#going back to the beginning with the insight i have now is so interesting bc

[homolobotomized]

sakamoto days chapter six

#sakamoto days #sakadays #taro sakamoto #nagumo sakamoto days #shut up homo #nagumo intro is so fucking funny #going back to the beginning with the insight i have now is so interesting bc #the '*we* specicialize in preventing assassinations' comment is so 😃😃😃 #me when its been 8 years and i still haven't forgiven anyone #anywayyy #read sakamoto days boy

[amethystina]

I was casually rereading whtd, as one does, and reading the comments (because i love the extra insight you give about the information that we're limited to in Ga On's pov) when i stumbled upon this comment: "… sort everything out? (and no one dies along the way, hopefully) He'll be very happy for them." about lawyer Ko and that in combination with the "minor character death tag" has made me Extremele worried about him. (plus you have also said that the kidnapping tag is not the one we should be worried about!!) I know you probably can't say anything about this because of spoilers, but know that it has been noted!!

Also kind of want a scene wherein lawyer Ko, Yo Han and Ga On are all together. Their dynamic would be so exquisite!! (obviously no pressure to actually write this, just a thought)

Anyway, whtd remains so good even after already having read and reread it in its entirety at least 5 times (and some scenes/chapters much more than that) (my ao3 history says i've visited whtd 200 times… so uh. yeah. i'm normal). I love slow burn so much (to the point where most romance book leave me disappointed bc they MCs get together like 100 pages in), i just love reading/watching the build up of a relationship and you write it so well!

I guess i just wanted to thank you for writing! I hope you're doing well <3

I'm usually very careful not to spoil what's going to happen in future chapters but I'll make an exception this time and flat-out say that you don't have to worry — Lawyer Ko is not going to die. I would literally never forgive myself if I killed him xD Not to mention that you all would probably come for my head if I did. He's just too amazing to be killed off!

So, rest assured, he's not going to die :)

And there will be at least one scene with Ga On, Yo Han, and Lawyer Ko in the same room unless my plans change dramatically. Which they rarely do, but "rarely" isn't the same as "never" so we'll see. Truth be told, though, I'll probably try really hard to keep it because I totally agree — the dynamic would be SPECTACULAR. So yeah. Stay tuned for that, I guess? ;)

You've definitely read Who Holds the Devil more times than I have x'D At least in its entirety. I mean, I reread the chapters at least twice (often three or four times) but I rarely start from the beginning and read it all the way through. I did at the end of my long break last year to get back into the swing of it, but it's difficult to find the time for that since I always have to focus on the next chapter. Which is a bit stressful at times, I will admit, since it puts more pressure on me to remember things at the top of my head (or at least know where to look if I want to check any details) but I'm lucky enough to be blessed with a really good memory, so that helps.

Anyway, I'm so glad you're enjoying it 💜 I honestly didn't plan for the slow burn to be quite this slow when I started the fic, but I can't say I have any regrets. Much like you, I just enjoy it too much ;) There's something so incredibly satisfying about delving this deep into Ga On and Yo Han's feelings and slowly developing relationship. And I guess that's also why I can't help throwing out tidbits of information in the comments, since there's usually so, so much happening within this story that you readers don't see (especially within Yo Han's head).

And I'm still not sure how to handle the knowledge that some people read the comments specifically to find those tidbits. Like, I don't mind you doing so! Go right ahead! They're public and all that. But it kind of blows my mind that some of you are so interested in what I'm writing that you'll do that. It feels a bit surreal to me, but in a good way? Like I'm an ACTUAL writer or something xD

Anyway, thank you so much for this kind and supportive message 💜 I definitely needed it right now because things honestly aren't all that great. Partly because of overall exhaustion and restlessness — mostly due to work — but even more so since it's now been a month since I posted a chapter and the requests for me to please update soon are starting to come in. I swear, it happens like clockwork every time I don't post within a month. And, what makes it worse, is that it's often from people I don't see comments from when I actually DO upload more frequently. As in, they don't comment on the fic itself, only when they think I don't update fast enough. Which is pretty disheartening, not going to lie.

Tragically enough, once the month mark passes, I have to start bracing myself whenever I get a comment or ask because there's now a 50/50 chance that it'll be someone asking me to update soon. They usually try to be nice about it, but it kind of always fails.

