else. I feel like something horrible and big like that need to have numerous reasons to be there than a singular “look how terrible this dude is!”)

Good: Cool enemies. I don’t really feel like there’s much to say on this part. I just thought some enemies were really cool. I think the ones that stuck out to me are part of Vicn’s Creature Pack, but could be wrong. Mostly it was the bloody skeleton monsters. Very cool to see. 

Bad: Not much role playing. Honestly, this part kinda made me the saddest as after one sidequest (which may have been my favorite part of the mod,) I had become an enemy of the state. It felt super in character as I was playing Alllin and despite being a serious guy, is also a little chaos gremlin who will flip off authority. But despite all that, I still ended up becoming a knight of the very state I was an enemy of and was forced to pick dialogue options that bended my knee to the king and was very formal. I’m not saying multiple path options in the way of a knight or criminal are needed, I just wish there were more dialogue options. 

Good: Neat dungeon horror design. So this one is a bit here and there as the dungeons I went through had super neat astrosphere that did have the grimdark feel to them. One was an asylum dungeon which I found pretty neat. However, there was also a problem with length... 

Bad: Long Dungeons. While this whole review is subjective, this part may be the most as I hate dungeons. If they’re neat looking I don’t mind. But when they take around thirty minutes to complete and little progress has been made I get real tired of them. This is why I started clipping through dungeons to just get the thing I needed and get out. 

Good: Music is nice. (But as I type this I went to go find the composer. But I don’t see any credits to music, so a slight bummer. If you know who did the music, please let me know and I’ll edit this part with credits.)

Bad: A lot of dead women. And I get it, a lot of people in general die in this mod. And maybe I’m misremembering stuff, or looking to deep, but in the main questline there was one main female character. And she is killed. And then there are several spots that are just about women in harm. (Like the SA I mentioned before, a part where a little girl is killed by a griffin, an Orc woman being tortured, a brothel getting massacred.) And I just didn’t see so much focus on men. And that sounds weird. But when it leans to one side so much, it is just super noticeable. 

Good: Voice Acting is nice. I know there isn’t too much to say there. I just really liked it. There were some unvoiced lines, but I don’t have too much of a problem with that since they are still looking for voice actors for various roles. I think the only problem I have with the unvoiced lines is that there’s no white noise for the line so the dialogue would just blink in and out and I couldn’t read what was said. 

Bad: Very railroad path. You are forced to be a knight, and see red flags of the nobility and yet you can’t do anything. Most of the time when you question a noble why you should do something it’s “well I’ll just have you killed,” and sure, not dying is great, but then the next line I’ll talk as if my life wasn’t just threatened.     A friend of mine who tried to be a bit more through in the mod took a sidequest where it told you a noble (who turns out to be evil later on in the main quest,) is a cannibal. Can we confront the noble about it? No. Can we warn those who may be hurt by him in the future? No. Do we talk to him as if we don’t know that he eats people? Yep! It’s all just odd and I think again it just falls back to the lack of player choice. 

Good: So on my list I wrote “Liked sick town,” which makes no sense to those who haven’t played it. So to explain it better there was a Side quest I really liked. Not only did it give a ton of player choice, but it actually made me feel like a good person, and the people were nice to me!    During my playthrough I made a rule that if someone was mean to me, I wouldn’t help them outside of the main questline. Cause why would I help someone who is rude to me? (There’s also an issue that most of the place is filled with mean people, so it creates little to no agency to help High Rock.) But one event was with some guards at a city I had to get into. I had to help them with an issue of some sick people and one of their guards who went missing. Come to find out the guard got sick and was trying to find medicine for the town so that they could live about three more years in peace. And in the end I was given a choice to kill the town, or help it. Obviously I helped it and became an enemy of the state. But I loved it! While the sick people would threaten you if you got to close to them, the guard with them was understanding. And his compassion for these people really stood out to me. It’s a shame I later had to bend my knee to the very people that wanted to kill them... 

Bad: Lore Friendliness. This one is very short as I see lore in ES as free real estate. I don’t care what you add in your mod. That what makes it fun. However, I know this will be a turn off for some so I thought I would say it. I think the main factor is you talk to Mara on various occasions and I’ve been told that isn’t possible. 

Good: City Design. I just like the layouts and looks of the city. What else can I say? Districts were interesting. (I think I'm running out of typing juices...)

Bad: Too much going on at one. There’s an Orc extremist group, there’s reach men attacking, there’s Namira shit, there’s a plague, and there’s a civil war starting. That is a lot, and it’s just the main quest. I realize it’s good to have a lot going on in a location, but not all of it needs to be in the main quest. All this stuff makes it super confusing and hard to keep track of what is really going on. 

Bad: Buggy. I’m doing two bads in a row as I do want to leave the review off on a good note. There were quite a few buggy stuff. However, considering how I played through it I wouldn’t doubt if a lot was my fault. That being said, I know some who did play through it correctly did also suffer from bugs. That being said, I know the mod author is still working on the mod so bugs will most likely get fixed.

Good: Dialogue explanation. One thing I really found helpful was that in front of dialogue options were [lore], [quest]. These little tidbits made it super easy to tell what dialogue I was picking or which one I needed to pick. Very small detail, but works wonders. 

Oh me, oh my, that is long... Sorry about that. 

TLDR: The mod is successful in it’s eerie astrosphere, but is dragged down by heavy writing. lack of player choice, and shock value issues. 

Thanks for reading all this and want to say again I don’t want to sway anyone away from this mod. I think it’s always important to try out something for yourself. Though, if the Content Warnings from above upset you, I recommend playing through the censored version (it will ask you in the game.) I haven’t played through the censored version, but it says it get’s rid of those events. 

I may try and do more reviews in the future, but understand these reviews are never an attack on the modder as I get modding is extermley difficult. My reviews are here to be optional constructive critism, and if I’ve said anything wrong or you disagree with I’m more than happy to have a conversation in the comments.  (I also say optional as sometimes modders aren’t looking for critism and just want to mod/create and that is 100% valid.) 

Thanks for reading again, and hope y’all enjoyed! 

[agentnico]

The Vourdalak (2024) review

Bet A24 are kicking their shins for missing this one.

Plot: Lost in a hostile forest, the Marquis d'Urfé, a noble emissary of the King of France, finds refuge in the home of a strange family.

In my childhood my dad would always read to me various stories at bedtime, and the one that really stuck out was the little novella “The Family of the Vourdalak” by Aleksey Tolstoy (that’s the other Tolstoy, not the madman who spent however long writing the over thousand pages of War & Peace), and the reason this one really left an impression on my little brain was how it held this immersive element of dread and terror that didn’t let go until the end. For this is a vampire tale, yet interestingly enough this was actually written near half a century prior to Bram Stoker publishing his famous Dracula novel. So this is very much an early folkloric interpretation of what vampires were, that came from myths and tales spun around villages, so look, all I’m saying is these old school villagers had a wild imagination and Tolstoy utilised that well. Anyway, if you’ve never read the original 1839 novella, do yourself a favour and seek it out, as it’s truly spectacular.

With that in mind when I heard there was a new French movie adaptation being released of Tolstoy’s story I knew I had to seek it out as I always thought that material had so much cinematic potential. Truly I was expecting some gruesome dark visually striking in-yer-face shocker of the level of Hereditary or Evil Dead Rise, because honestly I could totally see that working. But to my surprise director Adrien Beau has gone a completely different direction.

The Vourdalak is a film that does not belong in the 21st century. Seeing this in 2024 is really odd, and I mean that in the best way. Reminiscent of a time gone by, The Vourdalak was shot on film, truly embracing the vintage look with real grain and harsh shadows, envoking the feel of a period piece from the 70s/80s. As such I can see many viewers be put off by this thinking the movie looks cheap or dull, but I truly think this stylistic choice was a nice change of pace for a modern day horror, and a nice way to get by its low-budget. The setting of the sparsely populated European forest also allows for the threat to feel more effective due to how confinding and inescapable the situation is.

In terms of negatives I didn’t give two craps about any of the characters. The main French aristocrat we follow who refers to himself as the emissary of the King of France is a pompous face-covered-in-white-make-up narcissistic dandelion who can only think about the next woman who’s pants he can get into. The family in the forest he comes across are all varied introverts who have their eccentricities, but none of them were likeable as such. You know who was great though? The main vampire!

So the titular Vourdalak (a vampire-like being with Slavic origins that prefers to feast on blood of relatives rather than strangers)…… he’s a puppet. No joke, this is a 2024 horror movie where the vampire is portrayed by a puppet. It’s actually done really well too, with the life-sized marionette moving in uncanny strange ways, eyes bulging out, rictus grinning and with a disembodied voice, it all comes to a pretty immersive effect. It makes for a good reminder how solid and effective practical effect instead of CGI can be. But also the vampire itself, though creepy, was actually kind of a stand up fella? Like yes he wanted to suck everyone’s blood and kill and so on, but when he spoke he was always super polite, had a nice level of sass to him too. Honestly I’d hang out with the guy. I’d grab a pint with him for sure.

Overall the movie is an interesting nostalgic view of horror from a bygone era, with old school visuals and a fantastic vampire puppet performance, and though I would say there were times the film did drag a bit, as a whole this was a delightful peace of Gothic fairytale. This may just be the bite in the neck the genre needed.

Overall score: 6/10

[massiveharmonytiger]

Yeah, I love being in the IWTV fandom, but you guys are so much unnecessary drama sometimes.

Where do I start?

Firstly, TVA is very much my bag, otherwise I would not have read it. I don't waste time reading anything I don't like. Gothic horror bdsm gay monsterfucker erotica is also very much my bag. There seems to be this misconception that anybody that has anything critical to say about Marius is anti-ship, pro-censorship and puritanical, and this is just not true. Liking a piece of media doesn't mean that I can't engage with my interpretation and feelings about the characters, and if you "don't like or approve of" that, you're welcome to block me. If my post made you "uncomfortable", "you should have closed it."

I know people like to do this neat little mental trick called cognitive dissonance where they lie about what a character is because they can't justify liking them to themselves if they really do fit the label. So they do a lot of mental gymnastics to convince themselves that this character doesn't fit the label and crap on anyone who points out that they do or has some sort of alternative viewpoint. But personally, I have liked a lot of abusive characters, and I'll probably continue liking them. I will also continue discussing what makes them abusive as well as what makes them human or what makes them victims, because I like complex characters and looking at the whole picture. Anybody who doesn't like that is also welcome to block me.

It's clear that I was trying to be fair and nuanced about Marius despite the fact that the post is, first and foremost, about Armand's childhood trauma (and what he may be projecting onto Claudia). It's also clear that I'm talking about what was covered in the IWTV show and filling in the blanks with book content, whereas you're just talking about the books. I suggest watching the show before you start trying to poke holes in my metas, at least then I know we're talking about the same thing. Unless you're from the you-know-what part of the fandom that's boycotting the show because the showrunners aren't catering to your every whim and you're not getting exactly what you want. In which case, you're really missing out because the show is visually stunning, the writing is amazing, Assad Zaman is absolutely incredible as Armand and I'll bet that show Marius is going to be just as gorgeous, talented and complex.

I'm just not sure why someone would engage with a fandom where one of the main characters used to be a sex slave that people raped as a child, is "rescued" by someone extremely powerful buying him (which just gave him SO much agency over his situation), trauma bonded with his "rescuer", which is evident by the fact that Armand worships Marius and views him through rose-coloured glasses despite the fact that the minute he acts out for his attention or leaves and tries to establish other bonds of his own free will (this excludes the times Marius sent him to the brothels to polish his skills), he gets beaten or threatened. Here's a post I made about it, featuring some of the Marius tantrums you were so curious about. If you're interested. And yes, Marius is a silent, sulky type, which just makes him all the more terrifying when he does lose it. And Armand, who has been conditioned to find terror and abuse arousing reacts in the only way he knows how to. Marius doesn't question it because he's getting what he wants, but please note that he adds a few kind and gentle words afterwards, just in case Armand one day decides no amount of love is worth this.

I'm not sure why someone would engage with a fandom where all of this happened to a character, and then be surprised when Armand kinnies see traces of their own trauma and victimhood in Armand and their own groomers and abusers in Marius, and (understandably) want to rip Marius a new one. It's just common sense. This kind of media is for them as well and while you may get off on jumping to the defense of fictional characters because you can't grasp the fact that they can be likeable and detestable at the same time, I personally care about listening to and learning from the opinions and feelings of real people with lived experiences. As long as nobody is shaming anyone or calling for censorship, they have the right to view media and characters any way they want to. And yes, that includes you, even though you couldn't grant me the same courtesy.

Anyways, I was planning to do some follow up posts elaborating on my original post anyways. Especially the Claudia/Armand parallels, Marius' early relationship with Armand and Armand's later relationship patterns. So thanks for the inspiration. And the side of victim blaming.

Anyone ever think about the fact that Armand probably hated the hell out of Claudia for having what he never could.

Claudia gets rescued from death as an innocent. Armand gets rescued from death as someone whose innocence died the day those slavers captured and raped him.

Claudia gets Louis and Lestat's love and takes it for granted. Armand craves their love but gets their scorn.

