#to everyone reading my liveblog: thank you
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list of moments in silent hill 2 that made me insane today (also just general thoughts)
the fucking quiz show??? just like a full uninterrupted minute. it's so jarring it killed me
the pyramid head chase - significantly scarier than his boss fight earlier. ohhhhh man. love how he keeps catching up to you despite how fast you can run
"He who is not bold enough to be stared at from across the abyss is not bold enough to stare into it himself."
the famous silent hill historical society stairs!!!!! also that entire building is very cool. i love the idea of literally locking away a town's history for one's own peace of mind
the number of holes you have to jump down....... really loved that. big fan.
soooo much symbolism going on with that one puzzle in the prison. first of all, you've got the drawing of the 2 pyramid heads hanging a guy, and given that the pyramid head portrait in the historical society called him the "remains of the judgement," it seems like judging sinners is his kinda thing
also, you've got the tiles representing 3 sins - the oppressor, the seductress, and the glutton - i BET the oppressor stands for angela's "weak point," the seductress for james's, and the glutton for eddie's. all three of them are being driven mad by the town somehow supernaturally manifesting their vulnerabilities...
THE CUTSCENE WITH MARIA IN THE PRISON CELL MADE ME CRAZYYYYY WHAT THE HELL
first of all oh my god this is just like my favorite novel solaris by stanislaw lem... countless doubles of your dead wife...
god the fact that she doesn't remember the nightmare hospital. then "don't you want to touch me?" "i don't know" god. fuck. god.......
i had a whole lot more to say about the labyrinth section but im gonna make that its own post actually. anyway. angela...... her reason for being afraid of james...... and then maria WAUGH
also unfortunately im the kind of person who has to visit like every room in the labyrinth to be satisfied. so that took a lot of time
it's so interesting how everyone's like "james i bet you didn't REALLY love your wife" ... it's like. damn is this just his worst nightmare come to life or is this going somewhere??
seeing that the final deep hole was james's grave made me YELL. the vibes of this whole thing are soooooo good
also eddie :( his whole story arc feels a bit weak to me but it definitely fits the overall vibe of like, silent hill toying with characters' vulnerabilities
okkkk i stopped after the eddie fight but god james is going Through it. why is he suddenly questioning maria's death. man this game is so good
i'll hopefully finish it sometime soon!! no spoilers!!!!
#silent hill#silent hill 2#my post#to everyone reading my liveblog: thank you#i have even more to say in a minute
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from the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything. there will never be another like you. ever.
#yellow was his colour because it emphasised the light he gave off#this is so redundant given i havenāt used this blog for two years and then i came back for like a week only for this to happen LOL#anyways if youāre reading this: thank you. this blog meant more to me than anything & the friendships it gave me will last a lifetime.#i think heād be happiest to know that over the years he gave people a sense of community & belonging.#especially people who maybe felt like they didnāt have that growing up (me)#sitting back and realising i grew up with him fills me with such a sense of privilege & happiness that i cannot even begin to describe#this is so personal but i struggled a lot in 2020 (as everyone did) and having him along with f1 & this blog was such a saving grace for me#and i donāt think i could ever begin to express my gratitude. to him & to anyone this blog gave to me.#he will always be formula one to me & the reality that he wonāt be here again is just far too painful for me to accept.#i feel good about leaving this blog behind for good & everything it holds. every photo. every liveblog. snapshots of his career.#i hope people can continue to get the same joy from it that i had when posting. and i hope you can remember danielās career for what it was#he deserves it.#so again: thank you.
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s3 episode 2 thoughts
(racing against time because a thunderstorm is rapidly encroaching but i need to know what happens next)
and for once, a storm did not disrupt my streaming experience! but i almost wish it did. because this episode made me very sad. let's jump in.
we got another āpreviously on the X filesā at the start... is that what is gonna happen every time now?? not sure if i like that or not. but i'm sure it was useful back when you had to wait a week in between episodes, to jog the memory.
noooo not the alien gassing scene again!!!Ā it was featured in our recap. and it was just as evil as the first time.
so now the story begins.
we're back in New Mexico. Albert is talking about the story of the gila monster. it is a great story! i wonder if they had cultural consultants for this season, or hired an Indigenous writer.
Albert announces that a great event took place on the plains!!! a white buffalo was born on the same day mulder was revivedā¦. this is a powerful omen of great changes.
(and the buffalo didnāt look white, but tbh, probs hard to find one for such a scene, so perhaps washed out lighting was the best they could do. i understand the constraints)
does the theme sound slightly off? almost like it starts on a different beat now. OH they cut the whole thing short. well that would explain the difference i felt. why would they do this to me? i was well-accustomed to the rhythm! can't a girl groove a little?
okay, NOW we're back to the gun off between scully and skinner. and itās tense!
mulder bursts in and Iām CACKLINGGG. please, this had to be the last thing he was going to expect. his boss and his bestie with guns in each other's faces. iām cryinggg
(also her face. her face when she sees it is him. it's sooo good)
āyou okay, scully?ā, he asks, adding his gun to the fray āyeahā, she says, as she looks at the man back from the dead... ohhhhhhh... the sense of relief
and OHHHH they BOTH pull guns on skinner to get the tape back!! i'm SOOOOOOO seated. this is juicy.
and i hate to say it, but skinner is lowkey making sense here with his campaign to keep the tape. he says that they donāt want it back in "their" hands. skinner seems deeply confused regarding whatever the hell just happened but they finally agree that he should hold onto it for now.
this next part, when they leave his place. man. i'm just gonna keep it verbatim because it captured a lot of emotions:
"OHHHH LOOK AT HER FACE WHEN THEY GET ALONE TOGETHER OHHH SHEāS SOOOO CUTE OHHH THE LITTLE SMILE OH IāM DEAD"
it was SO sweet. she couldn't believe it. he tried to say something but she cut him off, saying she went to his father's funeral and told his mom she would be okay, because she knew it. she didn't know how, but she knew it.
(they were leaned in so close for so long... for a split second i thought they would kiss and then the elevator closed... ohhh. maybe they did and we just didn't see it)
((maybe this is the part where they kissed in the bloopers i have seen floating around? if so. i get it. i think i would have done the same had i found myself acting in such a scenario))
but the sweetness cannot last, and we are back to the hospital, where poor mrs. scully is dealing with learning her OTHER daughter was shot in the head. the head!!! a terrible place to be shot!!! they put melissa in an induced coma!!!!! melissa did not deserve this and scully doesnāt even KNOW this has happened!!
ohh, iām sad. but weāre back with the lone gunmen, and things are okay in scullyās mind, because mulderās back and they have a trail to chase and she doesnāt know yet that her sister was shot in the head. and iām sad because she doesnāt know such a horrible thing happened, but also i want to be happy because sheās happy. her face when she saw him. i will think about it for decades.
operation paper clip mentioned... ah, yes, i have heard of this. they mention a nazi named āVictor Klemperā... is he real? verdict is in, one search later: victor is NOT real. but he has a very similar name to a real famous german historian!
āwhat would he be doing in a photo with your fatherā, asks scully. and why did she say this in a manner that was, to me, seductive? you know what? i think honestly itās a me problem. shame on me for being distracted from the narrative by such things.
frohike and mulder reunion!!! it is sweet. but only for a moment is it sweet, because he breaks the news on scully's sister, who is horrified.
she runs really fast to try and go see her, but mulder catches up to her in the stairwell when she is almost out the door, and says the people who meant to kill her will be waiting at the hospital. oh, and melissa's earlier words from s2 episode 8, about mulder trying to get even, are prophetic hereā¦ ācause the only thing you can do for her right now is to try to crucify them", he says. it is a shame her wishes for peace and acceptance instead of violence couldn't be honored, and that going to visit her wouldn't be safe.
at the UN alien council. they are discussing this "serious mistake", of shooting melissa instead of scully. OH! the man from the funeral is there!!!
(for the sake of this episode, he shall bear the moniker "funeral man". but if he has a real name, please feel free to share. i'm asking you to do so. because i come up with these things on the fly. and i really could read the credits i guess but this is mostly just a one person operation with google only serving to check historical accuracy, not things as risky to spoilers as the NAMES of the CHARACTERS!)
((but i did see cig man/cancer man referred to in my notes once as "csr" which actually made sense. because i had spun one of those "fuck marry kill" wheels on here and gotten "csr x files" and i had no idea who that was referring to. but it turns out i did know him. kill btw))
funeral man is calling out cig manās āridiculously ineffectual assassinsā, which, honestly, what did we expect from krychek? and oh, he is digging INTO cig man. it's enjoyable to witness. heās being called out for mulder not really being dead AND the tape not really being in his hands like he claims. cig man LIES (average thing for him to be doing, all things considered), and tells the others on the alien council that āiāll have it here for you tomorrowā which is an awful big promise. a very very big promise.Ā
next scene: a greenhouse! it's quite lovely until it isn't, because the old man tending to the flowers is victor, a nazi who got clemency under operation paperclip. so a very very bad fellow. scully is being mean to him, but obviously he deserves much, much, much worse.Ā
he asks about a formula and scully knows it, then says the photo was from west virginia. those are the only cryptic clues he offers. okay, off to a very mountainous road trip. god bless their poor souls. dealing with motion sickness on top of all the mess at hand.
funeral man is receiving a call from victor. they know each other? he snitched that mulder visited the greenhouse. and victor says funeral man was āvenalā. new word learned! meaning susceptible to bribery!! is this the truth...?? i mean i THINK mulder comes from money due to the whole martha's vineyard thing, but does he have enough to buy his way out of this?
also. let's ask the real question. why is victor calling and dropping clues. is it fun for him.
anyway, the rest of the alien subdivision of the UN says that they are calling in ļæ½ļæ½ļæ½their friends who will handle this matter more satisfactorilyā because krychek obviously sucks at his jobĀ
KRYCHEK SPOTTED at the hospital! wait no it was actually just another random well-dressed guy stalking about. BUT YOU KNOW WHO IS HERE: ALBERT!!!!
did he come all the way here from New Mexico or was he is in the region... šš Albert, you deserve more than this earth will ever give you. so much has been taken from you. and yet you continue to give.
our agents are pulling up to west virginia. it looks like a ghost town, and iāve heard that is an accurate depiction. they walk into an abandoned place. with bats in the building!! be careful!! they are rabies vectors!!!