So, again, thank you for this. Because while I know that I should take my time and update on my own schedule, it's not always easy to remember that when people start asking me why it's taking so long. This was a nice change of pace and I'm very grateful for your kindness. Thank you 💜

#Amethystina Replies #Anonymous #... well that turned into a bit of a bummer #Sorry about that #I think I'm just a bit moody in general tonight #I actually have 8k written on the next chapter #But as usual I don't know exactly how long it'll end up being #So that's not saying much #I also admit that I'm kind of dragging my feet a little #Because it's another chapter that's very exhausting to write #And since I'm already exhausted it's difficult to find the energy to write #I'm not one of those who need motivation since I can push through most types of writer's block #But I DO need to be able to string sentences together #And I can't guarantee that in my current state

[landhoehoehoe]

Work in Progress - Episode 1

Hello my loves and welcome to this new project of mine!🫶🏻

Here I will be giving you some insights on finished stories: how I came up with certain ideas, the meanings behind song recs and titles etc.

I hope my train of thought is interesting for you :)

Episode 1: "The Line" Series - Logan Sargeant

Title:

The title was the last thing I added when the story was already finished and I knew I was going to split it into 3 parts. Since I suck at coming up with titles I wanted to do something creative where the 3 titles have a continuous theme kind of like the „You“ series with Dennis Hauger. 

Now I was on the search for a connecting theme and the only thing I could come up with was a line since I kept thinking about a finish line bc Logan and y/n are both racing drivers. 

So what can you do with a line? Cross it.

Whether it‘s the finish line in a race or the line between being friends and lovers/ the line between a friendship and a relationship.

But before you cross that line, it usually gets a bit blurry until you don‘t know what side you‘re on anymore. That‘s what happens in Part 1 (blur the line): the line between them gets increasingly blurry as they grow closer.

Ultimately in Part 2 (across the line),  the inevitable happens and they cross the line: The morning after their drunk night, they are across the line, but they have not made it yet. It is not: When you're across the line the race is over. No, it is: When you're across the line, everything gets harder (bc I'm a dramatic writer lol)

Once you‘ve crossed the line there‘s no turning back. You can't exactly go back to just being friends, and the future is very fucking scary, especially when you're two young, up and coming F2 drivers.

It‘s all or nothing so Logan puts it all on the line (Part 3) when he finally confronts y/n in Spa. 

Storyline / Plot ideas / Process of Writing:

At first you must know that I primarily started writing this fic bc someone requested a Logan fic. It was literally never my plan to write such a huge Logan story but it kind of evolved on its own 😂

„Keep talking, y/n. I‘m listening.“ // „At least he listens to me when I talk.“

 I started with a „prompt“ I saw on TikTok where a girl was counting down things guys do that are attractive and this was one of them: Listening to you when you think nobody's listening.

Originally this fic was supposed to be way shorter than it turned out to be and I thought I’d only be writing that one scene (of them in the restaurant) + maybe a scene before and after that. 

Idk if you noticed but I like adding little things like taglines and callbacks, so I added the "See you when I overtake you" in the beginning and wanted to kind of make it Logan and y/n's thing.

They also make 2 deals in the story:

The first deal is made in part 2, where they kiss for the first time to determine Logan's drunk talent. It sparks their relationship/ makes them cross the line and kicks off their relationship as lovers.

The second deal is made at the very end of part 3, where they decide to forgive each other for their wrong doings. This deal also sort of kicks off their relationship, but in a healthy, communicative way. It resolves the last issues between them.

Then there are little things like the special coffee blend, the champagne scene, drunk Dennis etc. I can't really explain where they came from. They only came along as I was writing and I went with the flow and my imagination :)

Onto the crash in part 3. I feel like I have to explain it a bit further bc I feel like I cannot for the life of me describe/ come up with realistic crashes. This crash was 100% inspired by/ copied from the collision of Hamilton and Alonso at Spa I think it was, where Hamilton's whole rear end of the car went up in the air. Maybe this helps your imagination a little bit 😅

Song recs:

Song recs, my favorite part of writing stories lol

To be honest with you, I wrote almost the whole thing listening to "The Monster" over and over again, but the other songs fit the vibe of the parts better.