After she is made a vampire, Claudia lives with two caring fathers only to pine for a mortal life she'll never have and run away from the situation when the cruelty of being a vampire gets to be too much for her.

Obviously this isn't how I see it. Claudia had every right to run away after how she was treated and seek out her own answers. And her child/fledglinghood definitely wasn't all sunshine and roses. Her aunt abused her, Lestat was extremely cruel to her after Charlie's death, the Loustat brawl, Lestat dropping Louis from the sky, Bruce's abuse - all of these were extremely traumatizing and hard to live through.

My point is that Armand could know all of this and still see Claudia's past as the rosy childhood he never had because his was just that fucked up.

Also, I think book Armand is enslaved around a similar age to when book Claudia is turned (I read it this way, although I'm struggling to confirm this, can anyone confirm?) and I can see him wondering why he couldn't have had the dark gift to protect him then. Why does Claudia get it? Why is she any more worthy than he is?

Where Claudia doesn't have to do a thing, Armand has to prove his cruel streak to earn the dark gift and after he is made a vampire, he lives with his groomer, Marius, who is set on fire and Armand is captured by a coven that teaches him to hate himself until Lestat steps in.

So yeah, why would he stop the coven from killing her when she's had everything he's ever wanted?

Side note because I've seen some really bad takes on the Marius/Armand relationship.

Yes, Armand was in love with Marius and Marius loved him too. Yes, Marius rescued Armand from the brothel. Yes, Marius was kinder than Armand's slavers and Armand enjoyed a lot of the sex stuff he did when he was living with Marius. Yes, pederasty was normalized during that time and Marius was just acting like any man in his position would.

AND

Marius was still a groomer and an abuser. Marius was still in a position of power pulling strings to get Armand to do what he wanted and throwing tantrums when things didn't go his way. Marius still got off on Armand worshipping him. Marius was still Armand's owner and his kindness was dependent on Armand doing what he said (like letting himself be donated when a friend came from out of town - some people will say Armand was lying about that, to which I say, fuck you).

The fact that Armand enjoyed sex, started fetishizing his own abuse and using his body as a tool of manipulation doesn't make him complicit, neither does the fact that Marius had redeeming qualities (beauty, kindness, wisdom) and Armand fell in love with him.

None of this makes what Armand went through any less traumatizing. He's 500 years old and we can still see him grapple with what happened in his childhood.

I have no idea how they're going to portray Marius/Armand's childhood in the show, but I feel that even just a fraction of this would make Armand's resentment of Claudia pretty real, and I really hope we get to see Armand confront this in later seasons even though I'm pretty sure a lot of it is unconscious and he may not even be fully aware that he feels this way.

[admiringlove]

hurtful things

+synopsis: genshin boys and the hurtful things they said.

+genre: angst; headcanons.

+characters: kaeya; diluc; childe; zhongli.

+warnings: swearing; crying; implied panic attack.

+order: hey bubs! i saw you doing requests and i HAD to ask for genshin angst :) spare me some tears pls <//3 preferably w kaeya or diluc or childe :) [submitted by @crackheadsara​]

+author’s note: okay so i included zhongli bc he’s the love of my life, also i needed comfort from him after writing such hurtful things :D

+navigation: main menu, genshin menu.

— KAEYA.

“i’m better off without you.”

you know from the way your door was knocked in the middle of the night on a weekday after months, that it’s kaeya. you rub your eyes sleepily, trudging towards the door as anger and doubt fuse into a nasty green in your mind. 

you unlock the door, pulling it open to see the man with the eyepatch tapping his foot on the deck of your home impatiently. he smirks when his eye lands on you, attempting to walk in but stopping himself when he realizes you're standing at the door, unmoving. 

"kaeya, it's three in the morning. and it's monday. i have to report to jean in three hours," you mumble tiredly as you look up at him. the lamp grass by your windowsill outside and the moonlit night accentuated his cerulean eyes and contrasting coffee-colored skin. he frowns, peering down at you as he asks, "may i come in?"

you shrug, opening the door wide as you let the man in. he places his sword on the table and proceeds to walk into the bedroom when you ask, "where have you been for the past two weeks?"

"work," his reply is the same. you let out a sigh in impatience as you retort, "that's the same excuse as always."

he was tired and wanted to sleep off the fatigue from his latest mission. but when he hears you say that, something in him snaps and he turns around, his jaw clenched and a fixed glare making you a little agitated. he raises an eyebrow as he says, "well, unlike you, i am an actual important member of the knights of favonius."

"kaeya, all i meant was that you're always gone. you never write a letter back even if i send you one, and you somehow manage to come back every single time, expecting that it doesn't hurt me. what am i supposed to do?" your voice is small as you look down, hair drooping towards the ground. you're not even yelling at him, you're just worried. he always leaves you alone(sometimes you tag along, but you couldn't tell why nowadays he'd leave you alone without some sort of warning).

"does it ever occur to you that you're just a hindrance?" he bites back, thinking that you're trying to put up a front. you flinch at his words, causing him to force a jeer before he starts again, "you always come along, so maybe i wanted to be away from you for a bit. that's why i leave without a warning so i don't have to tend to your yapping all day. because i'm better off without you."

you gasp as you look up to his figure, now retreating to your shared bedroom. you hear him fall onto the bed with a content sigh as you stand there, wiping at your tears incessantly as hiccups escape your lips. you bit your tongue to stop yourself from crying, pressing a hand on your mouth to muffle the sounds so you don't disturb kaeya. you get a quick peek in, eyes widening when you see him sound asleep and tucked in. 

so that's how it was, you think. 

the next morning, kaeya wakes up to a cold bed as his arm reaches out to an empty space. his eyes immediately pry open as he wakes up, to see that you weren't here. 

ah, he ponders to himself, you must've gone to tend to your duties. 

he stretches, letting out a yawn before walking out to the kitchen. he smiles when he sees a plate of food left for him on the countertop with a note from you. but somehow, something felt very wrong about this whole ordeal. this had happened before—he had come back from insanely long missions to you before, so what felt different?

and then it hits him. the things he said last night. he frantically looks around, his azure eyes completely drowned in horror as he notices small changes in your shared household. a few picture frames are missing on the living room walls, your keychain isn't on the bookshelf anymore, and worst of all, when he runs into the closet, half of your clothes are gone. 

did you really feel that bad about what he said?

in panic, he runs out and keeps going till he reaches the headquarters of the knights. he barges in this time, not returning the greetings of the guards upfront as he walks into jean's office. 

"where are they?" he pants, "i-i messed up, do you know where they are?"

jean's eyes widen as she says, "our associates were having a hard time handling with the fatui in liyue harbor so they volunteered to go there for sometime."

"how long has it been?"

"they left long ago, it's about to be around ten hours since," she says. kaeya's heart shatters as he hears those words. he hadn't expected you to outright leave like that, but if you had said the same things to him, he definitely would've stormed out. his voice cracks as he looks at the ground in shame, "h-how long until they'll be back?"

"i.. don't know."

he regrets everything he's said. he truly does because he doesn't even notice that tears are streaming down his cheeks until jean comes to his aid. he hates himself for all of it—he hates that he has to live in a home where traces of you are visible everywhere; worst of all, he hates how he knows he lost you for good. even if you come back, he knows you wouldn’t run and melt into his arms like you did before. you’re gone now, fading into the darkness and away from him. 

maybe it was for the best.

— DILUC.

“you’re nothing but a burden.”

after taking on a few abyss mages and mitachurls, diluc lets a grunt out in pain before you see the slash on his right arm. you gasp, pulling him to the side of the lake as you pull out a bandage and cotton from your bag to clean his wounds. he's reluctant to it at first, but he sits there quietly and broods as you clean the blood with cotton and some type of healing ointment. 

you tie the bandage on his arm, a tiny bit of vermillion liquid seeping through the white cloth before sitting down next to him, finally catching a breath. sighing, you look up at him and say, "that was reckless."

"no, what you did was reckless. who told you to come along with me to dadaupa gorge? you knew what you were getting into when you came along, so don't put this on me," he grumbled, frowning as you look at him with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows. you are sort of hurt, but you know he's only saying this in faux indignation, so it's okay. you chuckle out, beginning, "diluc, i was-"

"i don't know why i even bother with you at this point," he exasperates, looking into the distance behind you. he curses slightly under his breath, his rouge eyes filled to the brim with anger as it finally overflows, "you're nothing but a burden."

your eyes suddenly flick to gape at him in disbelief. you stand up, your voice hitching in your throat as you ask, "diluc, you mean that?"

and it all simmers down into ashes when he mumbles "of course i do" under his breath. your vision is blurry as you walk away from the red-haired man, your body trembling as you almost give away that you're crying your eyes out. you walk back in the direction the two of you came from, leaving your broken heart in the hands of diluc, who sat by the lake not muttering a word after. 

he knows he's said things he doesn't mean; he does that all the time, but you probably knew that. he figures you're leaving to catch a breath of fresh air—to be away from the tension-filled environment for a bit, you had a habit of doing that at home. he sighs as he ponders over his words for a bit. he knew it was wrong to display such harshness to you, but you probably knew he didn't mean anything by it. he always bubbled over rash things when he was frustrated. 

the sun sets in front of him, painting hues of aubergine and peach as it flows down. he wonders where you are, getting up from his spot by the lake to venture towards the path you walked off. 

only when he can't find you, is when he thinks that you might've actually taken offense to his words. although he cares about you sincerely, he finishes his mission first, getting a lead on the abyss order—because protecting monstadt was his first priority. you lingered in his mind every second of every day till he finally got back home. and when he didn't find you there, he asks adelinde about it, who only shakes her head and tells him, "i'm sorry, master diluc, but i haven't seen them come back. i thought they were with you."

it all pieces together in his mind now, how a small gasp had escaped your lips when he had called you a burden. the way you nodded begrudgingly, getting up and walking away from his presence as your shoulders trembled. the way he could hear you choke back a sob, but still ignored it, thinking you had overreacted in the situation. 

he searches the whole city for you. he searches every nook and corner, and even walks into the headquarters of the knights of favonius(he ignores kaeya's teases instead of biting back this time). and when he finally sees you, he holds himself back. his hand is suspended awkwardly in the air as he reaches out for you, your back turned towards him. 

maybe this was better—maybe it was a good thing that you had walked away from him. this way, the abyss order won't be able to harm you. this way, he won't be able to harm you. this way, you'll be safe and sound, away from the storm known as diluc ragnvindr.

— CHILDE.

“it’s not like you mean anything to me.”

it's not often you see childe. he's always in liyue, and you're here, stuck in monstadt or snezhnaya. it's cold today(as it always is) in snezhnaya, the snow covered almost everything outside as you looked out of your window, sipping on hot coffee as you sigh at the wilting roses on the sill. they'd wilted when you had gone to monstadt and you didn't have the heart to plant new ones.

just thinking about the blue-eyed childish man would make your heart bloom and cheeks flustered. you longed to spend more time with him, really. if only he wasn't affiliated with the fatui, he'd be able to spend more time with you. it had been months since you had seen him, and you longed to be in his arms once again, but who knows when that'll happen again? whenever he comes home, he chooses to spend a night with you and then head back. he'd laugh alongside you, tell you about his adventures, and give small reactions when you told him about yours. and the next morning, you'd wake up to an empty bed with a small note by the table, saying how he has to leave for work.  

a knock at your door snaps you out of your entranced state. as you open the lock and look out, you see childe, standing there with a tired grin and disheveled hair as he walks in without a word. he hands you a small paper bag, saying, "i brought you back something from liyue this time."

the same excuse, you think. it's always the same. he brings back small mementos and souvenirs as a pretense for staying, and by the time you think you can forgive him, he's gone. he plops down onto the sofa, stretching his arm out so you could join him. the thought of confronting him crosses your mind, but you shake it off—since he had only just gotten back. 

the night is the same as always. talking about each others' adventures, eating dinner by the fireplace, laughing alongside one another until you hit the bed. it's quiet now as you watch over his sleeping figure, his lapis-colored eyes now hidden. you sigh as you lay there for hours on end, twiddling with his brown hair as you wait for him to wake up(so this time you can actually say goodbye). 

when his eyes flutter open, he's a little taken aback when he looks over at you to see you wide awake. his brows furrow just a smidge as he says, "you're up."

"well, i wanted to say goodbye this time," you chuckle dryly, "you always leave without waking me up."

"i don't like the way you said that," he says, getting up from his position on the bed. you look away from him, your eyes displaying hurt as you murmur, "i don't like the way you leave."

"well, it's my job. it's not like i'm an adventurer like you, wasting my time around. i'm a harbinger and i have responsibilities," he says. his voice is neither too soft and nor too prickly, and you can tell that he's a little worked up by the way he lightly nips on the skin of his bottom lip as his gaze bores into you. 

"i didn't say you don't. all i said was that you could maybe sometimes stay for more than one night. it feels like you're using me, and when you're bored, you leave."

"oh?" he cocks an eyebrow as he stands up, "i'm using you, huh?"

you grimace at the tone of his voice, and when you look at him, you notice the sheer annoyance he puts up towards you. your voice is small when you ask him if he loves you—because you don't know anymore. seeing him once in a few months for the past few years has sure hurt you more than anything, and if you don't tell him now, then you might never get a chance. 