(can you imagine if the show just ended here because mulder got rabies and died. pause to imagine this with me. then i will walk you back to the stuff that actually did happen)
ohh, and as they enter this place, the score is going wild!!! i'm rocking with it. i love a good score. the suspense is building.Ā i ALWAYS want there to be violins to indicate suspense.
they find some locked doors with keypads, and theyāre putting in 27828. itās not working so heās like "are you SURE scully?" and she says āiām positive, Napierās constant is the basis of all natural logarithmsā and i giggled. and maybe also kicked my feet and twirled my hair.Ā
(i am learning, through this liveblog, that nothing makes me blush more than pretty people reciting semi-obscure facts. make of that observation what you will, because op will be contemplating it for a while)
they finally get it open!! i never doubted your number skills, scully. but before they go in, sheās worried about how heāll feel!!!! what if his father was a bad guy :( āI just know how it would affect meā :((((( she is so thoughtful...
(i'm torn between making a genuine observation on the fact that despite she just learned her sister is dying, she still makes time to be certain mulder is okay with proceeding because it could be upsetting to him. and the other thing i'm thinking about is that that one meme that says "pearl is so kind" and i'm just imagining scully there instead of pearl. i suppose there is room for both)
back to skinnerās office. cig man has arrived. skinner is approaching him like an animal its prey, while bill clinton looms over the corner.Ā
skinner says he MAY have found the cassette and cig man is PISSSSSED at the implication he would āwork dealsā. well king!! you may have no choice!
(i hope that what skinner REALLY has is an identical cassette that just has syllables that LOOK like Navajo code but actually mean absolutely nothing. that would be evil and entertaining to me)
cig man looks like he is gonna CRY he is so desperate! but he is basically saying heāll kill skinner if he has to, so watch out. and AGAIN. banger tv score as all this goes down.
our agents are in an old mine. itās very dark and full of records!
(turns on the lights and sees the rows of cabinets stretch for what seems like eternity) ālots of filesā ālots and lots of filesā <- so true
mulder kinda sounds like heās gonna have a breakdown. all the files have tissue in them... gross???? he asks when she was born so they can check that yearās files AND SEE IF SHE IS IN THEM. OH GOSH.Ā
and they find her file right away!!! it has a tissue sample and everything, and itās recent, and that means the project must still be ongoing, despite how abandoned this mine is.
THEY FIND HIS SISTERāS FILE!!!! we are getting so close to answers. but there is a sticker over her name, because the file was originally his. so someone swapped his sister for him???
heās freaking the fuck out at some large noises, and he runs and leaves her in the archives. something is hissing. AN ARMY OF ALIENS SCAMPERS BY???? they are running from something. HUH??? dana scully alien encounter??? did they just run by her or was that a different corridor in this endless mountain maze. did she see them. it was like a stampede. very hard to miss.
it seems that the aliens from the spaceship are coming and mulder is drawn to them. HIDE! HIDE FROM THEM! THEY WILL TAKE YOU!
he sees a GIANT spaceship flying over the compound. like giant and itās super bright and it just. flies over. well, I guess west virginia isnāt a bad place to hide such things. due to the lack of people there.
this is not a dig at west virginia it's just rather sparsely populated.
scully is down in the archives still, and a whole lot of people are rolling up with guns. NOOO!! they are shooting at him!!!! with a stormtrooper aim. he is escaping their bullets as if this is just a jungle gym for him.
REUNION in the dark archives!!! scully found a back way out, where it seems the aliens left!!!! they're running into the woods together!!! itās almost romantic!!!
skinner cam. heās in maryland.Ā at a nice little diner in the middle of nowhere. WITH OUR AGENTS!!!!
mulder says the hit squad looked like CIA, and i assumed there was some CIA-FBI tensions, but iām unfamiliar with the lore, in terms of both real life and txf universe. it seems itās severe though. skinner says heāll negotiate their lives for the tape but mulder is like NO the public deserves the truth. which is lovely. i love ideals and sticking to your morals. and heāll die for it bitch!!! he did once!!
āin your wildest dreams, what do you possibly hope to find, agent mulder?ā āwhy they killed my father. and what happened to my sisterā ohhh mulder sounds so scared and hurt... because he is. all this talk of truth and morals guiding his life but also this whole thing is so intensely personal for him, it seems impossible to separate one cause from the other. ohh i'm emotional.Ā
āand what they did to agent scullyā, he adds OHHHHH oh man. his family. they took his family. and he needs revenge, he needs to know. and she is included in that. MAN.
scully says they should make the deal, he says āwhat makes you think thereās any such thing as justice?ā, itās heating up. again, i say: replace the cassette with out of context Navajo syllables.Ā hire me for the FBI.
i was concerned about scully advocating for the deal- does not the truth mean something to her? of course we know it does, but she is being realistic. the truth won't mean much if they're on the run forever, and there is no one to corroborate their story. but she clarifies:
"i want exactly what you want. but i need to see my sisterā :((( they both look so sad
āitās up to you, scullyā heās mad and torn but he leaves the choice to her because her opinion is the one he cares the most about :( and really there are no good options, it's an awful situation
she said to make the deal, but not hand over the tape until mulder says to. hmm. will this plan work?
āiām sorry about your sister, scullyā, he finally says, and she replies that āi just need to know sheās going to be okayā. but iām not sure itās looking so good for her and that makes me SO SAD. on the ride home, she sits in the back and lets mulder take shotgun. and i realize, this is because sheās probably gonna cry back there and try to hide it. OUGH.
albert back at the hospital! he prayed over missy for two days. have we said thank you to him? and if so we should keep saying it until we all perish.
but he has received news from the north: the white buffalo calf that was such a strong omen is no longer drinking its motherās milk. and the mom is sad, and then she died. this is not a good sign. āfor something to live, another thing must often be sacrificedā, he says, and it becomes clear someone is not making it out of this episode. i hope against all hope it was krychek that was going to bite it.
it was not :(
skinner here at the hospital to see melissa. he tells scullyās mom that dana is okay, but in a very serious situation they hope to reverse :(Ā
albert points out that some guy has been snooping in on their room (and it wasnāt krychek, whose name corrects to all caps in my phone, because i only speak of him with hate in my heart) but just some other similar looking guy. skinner says albert, you stay here, iām going off. hopefully for some hospital violence. hospital violence ensues!!! and this time krychek IS there.
but the violence does not go in the direction i hoped for, which was for skinner to kick some ass. it's three on one, they beat him and leave him in the corner and take the tape!!!! noooooooo!! poor skinner, i was coming around to you.
also leaving this next part verbatim because it is funny:
"fucking krychek i hate everything about you and i hate your new slicked back greaser hair and i hope you trip and fall and all of your limbs fall off and the doctors wonder how they can even happen because they have never seen it before WHAT NOW HEāS RUNNING??? the car blew up before he ran away. and the folks he was running from SEE him running away so he literally canāt even do a good job at bailing"
(if you need a translation: krychek's fellow assassins stopped to grab some drinks, so he pocketed the cassette and left before their car blew up)
back at the greenhouse. our agents are looking for victor, who apparently died yesterday. and funeral man is here!!! they openly accuse him of killing victor. he does not deny this claim.
funeral man is going on about roswell, operation paperclip, and mengele. heās going on about hybrid orchids and mulder realizes that victor must have been trying to create an alien-human hybrid. which would explain the smallpox vaccination scars in the alien bodies found in New Mexico. FUNERAL MAN. WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON??
he's on the side of whoever can solve his little riddles i guess
mulder is MAD his dad was involved with this, but scully says it canāt be true, because DNA wasnāt even a thing people knew of until 1944. i mean, theyāre lying about a whole lot. why not lie about the timeline of DNA discovery, too?
funeral man says men like mr. mulder were instructed to gather genetic data on the general populace, and that his dad had objected strongly to its true purpose. allegedly this experiment was for post apocalyptic identification, which doesn't really make sense to be, but okay. hundreds of millions of americans had their info collected from smallpox vaccine data.
scully is saying that itās all a lie, that heās saying everything mulder wants to hear, and i'm agreeing with her. funeral man says āwhy would i lie to you?ā um better question: what would you gain by telling the truth??
mulder flat out yells that she was abducted by aliens and this doesnāt go over well as you can probably guess. she is working overtime to NOT think about that. so she walks away from the whole thing.