Part 1: blur the line

Electric Love - BØRNS

This song is the definition of young, easy love for me. It's so upbeat and makes you feel like nothing can go wrong. It's the excitement of falling in love, the feeling of your heart beating faster whenever you see that one specific person. This is exactly what Part 1 is all about: pure fluff and crushing on each other 🥰

Part 2: across the line

High For This - The Weeknd

Who writes better songs to set the mood for smut than The Weeknd??? The build of tension, the chorus, the lyrics, everything just fits so well ugh 😫 No further explanation needed tbh

The Monster - Eminem feat. Rihanna

Literally none of the message of the song has anything to do with this story I guess, I just like the way it makes me think of a couple kind of singing to each other. Crisis, drama, tension, uneasiness.

Also look at this phrase in the song: "Well that's not fair."

- Both Y/n and Logan have a moment where they've probably thought: That's not fair.

For y/n it was directly after their night together where Logan asks her to forget about it. For Logan it was at breakfast when y/n tells Dennis that Logan's not her type. They're both disappointed in the other and don't think it's fair that they're being treated that way but they don't realize how much they've hurt the other.

Part 3: all on the line

The Heart Wants What It Wants - Selena Gomez

Logan and y/n in this story are the DEFINITION of "the heart wants what it wants"! This is also almost all part 3 is about: That they're trying to go against their hearts, trying to do the rational thing and move on.... but their hearts won't stop beating for the other ;)

Also this is a very modern fairytale... at least kind of... these two kids get a happy ending lol 🤭

Pictures of You - The Last Goodnight

Again, the message of this song doesn't technically fit with the story but I like this song a lot and it's just such an "ending the story" kind of song for me? Like, good vibes, everything has turned out good?

This song is also talking about pictures a lot (I know, in a different sense but still, pictures are pictures), and I can only imagine how many pictures were made when Logan and y/n kissed on the track in the end :)

Also just imagine them staring at each other, then they crash into each other as the chorus starts, oml

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

I guess in the end this whole story was simply all about letting yourself fall in love. About taking the risk of following your heart. 🫶🏻

I hope you liked the story and this very first episode of Work in Progress :)

Episode 2 will hopefully be all about how the "You" series (Dennis Hauger) was created, I'll see you guys soon and stay healthy❤️

#formula 2 #formula 1 #formula 2 imagine #logan sargeant #logan sargeant smut #logan sargeant imagine #carlin racing #williams racing #f1 smut #f1 fic #work in progress #landhoehoehoe wip #wip 1 #episode 1 #f1 x y/n #f1 x reader

[rosyjuly]

ok in an effort to prove I have other interests than Toto Wolff’s downfall, I would like to ask you about wine cellar fic first of all bc I need to sue you for emotional damages and secondly because I am romantic at heart so I would like to know what happens afterwards!!! do they eventually figure it out? Does mick go through a series of meaningless hook-ups that leave him feeling empty and seb witnesses it with clenched teeth bc like mick is young and should be trying things out this is good this is what seb wanted except he absolutely hates it? these are just some of my thoughts obviously please take this wherever you wish

incredible that i'm answering this Later and our interest in toto's undoing has only increased... taking mick on little scooter cruises around the track huh. anyway!

as all of my fics wine cellar verse does have an eventual happy ending... they go upstairs and then mick is like ah i gotta take a call and goes to the bathroom to stare at himself in the mirror. insane that he looks the same, like before-- like before.

well. they were friends, right, that doesn't change with the break up. it probably wasn't even a break up to begin with -- they spend time together, still. they go hiking, mick goes over for dinner. it's very normal. he signs with merc, discusses it with seb in detail. roc happens and he watches seb flirt with thierry and okay, so it still hurts, but it's fine, they can be friends. mick wishes he had a little more self respect, but he doesn't.

then the season starts; he travels with merc. they have always texted quite a bit, but he wants seb's insight with the sim and the other work he does for merc, and it's always so good to discuss paddock politics with seb. he was holding back in the previous years, trying to respect seb's loyalty to aston, but that's done, now.

anyway long story short, one time seb comes home from an eintracht game and he's tipsy, almost drunk, and mick just got done with the sim and marketing duties and it's 11pm and they're on the phone, and seb's telling him that he looks good in black, but he looks good in everything, so. and mick is a racing driver. he will always maximize opportunities. so he sends a pic of himself, where he's not wearing fireproofs and the racing suit's arms are tied around his waist -- angela took it (winked at him after airdropping it). and he can hear seb's sharp intake of breath and then they have fucknasty phone sex about it.