"what if i say i don't?" he smirks, walking up to you, "it's not like you mean anything to me. what if i agree that i am using you to make myself happy until i'm bored, so i can then throw you away?"

he doesn't like what he's saying either. his mind is screaming at him to stop, but he's worked up. he's irritated by the way you jabbed at him first thing in the morning, even though he knows you're right. his heart almost stops when he looks at the expression on your face after he says those words, and as he reaches out his hand for you, you turn away. 

your voice cracks, and he's sure his heart did as well when you mumble, "i-i'd like you to leave, please."

"wait, i didn't mean-"

"tartaglia," your eyes look into his, perhaps for the last time, as you give him a sad smile, "you don't have to come back to me anymore."

it hurts him as he leaves your home that morning. it hurts him when he comes back months later to see that your home is now empty. it hurts him because he tarnished the you that was once his. 

it hurts him, but he thinks it's for the best if you stay away from him if all he does is bring you pain.

— ZHONGLI.

“i’d like you to leave me alone.”

zhongli was never one to pick fights. he was peaceful; his thoughts were positive(most of the time), and he almost always preferred to talk about his problem rather than fighting about it—he believes that fighting will only bring pain, so why not confide in one another about our problems instead?

he's quiet. he's not shy(it's quite the opposite, actually), but he's one to prefer to only talk when absolutely necessary. he's the type to listen rather than speak, saying something like, "we have two ears and one mouth. speak less than you listen."

he smiles when his mind goes back to the time when he said that to you while having a cup of tea together, and you'd replied, "my mother used to tell me that when i was a child."

because it's true; every child in liyue harbor has heard those words at least once in their lives. the quality of listening is appreciated more than the quality of speaking—and zhongli, for one, was a listener. 

you, on the other hand, were a speaker. you always woke him up every morning with a smile as bright and everlasting as the sun, babbling about breakfast and tea as he got up from the bed. you were the one that carried conversations on your shoulders on morning walks, you were the one that intertwined your fingers with his as the two of you walked amongst flowers, adoring them as you talked about the contrasting colors of silk flowers and glaze lilies. he loved you for that. he loved you because you were a speaker. he loved you because you were a perfect balance, the only one who could soften his hardened heart. the only one whom he'd chosen to wake up next to in the mornings, the only one whom he'd let ruffle his hair without asking(because he secretly liked it). 

so why had he reversed the roles tonight? why was he the one to bubble out his frustrations to you, speaking in a cold and stern manner instead of the loving tone that was only reserved for you? why was he the one to speak tonight, and why were you the one to listen?

it's not like he was actually frustrated—he was only thinking about something else as you asked him what he wanted for dinner. it surely wasn't your fault when he had poured over turbulent words to you. and he knows that the ones that hurt the most probably were, "i'd like you to leave me alone."

he looks up at the stars, a heavy sigh escaping his lips as he walks back into his shared home with you. he looks around, and when there's no sign of you, he feels himself break apart even more. 

had you actually left? he wants to run to you and tell you he hadn't meant any of those words because he hadn't. he wants to touch you, to caress you, to please you, to make you smile—and he wants to admit he was wrong. he wants to make it right, but he doesn't know where you are. 

he walks into the empty bedroom, sitting on the cold mattress as his eyes sting. he doesn't understand what's happening, or why there are small drops of water falling from his eyes. he doesn't understand why everything feels heavy all of a sudden—his heart, his throat his lungs, everything. he doesn't understand why he feels like he's trapped in a box, and the water seems to be filling up more quickly than he'd prefer. he wants to reach for air, but he can't.

he couldn't breathe without you. 

he hears the door close and immediately gets up in haste to walk to the living room where he sees you take off your boots. you turn around to see him, his disheveled hair and frantic eyes finally calming as he walks over to you and engulfs you in a warm embrace. his throat cleared up, and so did his heart and lungs as he mumbles against your ear, "i'm so sorry."

you smile smally, looking up at him as you cup his cheeks and wipe a stray tear, and mutter, "it's okay, zhongli. stress gets to the best of us."

god, how he loves you. he places a small peck on the top of your forehead as he feels his lips turn upward at your touch and the scent of glaze lilies lingering over you tells him that you'd been to the flower garden. he sleeps with your fingers weaved with his that night and pulls you even closer if you untangle with him in sleep. 

he makes a promise to himself saying he'd never hurt you like that again, and he keeps it.

© all works belong to admiringlove on tumblr. plagiarism is strictly prohibited.

[ratmonky]

Inorganic Human

Word Count: 3.1K

Warnings: noncon, guided & forced masturbation, home invasion, stalking

AO3 Link

Another fic I wrote for my besto frendo @anti-interesting​ who finally watched the show after me talking about it for hours lol

You were tucked under your sheets with your laptop on your bed and catching up with your favorite show when the screen abruptly turned black.

“Ahh,” you groaned audibly, having to move from your cozy position took too much effort and it was way too annoying if you had to be honest.

As you were about to press the power button to see if you had accidentally turned your laptop off like the many other times you had in the past, the screen flashed white before returning to normal.

“Can you hear me?”

You stared blankly at the screen. It wasn’t your show that was playing. It was your classmate from school. Had you opened your social media account by accident?

With a small scoff, you tried clicking away from the video. However, your laptop must have frozen because you couldn’t turn it off no matter what.

“Can you hear me?” he asked again, looking right at you.

Chills went down your spine and you looked around you as if someone else was in the room. The feeling of discomfort was settling in, enough to make you feel self-conscious and pull up the sheets to cover yourself.

It was getting creepy, he was still staring at you.

Reaching your hand forward, you pressed the power button to turn off the laptop and somehow it didn’t turn off.

“(name), I asked if you could hear me.”

Your muscles tensed, you pulled the sheets further up to cover your chest. “Shishigami? Um, i-is this a video call?”

He hummed softly. “I guess so.”

How could it be a call when you had never given him your email or phone number?

It was silent for a moment. You were trying to come up with a polite way to tell him to leave the call since you couldn’t end it yourself but he spoke again.

“You’re coming to school tomorrow, right?”

Dumbfounded, you nodded slowly.

After that, he smiled softly and the screen flickered a couple of times until your show continued playing again.

~~~~

As if last night hadn’t happened, Hiro was on the other side of the classroom talking to his friend, Ando.

He hadn’t even spared you a passing glance the whole day. You started to believe you dreamed of the entire thing.

Yeah, that had to be it.

~~~

At home, you put a tape over your laptop camera in case a glitch like that happened again and turned it on. Letting your show play in the background, you took off your clothes to get in your pajamas.

“Could you please not touch him so casually, you homewreckers?!” The annoying main character was exaggerating his reactions and it made you giggle. While you were taking off your bra, he continued his banter. “Megumi has violin classes with-”

The audio stopped suddenly and you turned around to check if your internet was messing up again but you found yourself looking at Hiro.

You covered your bare chest with a shirt you were just about to put on and gasped sharply. Wait, he couldn’t see you, you had put that tape on your camera and-

“Sorry for the bad timing. I’ll return after you’ve dressed up.”

With that, he was gone. Your show was back on the screen but you were too terrified and confused to be able to laugh at the funny reveal at the end.

You walked up to your laptop with shaking limbs and slammed your laptop closed.

~~~

The next time you opened your laptop was in the morning, you checked from the camera app if you could see anything through the tape but no, it was pitch black.

Then… how?

Were you imagining all of this?

You had to be only tired or maybe the university entrance exams were starting to get to you. The stress could have been causing you to imagine stupid stuff like these. Right?

~~~

“Hey,” you said to get his attention for the third time but he still had his face pressed against his desk.

He wasn’t asleep, you knew that.

“Ando.” You put your hand on his shoulder and he finally lifted his head from the desk to stare at you.

He looked around himself as if to see if you were actually talking to him.

“Could we talk for a second?” you asked, hoping that you could take him somewhere else before Hiro returned to the classroom.

“Um, yeah, sure, why not?” He blushed, looking around the classroom one last time to see if this was a prank before following you out.

You took him up to the roof.

“W-what did you wanna talk about?” Ando nervously asked while rubbing the back of his neck.

Maybe this was a bad idea. You were being accusatory and this guy had nothing to do with any of this. He didn’t need to be caught up in between with whatever was going on.

“Do you know if Shishigami is messing with me?”

“Huh?” He looked confused, he scratched his cheek and gave himself a moment to think. “I… I don’t think so… Hiro’s not the type to prank others... I mean, what made you think that he was messing with you?”