leaving just the two conspirators. OH, listen to this: funeral man claims they took his sister as insurance because his father threatened to expose the project!! āyou also threaten to expose the project. youāve become your fatherā <- hmm. that is a bold claim. because mulder has never willingly engaged in the creation of alien-human hybrids.Ā
chat, do we believe him? i feel that samanthaās abduction being an act of random and horrific tragedy seems more likely. and possibly more poignant.Ā
krychek is on the phone with cig man. āiām alive. isnāt that a surprise?ā āyes, yes, good good good. where are you?ā <- LMAOOOO king of playing it casual
āsomewhere where youāll never find me, you double crossing son of a bitchā hmmm. the double crosser gets double crossed. shocked pikachu face. he threatens to make cig man āfamousā, which i wouldn't be opposed to, which is NOT the same as endorsing him or his actions.Ā
cig man says there is no deal to make regarding the files and the agentās lives.Ā oh, so he thinks he can just have both, i see how it is
very sudden cut to mulder at his momās house at 2 am. asking his mom if she ever had to choose a favorite child. she keeps denying and denying until:
āno. i couldnāt choose. it was your fatherās choice. and i hated him for it. even in his grave i hate him stillā OHHHH this is adding validity to the theory that funeral man was telling the TRUTH???? poor Samantha :(
wait this is SO sad. and to think of how harsh his dad was to him while he was alive. how he must have expected the absolute best from his son because he knows he chose him over his sister. and how the only consolation for having to make that choice is to expect his son to be Perfect. which could never happen. just leaving him in deep distress. man. that is truly messed up.
man. i feel like we need space for that revelation.
but cig man is at skinnerļæ½ļæ½ļæ½s office. lighting up. as usual. skinner says he has the tape in exchange for the safety of the agents, but cig man says he knows skinner is bluffing
HOLY FUCK: āyou ever wondered what it would be like to, uh, die in a plane crash? of botulism? even a heart attack?ā <- HUH???? his melodic cadence makes this even scarier. goodness that escalated quickly.
āiām not finished yetā (skinner fetches Albert) ALBERT??? I LOVE HIM TOO MUCH FOR HIM TO BE AT THIS SCENE. GET HIM OUT OF HERE. KEEP HIM SAFE. OH: ALBERT CAN RECITE EVERYTHING FROM THE TAPE.Ā
albert please do not bring this risk upon yourself, i mumble to myself OH! he told 20 other people from the tribe. āso unless you kill every Navajo living in four statesā¦ that information is available with a simple phone call. welcome to the wonderful world of high technologyāĀ wow. skinner if you had access to the tech i know about i think you would be so pleased. or maybe not. regardless, a good play. just KEEP albert safe i am NOT messing around.
cig man gets scared and leaves.Ā as he should!
mulder at the hospital. scully is sitting alone. NO??? NOT MELISSA???Ā
no, it can't be true, but it is: melissa died in surgery.
they both agree they need to get back to work so they have something to keep them from going insane with grief. their whole exchange was very emotional and powerful, but i was too sad to make extensive notes, so i'll have to circle back to that someday.
and she says āiāve heard the truth. now what i want are the answersā. he holds her while she sits and stares at her sister's empty hospital bed.Ā
NOOOOO. i am filled with such sadness. scully now has to live with this belief that her sister died for her, and that she didnāt get to say thank you. and iām very sad because i liked melissa a lot and scully deserves no pain. and her poor mother... oh, there are real tears in my eyes while i type this.
and mulder, forced to know that his father chose him over his sister, that his father was involved in what he sought to destroy, that had his father picked any other line of work, he could have had a normal, happy childhood. what the fuck. this is sooo evil. iām sad!!! yeah iām crying about the damn alien show. so what!!! so what!!!
listen, just because an episode is sad, does not mean it wasnāt good. it was a very good episode. iām just sad. sometimes multiple things can be true.
grief of our main agents and their families aside, my top concern is Albert. is he going to be safe and protected? can he continue to spread the oral tradition? maybe get it written down too, for extra insurance? typed up? saved? backed up? written in notebooks? stored in archives? is he even telling the TRUTH? do other Navajo men actually know to recite the files and how to decode them? that seems like it will take a very long time to learn.
my main takeaway from the episode is to not work for the government because they will ruin your life.
it was a good episode. a great episode, even. but Iām gonna need about 30 beach episodes to make up for it. and also for the og theme to come back because you canāt change that up on me once Iām in a pattern.Ā
#put phoebe bridgers on while editing this recap and man. she just gets it like no one else huh.#and āitā perhaps what i mean is sadness about alien show. amazing how art can speak to so many in so many ways.#i started this episode around like 5:30 and now it's 8:45 and i'm just finishing up the write up LMAOOO#not sure if i will have this luxury with my new job. or maybe continuing this will keep me sane.#perhaps what i will do is take the notes on one night and then edit them the next? for efficiency's sake#regardless what DOES keep me the most sane and giggling at my laptop screen is reading the notes from my posts!!! so thank you to everyone!#it really does mean a lot and i'm glad to have this community space to enjoy something together#juni's x files liveblog#3x02#the x files#txf
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went all the way to the Site That Shall Not Be Named to see if they said why the podcast was late and one of the hosts has covid š
#I really like this episode so I suppose I have been a bit overeager for this one#thank you for reading my waiting for podcast liveblog everyone hope you are having a good loud noise day
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Nona the Ninth Reaction - Review
firstly, i just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has taken an interest in and encouraged me in doing these liveblogs! this has been such a fun project to work on, and reading these books for the past nine months or so has been a bright spot in what has otherwise been a relatively tough period of my life. iāve really enjoyed getting to theorise about all of the lore of these books and make horribly ill-advised emotional attachments to inevitably doomed characters
more fun statistics that no one asked for: this liveblog was the longest, at about 20,000 (!!) words. my GtN liveblog was 12000 words for comparison. i have no excuse other than i like to talk
NtN definitely was an interesting diversion from the other two books so far. it wasnāt exactly a breather, since it was still incredibly heartbreaking and horrifying, but it was fun to see a part of the worldbuilding very different from what weāve seen before. as much as I missed both Harrow and Gideon, i liked that it gave other characters time to shine outside of interacting with them. it was fun to see more of Palamedes, Camilla, and Pyrrha, and how those characters act in a vastly different environment to the Nine Houses
although NtN was essentially telling two different narratives, John chapters vs Nonaās, it still didnāt feel particularly disjointed - i think it was thematically held together by being a bit more grounded than the other books so far, sci-fi and fantasy elements notwithstanding (contemporary issues like climate change and nuclear war, & Johnās world being a setting far closer to our own vs Nonaās domestic life & very real problems of living in a warzone)
i also loved getting Johnās perspective in the chapters narrated by Harrow, his point of view and recollections were equal parts funny, terrifying, and fascinating. heās certainly got a ā¦ unique perspective on the world. it was just a slow horrifying journey trying to figure out how the world ended, knowing that it was doomed but not exactly how it happened
Muir really has a talent for endearing you to a protagonist, and Nona was no exception, I absolutely loved her, and just, her whole story and how tragic it was physically hurt me. i also wasnāt expecting to get as attached as i was to Hot Sauce and the school gang - i hope we get just even just a mention of what happens to them in AtN
tldr: 11/10. reading this series is like the emotional equivalent of voluntarily getting stabbed in the heart repeatedly. i have absolutely no clue what Iām going to do with my life now that this is over for the meantime, other than go crazy in a locked room with a red string conspiracy board trying to figure out whats going to happen in Alecto the Ninth
speaking of, obviously its not a pressing issue since to my knowledge there isnāt even a release date yet, but iām not sure if iāll do a liveblog for Alecto when it comes out? on one hand the most fun bit about liveblogging has been the reaction from everyone whoās already read the books and weāll all be in the same boat of not knowing whatās going on when Alecto comes out, so i donāt know how much of a point there is? on the other i would very much enjoy doing it anyway, and iām a perfectionist so it would be nice to have completed all of the books like that. so i guess it depends on how impatient i am to read the whole book when it comes out lol
#i know i said the unwanted guest liveblog would be the next post#but i unintentionally lied sorry#it will most definitely be the next post 100%#the locked tomb liveblog#tlt#the locked tomb#lemon natalia reads the locked tomb#nona the ninth
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Hi everyone!! Theseus cquackity viceduo zombur revivebur here.
This blog has seen several hiatuses (my bad seriously my bad), and bouts of irregular posting. So I'm sure people who regularly check it have noticed that we (Fiona @quackbur and I) haven't been posting daily anymore and haven't for a bit now. So below the cut I'm gonna talk more about that, and our plans for this blog going forward
For starters, I love roleplaying on this blog so much, as does my cohost Fiona @quackbur. Fiona has done so, so much writing for this and I feel kind of bad for taking her credit over the past two or so years, so props to her for being such a good sport and for everything she's done. This blog wouldn't exist without the shared passion she had for it.
To get sappy, I love the friends I've made in bedrockverse, they remain some of my best and closest companions. I would not trade the times I've spent with them for the world. Beau, Holly & co, Met & Co, and Thunderbottles are some of the loveliest, most supportive, and insanely talented people I have ever had the pleasure of writing with and meeting.
This includes people who aren't part of the bedrockverse that I've written with!! Shoutout to Javi anonymous-jey casino-duckling, TGM the-g-m duckofthelaw, and AD anonymous-dentist therealnoodleman. It was so much fun bringing all the quackverses together, and I respect all of you so much as writers.