#as they say in mamma mia and then they DOT DOT DOT #thank you A :)))) #sebmick #wine cellar #rosy.ask #and yes mick has a bunch of hookups trying to get over him. #as he should #as he does in my elevator adventures lol

[quillyfied]

WWDITS S4E3 thoughts and spoilers:

- pretty sure The Boy is growing so fast bc for a year he just had Laszlo to rely on for his energy vampire needs. And now the whole gang’s back home. Plus all of Nandor’s wives that one time. Of course the kid’s growing like a weed, he’s getting way more nutrition, both of the physical and the psychic varieties.

- Uncle Memo Vs Lazzo, the child-rearing wars begin. I adore every facet of this. Especially Laszlo learning what being a parent actually means to him and softening his approach to Baby Colin’s budding interests.

- Nandor…Nandor. My dude. My guy. Legendary warrior and diplomat. Sure, sure, a bigger dick is exactly what’s going to make you happier. Just like a wife will. And a trip to find yourself. Listen I’m laughing bc it is funny but also I’m laughing bc it is uncomfortably close to that universal struggle of “it doesn’t matter what you change on the surface, if you aren’t happy with YOURSELF, you’ll never truly find peace.” (Also, happy with someone in the tag pointing out that the way Marwa phrased it, Nandor either couldn’t get it up after his wish, or possibly blew his load too fast, and either is immensely funny to me. Hoping we get to spend a little time with Nandor being forced to think of Guillermo and all he’s done for Nandor every time Nandor wants to use his new package bc what an intriguing concept.)

- Moment of greatly amused silence at the whole Richie Suck and Doctor Tom tale. Bc yeah, Doctor Tom probably wasn’t great for Richie Suck, keeping Richie tired and underfed and inserting himself into Richie’s art, but Nadja spent the whole episode cussing him out and belittling him and even when Doctor Tom finally died it still didn’t give Nadja what she wanted from Richie. Don’t know quite what that means in the greater metaphor of the show but it’s the first time besides Guillermo that we’re seeing a familiar have any kind of upper hand with his master and I’m curious about what that means for future episodes, and how Nadja is going to react to that. Bc Nadja is still the most dismissive of Guillermo in the house. Even Laszlo acknowledges his skills and sometimes even his insights. Nadja just spent a year with him, supposedly, what on earth did they get up to in that time??

- Marwa is so pretty and so smart and gosh I’m waiting for the episode when she realizes she doesn’t have to settle for Nandor. They keep referring to her as undead, I’m just curious about what that means in the grand scheme of things.

- the Colin Robinson YouTube show is adorable, the new promo with Laszlo mentioning he got lost with a guy named Freddie is intriguing, whoever is in charge of marketing for this show is doing AMAZING and I hope they’re getting paid what they are so rightfully due for the genius.

#wwdits #wwdits spoilers #wwdits season 4 #yes of course I’m mad cackling about possible nandermo advancements via dick alteration #but I’m a little more occupied with unpacking Richie and Tom right now

[gayspock]

ALSO jool jool jool

im still very torn on jool. i think ultimately... i dont know. i dont entirely GET why she's here, still. like i mean i get it- she doesn't have anywhere to go, or whatever- but narratively speaking.

like i could understand some arguments. maybe, i figure, her purpose was to balance out the different groups (i.e, talyn crew vs moya crew). and i suppose that makes some sort of sense, both in terms of numbers and dynamics- but it still just isnt... enough for me?

because like. my PROBLEM isnt her being an "annoyance". i mean- ok, the screaming was too much to begin with, but theyve dialled it back so im fine with that, now. but like, i havent gone through too many forum threads/discussions on her, but i can easily see people writing her off as the woooorst bc she's "annoying" in general which. LOOK...

like, sure, i get it could be too much for some ppl still. but me? usually i dont mind if there's a character, who just causes issues for the others, and i dont mind if there's a character whos whiny, and i dont mind if there's a character whos kind of written to be "unlikable". im usually v fine with that, do you know what i mean? like- if it makes sense for the character to be that way then im okay with it. and i think its more reasonable for characters to sometimes be in that role, and sometimes even necessary.

and i mean that ESPECIALLY when like.. frankly i think the character *is* kinda justified in their upset/distress and is lashing out bc of it. like i dont think it makes any amount of sense for everyone, all of the time to take things happily and in their stride and its odd when ppl expect that of characters. like yeah shes fucking bitchy. i would be TOO in her situation.