“It’s just…” It had to be your imagination, if you spoke about this right now Ando would most likely ask his friend about it too. There was no need to make it a bigger deal than it already was. “Nevermind.”

~~~

You didn’t turn on your computer that night and decided to sleep early. You weren’t going to school tomorrow either because you certainly needed to rest and collect your thoughts. Thankfully your family was away on an overnight trip, meaning that nobody could scold you for skipping school.

It was going to be a restful day for you!

However, as soon as you put your head on the pillow, your phone’s screen on the nightstand lit up. Weird, you had your phone on ‘do not disturb’ all the time, it didn’t show any notifications unless you picked it up.

Too tired to check what was up, you turned to the other side to avoid the bright light.

“(name), you never sleep at this hour. Something wrong?”

Your eyes snapped open.

That was Shishigami.

“Pick up the phone.”

You didn’t answer him as your limbs shook uncontrollably in terror. This couldn’t be a nightmare, it felt too real.

“Pick up the phone or I’ll have to come to your house.”

Cold sweat trickled down your back but you still couldn’t move. Your entire body had turned to stone. He didn’t know where you live, right? Even if he did, you weren’t going to open the door.

Wait, wait, wait…

This all was a prank.

The muscles on your limbs eased and your shoulders relaxed. He was pranking you! Haha, yeah this was a prank. But then how was he able to talk to you without you having to answer his call?

“See you,” he sighed and a static sound filled your ears.

You jolted up from your bed to check your phone. The screen was normal. Okay, calm down. This was a prank, he wouldn’t come to your house.

The sound of knocking filled your room. Your shoulders tensed again and you turned your head towards the bedroom door. That… knocking wasn’t coming from your apartment door.

Knock.

Your blood ran cold as you glanced over your shoulder and found yourself staring at a shadow behind the curtains, he was standing on your balcony. He was trying to look inside through the curtains, moving around to find a crack that could help him see who was inside.

H-how did he get there? You lived high up from the ground, there was no way he climbed up there… More importantly, how did he know where you lived?

He couldn’t come in. He can’t come in. The door is locked, he can’t come in.

The door was locked. You knew that yet the fear had settled in. You were being invaded, it already felt like he was inside.

You turned around your heels to face the balcony as you stepped back towards your bedroom door. The balcony door was locked so there was no way he could get in and all you needed to do was stay back-

The balcony door unlocked itself.

Your mouth popped open in shock and you gasped sharply.

Hiro pulled the curtains away as he stepped a foot inside your room. He stared at you with a blank stare, “Ah, so you were awake! Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

You couldn’t move, fear had paralyzed you.

Why are you here?

How did you get inside?

Get out!

Your mouth wouldn’t move either but your teeth still chattered. This didn’t feel like a prank anymore.

“Why don’t you sit down,” he said, turning on the lamp on your nightstand and gesturing towards your bed. His other hand was pointing at you with his forefinger and his thumb was extended out. “Don’t yell, scream or cry. This is a real gun.”

Prank.

It was a prank.

You desperately wanted to believe it.

“Bang!” he yelled, his hand recoiled like a gun. Immediately, you felt a rush of wind right beside your ear and when you looked behind you, there was a hole in your bedroom door.

Did he really do that with his… finger?

You were confused, in disbelief.

“W-what do you w-want?” Your teeth were still chattering, you put your tongue in between them to stop it but the action only resulted in you biting your tongue.

“I just need your help.” He gestured towards your bed once again. “Sit down.”

This time, you forced yourself to move.

As soon as you sat on your bed, Hiro pulled the chair you had beside your desk and placed it in front of you. He gracefully sat down, still pointing his finger gun at you. “I’m not a human anymore.”

You didn’t say anything.

He sighed and a click sound filled your ears.

His head popped open like a flower. All you could see was metal, it was a machine. A robot. This thing wasn’t your classmate. You clapped a hand over your mouth to keep your voice down and finally started to realize the horror of the situation.

The open metal pieces closed up seamlessly to form Hiro’s face once again.

It was silent, you were unsure of how to react or what to say. You weren’t even sure if you were going to live.

“What makes humans human?” Hiro asked, pointing his finger up to your head. He was expecting an answer.

“I don’t know.”

“Feelings of guilt,” he said, his face was inanimate. “Only humans feel remorse and empathy. When you kill something you must feel some sort of guilt. That’s what makes you a human. Most humans cannot take a life without feeling guilty.”

Ah, you started to get the picture.

“Are you going to kill me?” The question you never thought you would ask anyone at any point in your life left your lips and you felt tears streaming down your face.

His lips slowly curled up to a smile. “I already tried killing others, it didn’t work.”

Your chest clenched abruptly at the revelation. “T-then why?”

“There’s one another feeling only humans can feel.” He reached towards your face and wiped your tears, humming softly. “It’s lust. Animals choose partners by instinct, humans choose theirs by attraction.”

“I don’t understand,” you sobbed. “Why me?”

Hiro slowly carded his fingers through your hair, petting you like you were a scared animal he was trying to calm down. “I always thought you were pretty. I used to jerk off to your pictures on your account every day.  I wanna see if I still feel the same way in this body.”

You didn’t get to react to his sickening words as he pressed his forefinger on your breast, still in a finger gun position. He smiled while moving his finger on the supple flesh. He then placed the rest of his fingers on your breast to grope it fully. “I kinda feel it.”

Speechless, you only stared at him as he sat back, prying his hands off of you reluctantly.

“I need you to take off your shirt for me.”

When you didn’t move, he lifted his hand back up, threatening to shoot you.

Grabbing the hem of your shirt with shaking hands, you pulled it over your chest and above your head before putting it on your lap. You clutched on the shirt and stared at your hands. Tears blurred your vision.

“I’m feeling it a little bit right now,” he said, voice filled with faint joy.

A moment passed before he spoke again.

“Take off everything.”

You let out a choked sob and shook your head.

“You don’t need to die, (name). All I’m asking for is your help.” He was looking at you with a sinister expression on his face, his finger pointed right between your brows, it didn’t even waver.

You didn’t want to die. Not yet. Not when you were half-naked like this and in your room.

With a rapid nod, you hooked your thumbs under the waistband of your pajama pants and pulled them down, lifting your hips from the bed to slide the pants down your thighs.

He watched you intently, without blinking once.

“Spread your legs.”

Complying his order, you spread your legs involuntarily. A blush tinted your cheeks from embarrassment.

Hiro hummed in delight, drinking up your naked form.

“Can you put a finger inside?”

You had to remind yourself that you were only doing this because you didn’t want to die.

Hesitantly, you brought your hand up to insert two fingers inside of your pussy. A whimper left your lips when you saw the way he was watching you.

“Move them.”

The shame you felt as you pulled your fingers out to push them back in was indescribable. His eyes were focused on your pussy and your digits.

“It’s happening,” he whispered to himself in disbelief.  “I feel alive.”

Whether it be your crush watching you masturbate so carefully or the unsettling threat of being in the claws of death, your walls were pulsating around your fingers, begging to be filled and stretched. You needed something bigger but you bit your lip, holding back your filthy thoughts before your mind could wander off. Instead, you dipped one more finger inside your cunt to satisfy yourself.

Yet, your eyes were on Hiro as you were fingering yourself.

“I’m still human,” he said, eyes softening in relief. He smiled, the soft expression on his face made your walls clench around your digits. “Thank you, (name).”

Lust filled all of your senses at the way he said it.

The pads of your fingers rubbed on your sensitive spot inside of you as you brought your other hand up too. Using your free hand, you drew tight circles over your sensitive nub.

Hiro put his hand down and leaned forward on the chair to watch you closely.

Your fingers started moving in and out hastily when you realized he was giving you all of his attention. The sloppy sounds of your juices gushing out from your pussy with each thrust of your digits filled your room.

He opened his mouth to say something but he was too hypnotized by the way your hips were moving towards your fingers. You were grinding your pussy against your own fingers like some animal in heat.

Humans could reproduce.

Hiro knew he could never reproduce in this body. Not anymore. Many humans couldn’t reproduce, it didn’t mean he wasn’t any less human. He knew that but he couldn’t stop his hand from reaching to grab your wrist.

He stopped you from moving your fingers any longer, he pulled them out, and before you could whine at the emptiness, he inserted his own digits inside.

“H-Hiro.” Gasping, you looked at him with needy eyes, begging him to move.

Hiro pressed his lips together and scissored his fingers in and out of you experimentally. You moaned, throwing your head back shamelessly. The reaction he got from you was enough to encourage him to add another digit and started to fingerfuck you.

Your hips bucked wildly against his hand, you were already close, and having Hiro’s long fingers inside you was too much. They could reach so much deeper than your own fingers and hit the sweetest spots you could only wish you could with your own digits.

So, this was what made humans human. The attraction and lust towards one another. The feeling of guilt had never sprouted in Hiro, not even once. Not even when he was a child. Perhaps, that was the reason why he felt so much more alive than he ever did in his life.

His mind was going crazy, the consciousness he had was getting fuzzy as he used the entire strength of his arm to fingerfuck you.

Your walls pulsated around his digits, clamping on them and sucking him in deeper.

Oh, so needy.

Hiro leaned further down to close the distance between his face and crotch. Your legs shook in anticipation until he lolled out his tongue to take an inexperienced lick against your cunt.

It made you moan audibly.

Wanting to hear your cute moans again, Hiro continued lapping at your pussy and moving his fingers inside of you. Your juices he managed to slurp were… sweet. He could taste them, unlike any other things he had tried eating and drinking, he could actually taste your nectar. You tasted like candy to him and oh, you had no idea how much he had missed the delicious aroma of candy.

While he was slurping your juices, you were clutching on your bedsheets and your toes were curling in pleasure. You arched your back before placing your hands on his head, fingers carding through his silky hair.

Soon enough you were on the edge, the white pleasure building in your gut was spreading all over your body. Legs shaking violently, you pulled Hiro’s hair and moaned as the euphoria washed over you before your body went completely limp on your bed.

Hiro stood above you as you were trying to catch your breath on the mattress, he marveled at the sight of your afterglow.

He was breathing hard, inhaling as if he actually needed the air to survive. Was this excitement? Satisfaction? Salvation?

He was feeling overwhelmed with feelings of passion. He desperately wanted to see you like that again.

Oh.

That was it.

At that moment, he felt more alive than he ever did before. He knew he was alive.

[dreamhot]

hey i was just wondering if you could clarify what the whole discourse was about the horror fanart because i saw some fanart that had nearly 10k likes on twitter and everyone likes it and i saw horror fanart on here that people were thirsting over? which is fine im just getting a bit confused as to what classifies as the discourse because the one on twitter had positive comments so i got very confused

i saw it on the main dream fanart tag and it was genuinely terrifying art thats kind of making me upset (i dont know if its irrational but im kind of getting anxious about it) and im not sure if thats what people were talking about

okay so . this is where the argument has run into issues, because i believe either side is approaching the situation through a different lens. on one hand you have the horror artists, who are completely within their rights to interpret the material as they see fit for their work. i'm not here to say that they shouldn't draw horror art - personally i enjoy a lot of darker work! - but there is a huge issue with not tagging things properly, which understandably causes a lot of upset. additionally, the dreamfanart tag is LOADED with the creepy art rn, presumably as a sort of response to the backlash. thus, the other end has issues with the lack of tagging (both in terms of horror and the rp/dsmp clarification). this seems mostly objective

personal grievances under the cut

one criticism that i agree with (but others have mixed feelings on) is the concept of what makes good character design. obviously we're working with mc skins, and dream's in particular is ... well, you know what it's like. it's why we have so many varied c!dream designs - which is cool as hell! but some of the horror art has scrapped all recognisable features in favour of just making ... a spooky looking guy. no mask, no smile, no... green? idk. just, if you look at a piece of art and can't identify who it's supposed to be, how successful is the design? it's not like you have to go along with fanon, but typically character fanart based upon a piece of media relies upon Some sort of identifiable feature to make the viewer say 'ah yes! this is [x]'. is it a crime to create a design that couldn't be identified as c!dream by any metric? no, but i do have to wonder what the intention is in making him look like that, esp when every other character ... looks about how you'd expect

outside of that, though, the biggest problem arises for me personally when the art errs away from simply unsettling and into almost predatory tones. the people who make c!tommy look like a child and c!dream as some huge, looming monster. the people who push the 'c!dream is obsessed solely with c!tommy in an unhealthy way' narrative. it's all too tadca-adjacent for my tastes, deliberate or not, and the people saying 'well it's a YOU problem for making that association' are being deliberately obtuse. someone else said it better than me before, but once you've been exposed to that group, it's hard not to see this sort of content as a dogwhistle. and it think, consequently, it's not unfair to be unsettled by this style of art ... especially when people are pushing the bounds of the story in order to act like their depictions are canon compliant

[spammreviews]

B+:

25. The Mansion of Phantom Pain-

This is the story with the kid who has pain outside of his body. It’s great because I feel bad for everyone involved. This situation sucks for the kid, his parents, and the workers.

This story isn’t trying to be scary so much as it is trying to sell us on this feeling of frustration, and man oh man does it succeed. 

I also like when stories take ridiculous concepts and then go “Hm, how would this work in the real world”. This story acts very logical about its fantastical idea, and it’s very interesting to read about.

Overall, this is a perfectly cromulent story. No complaints.

24. My Dear Ancestors-

This is the forehead story.

It begins with a girl with amnesia who keeps seeing visions of a giant caterpillar. That’s an interesting setup, and the story makes full use of it. There’s also the girl’s boyfriend's mysterious family.

We basically have three different mysteries in this family, but the twist at the end manages to resolve all three of them.

Also, the twist is revealed with a very memorable image.

The story could have simply ended after the twist, but then it decided to go in a whole new direction, and I like it when stories actually show the ramifications of their reveals.

Our ending note is a horrifying one that wraps up the story very well. Many of these stories have endings that make me go “Okay, and then what?”, but there’s no reason to think that with this story.

I’m sure I could do some analysis of how this story says something about another thing. 

The idea of the old being parasites for their descendants can kind of work as a metaphor for generational trauma, even if nothing is really said about generational trauma.