AND that also includes EVERYONE who has interacted with her!!!!!!!!!! Everyone who has sent asks (thank you so much, sorry we're terrible at replying), reblogged threads, commented, posted/liveblogged, DREW FAN ART (BLOWS OUR MINDS. THERE'S BEEN SO MUCH INCREDIBLE ART CREATED, WE CANNOT THANK ALL OF YOU ENOUGH), even just liked a thread, thank you. Seriously, it has meant a lot to us to be part of this community, and have so many people enjoy this blog. Insert Pitbull image happy you enjoyed.
So, going forward it would make us really happy if you all pictured casinoroyale as happy. He has songbird-sunrise, goofygoop, and a nation full of citizens that she loves. She babysits for tubbolul and latenightmining, and terrorizes rp!emduo not infrequently. All we really wanted was to bring c!quackity to a happy place and I feel we've done that. Of course he still has shit days, as a ptsd baddie, but the good days are more common. And if we never get to it (though I hope someday we do, maybe in the form of a collaborative one-shot or fic) know that casinoroyale and songbird-sunrise DO eventually get [REDACTED]. And one of them DOES get [REDACTED]. That was always the plan! Yay! [REDACTED]!
Not to say that we don't have more arcs planned for this blog, because we do! I just don't know when/if/how they'll ever get written, especially because a lot of my friends have moved on from their rp blogs as well. But I really do still feel happy with where he's at and happy with everything I've done. This is a project I'm really, really proud of and I will always look back on fondly.
None of this means that I'm not interested in c!Quackity or DSMP as a whole anymore, either. Actually that couldn't be further from the truth. But now I'd like to be able to focus on fics, and other forms of writing, which I've been doing more recently :D actually, you can read a short one shot I posted for exile's anniversary HERE
If you've made it this far into this long, sappy post, THANKS!!!!!! The TLDR; this blog is on an indefinite hiatus, and won't be returning to its formal glory, and that's okay. We had a really good run. Now, off we go to other things
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Hi, are you still working on the AFO Retcon Essay? You mentioned a few times you are not sure if Horikoshi retconned AFO's original plan or if he always intended for AFO to take over Tomura, but made AFO act somewhat contradictory from the start regardless. Did this ever make you feel like there are too many possibilities in regards to Horikoshi's original intentions to take into account and could therefore make it harder to write the essay?
Hi there, and thanks for your interest! I did actually talk about this a good while back, towards the beginning of the year; you can find that post here. It says pretty much exactly what you did and goes a bit further--that I'm so distrustful of Horikoshi as a writer that I have no idea anymore what might have been retconned and what was his intention from the start, and further, that even if something was his intention from the start, I don't trust him to have laid the groundwork for those intentions with honesty or good faith.
Instead of the AFO Retcon Essay, what I've been poking at instead is some sort of massive retrospective of all the problems with BNHA's endgame. That's going to require a reread on my part, and some decisions about formatting--namely, do I want to do the reread privately, on my end, and then write the Mega Chonky Essay and post it when I'm finished, or do I do it publically, read-along liveblog style, documenting the problems as I go?
At the moment, I'm leaning towards the second. I have some tentative ideas about keeping a running list of (to use a witticism from the Twitter fen) Themes & Such, ideas and ideology the series sets out and how well it lives up to those ideas--or how it fails to. I'd also like to keep track of things like character arcs and foreshadowing, documenting things with an eye to where those arcs go, what the foreshadowing amounts to, whether the series keeps its implicit promises, and so on. I suspect it would wind up looking something like a cross between the heteromorphobia essay and my chapter thoughts posts.
On the other hand, a format that deals with one group of problems at a time could feel more focused, discussing all the evidence at once of any particular topic rather than having to keep many (many) plates spinning across a retrospective of the entire series. I also already have the broad outline for that, since it was my plan last time I was seriously poking at the idea. It would probably still end up being posted in multiple parts; the parts would just cover different groups of characters or aspects of the series per installment, rather than e.g. each installment covering an arc and everything in it.
I suppose there's nothing stopping me from doing first the former and then the latter? I'm planning to reread the whole series anyway, after all.
In any case, I like that kind of installment-based format not least because I'm also in the early stages of getting a Patreon set up aimed at supporting my meatier chunks of fandom writing and potentially giving people some ability to point me at this or that topic. A multi-part analysis of BNHA--something in a similar style as my documentations of heteromorphobia, the problems with the anime's adaptation of My Villain Academia, or even, to reach back to an older fandom, my episode-by-episode write-ups on Human Debris in Gundam IBO!--strikes me as a good way to get that off the ground.
I've got one or two things to finish getting off my plate before then, and I'd want to wait until the last volume of BNHA officially comes out (12/4) just in case of any thirteenth-hour surprises, but keep an eye out! I'm not inclined to paywall my writing, but maybe an early access sort of model? I'm also going to want to find a blogging site that's more aimed at hosting long-form writing than Tumblr is. We'll see!
In the meantime, to give everyone an example of the kinds of things I'm looking at tracking through the story, one of the things that most vexes me about the ending is how it not only fails to resolve its contradictory ideas of saving and heroism, it feels to even recognize those contradictions. Here's a chunk of my notes on that topic from the outline of The Mega Chonky Essay in its current form.
ā¢ Nana says saving isnāt just saving someoneās life, but also making sure theyāre smiling in the end. But that means that saving their life is the prerequisite. If Eri died smiling, her smiling would not prevent everyone from recognizing her death as a tragedy. āāāāāāā ā¢ āPerfect Victoryā is defined as both āwinningā and āsavingā flawlesslyāthat is, every fight is won, and no one is left unsaved. This is introduced first as an ideal for Deku and Bakugou to strive for, with both of them needing to work on different parts of the equation, and continues to be an aspect of Bakugouās characterization, as it comes up again in Joint Training. But it doesnāt stay locked to them, as All Might says directly to the American pilots that they canāt be allowed to die because the kids are aiming for a Perfect Victory. āāāāāāā ā¢ A pivotal question for Toga and the larger series is, given that Heroes are supposed to save people, how do Heroes justify killing Villains? Do they not think of Villains as people? āāāāāāā With all three of these ideas in place, the challenge becomes how to navigate the endgame to a place where all three concepts are honored/resolved. The ending must demonstrate that Heroes do see Villains as people while also being able to achieve their desired Perfect Victoryāthey must win against the Villains while also saving them, where āsavingā means that the Villainsā lives are saved and theyāre smiling in the end. āāāāāāā Or must they? After the first war, the series introduces another concept of how to save people, albeit one that runs directly counter to Nana's definition of a saved person as someone both alive and smiling: Gran Torino says that killing someone can be a way of saving them. He and Nana canāt both be right, so to confront and resolve that discrepancy, the story will have to acknowledge one of them as wrong. (Spoilers: It does not.) āāāāāāā In the end, Toga dies, and Deku kills Shigaraki, and if both of them die smiling, well, you sure as hell canāt say the same for e.g. Gigantomachia or All For One or Dabi or any of the thousands of unhappy Villains who wound up in prison (many of them likely bound for the gallows!), alive but decidedly not smiling. Heck, All Might, in trying to console Deku, moves the goalposts even more by suggesting that all Deku needed to do to get the credit on āsavingā Shigaraki was make sure his inner child wasnāt crying anymore. Not only does he not have to live, he doesnāt even have to be smiling! An absence of obvious grief is enough! āāāāāāā Thus, you wind up in this place where you have an unsolvable problem: somewhere along the line, either someone failed or someone was wrong, and the story, in being unwilling to confront that disharmony, winds up undermining other established themes and goals. Did the kids āloseā because they failed to meet the criteria for the Perfect Victory? Was the definition of āsavingā wrong? Was Gran Torino wrong or was Nana? Was the definition of Perfect Victory wrong? Was Toga correct in her fear that Heroes donāt see Villains as people? āāāāāāā No matter what the answer is, it runs afoul of some previously established Theme in the story. Even if the idea is that the ending is downbeat and bittersweet because the kids failed (and the story is using All Mightās goalpost-moving to resolve the dissonant definitions of āsavingā in Gran Torinoās favor), that still means yet another theme is violated: that of BNHA being a story of how Deku+his classmates become āthe greatest Heroes.ā After all, the story also defined āgreatest Heroesā for us! The greatest Heroes are those who can achieve Perfect Victory.
Whatever form this essay winds up taking, these are the sorts of concepts I want to discuss in terms of how the series sets them up compared to how it winds up following them through.
Thanks for the ask!
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Liveblog: Wakfu Season 1 (episodes 1-9)
NOTE: I will be doing rewatch liveblogs of multiple episodes per post, because the focus of this blog isn't on the Wakfu cast, and I am not as well versed in their characterisations, so I won't even have much analysis to show you. Sorry ^^;;
Episode 1 - The Child from the Mist
I promise not to get sappy, but seeing season 1 after all these years does make me quite emotional. Ah, how the time flies.
Thank god I'm not a Yugo lore blog. I'd have to translate this too, as if I didn't go through enough psychological trauma. š
The sheer Bitch Olympics that would happen if Ruel opened a restaurant and you-know-which-three-men entered it, would cause at least 5 casualties.
I need this so bad. You have no idea how much I need this.
Episode 2 - Yugo the Eliatrope
I hang onto every mention of Bonta like a lifeline. I know Ruel might be lying, but imagining him having some marginal connection though like, Ruel's buddies knowing some people who know buddies of Jurgen-Crepins, is making me giddy.