my problem starts is when like... it kind of feels like thats the only purpose they have? or they lack depth in other regards. and with jool, ehhhh uhm.... ehhhh. uhm. ehrm.

bc like thus far... she really hasnt DONE anything except be a plot device at times, to cause further conflict for the others. we dont really have the time to explore her properly. and it IS kinda odd for her to still be there with them. we dont really see a decent exploration of her with the others... she just acts out, gets yelled at, end of... and i feel like, when she does cause problems, its never... interesting?

like- forgive me, i have issues a bit with rygel too. BUT when he caused conflict, at least early on, it was with more purpose. he had good scenes with zhaan. he sold them out, a few times, but it was a calculated decision that made sense for who he was and in turn who the rest of them arent. he's there, sort of, as this constant reminder of how they started out with respect to one another. and he himself does have good scenes - like in the last 2 parter, where he just killed that charrid, or that scene all the way back in s1 where he was imprisoned with that other leader, etc... theyre interesting beats, and good insights into that type of character

but thus far we really.. havent gotten that with jool. and when she DOES cause problems, a lot of it is just... "oh jool fucked it up again! booo!" LIKE... i dont know it just feels lazy and like she is there for no reason other than to cause problems. and its a shame bc she does... have an interesting enough setup that they havent touched on, like, at all. which i dont BLAME them for- theyve had a lot to do, thus far- but like... also?

if they dont have time for her... then why introduce her at that point in the show? its how i felt with, like, the first time they reintroduced stark. you could so easily have taken him out of those 2 episodes he was in, before he died, instead of swinging back and forth with it. i mean it. instead it just felt wishy washy, with the way he was brought into the show, too.

and with jool its like... even when she first appeared she really didnt do anything, in my opinion, except scream and write them out of corners. and like i said- she hasnt done anything interesting since. and to me, it therefore just feels... like why is she here? i feel bad, bc she is starting to warm up to me-

bc like im saying all this, bc we just got her first episode where i liked her (that is, revenging angel). she fucks up terribly. BUT it isnt just for the conceit of the episode- i mean, well it is, but we also explore HER more properly, and see her honest thoughts, and we get that nice bit of her with d'argo. like she isnt JUST existing to cause a problem - she's actually a character in her own right, which ike... you know... i think thats a far enough thing to ask of a character. and its like they didnt even have to give her sympathetic reasons behind stuff, which they did here- they just had to, like.. give her some dimension, other than what they did

anyways. i hope they build on her more from now on but im also unsure of when the hell they could. im certain we're going to be building back up to something mad in the upcoming episodes so god knows.

#Egg.txt #farscape liveblog #its just kinda odd i think thats my only gripe with farscape as we go on #i didnt find it an issue early on but i think the longer the show goes on it gets SO much better in many ways BUT #there's odd little characters like jool and maybe also stark wherein like... #i dont think every character has to be some insanely deep and purposeful writing decision #but with both of them they could so easily be taken out sometimes and i think they just make odd choices with them sometimes yeah? #as opposed to a lot earlier on in s1 or so #i feel like then they really had the time to develop all characters at once slowly and gradually which i really liked about the show #i guess they now just dont have the space to do that which is a shame bc toher stuff is worth it but yeah #ah well

[blue-myrmeca]

I have once again embarked on the epic quest of watching as many Bollywood movies as I can stomach and I keep wanting to annoy my friends with the reviews so now I'm going to come here to get my thoughts out of my silly little head.

If anyone also follows @romanceyourdemons please lower your expectations immediately I will not be as insightful and succinct and awesome and intelligent as they are I'm just gonna gush.

Anyway Here's Agneepath (2012). Massive Spoiler Alert.

I was not expecting to like this movie as much as I did. I'm a big fan of Hrithik Roshan so I have been aware of Agneepath for a long time, he was super stoked to be a part of it etc, but the story didn't seem like one that I would really vibe with. 'Boy watches father violently murdered, decides to devote rest of his life to revenge, more at six' isn't really my bread and butter but BOY howdy was I wrong!!

Assorted things I loved:

Hrithik Roshan's beautiful face. It has been too long, my love, I'm so sorry I've been obsessed with Aamir Khan recently.

Priyanka Chopra *not* playing a Mary Sue. When she plays a character, she does SUCH a good job and I love to see it. She's so freaking pretty and good at dancing come back to India plz maam.