The idea of memory is obviously present, as that’s not just the basis of the forehead thing, but we also get a main character with amnesia. There isn’t any real point being made about memory, but I like it when stories just have repeating ideas.

Overall, this is a pretty creative story with some fun body horror. It does not make any sense if you think about it all, but the story is definitely intentionally campy. Plus, it has an internal logic to it. Yeah, sure, foreheads can talk.

23. House of the Marionettes- 

I really like stories where people turn into puppets/marionettes/mannequins.

This story has a really big feeling of malaise throughout.

The beginning tells us the main character’s backstory. He grew up in a poor family who moved around all the time because they were a traveling puppet troupe, and his Mom left when he was a kid.

We get this whole sequence that just shows how shitty his life is, where he goes to a town, makes a friend, and then has to leave.

I feel kind of bad for him.

A character I really like in the beginning is the older brother. There’s a scene where he’s talking to the main character and he says “Yeah, sorry that our life sucks, and that our Dad also sucks. Don’t tell him I said that.” It’s a very brotherly sequence.

The thing is, this scene is contextualized by a previous scene where the Dad is yelling at the main character and the older brother does nothing. It’s clear that this older brother is an imperfect character.

You know what else I like? The father is an abusive piece of shit, but he also feels real. There’s a scene where he gets a puppet and tells his children how much puppetry means to him, and if he wasn’t such a piece of shit then the scene would be kind of heart warming.

Also, I love stories where characters are extremely enthusiastic about something that I personally don’t care about much, and the stories somehow manage to make me feel excited about these topics, like Ratatouille and The Queen’s Gambit. All of these stories have scenes where a character explains their love for their obsession in a way which feels genuine and infectious.

So, despite this beginning not having any elements of horror or suspense to them, it’s still a good time.

The story moves on when the dad dies, the brother moves away, and we get a couple year time skip. The main character is now not involved with puppets, and we get a few pages showing his new life. This bit does go on too long, but oh well.

However, it is after this that our main character receives a message from his older brother who he hasn’t had contact with in years, and that’s when the horror starts.

This part of the story is fun. The concept is cool, and the action in the final bit is well done. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but Ito is very good at showing action. He knows how to have strong senses of space and time when he needs to, and he’s really good at using panel sizes to communicate these. There’s a precision to this.

The ending of this story is sudden because that’s how Ito likes to write, but oh well.

22. Memory-

The story begins with the girl thinking about how she is pretty, but she’s afraid that there may have been a point where she wasn’t. After the most obvious foreshadowing in a story I’ve ever seen, the girl thinks about how her memories from the ages of 7 to 14 are blank, except for brief fragmented memories of her being ugly.

I don’t want to spoil what happens next for those who haven’t read this story, but, needless to say, this story is about how fearing becoming a kind of person will make you become that person.

This story also subverts the ugly=evil trope by showing that the two are completely unrelated. This story is actually kind of thought provoking. 

Not only that, but this story is unsettling in a unique way. It is the connotations of this story that are creepy. The idea that you can just convince yourself you’re a murderer is horrifying, as is the idea that you have murdered someone and you just forgot. 

I also quite like the mystery in the beginning of this story, as it seems like there legitimately can be no answer that makes sense…but, there is.

The ending is also fun because it’s a scary ending presented like it's a happy ending. This girl is clearly dangerous and in need of psychological intervention, but her parents don’t want to go through with that.

One could say this story does still fall into the trope of having a female character who’s obsessed with her beauty and never really exploring why she is or what that means. That’s true. It’s not a perfect story.

21. Shivers/ The Chill-

This story has a dumb title. It’s the story where the people are covered in holes.

The beginning of this story does a great job of creating mystery, with us being introduced to this mysterious girl who never leaves the house and regularly sees a doctor who gives her some sort of painful treatment. Then, we get the reveal with some small holes on the girl’s arm.

I like how this story actually has the characters do some sleuthing. We, the audience, are presented with a mystery, and we, along with the characters, have to slowly piece it together. Our main character boy also has a stake in this game due to these memories of his grandfather. 

The ending is very strange, as it seems like Ito didn’t know how to end it, so he just randomly threw in some body horror and then closed it off. So much of this story involves our main character having a crush on this girl, and then he never gets to talk to her. Not only that, but his memories about his grandfather are never fully resolved.

However, the imagery is fantastic. The idea of having holes in your body is horrific, and one that is difficult to forget.

This is a quick paced story which understands that its strongest suit is the body horror, so it builds its narrative around that and doesn’t waste our time by trying to be anything else.

20.5 Junji Ito’s Cat Diary-

I forgot this one. I’m sorry. This is a last minute addition.

It's impossible to deny the charm. It's a very simple story where most of the humor comes from how overdramatic the presentation is. However, it does end up getting a bit repetitive after the first few chapters.

20. Smashed/ Splatter Film-

This is the one with the honey that makes you go “splat”.

I like the way the mystique around the honey is built up, going from almost supernatural to seemingly supernatural to definitely supernatural.

Each instance of someone being splattered raises the tension as it becomes more and more clear that eating the honey is making the characters go “splat”.

The horror is also quite fun. One of my favorite moments is the one where the characters find a giant splat on the wall and slowly realize that the splat was their friend. 

However, what makes this story truly amazing is the twist. It’s a very nonsensical twist, but it’s so absurd that it works. Also, the twist was very clearly setting it up from the very beginning! Re-reading this story is very fun that way, as you notice all of the little hints.

The way the twist is revealed is also fantastic, as it happens at the very, very end.

The Junji Ito Story Ranking, Worst to Best

Trigger warning:

Suicide, self harm, mentions of body horror, death, animal death, rape, marital abuse, transphobia, and sexism.

This will not include Junji Ito’s adaptations of others' works. There are also some works which couldn’t be put in this story because they simply aren’t available in English.

Also, there are two kinds of Junji Ito stories: one shots and longer stories.

One shots are stories such as Slug Girl and the Enigma of Amigara Fault.

Longer stories include Gyo and Remina.

There are some stories which are kind of on the fence between the two such as Tomie, Souchi, Uzumaki, and the Dissolving Classroom. These are collections of multiple different stories which can work together as one cohesive story. I ranked all of the Tomie chapters as separate stories as I felt like their quality varied, but Uzumaki, Souchi and Dissolving Classroom had more consistent quality (for better or for worse), so they were ranked as one whole work.

Penultimately, some of these stories have multiple titles. I have tried to show both titles when that happens, but there are most likely some times when I have made a mistake.

Lastly, some of my reviews will contain spoilers while others will not. Those with spoilers will contain a (Spoilers) tag.

Worst to best

F:

133. The Bizarre Hikizuri Siblings:

The Seance-

I hate every character in this story.

This story is about a family and they’re all spooky weirdos, like the Addams family if they were all annoying.

There’s the fat guy.

His design is obnoxious, and his entire existence is a never ending stream of stupid, overdone fat jokes. Wait, actually, that’s not fair, there is also a bunch of gross out humor.

There’s the little girl. She’s the “evil little girl” trope. She’s obnoxious and I hate her design.

There’s the little boy. He’s the “evil little boy” trope. He’s obnoxious and I hate his design.

There’s the eldest girl. She’s…she’s there.

There’s the eldest boy. He’s pretending to be mature and he speaks in a weird false-eloquent manner. He is not extremely obnoxious.

There’s Narumi. She’s “normal”, which means she’s boring.

The first half of the story sees us being introduced to our main characters. The eldest boy invites a girl to dinner. At the dinner, ee see the fat guy drooling and eating lots of food in a gross way. 

The family has a fight and I don’t know what emotion I should be feeling in that scene. Is it funny? If so, it fails, because there aren't any actual jokes. Is it supposed to be dramatic? If so, it fails because I don’t care about any of these characters. It’s clear that the family is grieving, but they’re all grieving in these extremely inhuman ways- so I can’t relate to them.

The family decides to have a seance for their dead parents, and that takes up the rest of the story. It’s filled with gross-out humor, inane banter, and extremely repetitive character beats. I think the little girl cries like ten or so times.

The family is also just arguing all of the time. Every page is another argument. I know that families argue with each other, but this is ridiculous. I don’t think this family likes each other.

All of this arguing means that the plot has the pacing of molasses, as none of this arguing moves the plot forward.

Also, family drama isn’t interesting when the family are just annoying caricatures of tired archetypes. 

This story sucks in every way. It’s not even nice to look at because the designs of the family make me want to vomit.

God, I hate this story so much.

132. All of the Souichi Stories-

The Souichi stories are too silly to be scary, too dark to be funny, too down-to-earth to be campy, and too annoying to be likable. 

Souichi is a child who never poses a threat to our main characters, so he’s never scary. 

However, his hijinks are also not fun to watch because they usually involve hurting people.

Fictional characters getting seriously hurt can be funny in a fucked up way, but only if something is added to make it funny. These stories just have someone getting their hand hit with a hammer. People getting hurt can also be fun if they are being injured in an extraordinarily cartoony manner, like in Evil Dead 2, but the injuries characters receive here are stuff like stepping on a nail, which is a very simple and realistic way to injure oneself, meaning that it’s not fun.

Despite being about a child who’s evil, these stories never have much fun with that premise or do anything creative. The only way Souichi being a child barely affects his career as an asshole is that he doesn’t face consequences.

Also, the others characters in this story are blacks of wood with no personalities and no dimensions. As such, the story is extraordinarily boring whenever Souichi isn’t on screen.

Watching a child be annoying to a bunch of boring people gets extremely old extremely quickly, especially with how repetitive these stories are. There are about fourteen of them, and they all have the same plot.

Lastly, Souichi is just annoying. He has all of the most annoying character traits of children: he always repeats things, he screams way too much, he eats really messily, he’s a gleeful asshole, and he never faces any consequences for his actions. 

This kind of character can work, like that prince kid from the Tintin comics, Abdullah or whatever. However, that kid appears in like fifteen pages over the course of two different books. 

However, Souchi is the main focus of these many stories.

Even when Souchi gets what is coming to him, it’s never cathartic because it’s always way too much, like him getting nails through his cheeks. That’s disturbing. 

Essentially, the problem with these stories is that they have no sense of tone. The mix of morbidity and wackiness leads to the stories just being really annoying.

They’re also really repetitive, both in the sense that almost all of these stories follow the same formula with the same beats, but this formula is one where the plot is one continuous cycle of Souchi being a little shit, getting away with it, and then getting angry for some reason. 

131. Fashion Model-

(Spoilers)

Haha it’s funny because the woman is ugly and aaah! it’s also scary because the woman is ugly and haha it’s funny because the ugly woman is going to rape the man as punishment for being slightly paranoid. 

This story is stupid. It’s cruel to every character involved, it’s not funny, the tone is all over the place, the pacing is extremely slow, and its attempts at suspense are laughably pathetic because they’re based on us being scared by a woman for no other reason than her being ugly.

It also has two really annoying tropes being taken to their extreme:

A woman pursuing a man who is clearly not interested in her and

Ugly people are evil/gross/funny.

When this story isn’t being absolutely awful, it’s just boring because every character ranges from bland to just kind of unlikable, like our main character. 

Despite him being kind of a jerk, seeing bad things happen to him isn’t gratifying because they are far worse than what he deserves. 

130. The Bizarre Hikizuri Siblings: 

Narumi’s Boyfriend-

(Spoilers)

This first two pages of this story see a teenage girl, Narumi Hikizuri, about to commit suicide, only to be saved by her boyfriend. You would assume that the rest of the story explores depression. You would not be wrong.

We then meet the other Hikizuri siblings, who, as I mentioned previously, suck, and there are five of them!

Then, we cut back to the teenage girl, Narumi obviously, and her boyfriend. Narumi is depressed and threatening to commit suicide again. Her boyfriend is kind of being an asshole about it, complaining about how hard it is to care for her. 

It’s pretty fucked up that there is really no good support network for Narumi.

Then, Narumi’s family finds her and kidnaps her, and it’s at this point where I can’t help but wonder if Narumi’s siblings are supposed to be scary or funny in this story. It wouldn’t make any sense for them to be scary, as their designs are weird and they talk weirdly, and they’re stupid and silly and wacky and dumb. However, them being funny makes no sense considering the fact that this is a story wich starts with a suicide attempt. Also, it’s hard to laugh because the siblings are so fucking stupid looking. They make me nauseous. Not only that, but the family members are being abusive to Narumi, and that’s not funny, even if their abuse is silly.

Anywhoo, the story randomly swerves in tone when Narumi says she’s going to kill herself, douses herself with gasoline, and flicks a cigarette lighter. You assume she’s on fire and is dying. You would be…uhh…wrong?

After that happens, the family gets Narumi’s boyfriend, takes him to their house, and tortures him by forcing him to lay in a bag with what appears to be the burnt body of Narumi.

It’s kind of disturbing, but it’s also very silly. So, what emotion am I supposed to be feeling?

Then, Narumi shows up, and the boyfriend dies of a heart attack.

As it turns out, the thing that burned was a mannequin, and the family were just messing with the boyfriend.

Narumi only seems a bit angry about her boyfriend dying, and the last panel sees her saying she “Had no intention of actually doing it” meaning she had no intention of setting herself on fire.

Now, I’m going to give the story the benefit of the doubt and say that Narumi was actually going to kill herself. I sure hope that when the family told Narumi she was just doing this for attention, they weren’t right. I sure hope that when Narumi threatened to kill herself in front of her boyfriend, she wasn’t manipulating him.

If that was true, this story would be awful.

I’m going to assume that Narumi is just lying. The story still sucks because we have a depressed character trapped with her abusive family and the story doesn’t seem to care. However, it sucks a little bit less because it’s not insinuating that depressed people are “looking for attention”.

In conclusion, this story is one of the most tonally bizarre things I’ve ever seen. It goes back and forth between silly hijinks and serious drama. 

It also doesn’t help that the silly hijinks aren’t funny, and I don’t even know much about Narumi and her boyfriend, so I don’t care about the drama of their story!

129. Groaning Pipes-

(Spoilers)

This is the story about the people getting stuck in pipes.