Remember this tree. It will be important later.
Episode 3 - The Black Crow
Guys I think Ruel likes Bonta.
Anyway now I'm imagining the Bitch Olympics that would happen if he tried to haggle with Kerubim. Pangaea would explode.
I like to imagine this is the sort of life that would await Kerubim, had Lou not been smart enough to flee from the relationship.
[remembers Joris canonically does cartography as a hobby] I think I hauve covid.
Also yes, this episode is the return of the one and only Grav'Mar'Av.
Episode 4 - The Ugly Pageant
[linguistics major voice] It's just that y'know I really wonder what Ecaflip tongue is like and and. Personally, I think Joris is fluent in Ecaflip tongue, but can be a bit rusty at reading and writing it, whileāā [I am forcefully taken off stage by the police]
Episode 5 - The Magnificent Five
One of my life dreams is writing a fic that's set during the Wakfu manga, or shortly after it, with Joris on the ship from the manga, or with the Wakfu cast being quests at his home.
The reason I want to do this, is that political discussions between Evangelyne and Joris would go so hard, whether they agree or disagree. They're both the sort of person who can masterfully turn every innocuous topic to Ogrest's Chaos/Monarchy/Climate Change/War. That, and I am a big believer in Evanglelyne&Joris&Amalia friendship (since Amalia and Eva probably had known him as kids, due to politics.)
Episode 6 - Vampyro
I think everyone who wears an enchanted cape to look cooler is a bit of a try-hard edgelord. Sorry not sorry, but this applies to Julith as well.
Episode 7 - Poisonous Beauty
[approaches mic yet again, more haggard, obviously beaten] Rabies confirmed to exist in Krosmoz.
Episode 8 - Xav the Baker
This moment is so important to me. You have no idea how important it is. Yugo and Eva both know that there's not much that he can do to bribe her. And its hilarious.
[puts on tinfoil hat] We know that Chtibrout Town and Xav the Baker are in Amakna. This means that this town is very famous for its baking ā enough for a foreign king to be interested, and for a person from Bonta to come to compete here.
That, or this line of thinking is just a sign of my declining mental state.
Episode 9 - Ruel's Bag
The map lore deepens.
A third underwear pervert has hit the pentagon.
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WIP Intro
Title: Devourer of Souls
Genre + tropes: Fantasy, found family, fairytale retelling (Snow White and Rose Red)
Tag: devourer of souls wip
Themes (may be subject to change with the 1st draft): destruction vs creation, inherent contradictions of femininity, anti-war, choosing your own family, freedom from expectation, religious trauma
Status: outlining + first draft
Additional notes: I'm gonna (try to) do this for NaNo!! Wish me luck!!
edit: this is now a duology!
Plot
Seth was supposed to be a healer. That's what everyone said she would be. She would become a healer and fight in the war for the Goddess of Time. But her healing doesn't work like it's supposed to. Instead of giving life, she takes it away. People say she eats souls.
She tries to live a quiet life in the countryside, away from the war, but is rudely interrupted when Theo, a lost demigoddess, wanders into her life. Together, they try to find a place for themselves and their strange magic in this world. But war is never kind, and the Goddess of Time wants her daughter's power on her side - and she won't let some pesky healer get in her way.
Characters
Seth: a girl with terrifying powers who just wants a quiet life in a small town, alone, but learns to be happy after finding Theo. She was expelled from the hospital she was apprenticing for a failed healing that killed the patient and permanently damaged her leg in the process.
Theo: a powerful demigoddess whose magic is making her soul slowly wither away. Her adoptive family sent the Order after her after discovering her unusual powers and ends up finding Seth on her journey. Through her Goddess-Mother's influence, she becomes consumed by the war.
Flick: a teenager touched by the Goddess of Love, whose body houses two conflicting souls. They are cursed to have anyone they meet fall in love with them, and Seth takes them under her wing while on their journey to find themself.
Jane: a sort of puppet created by the Goddess of Time to replace Theo after her death, delivered to Seth when the Goddess couldn't stand her anymore. She's in the mortal world for the first time and trying to figure out who she wants to be.
The Goddess of Time: Theo and Jane's mother. By far the most ruthless - and broken - among her sisters. She lives in her Garden in the plane of the gods, where she takes her daughters to shape them into her champions.
Notes on the setting
everything in this world has a soul, or life force, which can be transferred by those with the right magical inclination
usually, healers can only direct the "souls" from themselves to other in order to heal them, and when their soul runs out, they die - it is the ultimate sacrifice and a healer's greatest honour, to surrender their very souls to their Goddess
there are three Sister Goddesses, each representing a core aspect of humanity, waging war against each other to see who is more powerful (I expand upon it here)
certain types of powerful magic can cause your soul to start eating itself if not kept in check, as is Theo's case
Edit: you can follow the development of Seth and Theo's relationship in the tag #the great Seth and Theo relationship liveblog
If you've read this far - thank you! I hope my WIP has interested you!
#guys look i made a banner!#it was an absolute nightmare to use canva for the first time but it exists now!!!#still to be decided if i give Seth religious trauma#no clue how to write that tho#this wip's aesthetic is basically ācottagecore but what if there was a holy warā#oh and demigods#writing#writeblr#my wips#devourer of souls wip#wip intro#writeblr wip intro#writers of tumblr
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BnHA Volume 35 - A Brief Reaction Journey
hello! so as mentioned in my last post, Iāve started catching up with the BnHA manga again FINALLY after almost two years, and have made it through a fair number of chapters so far! and since Iām not sure how long it will take me to actually post the corresponding liveblogs, I figured Iād make a couple of posts in the meantime to sort of preview my reaction journey thus far with some good old-fashioned OUT-OF-CONTEXT BULLET POINTS taken from my ramblings. originally I was going to make a single post for all 25 chapters Iāve read so far (up to 367), but I quickly realized that was waaaaay too ambitious lol. so for now itās just this one, and Iāll put up the vol. 36 post probably tomorrow afternoon.
spoiler warning: just fyi, this post will obviously feature spoilers for chapters 342-350*, BUT it will also include some stray spoilers from chapters 362 and 403 as well, so just a heads up for that if you arenāt fully caught up!
*chapters 340 and 341 are not included because I've already posted full reaction posts for each one here and here, respectively.
Chapter 342
Endeavor being taller than Jeanist just feels so WRONG to me regardless of whether or not it is factually accurate. does this mean All Might is also taller than Jeanist?? I donāt want to live in a world where Best Jeanist has secretly been a perfectly normal sized person this entire time. someone please lie to me and tell me that he is tall
many thanks to Kacchan for inserting this small bit of levity into this scene which was otherwise well on its way to sending me into a SPIRAL OF FEELINGS, and in fact still is whenever I look at that panel of Deku with Eri and Kouta, and also that GODDAMN HUG WHERE HE AND INKO ARE BOTH CLEARLY AND PAINFULLY AWARE THAT THEY MIGHT NEVER SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN, AND IN THAT MOMENT THEYāRE JUST TRYING TO HOLD THE OTHER AS TIGHTLY AS PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE, AND SHEāS PRAYING TO WHATEVER DEITY IS OUT THERE THAT HEāLL COME BACK SAFE AND WHOLE, AND HEāS PRAYING THAT HIS MOM WILL BE ALL RIGHT EVEN IF HE DOESNāT COME BACK, AND NOT ALLOWING HIMSELF TO THINK ABOUT HOW MUCH HE ALREADY MISSES HER, BECAUSE HE CANāT THINK LIKE THAT ANY MORE, BECAUSE THIS BOY IS FULLY GROWN NOW BECAUSE HE HAD TO BE, BECAUSE HE HAD NO CHOICE, AND IāM BOTH SO PROUD AND SO FUCKING SAD ABOUT IT AND I JUST NEED A MINUTE HERE ACTUALLY, OKAY!! OR FIVE MINUTES!!
LMAO WHAT AN AUSPICIOUS AND NOT-AT-ALL OMINOUSLY FOREBODING NAME. āhmmm what should we name our new class 1-A fortress?ā āhmm well I was thinking maybe Troy, after the legendary city with the famously impenetrable walls, which to the best of my knowledge were never breached, or at least thatās what I assume since I never finished reading The Iliad! :) :) :) ...wait, why are you all looking at me like that. they didnāt actually breach them, right? guys? what happened to Troy? GUYS?ā
Iām actually so proud of Deku because heās come such a long way from the days when the mere CONCEPT of even TALKING to a girl was enough to floor him lol. but also Iām legit cracking up at he way he tried to segue into random small talk in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse. gotta be smooth about it!! casual!! you can tell how casual they are because both of them are suddenly struck by the inexplicable urge to fuss with their hair!!
Horikoshi really said āFUCK YOUR SQUADS!! ...but if we had a Todosquad this is who would be in it I guessā
my god. between this and the OchaDeku conversation the villains truly do not stand a chance do they? and they donāt even know how screwed they are yet. REDEMPTION IS COMING!! ITāS KNOCKING ON THE DOOR, TRICK OR TREAT, YāALL READY FOR THIS
Chapter 343
so weāre opening with everyoneās favorite Guy With An Old Wad Of Chewing Gum For A Face, AFO!
did this son of a bitch kill Naoās dad and steal his sexy lie-detector quirk??
sob AFO is all ācan I have your sonās cell phone number pleaseā and theyāre all āSUREā
bonsoir little Yuuga
do. ...do you not actually know. was this meeting not prearranged. āwhy are you here Aoyama?ā āwhy are you here, Deku?ā truly, why are any of us here??