Katrina Kaif was there for literally one dance number???? She went off, but lordy that's an expensive dance number. I kept thinking she was going to come back, but no.

This is a dark movie with dark themes, much violence and swearing. Hrithik and Priyanka are clearly living together as an unmarried couple in the slums where Priyanka's mom is a prostitute. Do they kiss? Don't be ridiculous, staring at each other intently is all we can do. Never change Bollywood ily.

Hrithik Roshan's Angry Head Shake. Viju (his character) is So Mad all the time and has to keep it in and I LOVE how tortured he can make his eyes while the rest of his face stays calm. It's incredible.

Okay actual story things. I thought it was so interesting the nuance this film managed. Viju is not a good guy. He kills a man-sorry-police officer (AS A CHILD) to cover up the fact that he didn't identify the local Big Crime Boss in a lineup for a murder that he witnessed. He does a lot of bad things, ends up as that crime boss's first lieutenant, etc, but gosh dang it you root for him bc everyone he's moving against is worse.

Like, you know from the beginning that he's doing all of this so that he can gain the power he needs to put himself on level footing with the man who killed his father. And that guy is Super Extremely Bad, so you want Viju to succeed. You know that he aligned himself with this other crime boss bc he witnessed him say that he hated the man who killed his father. And you know that, even though he supports Crime Boss's activities, he gives all his money to charity and still lives in the slum that took him in as a child when his mom abandoned him (after he murdered a cop).

ALSO, he is playing all of the ends against the middle. Informing on Crime Boss to the cops, informing Crime Boss about the cops movements, stopping Father Killer from encroaching on Crime Boss's territory, promising Father Killer a foothold in Crime Boss's territory--Viju is everywhere and in everything.

He is full of contradictions, and that's what makes the story work. He is a brutal man because he loves so deeply and radically. He has a heart of gold that cannot allow injustice to stand, so he kills and lies and helps move drugs bc he sees it all as a means to an inevitable and inescapable end. He will kill the man who killed his father, he will free his hometown from that man's influence and he will do whatever he needs to do to get him to that point.

The film doesn't ask you to agree with Viju. It's pretty clear about the fact that he has 'fallen from grace' and landed on a path that only brings more death and violence and hurts the people he loves. It doesn't ask you to think that Viju is correct. But it does ask you to understand how this man could find himself in this position. How he could decide that this was what needed to be done.

It shows how partially effective the police are, how he's willing to work with them, but doesn't trust them to accomplish what he needs to get done. It shows how he does what's necessary to gain respect and power in the underworld but when given the opportunity, he rejects the morals of it (he frees a bunch of girls that were going to be sold at auction). It shows his mother railing against who he's become for the whole film, but in the end, recognizing that he did manage to do a good thing.

Gosh it's so heartbreaking, he finally kills the man who killed his father (in the exact same way his father was killed, love that symmetry), frees his home from his reign of terror and is dying in his mother's arms-- and this scourge of the underworld looks up at his momma with the saddest sweetest eyes and asks her if he did the right thing. She has disagreed with his choices every step of the way, but the result was, in fact, the right thing. He finally gets his mothers' acceptance.

Anyway its a well done film that asks a lot of interesting questions and doesn't force answers to them down your throat, just lets you sit in the questions. And that's a quality I like in a movie. Action sequences were great, characters were consistent and built well. Fricken loved it.

Okay that's it. If you got to the end, thanks I guess? I told you this was going to be a mess so i have nothing to apologize for. The end.

[nyarados]

which one do i prefer? ooooh thats a tough question. honestly i won't know for sure until i finish legends arceus I think. which, might take a while because theres like a hundred side quests and ofc my completionist ass needs to do them all 😭 story-wise, I'd have to go with sv right now, but that may change.

I always lean towards grass starters so i can't help ya there :,) the quaxly line is incredibly goofy looking imo & there's no shame in going with what the heart wants, even if it differs from your usual choice - i ended up going with cyndaquil in legends instead of rowlet!

i hadn't shiny hunted very often before sv, but when i did i had incredible odds 😅 like i tried chain fishing and the very first mon i pulled up was shiny. got pretty lucky hatching snivy eggs too iirc. but i could never get the hang of chaining, the grass shakes always looked exactly the same to me 💀

yes! xy is peak pokemon fashion. i bought so many clothes in that game lmao. legends arceus has some neat clothes but they're mostly just reskins of the same few designs that I've seen, so far.