To truly understand this story, we need to go in deep.

The story starts off with black haired girl being stalked by, gasp!, a guy who is overweight and ugly. Now, I’d argue that the comic seems to want us to find him gross through the way the panels frame him.

So, we’re not off to a great start.

The pudgy kid asks black haired girl out and black haired girl rebukes him, something we are told has happened many times before. So, this guy sucks. 

However, black haired girl then insults this guy by calling him a “swollen and ugly".

Now, obviously, black haired girl has every right to insult someone who is being a creep. However, she is not insulting him on the grounds of being a creep, but instead focusing on his appearance, something he can’t control. In fact, all of the insults the black haired girl levels against the pudgy kid, and there are many, revolve around his appearance. The pudgy kid isn’t bad because he’s pudgy, he’s bad because he’s being a creep.

A result of this is that I kind of dislike both characters in this situation. Maybe that’s the point. If so, then I can congratulate this story on being rather complex in making the point that the girl had the right to not want to have sex with a guy she doesn’t like. Meanwhile, the guy, however much of a piece of shit he is, has the right to not be belittled for his appearance.

Of course, I’m assuming that’s the point. It’s probably not, because the rest of the story is very stupid. Also, the way both characters act is so extreme, it makes them seem like complete caricatures. The pudgy guy is a gross creepy incel and the black haired girl is a vapid valley girl.

Anywhoo, once that scene happens, black haired girl and her sister go to their house, where they bathe for way too long. At first, I was a bit unsure if these siblings were actually siblings because they look to be the same age and act less like siblings and more like casual work friends.

Then, we learn there is something wrong with the pipes in this house. We also see that the mom of this character is a total neat freak. The story feels the need to tell us this fifty or so times in these ten or so pages, and it quickly gets very annoying. There’s also an agonizingly pointless scene  where the mom yells at a plumber. 

It is also in this part where the two girls hatch a plan to let the pudgy guy go to their house so the neat freak mother can scare him off.

To finish our set up, we also meet the Dad of the family, who is divorced from the Mom and hasn’t seen his kids in a while. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t have the time to explore what it’s like to be a child of divorce in any meaningful way. 

So, the story has just been set up. There isn’t even the suggestion of something scary.

The plan of the two sisters goes perfectly, and the mom throws eggs at the pudgy kid.

Anywhoo, then the plot actually kicks off when the mom accidentally kills the Dad because she thinks he’s the fat kid when he sneaks into the house at night. I guess the Dad just really wanted to see his kids again, and IDK, maybe he was drunk or something. None of the members of the family seem concerned about the death of this man.

The mom tells the cops that the husband had a knife, so her killing of him was in self defense. I suppose that makes sense. However, what doesn’t make sense is that the family is just allowed to stay in this house that has become a crime scene. I suppose I’m nitpicking. Whatever.

We then see the Mom obsessing over her husband’s blood being cleaned from the floor, and the harassment causes the maid to quit. Why does the maid even exist in the story? I don’t know.

After these excruciatingly long sequences of nothing, we finally get some suspense when mysterious sounds start coming from the pipes.

This, among many other things, causes the Mom to freaking lose it. This is not the only Junji Ito story where a stressed out mom with a dead husband goes crazy. Another one will be near the top. However, this one doesn’t work because the mom is an annoying caricature of a mom, and her neurosciences are so extreme she becomes unbelievable.

Anywhoo, it turns out that the pudgy kid is in the pipes, which is where the sound is coming from.

The black haired girl suddenly starts acting like an asshole for no reason, and the story ends with the sister getting pulled into the pipes- presumably by the pudgy kid. I should mention that she is wearing a towel, so there is an unsettling subtext to this.

That’s fucked up. What is this story saying? Fat people are rapists?

Also, the mom just disappears from the story.

One kind of wonders why the husband and his death was even included, as he’s absolutely inessential to the actual main plot, which is the incel in the pipes. The mom is also pretty pointless, with her only important action being throwing eggs at the pudgy kid.

This whole story is convoluted, contrived, and nonsensical. Every character in it is a caricature, whether it be of women or of fat people. It also seems uninterested in actually creating an atmosphere of dread and suspense.

Unfortunately, a common theme throughout Ito’s stories (specifically his earlier work) is unattractive people being cast as villains and women going through extremely traumatic events in a way which feels indulgent. This story has these two being taken to the extreme.

128. Nanakuse Kyokumi-

This is the transphobic story.

It follows a woman , Koroketsu, who is obsessed with a writer. She goes to see that writer, Nanakuse, only for Nanakuse to turn out to be evil…and also a trans woman. 

Anywhoo, the main character, Koroketsu, of this story is one of the more colorful main characters because she’s really weird.

This means that the beginning of this story is…interesting with how strange it is.

Then, we meet Nanakuse, the author. She is drawn with a very pronounced chin and nose, and our main character literally thinks “A male!” when she first sees her.

It’s at this point when I stopped wanting to read the story, but I had to because of this fucking list.

After this, the author throws the main character into a dungeon, our main character suffers some body horror, and then the story ends.

If it wasn’t for the transphobia, this story would probably be in C. It is very quickly paced. In fact, it’s too quickly paced, as there’s no time given to creating suspense and atmosphere. We don’t see the author seeming more and more off putting as we get more hints that she is evil. The second the main character shows up, the author acts like an absolute asshole. Then, we get a scene of the two of them drinking which does nothing to build suspense. At the end of that scene, the author randomly reveals themself as evil when they toss the main character in a dungeon. It’s kind of sudden. There’s no buildup with this story.

You know Dracula? That’s a story about a person visiting the house of someone mysterious (Dracula), and we get more and more red flags about Dracula throughout the beginning of the story. It’s fun and suspenseful. If Dracula hypnotized Renfield after one conversation, the story would be very boring.

Moving on, the quick pacing means that the stuff about people having “quirks” doesn’t have time to be fleshed out. It seems interesting, but we barely get to see any of it, or the consequences of it, or why all of these people are obsessed with it.

A bunch of exposition is given, but it's all surface level stuff that doesn’t even help us to genuinely understand what’s going on. We learn how the author bought the house and why she keeps people in the prison, but none of this explores the idea of having quirks. Obviously, horror stories thrive when the horror isn’t explained, but it’s helpful if we at least understand what the horrifying thing even is. Imagine Jaws, but we never learn that it’s a shark.

Not only that, the body horror is a little more silly than scary. It’s also very sudden, much like the rest of this story.

Overall, even without the extreme transphobia, this story is just half-baked, with a half-baked idea that never makes any sense or seems all that scary. 

Also, what was the deal with the old servant lady?

[trinterrance]

My Gaster x Reader Fic Master List

Here is a composed list of my personal favorite Gaster x Reader Fanfictions on Archive of Our Own. They’re no particular order, I’m just going through the ones I have bookmarked on my account. I’ll mark which ones are complete and which ones are not. Enjoy, ya little sinners.

Violet Velveteen

Starting this list off with a Mafiafell fic. You better believe it’s juicy. This one starts off with reader living an estranged life in a crime-ridden city, having fled her previous life and unsupportive fiancé. Gaster is the Don of the area. As per usual, opposites collide.

Status: Incomplete, but the author just came out of a very long hiatus a couple of days ago.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16609574/chapters/38930198

From The Mouth Of An Injured Head

Ah, now this one is a classic. Our main character is a humble woman named Alex living in an apartment and fixing tech for a living. She begins to have nightmares and see a creepy figure (Gaster) around her apartment. Once the horror of the situation fades and Alex learns who Gaster is, she sets out to free him from the void.

Status: Complete

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23580004/chapters/56575579

Bedside Manners And Guns

This fic was started recently. It’s another Mafiafell fic, and I particularly liked the med school aesthetic of it. Reader is a doctor in training who happens upon the bloody scene of Don Gaster, who’s been shot in an alley near her apartment. Will she obey her doctor’s oath and try to save him by any means, or leave him and save herself from getting involved with the Mafia?

Status: Incomplete

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34982371/chapters/89254408?view_adult=true

The Royal Librarian

Ok, this one is really cute. Reader has just moved into a monster dominated city in search of a job after she broke her leg in an accident. Things aren’t looking up, and they become particularly difficult when the head librarian (Gaster) of a library Y/N had fallen asleep in mistakes her for a book burglar. This fic has its fair share of tentacle jokes, fluff, and I believe spiciness to come.

Status: Incomplete

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31981273/chapters/79210165

Doctor Dear Doctor

I really love this one. All of these fics are equal in my liking, but this one in particular has a very similar feel to my own Gaster x Reader fic. It begins with reader, who’s going for an internship at her dream job after completing medical school. But her new boss, Dr. Gaster, and all his charm, become a constant hinderance to her concentration. Get ready for a fun time.

Status: Incomplete. I really hope the author gains a new spark to keep writing, but regardless, what’s currently there is great.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22964125/chapters/54895219?view_adult=true

Heat

Here’s a one-shot I would never normally read, that I actually really liked. It’s an omegaverse fic. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically where there’s a societal hierarchy based on alphas, betas, and omegas. Like I said, before reading this I wouldn’t normally read omegaverse fics or one-shots. This one is super long, and SUPER spicy. Check it out.

Status: Complete

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22685551

Piece by Piece

Reader finds herself connected mentally with a very troubled, yet very sweet scientist. Upon learning about Gaster and his void predicament, reader goes on a universe-wide journey to collect all the fragments of his soul and make him whole again. Reader and Gaster get to know each other in more ways than one along the way. This one is another classic. Incredibly sweet, romantic, and has an amazing ending. (I believe it also just got a second fic in it’s series!)

Status: Complete

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8731777/chapters/20017876

My Angel From The Sky

The fanfiction that started it all. This was literally the first Gaster x Reader I ever read. I read this one on QUOTEV back in 2017, yes that’s how long ago this was. This is an underground-set fic, where reader falls down, gets captured, and is brought into the HOTLAND science facility. At first Gaster brings her in to strip her of her soul and be done with it, but as they get to know one another he finds it harder and harder to hate her because she’s human. To this day I love this story. Enemies to lovers goals.

Status: Unfortunately incomplete. It stopped at an uncertain part in the plot, but it’s still very worth reading for the love story alone.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7309351/chapters/16601050

[itstimetotheorize]

The bizarre mystery of the Little Nightmares 2  episode 2 comic

For those of you who are unaware, a few weeks before the little nightmares 2 game was released, the developers had announced that they would be releasing a new 6 part digital comic series. From what we were told, this comic series would update two “episodes”  every two weeks until the games eventual release.

of the many episodes that were seen, the most popular of the six  were the first and last, episode 1 and 6. Naturally, these two episodes gained an enormous amount of popularity due to our main protagonists mono and six being the main focus. However, aside from these two episodes, the other four presented an entirely different character. The four kids seen in these episodes were, the spoon girl, lollipop kid, ghost child and The toddler. 

At first, many fans had assumed the digital comics were created in order to help explain events that had occurred before mono met six in the little nightmares 2 game, in other words, many of us had believed that these comics were classified as prequel material for the events of the game....or at least....that's what we thought....

A few months after the games release, theorist such as myself began to work day and night trying to figure out every little detail  within the game in order to make sense of what the heck was actually going on in the little nightmares world, especially after “that” ending. In the midst of writing my own theories as well as reading and analyzing everyone elses, I began to notice that not many people had gone back to the little nightmares 2 digital comics in order to try and analyze details we might have missed.

Now, out of all of the things we saw and analyzed within the digital comics, there was always two little details that made many of us question the events of the comics, but for the longest time we never really bothered to think about it to much, because at that time...it seemed as though the answer was obvious, what am I talking about exactly? well, I’m talking about something that happened in the little nightmares 2 episode 2 comic. 

In episode 2, we once again watch another new child called “the toddler”  trying to survive within the little nightmares world. Near the end of the episode, the toddler wakes up from a horrific dream where he is killed in the very hole he is resting in. Frightened, he takes no chances and immediately leaves. As the boy marches on, he suddenly hears the terrifying screams of another child nearby. 

Curious, the boy follows the direction of the scream and comes across an old outhouse with a tv next to it, the tv suddenly turns on and the boy immediately becomes entranced by the televisions light.  Sadly, as he continues to stare at the tv, the thin man reaches out from the other side and all that is heard of the child are his frightened screams. 

As the panel draws away from the tv its revealed to us that the thin man had kidnaped the toddler and dragged him into the television.

When first seeing this episode, many believed it was the developers way of telling us that the thin man had spent much of his time kidnapping various kids around the world. Because of this belief, many of us had theorized that despite being locked up in the tower, within the pale city, the thin man was still fully capable of leaving, after all, we theorized that its was his main goal to search for mono and six. HOWEVER, upon reading episode 2, I couldn't help but feel that something was off and I’m sure there were a few others who felt the same. What exactly felt so off about this episode? well, for starters, this may sound strange but...something about that scream the toddler heard in the forest... didn't make sense.

And I know what you are thinking, “ well that was obviously just a kid screaming in horror as he/she was being taken by the thin man”, yes, I understand that.... but......as  I heard that scream over and over again, I couldn't help but feel it sounded like it was almost....”non human”

when the toddler was kidnapped by the thin man and he lets out his own screams of terror, I, as well as other, did not question it, because it genuinely did sound like a child screaming out in horror....so then... why didn't the other scream sound just the same to us?....unless....what if there was something else going on with that other child?...but what? the comics were short and did not present much information to the audience. In hopes of coming up with a breakthrough I decided to once again go back to the little nightmares 2 game and wait to see if some of the events within the game would help.