Iām sitting here trying to play the āguess which parts of this dialogue are real vs fakeā game and coming up completely stumped on every single sentence
so Yuugaās all ācan you believe that even though the city of Musutafu is basically down to just U.A., a Dollar Tree, a couple of crumbling park benches, and one very determined Starbucks, we somehow still have functioning courts and lawyers?ā I actually canāt believe that at all tbh. youāre telling me āitās the fucking apocalypseā is still not a good enough excuse to get out of jury duty
damn, Aoyama out here with the trash talk and the ON YOUR LEFT?!
MONOMA??!?!?!?!
Chapter 344
āEraserāsā plan, indeed. you dare say that right to Kaminariās face
SHINSOU!!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?
HEYA YOURSELF YOU HANDSOME KNAVE!! LOOK AT YOU!! fucking loving the costume my dude! pretty please tell us your hero name to go along with it. is it MindCraft. I think your hero name should be MindCraft. donāt look at me like that Shinsou we need more punny hero names in the world
āyes well you see, I couldnāt do it, so I learned how to do it.ā great story Shinsou
the way heās rubbing the back of his neck there. are we gonna get some real Monoma character development at long last. feels like itās long overdue and I am thrilled. heās such a great character and I feel like weāve only barely scratched the surface of who he actually is as a person and as a hero
THE UNEXPECTED VLAD KING MENTORSHIP WITH THE ARM AROUND THE SHOULDERS?? he really needed that support. outwardly heās always made a big show of wanting his turn in the spotlight and begrudging class A for stealing the scene at every turn. but how much of that is really just an act. some of it? most of it? maybe even close to all of it? because right now he suddenly seems so small and young here and really wishing he wasnāt in this unenviable position of being one of the many Worldās Last Hopes who are all way too fucking young
did Mirkoās giant robot hand just grow into an EVEN GIANTER giant robot hand??
long beautiful flowing mermaid hair. sorry what was I saying I kind of spaced out there for a sec
YES, AFO, ALL OF THIS TO SPLIT YOU UP YOU STUPID MUSH HEAD. MAYBE IF YOU EVER ACTUALLY FINISHED A MANGA IN YOUR GODDAMN LIFE YOUāD KNOW HOW A FINAL BATTLE IS SUPPOSED TO BE CONSTRUCTED. YOU MOLDY AVOCADO
Chapter 345
āno you donāt understand, we have so many sixteen-year-olds whose coattails weāre all hanging onto. we have sixteen-year-olds who can take over peopleās minds. sixteen-year-olds who can create portals to warp you halfway around the world in an instant. and letās not forget the sixteen-year-olds who can act their damn asses off. we have the best sixteen-year-olds in the world. our sixteen-year-olds are so much better than yours you fucking losersā
Deku I swear. if Iām about to discover that the reason you werenāt there to stop Kacchan from being literally, actually, canonically murdered is because your distracted ass got yoinked into the void by some no-name villain chucklefuck, Iām gonna...
donāt listen to him Aoyama you were magnificent. you were my favorite in all of the stage plays
BUT IS PHASE TWO SUPPOSED TO INVOLVE DEKU IN ANY WAY THOUGH??? HELLO??? IS ANYONE LISTENING TO ME??? IāM FROM THE FUTURE AND THIS IS URGENT, PLEASE
āI fucked up Ochako, I fucked up so badā omfg Deku
she doesnāt want to hurt you Deku she just wants to shower you in love. in her own special way. by stabbing you a lot
anyway have fun on this... tropical island??? I guess?? Kacchan will just have to hold down the fort in the meantime. which Iām sure will go absolutely fine
Chapter 346
āth-th-this is really bad, right?ā yes Tamaki, yes it is. youāre stuck here on the Super Mega Ultra Radical Gnarly Cracked-Out Wonder Stage with Shigaraki Fucking Tomura and at least two of you are about to die and IāM NOT OKAY
so now weāre also getting this hilarious insight into the inner workings of the Mega Ultra Tremendous Stupendous Incredible Sky Coffin and it is truly, truly phenomenal
Horikoshi stop taking my sarcastic jibes and owning them completely challenge!! all the best sixteen-year-olds. all the finest greatest Hyper Ultra Sparkle Glimmer Wonder Battle Stages
this is genuinely one of the boldest lampshading efforts I have ever seen in fiction you guys
āyes, we acknowledge that this does indeed seem impossible to have pulled off, BUT have you considered that, fucking quirks though???? AND THAT THEY ARE, AS THE KIDS SAY, WILD??ā
Chapter 347
lmao theyāre shouting at Monoma accusingly and heās all āIāM HAVENāT BLINKED AT ALL YOU GUYS I DONāT KNOW WHAT TO TELL YOUā
donāt mind him, heās just out here growing out his hideously malformed hands and fingers endlessly from every part of his body, normally, as one does. nothing quirk-related about it. anyone could do this if they simply exercise and maintain a balanced diet. this 100% is not a quirk yāall itās just essential oils
SUDDEN MONOMA FEELS DELIVERED TO MY DOORSTEP???
awwww. the way heās almost panicked, frantically wondering if he somehow fucked the quirk up and desperate for Aizawa to believe him that heās trying his best. and Aizawa quick to reassure him. this kid is so desperate for approval. and unapologetically careening his way onto my top ten character list, welcome dear boy
so thatās that. see you in two years Deku. his last words spoken out loud to Kacchan were, and I quote, āwha --ā
Aizawa is so hopelessly impossibly hot at all times and I donāt know how the universe can handle his existence. heās even doing it without activating his quirk now. no ponytails or anything. just an eyepatch and a dream
donāt mind me, Iām just out here doing literal algebra to figure out how long it would take Deku to get back here if he traveled at the same speed as All Might did in chapter 90 (30 seconds per 5km, apparently). about 20 minutes, give or take. well shit. hopefully heās a little faster than Kamino-era All Might was, especially since he can fly and has that Fa Jin shit too. or maybe Rody can fly him lmao. or S&Sās hot fighter pilot boyfriend
āwhatād Sensei say, Deku?ā āhe said no, looks like I gotta uber. can I borrow your credit card, I promise I will venmo you backā
unfortunately for Deku he does not realize heās accidentally gotten himself caught up in what will undoubtedly end up being the most erotic and bisexual of the various final battles
canāt believe Deku has like 6 love interests and out of all of them, Toga is the first one who actually asks him out. good for you girl. gotta shoot your shot
Chapter 348
FELLAS IS IT GAY TO BREAK OUT INTO TERRIFIED BEN DAY DOTS BECAUSE A GIRL EXPRESSED HER CARNAL INTEREST IN YOU????
anyway so since Deku apparently doesnāt understand how romance works either, heās trying his best to give an actual response by recontextualizing all of this in terms of the one big thing he does understand: All Might
youāre telling me you never wanted to stab All Might to death and then turn into him?? wow I just canāt believe it
but also... okay lol. so I was thinking about this sarcastically, but was then struck by the very unironic thought that there sorta kinda is someone whom Deku does, both consciously and subconsciously, try to be like, and who he also kinda does apparently share the same heart and mind as. at least if chapter 403 is anything to go by lol. soooooooo. huh
god damn it Toga. absolutely none of what youāve said or done here has been even the SLIGHTEST BIT reasonable. you canāt just tell someone you want to stab them and be their girlfriend. and if and when they try to let you down easy by responding with the MOST THOUGHTFUL AND GENTLE REJECTION ANYONE COULD EVER POSSIBLY MAKE UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES, because theyāre actually the WORLDāS NICEST MAN, you canāt just respond by doing whatever it is youāre presumably about to do, which Iām guessing is gonna be really violent and unhinged
so Ochako is all āever since we fought last time Iāve been thinking about you a lot!ā and Toga is all āare you serious, YOU broke up with ME bitchā and now sheās standing behind her with a knife
āsheās the least predictable of our opponentsā YEAH NO KIDDING LOL
āeveryone knows that Toga is actually Ochakoās villain, like ffs Deku you havenāt even interacted with her since the Provisional Exam arc.ā Deku theyāre 100% right and youāre looking more and more the fool with each passing second
well all right lol. twenty minutes to get back to Musutafu. letās just hope he doesnāt run into any traffic on the way
Chapter 349
what the fuck is OFA Dosās quirk exactly and are we ever gonna get to it before I literally die of old age. at this point thereās gotta be a reason why heās not using it, right?? so whatās the deal there? does he still somehow not know how? is it too dangerous? and I really need to know why II has the Bakugou gauntlets. tell me this isnāt one of the things weāre still waiting on answers for two years down the line because I swear to god I will cry
anyway so Dekuās saying heās doing his best but heās still ātoo slowā. WELL THEN MAYBE ITāS THAT TIME?? DEKU?? WHAT DO YOU SAY
NO FUCKING WAY LOL, CAN IT REALLY BE THAT EASY??!