 As I watched the tower chapter of the game, for what feels like an infinite amount of times, I began to realize something....something so horrific that it could possibly once again topple every theory I had about the little nightmare's world and lead me and many other back to the theory board in order to make sense of EVERYTHING all over again!.... what exactly was so shocking? well.....the screams heard by the toddler in chapter 2....the very screams we believed at the time were just the cries of another terrified child within the little nightmares world....were NEVER the screams of someone we didn’t know!....whos were they exactly?...well.... they were the screams of MONSTER SIX!!!

But what on earth could this possibly mean???!!! Monster six was the final fight within the game, when mono faced her, he had already killed the thin man after being relentlessly chased by him....but if this is true then why was the thin man shown to be alive within episode two of the comics?!....unless.... What if episode two didn't take place before the events of the game...what if...it took place after mono freed the thin man in the game!! 

Perhaps this could explain why the toddler never encountered the hunter in the forest or near the outhouse, the hunter could very well have been already shot by the time the toddler was traveling through!.....but even if this is true, it still doesn't explain why we heard monster sixes scream in the episode or why thin man made an appearance in the forest rather than stay in the pale city were mono was located ...unless... what if something else was going on?

In the game, after the thin man captures six, six is later seen crying out for mono to help her escape the television.

unfortunately, once mono does free her from the tv, the thin man reaches his hand out and kidnaps six once again!

 As many of you may already know... this is the last time we see normal six.  As the thin man once again begins to pursue mono, mono manages to outrun the thin man on the trains by separating the railcars, 

after this moment however, we don't see the thin man again until after mono exits the manhole cover. The thing that doesn't make sense about this whole situation is... why didn't the thin man just reappear in the same area mono crashed the train?

 The thin man clearly has the ability to teleport to different parts of the pale city without the need of the tvs, after all, we even saw him appear in front of mono after he exited the manhole cover near the end of the game.

 So then, why didn't he do the same thing back when mono crashed the train? what was he really doing in that time? and most importantly...where did he go?!...perhaps we were already given an answer to his whereabouts, long before the game was ever released...

What if after realizing he couldn't catch up to mono on the train, the thin man made the decision to search elsewhere. In the midst of his search, did the thin man decide to go back into the television? expecting mono to walk past another screen so he could better find him? just like how he did every other time in the game?

What if the thin man did sense the presence of a child coming near another television...if he did, then what if the child he found on the other end of that television screen.... was never mono...it was the toddler! 

But if this is what happened to thin man during his brief absence, then what exactly happened to six during all of this?....perhaps we were also given an answer to that  as well.

Many of us had theorized that after thin man captured six, six had begun to feel the effects of the towers hypnotic  transmission as she was dragged through the television screen. After she was taken by thin man a second time and thrown back into the towers hypnotic light, the tower could have very well begun the process of turning her into monster six! and judging by how twisted her limbs are near the end of the game, its possible that the process of being distorted caused six to scream out in horrible pain! in the midst of her transformation, her screams could have echoed throughout the tower (just like her music box did ) and was heard by all those that were near a television, including the toddler!

Mono may not have heard her painful screams because he was already to far away from any tv at the time. The only thing he did find of six, after she became lost in the towers transmission during her time in the tower, was the one piece of her that was still desperately trying to cling onto the cruel reality it was fading from, shadow six!

Regardless of what is actually going on, this does beg the question, if episode 2 of the little nightmares 2 digital comics were to really take place in the middle of monos confrontation with the thin man and not before the events of the game, then what about the rest of the episodes of the comics? do they really all take place before the events of the game or is the timeline of the comics just as scattered as our speculations towards how the loop of the game and the little nightmares world is occurring?...honestly....whos to say....until we get some more information towards the lore of this world, everything’s still just a theory, a little nightmares 2 theory!

[nadohunter]

kind of disappointing to see you supporting something like H*talia, I liked your art a lot but you support one of the most racist anime out there....

Okay. Lets talk about this. I’m actually going to copy and paste something I already wrote on my main blog about Hetalia then I’ll add a few notes... Yes. Hetalia the show is problematic. I garentee most sane Hetalia fans will agree, the fandom is probably going to go down in fandom culture history as one of the first disaster fandoms way before the fandoms that surrounded voltron or Steven Universe. Again, most Hetalia fans will also probably agree with that. There’s certain bits from the comic and show that are absolutely not okay- however for those of you making a ton of assumptions about ppl who were in that fandom or are excited about the possibility of it coming back-> let me just explain a few things.

1. Hetalia made massive history nerds out of a lot us, it’s not that didn’t have some problematic results and of course it’s very euro-centric. But I’d argue because of this show It made a lot of people interested in the world and history way more than they ever would have and educated themselves further as a result

ADDED NOTE: The fandom, while small, I’d say has grown up a LOT. The people in it are a lot more informed and aware - The abbreviation was changed pretty damn quick as people started coming back with the new season announced from “APH” (Axis Powers Hetalia - We can all know what’s wrong with that) to “HWS” (Hetalia World Stars).

2. If you were a fan of Hetalia…. that honestly actually meant you were more a fan of the fandom than the actual show. Hetalia has more AUs than probably any fandom I’ve EVER seen: these people made a ton of content Off of characters that appeared in episodes less than 5 minutes long. It got to the point where a lot of people’s interpretations of the characters were SO far removed from the original show they may as well just be entirely new characters. I’m not going to sit here and argue like the fandom couldn’t get toxic, I was there, I remember. This is absolutely a piece of media you SHOULD ABSOLUTELY still be critical of and many many many many many people since the day Hetalia showed it’s face and the ended up getting a creepy pasta story made out of it already have. We’ve been here. Fans have used these characters as an easy way to inform and educate, even more so now than there used to be. So any new fans coming in as well may actually learn a lot about history and other cultures. Which can be really important when done right. It CAN aND HAS been done responsibly. So at the very least if you see a few current or ex Hetalians on your radar just don’t automatically assume shit. It’s way more complicated, we’ve all been through this shit before. Us oldies have seen and understood many a fandom through aaaaaallll the highs and lows.  We were there. We know both the bad and the good that can come from this, as is the case with literally any fandom ever. All of them can be great, creative, and create friendships and community (I have my long term best friend in large part due to Hetalia) … and they can also be latched on to by people who aren’t gonna have others best interests at heart, and are gonna try and use something for bigotry or being just gross. That’s why you stay I n f o r m e d above all else. If you weren’t there for this whole rodeo before, just… at least get the idea that this ain’t a cut and dry situation FURTHER ADDITION: “One of The most racist anime” is a pretty bold claim. Shows like Attack on Titan I would argue have way more damaging mixed messaging around the holocast and nazism. However I wouldn’t go so far to call fans of it racist. Because either A. People aren’t focusing on that aspect of the anime and just like the cool action or B. They know but they’re consuming and reacting to it critically and making informed choices about where they put their money and time. Naruto and Once Peice - two of THE MOST POPULAR ANIME for a LONG time out there, have characters that are EXTREMELY racist charactures of black people but no one talked about that for a long time. I would also argue that yes, the Hetalia dub has some very racist and problematic things with it, we should all get on funimation’s ASS about that, however, the original sub is mostly harmless outside of just plain not acknowledging the horrors of the holocost - which I think since the show is supposed to stay a comedy is why the author steered away from having things set in the 1940s because at a certain point and most modern Hetalia strips don’t touch it - you either make a mockery of a serious topic (cough cough the musical in a lot of ways) , OR you don’t touch WWII and just keep the setting modern and you can continue making fun of Europeans especially all you want.

Point being, If I draw Hetalia fanart... that is not me putting a stamp of approval on everything in the show. If you see a Hetalia fan drawing a character in a Nazi uniform, or putting the pasty-ass character for America in a Native American headdress of course! Call them the fuck out! We are too! Report and block them! So... yeah. And look, I get it, from an outside perspective where the only thing you’ve heard about Hetalia is the absolutely WORST of it, of course you would feel that way, that’s how most Fandoms get a bad reputation. It IS good to talk about this. And if you or anyone still wants to disagree with me, look I’ll still hear you out... but I think we have to get out of this headspace in any fandom of EITHER YOU STAN EVERYTHING ABOUT SOMETHING AND SUPPORT EVERYTHING ABOUT IT OR YOU MUST HATE AND DESPISE IT. Life... human thoughts... just don’t work like that.

[opbackgrounds]

so I was doing some research after watching movie 6...

...and apparently it was originally written as a comedy

Yeah, I was surprised, too

Baron Omatsuri is not my favorite One Piece movie—Film Z has too many of my favorite tropes to be usurped from that position—but I do think it is the most daring. Of all the supplemental material I’ve seen and read, it feels the least...One Piece-ish. 

Yes, that includes the noodle commercials. 

If you haven’t seen the movie and can stomach a little spookiness, do yourself a favor and give it a watch. Unlike movies like Strong World or Z that have the look and feel of a manga arc, Movie 6 transplants the Straw Hat Pirates into a world that doesn’t feel like a One Piece story, taking risks and exploring themes that would never fit in the manga proper. 

In addition to the obvious changes in art and animation style, there are supernatural elements that don’t make sense within the One Piece world. None of the Straw Hats win a fight—Luffy included, although he is heavily implied to have killed the big bad at the end. The moral of the movie, if it can be said to have a moral, is if you lose the people closest to you, the answer is to forget about them and make new friends. The story ends with many questions left unanswered and the main drama between the crew unresolved.

And, if you allow me to get philosophical for a moment, I wish there were more movies like it. As I wrote in my review of Novel A, I don’t go to supplemental material or side stories looking for a repeat of what’s in the manga. Oda has written 1000 chapters of One Piece—why not spice things up a little and try something different for a change?

I know the answer isn’t that simple, and by their very nature not all risks will pan out. There will be people who don’t like this movie because it’s different, both in look and tone. But there’s something to be said about a creator putting their heart and soul into a work and having it show in the final product. 

Which brings us back to the original premise. How does a movie go from a light-hearted comedy based on a variety show theme to...this

Baron Omatsuri was directed by Mamoru Hosoda and came out in 2005. To put that into perspective, the movie was in production when the Luffy vs Usopp fight was first seen in the manga. Manga!Luffy had not yet faced the challenge of an inter-crew disputes when the story was being written and boarded, nor did the creative team have the events of Sabaody and Marineford to see how Luffy would react to the loss of his loved ones. They were working without a full understanding of Luffy’s character, and to a lessor extent the character of the Straw Hat Pirates, and it seems like Oda was much less involved In production than has been in movies since Strong World and beyond. 

Likewise, Hosoda had just left a tumultuous situation at Studio Ghibli while working on Howl’s Moving Castle, and if this interview is anything to go by (https://instrangeaeonsblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/24/mamoru-hosoda-on-omatsuri-danshaku-animestyle-interview-part-1/) was going through a lot of personal shit when he was brought on as director. The script he was given was originally written like a variety show—something that was carried over into the various trials seen in the final movie—and meant to be a lighthearted affair after the relatively serious Movie 5 (which I have not seen am thus unable to compare tone). 

With that backstory in mind, it’s easy to see how the bickering and backbiting between the Straw Hats early in the movie is a metaphor for Hosoda’s time at Ghibli, which is something he admits to in the interview. Movie 6 feels different than any other One Piece movie because it’s the project of a man who has had to endure the loss of those who he was close with, at least in a professional capacity. 

There are moments in Movie 6 where Luffy doesn’t feel like Luffy. More than once a member of the Straw Hats ask him to intervene during arguments, moments Luffy either ignores or doesn’t notice. It’s a version of Water 7 where instead of fighting Usopp, Luffy ignores the underlying differences within his crew, and as a result loses everybody. 

The structure of the three trials follows a clear path of deterioration within the crew, the initial goldfish scooping game showing the Straw Hats at their best and inciting the jealousy of the Baron, the ring toss sowing discord among the crew even as they snatch a narrow victory, only for them to be utterly crushed in the third and final challenge as they’re unable help one another survive. 

It is somewhat implied that the Breaking of the Fellowship(TM) is magical in nature—that like the One Ring, the Lily Carnation was able to influence the Straw Hat’s thoughts and actions, but this is never stated outright and I prefer the more mundane interpretation: That without strong leadership the Straw Hats fell victim to the manipulative machinations of the Baron, and simply self-destructed as a result.  In the end, it’s up to the interpretation of the viewer. 

And speaking of things up to interpretation, I love how the Lily Carnation isn’t explained in the slightest. The plant that initially absorbs the Straw Hats looks more like the stem of a devil fruit than a flower, it for some reason rings like a gong when hit, and somehow is able to turn pieces of itself into facsimile of the Baron’s old crew who can somehow move around despite being plans. It’s weird, it’s wonderful, and the element of the unknown works so well in the horror-lite setting. 

My personal theory is the island somehow managed to eat a devil fruit which manifests itself as the Lily Carnation (which due to the L/R conflation in Japanese, is pronounced ‘reincarnation’, which I think is a nice touch of foreshadowing that may or may not have been intentional).

(Also, I can’t decide if little chewing animation it makes when it’s eating people or the weird bullseyes it makes when shit gets real are the most terrifying thing in the movie.)

Hmmm, tasty.

Anyway, this is getting long, so here are some final thoughts:

1) This movie has some low key fantastic outfits. The Straw Hats all look very cool without being over designed like a lot of recent movies. Big hat Robin is of course a fave, and makes me really want to see her in a Carmen Sandiego getup.

2) Screenshots do not do the animation of the movie justice. It’s very fluid and has a lot of excellent expressions/poses, although I admit the 3D is jarring at times. Do not let the art put you off if you haven’t seen it 

3) Also, I don’t think there’s any shading? Like at all? The movie does a lot of cool stuff with color instead. For example, the scene where Luffy initially loses to the Baron his skin goes all grey, and I thought it was because he was fighting at night, but it stays grey even in the better lighting of the underground tunnels and stays that way until he finds out the Straw Hats are still alive, where it returns to his normal color

4) There’s an extended Benny Hill-type gag when Luffy first chases after the little mustache pirate that’s perfectly timed to the music, and ends when Luffy just uses his power to grab him. The comedic timing is amazing and it’s probably my favorite funny moment in the movie, of which there are several despite the overall darker tone

5) The extended jungle shot from Nami’s POV? Very cool

6) I love how from the earliest scenes nothing is as it seems. The opening text is Robin reading the map, but the storm that’s seen on screen is the one that sank the Baron’s crew. Likewise the whole fancy city is shown to be fake panels early on, the goldfish catching game is a trap, etc., etc. It does a good job clueing the viewer in early that’s something’s very wrong on the island, even if they don’t realize it at first

7) I don’t think this type of movie would work in modern One Piece without somehow nerfing Luffy. Horror works best when the protagonist is weak and vulnerable, and that fits best with a pre-Gear 2/3 Luffy (same with the rest of the crew, tbh. I was waiting for Nami to use her lightning stick during the games, forgetting it hadn’t been boosted yet). 

8) I like how there are four captains on the island representing different levels of loss—the Baron has lost his crew and wants to destroy all others because of it, mustache pirate lost his crew and is willing to put it behind him to make new friends, Luffy has freshly lost his crew and hasn’t decided what path he will go, and coward dad hasn’t lost his crew yet but is at risk if he doesn’t change his cowardly ways

9) I think the reason why Chopper was the first Straw Hat to disappear is he’s the most likely to play the part of peacemaker. He’s also the only crew member needing rescuing at the end of the goldfish scoop game, when Luffy foolishly puts his life at risk trying to save him from drowning, just like he recklessly charges the Baron at the end of the movie. Except that time there was no Sanji to save him, leaving Luffy to get his ass thoroughly kicked

10) This is a very good Halloween movie, and I’m glad I watched it in October

[amispnrewatch]

SPN 1x06 “Skin”

Okay, I’m gonna try to type while I watch this time instead of forgetting this blog exists until the episode is almost over.

You can tell the footage for the previously on segment was saved on a VHS copy instead of the original film that the show was shot with because even in the HD iTunes version I have it looks low quality as fuck. And jumpy in the way that brings me back to my teens watching the WB all the damn time.

I love this song. WTF is this song. Shazam says “Good Deal” by Mommy and Daddy. I… have no comment, except that it sounds like everything I was listening to in college at the time this shit was airing.

Aaaaand not!Dean turns around to face the SWAT team after obviously torturing some woman. THAT is a cold open.

I wanna know what that car is in the background. It’s pretty. Maybe a convertible Impala? They have similar grills. This is not at all important.

Also, I love that with these higher definition versions of the episodes you can see that Sam’s email is lawboy and whatever dot com and that people in the fandom have started calling him Law Boy. It’s hilarious.

DEAN: Well, what exactly do you tell ‘em? You know, about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doin’?

SAM: I tell ‘em I’m on a road trip with my big brother. I tell ‘em I needed some time off after Jess.

DEAN: Oh, so you lie to ‘em.

SAM: No. I just don’t tell ‘em….everything.

DEAN: Yeah, that’s called lying. I mean, hey, man, I get it, tellin’ the truth is far worse.

SAM: So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life? (DEAN shrugs.) You’re serious?

DEAN: Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can’t get close to people, period.

Aaaaand now I have Dean and Cassie feelings again and we haven’t even gotten to her episode yet.

SAM: No, man, I know Zack. He’s no killer.

DEAN: Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you.

Aaaaaand now I have Dean and Lee feelings and we’re nowhere near Lee’s episode in season 15.

YOU JUST BLEW THROUGH A STOP SIGN DEAN WTF.

Little Becky. Oi with the reusing of names.

Of course Sam made friends with a bunch of rich kids while he was at college in a desperate attempt to try to be normal.

SAM: You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack’s house.

DEAN: We could.

REBECCA: Why? I mean, what could you do?

SAM: Well, me, not much. But Dean’s a cop. (DEAN laughs.)

DEAN: Detective, actually.

I love that Dean was like “how dare you call me that.”

Okay, after a bit of research, I totally want to take a day trip to Bisbee, Arizona, but it’s already in the 90s here in the desert and it’s not even May so that trip is going to have to wait until… winter or something. There is no way in hell I’m going deeper into the desert when the weather gets hotter.

It’s a historic mining town tourist trap looking place now which is exactly the kind of shit I love.

SAM: Bec, look, I know Zack didn’t do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he’s innocent.

I mean, not technically, technically you would 1) NOT FUCK WITH A MURDER INVESTIGATION YOU’RE NOT LEGALLY INVOLVED IN BECAUSE ANYTHING YOU FIND WOULD BE INADMISSABLE IN COURT 2) find evidence to provide a reasonable doubt for the jury that he did commit the crime. You know, like a lawyer would need to do, Law Boy.

DEAN: I just don’t think this is our kind of problem.

When I made my husband watch this show with me (he’s seen it all at least once now over the years) this is the recurring thing that drove him crazy.

You guys can’t even go in through the back door? Or shut the front door behind you? Really?

REBECCA: (tearfully) Well, there’s no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in.

Yeah, that doesn’t even really mean that she knew her attacker. Just that it was someone she let her guard down around or got in some other way. See: The Son of Sam and Nightstalker, etc.

Love the pinup magnet on the fridge. I’d throw shade at that, but I have a pinup magnet on my fridge too so… pot kettle and all that.

Okay, both people in the next couple are gorgeous.

And oh wow those special effects changing eyes… wow.

This poor couple. I feel so bad for them in this episode.

How… how are the police gonna explain the way he was able to beat himself over the head with a bat??? I…

I love that 5:30 in the morning on TV is clearly like… 10 AM.

Okay, this is a really unrelated point, but the graffiti on the dumpster here reminds me of the Teen Wolf fandoms use of the name Void!Stiles when Stiles Stilinski was possessed by a Nogitsune… I just spent way too long digging through YouTube and my Tumblr tags from back when those episodes were airing looking for a few specific videos and couldn’t find them. The TL;DR reason I bring it up here is goofball, bi-coded main character guy getting possessed by an entity set on destroying the people he loves. SOUNDS LIKE THIS EPISODE AND A WHOLE LOT OF SPN RIGHT. I love that all these monster hunting shows call out to each other.

This scene haunts me years later and I don’t even WATCH Teen Wolf. I just watched the fandom on Tumblr collectively lose it’s shit then tripped down a Hale Pack fanfiction rabbit hole.

ANYWAY

Back to Supernatural, a show that also treated its fan base, cast, and characters like garbage! Huzzah!

DEAN: Well, there’s another way to go—down. (They look down and notice a manhole.)

I’m gonna be mature and ignore the double entendre there…

But I love that Dean thinks of the world in 3D. Which sounds like a dumb statement to make, but this is honestly a good example of that in action.

SAM: I bet this runs right by Zack’s house, too.

Really Sam, sewers run by houses? SO WEIRD. I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED.

DEAN: You know, I just had a sick thought. When the shapeshifter changes shape—maybe it sheds.

SAM: That is sick. (DEAN puts the bloody pile back on the ground.)

Guys, there is a WHOLE ASS EAR in that pile of yuck you’re looking at. I think it’s pretty safe to assume the shapeshifter indeed sheds its skin like a snake. A much… gooier snake.

Sam’s friend is rightfully pissed at him for fucking with the crime scene.

This is before the pearl gripped guns?! Wow. I never noticed that before.

Also, this whole episode gives me feelings.

++++

Cool. Tumblr mobile ate a whole section of my notes on this when it crashed for NO APPARENT REASON. Love that.

It always boggles my mind that actors can trust the people they’re working with enough to let people “tie” ropes around their neck or put them in actually dangerous positions in a scene.

SHAPESHIFTER: He’s sure got issues with you. You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. With Dad. You don’t think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me. Where the hell were you?

SAM: Where is my brother? (The shapeshifter leans in close to SAM.)

SHAPESHIFTER: I am your brother. See, deep down, I’m just jealous. You got friends. You could have a life. Me? I know I’m a freak. And sooner or later, everybody’s gonna leave me. (He backs away.)

SAM: What are you talkin’ about?

SHAPESHIFTER: You left. Hell, I did everything Dad asked me to, and he ditched me, too. No explanation, nothin’, just poof. Left me with your sorry ass. But, still, this life? It’s not without its perks. (He laughs.) I meet the nicest people. Like little Becky. You know, Dean would bang her if he had the chance. Let’s see what happens. (He smiles and covers SAM with a sheet.)

This exchange is just… so much. So many feelings. And I will forever (unless we magically get a fix-it fic mini season someday…) be SO MAD that none of this got resolved in that pointless, trash heap of a finale.

REBECCA: Okay, so, this thing—it can make itself look like anybody?

SHAPESHIFTER: That’s right. (She chuckles.)

REBECCA: Well, what is it, like a genetic freak? (The shapeshifter laughs.)

SHAPESHIFTER: Maybe. Evolution is about mutation, right? So, maybe this thing was born human but was different. Hideous and hated. Until he learned to become someone else. (REBECCA looks around, uncomfortable. The shapeshifter’s eyes glint silver, and he smiles.)

It always amazes me how much of this show is a pile of accidental queer allegories parading around in an ill-fitting toxic masculinity suit.

Vulcan mind meld! I love nerd!Dean. Also, I’m rewatching Star Trek: TOS with my husband, because that is what my life amounts to these days, rewatching comfort TV and flailing over the bits I love.

This post does a better job than I can do of pairing up screen caps with the dialogue of this next scene. SIX EPISODES IN. They’re dumping all of this character depth SIX EPISODES IN. FUCK THIS SHOW FOR NOT EMBRACING ITSELF.

Okay, I love that he screams back in her face after he threw the phone. It’s not something to laugh at because the situation is horrifying, but I can’t help laughing at it every time.

AND THE WAY THEY CUT THESE SCENES. Going from him winding his hand back to backslap her directly to him dropping the chains on the table to show how hard he must have hit her without actually making the actors hit each other. Good job editing department!

I… don’t understand the shifter’s motivation for killing people. If he can take over people’s identities without killing them, why kill them? Is it just because he’s a homicidal, rapist piece of shit? Cause that’s all it seems like.

How did the SWAT team even know she was being attacked? Why can the snipers aim no better than Storm Troopers?

Ugh, these kind of transformation body horror scenes are exactly why werewolf stories have never really appealed to me much. Like, I could do without watching your ribs move and teeth fall out, dude.

BUT.

THIS FUCKING SCENE.

I looked up the song that’s playing over shapeshifter!Dean being caught by the SWAT team and then going through the grotesque transformation. (And as far as I know, the iTunes version has the original music from the episodes.)

It’s a song called “Mary” by The Death Riders

Who's your mother, who's your mother here boy // Who's your mother, whos your mommy dear // Who's your father, who's your father here boy // Who's your father, who's your daddy dear

Silently screaming // Where everyone knows // Daddy's always watchin' // Where everywhere - everywhere I go

I don't wanna be a freak show pretty boy anymore // I don't wanna be a full time slave // I don't wanna be your midnight cowboy anymore // I just want to be Mary

This is… a fascinating choice. Here are the rest of the lyrics. The song as a whole has a weird incesty kinda vibe to it? Kinda like when SPN tries to straight-wash itself and misses the mark wildly. (Like Dean’s male siren episode.)

The midnight cowboy line reminded me of 12x11 and the bull riding scene with “Broomstick Cowboy” by Bobby Goldsboro playing over it

Dream on, little Broomstick Cowboy, // Dream while you can; // Of big green frogs, // And puppy dogs, // And castles in the sand.

For, all too soon you'll awaken; // Your toys will all be gone. // Your broomstick horse will ride away, // To find another home. // And you'll have grown into a man, // With cowboys of your own. // And then you'll have to go to war, // To try and save your home.

And then you'll have to learn to hate; // You'll have to learn to kill. // It's always been that way, my son; // I guess it always will.

Because, you know, why not add tons of feelings into the lyrics, right?

Props to the people who can embrace their rewatches and reclamations of the show with ease. Because every episode seems to remind me of how hollow and tragic Dean’s ending was and I just… struggle all over again.

Anyway, back to the episode so I can move on with my day.

REPORTER: An anonymous tip led police to a home in the Central West End, where a S.W.A.T team discovered a local woman bound and gagged. Her attacker, a white male, approximately twenty-four to thirty years of age, was discovered hiding in her home. (A sketch of DEAN appears on the screen.)

DEAN: Man! That’s not even a good picture. (SAM looks around cautiously.)

SAM: It’s good enough. (He walks away.)

DEAN: Man! (He follows SAM.)

(CUT TO: Alley. DEAN and SAM are walking. DEAN steps into a puddle.)

DEAN: Ugh, come on.

I love that we get two tiny little back-to-back vanity moments for Dean here. One commenting on the sketch artist rendition of him being broadcasted on the news and the other tripping in the puddle. There is literally someone running around the city trying to kill people while wearing Dean’s face, but Dean is still concerned with how he looks appears to others. He’s still concerned with keeping up his own performance. The shifter left him with just a t-shirt, so he doesn’t even have his usual comfort layers on and at any moment someone could spot him and call the police or try to kill him for assaulting Sam’s friend. His life is wildly out of control in that moment and the only thing he can try to focus on is his appearance (something semi-controllable) and finding the shifter before any of that other shit can happen.

One day I want to put together a like top 10 episodes focusing on / explaining each TFW character from the series. Like the kind of list you could show someone who’s never seen the show, but has OPINIONS about the characters (or who hasn’t seen the whole show and seen the growth they went through… you know, like the people responsible for the travesty of 15x20). This episode would be on that list. I’m not sure how I could manage to make a list of only 10 episodes to understand Dean Winchester by, but eh.

SAM: What are you gonna do to me?

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, I’m not gonna do anything. Dean will, though.

SAM: They’ll never catch him.

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, doesn’t matter. Murder in the first of his own brother? He’ll be hunted the rest of his life. (He picks up a sharp knife and examines it.)

Speaking of season 15 in general, this right here. This was Chuck’s villain story arc thesis statement. AND THEY DROPPED THE GODDAMN BALL WITH IT. I think that’s the thing that honestly pisses me off the most these days (about 5 1/2 months from when the finale aired) is that they tried making the whole thing a tragedy but did such an awful job with it that it just ended up like a deflating condom balloon at a dive bar concert. Disappointing and gross. The finale for season 14 set them up SO FUCKING WELL and it just… didn’t get there.

Becky’s parents are gonna be pissed at how torn up their house is after all this shit…

And you’re not shooting him when you first see him strangling Sam because…?????

I like that he took the necklace back. Also, is this kinda Dean death number .5 of the show? Like it wasn’t him but it was also kinda him. Eh.

At least they left the windshield on Baby this time. Reflections are better than tearing her apart.