OH WHAT THE FUCK, FUCK YOU NOT!CCHAN LOL YOUāRE JUST HERE TO COCKBLOCK HIM?
fuck. so has he used it since then?? is he gonna use it finally now that Kacchanās alive and well again?? oh my god I need to shut up and stop asking questions and just keep reading. fuck
wow so Dabiās literally just burning the All Might statue while he stalls for time trying to figure out how to beat his OP little brother who was literally engineered to be better than him sob. out of all the villains heās probably the most screwed right now isnāt he
starting to get an inkling Dabiās not happy that he doesnāt actually get to fight Endeavor. getting some subtle hints here and there that he might actually be upset about that
apparently wanting to fight Dabi and stop him from helping to destroy the world makes Shouto a pawn. wake up Shouto. stop being such a sheep, Shouto. canāt you see that saving the world is exactly what Endeavor wants you to do???!
this is just going to be seventeen chapters of Dabi talking about nonsense while they both stand around progressively getting hotter both literally and metaphorically isnāt it
Chapter 350
OH SNAP. [SLAMS HAND ON TABLE] HERE WE GO. ITāS FINALLY THAT TIME
well, well, well. to the surprise of absolutely no one. the real one who was responsible for everything this whole time
but I just have to pause real quick before we continue. because it absolutely cannot be a coincidence that AFO just happened to be there once again. just waiting in the shadows to magically swoop in the minute disaster strikes. and so, just like with baby Tenko, this immediately makes me suspect that Touya burning himself alive was not in fact a training accident at all. which is something I did not expect, and which, just. fuck, fuck, FUCK AFO. fuck this guy.
looks like the children's ward of a hospital?? wait, what??
how the fuck is he still so adorable. when exactly did the transition take place between adorable and sexily unhinged. right now Todoroki Touya still looks to be the absolute most adorable child on the planet
I miscalculated. I was not emotionally prepared to handle this chapter right now. I should not have clicked
really love to see that Touya didnāt just cave right away. wouldnāt have felt right, ngl. just doesnāt fit in with what we know about his character
oh shit wait weāre cutting back to Dabi talking to Shouto and he says he did come back home??
fucking why. goddammit what the hell. why is this the saddest fucking thing Iāve ever read. LOVE HIM!! SOMEONE!! ANYONE!! just love him, please. literally all he has ever wanted!!
JESUS. I HATE THIS. I am so upset right now. out of all of the horrific and traumatic and terrible, awful things that have happened to BnHA characters in their flashbacks, the thing that hits me the most out of all of them is this one image of a sixteen-year-old boy standing before an altar, with his family very much alive and standing RIGHT FUCKING THERE IN THE NEXT ROOM, and yet somehow feeling more alone than heās ever been. so alone he literally gives up all hope in this one moment. my god I feel all of it and itās so fucking devastating I keep having to stop typing so I donāt completely break down sobbing
well damn. after a rush of 15 and 13-page chapters, which were all admittedly appreciated by me in my race to catch up to Light Fades to Rain before this coming Friday, Horikoshi finishes up the volume with one hell of a 17 page finale. once again the Tododrama delivers. this was fucking phenomenal
#bnha#boku no hero academia#bnha vol. 35#way too many characters to tag so I am not gonna bother!#bnha spoilers#mha spoilers#bnha manga spoilers#makeste reads bnha#lotta 'calm before the storm' chapters in this one#also I was kinda disappointed by the cover of this volume ngl#but at least monoma and shinsou got their little moment on the back#vol. 36 post should be up tomorrow#vol. 37 post to follow once I finish the rest of those chapters#and then I'll start posting the actual recaps again probably in a couple of weeks or so#once I finish catching up
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The complete look of horror on Laios' face when Succubus Marcille is trying to kiss him is so funny. As is his immediate assumption she would be shaking in pure horror if she thought he was attracted to her (He Knows. Subconciously He Knows) and that Senshi would be deeply disgusted. Not sure where the second part comes from other than the idea everyone would find this pairing deeply horrible. Also that his immediate decision is to stab her and dump the body so no one can ever find out.
(And the famous "Izutsumi" gag BECAUSE SHE WOULDN'T GIVE A SHIT)
To be honest, I WAS genuinely a little worried Laios x Marcille would become a thing thanks to this part. I wasn't like, deeply gutted (this was before the brainrot had deeply set in and I was managing my expectations), but I was like "that's a bummer. hate the trope that the main guy and girl always have to get together. I liked their friendship a lot. I'm sure it'll be well written at least, but I really related to her as a lesbian and liked her with Falin. Oh well."
But FORTUNATELY I did not need to be worried. Especially since Marcille being here is actually just a prelude to what makes him TRULY SMITTEN.
okay Laios monsterfucker allegations may have been confirmed, but we're seeing what really gets him going is the idea of becoming a monster and all his friends also being monsters. Well except Izutsumi she's already part monster (Izutsumi).
We've seen a few times that Laios REALLY REALLY wants to be a monster., but he also wants to be with his friends and also have Falin be happy. So this hits him on all fronts (the fact Chilchuck's breathing fire and ice is clearly a reference to his consistently foul mouth). This is in part due to how alienated he feels from people, who often reject and misunderstand him.
The succubus clearly had to work a little harder to get to him, (which I think could support an ace/aro (or both) reading of him). Marcille's the member of the party he's closest too, so the succubus went with that, but it was a no sell. Marcille trying to (apparently) kiss him not only made it clear to him it WASN'T Marcille, he didn't get flustered at all. It was only when it went with "ACTUALLY I'M A MONSTER AND ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE MONSTERS AND I CAN TURN YOU INTO A MONSTER" he starts sweating.
(hmmm I actually think it's possible succubus regular Marcille was leaning in to bite him, revealing monster traits so he wouldn't fight back, but he stopped it before the reveal).
And hey, since I've had obnoxious fucking people commenting on my liveblogs, glad the fandom getting bigger inevitably means more shitlords bothering me: If you want to think this means Laios had a little bit of a crush on Marcille and was just smart enough to realize Marcille wouldn't do that, that's fine too. I'm not your boss and it makes as much sense as anything else (though it really doesn't say anything about Marcille's side of things).But this is My Liveblog, and from where I am knowing the whole story, I just do not see it based on the text. Because regardless, and I will spoil this because obviously my reaction would be different otherwise, this does not go anywhere. Marcille and Laios do not get together in the story. You can ship them, I don't care, but don't act like it's "more canon" or some bullshit like that.
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and with tangos stream ending, that wraps up my (unintentional) liveblog of the decked out day shenanigans
this's been such a fun time, thank you so much to tango and grian for organising this, all the hermits, all the guests, everyone for doing this and having fun and streaming for us
and thank You, if you're reading this! its been so fun to see everyones posts, start recognising some peoples names, finding new friends to follow. its been an absolute blast, and i hope it happens again
everyone go stretch, drink some water, have food or go to bed if you need to! take care of yourselves ššā¤ļø
#now im gonna go make pasta#hermitcraft#hermitcraft s9#decked out#decked out 2#tangotek#grian#smallishbeans#ldshadowlady#jimmy solidarity#solidaritygaming#skizzleman#hbomb94#inthelittlewood
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2024 Writing Roundup!
Tagged by @queenaeducan-writes! Thank you!
Tagging:
@bardic-inspo Ā @astreamofstars @morganaseren @thedarkstrategist @istibaethoriel
@rhysintherain @0ccuria @gothyanki @dungeonsdragonsandlawyers
@babygurltash @eluvisen
(I tag folks who have likedĀ this post over here! Following me and want to be tagged in other fic writer memes like this? Drop a like there! <3 And if you donāt want to be tagged anymore just unlike the post. c: )
words posted:Ā For purposes of this meme I'm ignoring liveblog writing and ask meme prompt fills, and only focusing on stuff on AO3, which in 2024 totaled roughly 102,482. (This is including one chapter of Open Your Eyes that was posted in 2023.)
additional words written:Ā An uncountable amount of liveblogging, ask meme fills, and WIPs that I'm not even gonna try to guess at tbh. XD
grand total of words:Ā No idea. But in the multiple hundreds of thousands certainly. :O
fandoms:Ā Baldur's Gate pretty much exclusively. (I did write one small Dark Souls flash fic.)
highest kudos:Ā 70 kudos on Prayers and Hellfire
highest hit oneshot:Ā 2358, also on Prayers and Hellfire
new things I tried:
Pretty much everything about this year was brand new, as I've never gotten into fanfiction on this scale and with this much enthusiasm before. But writing multiple-chapter fics and writing published E-rated fic were the two biggest things, I suppose.
fic I spent the most time on:Ā I suppose Open Your Eyes wins this by default since it is a chap fic and has five chapters in it now. (Sixth in progress!) Of the one-shots, probably Sunset or Prayers and Hellfire, which were the two longest one-shots I wrote this year.
fic I spent the least time on:Ā Besides the aforementioned Dark Souls flashfic, probably A Bond That Needs No Name or Owlbear Vignettes, both of which started as off-the-cuff liveblog posts and then got moved to AO3 after.
favorite thing I wrote:Ā Sunset takes the cake here; it took me by the throat and demanded I write it. It's my longest one-shot ever and I'm extremely proud of the result. Unfortunately it's probably reached the full extent of its audience (Jaheira/Khalid is a pretty niche topic) but I am so glad to have given everyone a good show. :D
Runners up here include Prayers and Hellfire, my second-longest one-shot and first attempt at published smut; and The Two Sides of the Coin, my favorite take so far on Jaheira and Karlach's friendship.
favorite thing(s) I read:
Tbh I don't read nearly as much fic as I write, which is something I maybe want to work on in the coming year, but I will shout out everything I have read by @eluvisen (including and especially the epic that I don't think is published yet š) and the wonderful Pulled Into Orbit by @thedarkstrategist.
writing goals for 2025:
* Finish Open Your Eyes and Fault Lines
* Write The Grand Reunion once Fault Lines is done.
* Continue exploring Jaheira-related fic out of the enormous list of ideas in my backlog.
* Continue regular ask prompts and liveblogging.
* Don't burn out. XD
new works:
Gonna do like @queenaeducan-writes did and do a full summary even though evidently that wasn't the original intention of the question. XD
* The Blind and the Silent - Dark Souls flashfic set in the End of Fire ending of Dark Souls 3
* What Good, This Heart of Stone? - Hector and Lae'zel handle overwhelming emotions by beating the crap out of each other.
* A Bond That Needs No Name - Jaheira and Minsc reconnect after his rescue from the Absolutists.
* Owlbear Vignettes - Camp adventures with Buddy the Owlbear.
* Zariel's Crucible - Enver Gortash's final test for Karlach before selling her to the hells.
* Comrades and Lost Children - Karlach and Jaheira bond by the fire after Moonrise.
* The Two Sides of the Coin - Karlach and Jaheira discuss loss and being left behind.
* Prayers and Hellfire (NSFW) - Hector and Karlach's first time together (and Hector's first ever).
* Sky-High - Karlach, with Hector's help, wrangles the tiefling refugee children after the battle at Moonrise.
* Broken Little Puppets - Karlach supports Astarion after his stand against Cazador.
* The Hellraisers (hiatused chap fic) - Hector, Karlach, and Wyll's adventures in the hells, post-game.
* We Who Have Faced Gods - Hector, Karlach, and Jaheira talk on the road towards Baldur's Gate.
* Quiet Zone (NSFW) - Hector and Karlach, during their Avernus adventures, find a private moment together in the library of the House of Hope.
* Fresh Meat - Karlach remembers a dark moment early in her time in Zariel's army.
* Fault Lines (WIP chap fic) - how Jaheira and Nine-Fingers know each other, and how their friendship fell apart.
* Open Your Eyes and It Will Blind You (WIP chap fic) - origin story for Jaheira and Rasaad's relationship, and an adventure for the BG2 gang investigating a Sharran invasion in Rasaad's monastery in Calimport.
* A Harper's Bonds (ongoing anthology) - collection of short stories/prompt fills at different periods in Jaheira's life.
* Sunset - Khalid's death, and memories of Jaheira that gave him strength.
#tag meme#thank you for the tag! this was fun :D#damn not to brag but I've been busy this year XD#you can def see how my output slowed over the course of the year as the brainrot set in#and I started to demand higher quality from myself and write longer stuff XD#here's to another productive year ahead for all of us!#also feel free to do this even if I didn't tag you and you want to ;D
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To: qsmpblr <3
Happy one year!
This community has been one of the most welcoming ones, even with the bumps we've had down the road. It truly has been a lovely experience to liveblog with you all and freak out when any horrors or interesting things happened! And the silly pictures that many would post would always light up my day <3 And god, don't even get me started on the art, everyone is so talented! And the fics!!! Oh my god, the fics I've read have been so nice to read!!! And the analysis' are always so nice to see after something happens and makes my mind think more about the scene and just everything that this community makes is amazing!
And I think, no matter what, I'll always be here with all of you. Whether I'm insanely active in the tag or rarely, I'm never leaving. q!Bad has always been special to me and his relationship with everyone that I don't see myself not enjoying writing about his character.
Everyone has been so kind and I hope everyone continues to have a good day. Thank you.
- Yours truly, Star ā
.ā *ā ļ½„ā ļ½”ļ¾
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Dungeon Meshi Volume 6 Part 1
Welcome back to my liveblog! As a reminder, this is a re-read, so expect plenty of spoilers!
Don't intentionally spoil people or get thwacked in the face.
Huh. So they have been here for about a week. Makes Rin's exasperation even more understandable.
Wow, rude. I feel like if you actually knew her, that's kinda the last thing she would do. She hates eating weird stuff.
Batting 0 for 3 Maizuru. Honestly, I originally thought she was kind of a jerk, but between this and "Ninja Art: Babysitter", I think her observational skills are just really bad.
See? She doesn't have a clue why this is an atrocious idea.
I mean, it was an elf who was around during Delgal's day, and was using exceptionally potent ancient magic. Who the heck else would it be? Plus the orcs confirmed his identity. And of course Laios thinks Thistle is mad about the food.
Asebi is not amused.
Hmm... another depiction of the winged lion with horns. Also, there was no need to bring up the black magic. Marcille used a regular resurrection spell, just using ancient magic to boost the power level. If the dragon hadn't been soul-bound by Thistle, it would have gone without a hitch. People like to joke Marcille did nothing wrong, but in this one case, I think she was totally in the right. There is plenty of time for her to commit war crimes later.
Chilchuck: Gasp! You were drugging him!
Kabru is here for ALL the hot goss. From a distance.
I love how the canon explanation for why Faligon has feathers is that Dragons = Dinosaurs. It's like an atavism or something. Idk, it looks cool. Stop asking questions.
God. Marcille may be my favorite, but I relate so much to Laios. This chapter and the next are painful. (And I'm not talking about the part where everyone dies)
If only Chilchuck won the coin toss, we could've avoided this drama. (At least until Shuro saw Falin)
Now that's a trustworthy face if I ever saw one.
Well well well. If it isn't the consequences of my actions.
I know I just got done explaining that her actions were fine. Just let me be funny.
Eh, it's worth a try. It works in at least one alternate universe.
She's beauty, she's grace. She's gonna eat your face.
What's all the more heartbreaking is you get little moments where Falin shines through. She wants to pet the doggie! But then the dragon reasserts itself.
Even freakier, I think this is actually Falin too. You can see her pupils oscillate throughout this scene between normal, and elongated.
Like, I don't think it did that on purpose, but the dragon is more than happy to exploit the opening it creates.
Holm? Holm, are those golem cores? Have you been holding out on us?
Man, no wonder she freaks out. Imagine you've been a dragon for who knows how long, covered in scales of iron, and suddenly this dude manages to stab you five times like it's nothing. Heck, Laios just stabbed her in the foot with a normal sword. This dragon must be fearing for it's life like crazy.
Obligatory Whoa Hey!
An important image.
No you dummy. This is standard dungeon procedure. There's a reason healers like Holm and Falin wear those silly robes. So that they get priority resurrections.
Hold up a sec. My drama senses are tingling.
I am genuinely curious what this insult was in the original Japenese, if only because I can't see that coming from either of them.
You know, when I first read Dungeon Meshi, I kinda glossed over the secondary cast a lot. Hard not to when you have my attention span, and like two dozen characters. I didn't even notice the Asebi stuff.
I know people dunk on Toshiro a lot, but I really have to question his relationship with his retainers if a simple thank you and sorry elicits this sort of reaction. Honestly, I mostly get the impression that his dad isn't great, and Maizuru is too loyal to do anything about it.
I also have to wonder why he left Asebi behind. Did he just not want to bother? Or is he rethinking his whole relationship with his retainers, and is offhandedly giving her her freedom?
Like brother like sister.
Image limit reached! I'll be back in a bit. Need to get some meshi!
#delicious in dungeon#dungeon meshi#dungeon meshi liveblog#manga spoilers#anime spoilers#Chapter 36#Chapter 37#Chapter 38
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Gideon the Ninth Reaction - Review
some final thoughts:
i have some (very) minor nitpicks that i want to get out the way first, simply because the rest of my opinions are really positive: i felt like there were some minor pacing issues, particularly near the beginning where the actual main plot took a pretty long time to get going - but overall it was a real whirlwind of a book and Muir is very good at dramatic cliffhangers that kept the energy up and made me want to read more. the big fight in the final chapter also felt a little repetitive at points, i think it could have been shortened down just a tad?
that out the way, overall i really loved it!! iād heard good things and had high expectations to be fair, but it definitely lived up to them, this is probably one of my favourite books iāve read in a while. it managed to be macabre and hilarious and heartbreaking all at once, and balanced the humour & horror elements well. the mystery aspects and plot twists also felt pretty well written, having both plenty of foreshadowing while not being immediately obvious.
another big strength is the remarkably compelling characters. despite there being a pretty large cast, and obviously some characters being more major than others, all of the Houses felt fleshed out and unique and had their own moments to shine. i also mentioned before reading I wasnāt sure how I felt about the idea of Gideon & Harrowās relationship, but i ended up absolutely loving their complicated dynamic - it developed very naturally, and even when they came into conflict later in the book, it never felt contrived.
tldr; i cried a lot. amazing! 10/10. i think reading this has fundamentally altered my brain chemistry
(Fun fact: not including this post, iāve written approximately 12,400 words about Gideon the Ninth in these liveblogs. thatās longer than the undergrad dissertation that I was supposed to be doing instead of this)
also thank you so much to everyone who's expressed interest and encouraged me in this liveblog - it was very unexpected but iām glad people liked it! given i already have a copy of Harrow the Ninth, would people be interested in me continuing these liveblogs for that book?
#lemon natalia reads the locked tomb#gideon the ninth#the locked tomb liveblog#the locked tomb#tlt#also to be fair i was reading this relatively slowly so maybe thats where the pacing issues come in#might be different reading it all in one sitting
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