no spoilers, that i can do! but imo it's really heartwarming and a little heartbreaking too. there's this one character i disliked at first, but over time they grew on me like a mold (affectionate). in terms of the l:a story, you have a god given quest to catch em all & you kinda just solve everybody else's problems along the way, it seems.

if you are interested in getting scarlet or violet, definitely look at the version exclusives because they've got some cool late game mons. i like the scarlet ones better than violet but i wanted my pretty knight lmao. i just traded my exclusives for my boyfriend's & it all worked out :]

the last game I played was sumo but i stopped after beating the 1st gym 😅 been thinking about going back and playing through some older games since i do have em all on my 3ds now...

& dw about reply late! I'm not typically online on weekends very often either nowadays :)

- 🌸

ohhh I'm such a sucker for sidequests too like what's the point if I don't finish it all and help out all these poor people 🤨

nah I just feel like I'm betraying my water starter roots 😭 but god if pokemon doesn't nail the grass starters every time!!!!! if I end up with legends arceus I can't deny it I would probably choose rowlet 🦉🌱 hehe hisuian typhlosion looks a lil funny to me. and honestly I'm not tooooo familiar with samurott's design I think? so every time I see the hisuian version it just looks the same to me 😅 but I love what they did with the decidueye variant!!

LMAO yes that does sound pretty lucky. I've never shiny hunted before period so I'll probably have to look up how to even shiny hunt when I begin doing it

well I say no spoilers but I think I may have seen some things abt scarlet violet's lore regarding the profs being the reason for time travel.... I stopped reading after that initial glance though. nauurrr not a mould 😭😭😭 but was it ummm gavin? nvm I just googled I meant arven 💀💀💀 but was it him? I also heard that nemona is very love her or hate her 🤔

yes I'll definitely look at the dex if I choose to buy don't you worry 🫡 I remember wanting scarlet more just bc of the prof 👁👁 but I was seeing lotssss saying violet was better.... so this is interesting insight from you 🤔

#I see why you use the coloured font now this thing is fun and definitely underused!!!! #reply #flower anon

[harkingspot]

rand and the people around him

cw: mentions of man1pulation!!

an insight/analysis (?) on the dynamic between rand and the people around him. the people he "loves"

okay so ive been WANTING to discuss this for quite some time. but then my tumblr got CANNED??? and so i moved hehe. but whatevs ANYWAY. remember in the finale, when rand said “bravo, reagan! the way you man1pulated that bear into thinking you give a shit about your coworkers” THEN IT CLICKED. of course he’d say that because that’s obviously what rand does.

rand and reagan

he’s spent years ‘building’ his relationship with reagan, hopefully earning her trust, so she’d be compliant and not go looking for trouble. 

it’s evident in the brainwashing scene that he doesn’t exactly CARE abt reagan, he just needed her for his own benefit. 

she wasn’t his daughter, but merely his "little insurance policy”

before brett came into her life, before she got along with the team, reagan ran to rand when talking her issues

even bear-o can tell how little to no shit rand ACTUALLY gives about his own daughter

“but hark, what about ep 8 where he desperately wanted to prove that reagan was his daughter?” BC IF SHE WASNT HIS DAUGHTER, BYE-BYE COGNITO INC

in conclusion for this section, we can safely assume rand is a sick and heartless bastard who used his daughter’s vulnerability as a tool to gain power

rand and tamiko

i think this is an interesting dive, especially considering how OBSESSED rand is with tamiko (e.g. he still calls her his “wife”)

something about their marriage seemed off from the beginning. from jr’s picture, we can assume that their relationship was never the healthiest. with her constantly being dismissive towards both him AND reagan

BUT LET’S GET BACK TO RAND BC THIS IS ABT HIM

“family is like an experiment” finishing the show put THIS particular quote in a completely different light

he definitely meant that LITERALLY. this isn’t love. he never loved tamiko, and i stand by that

rand is someone who builds nonstop. he builds machines. he built his own company. so why not build a family?

THAT’S WHAT I MEAN, like he treats his family like an invention that he can use and control

he ABSOLUTELY HATES IT when tamiko is succeeding in life (e.g her book, her wedding, etc) because he probably spent most of their marriage thinking she needed him

rand and jr

OOOOH BOY WHERE DO I BEGIN *rubs hands mischiveously*

I ACTUALLY ALREADY HAVE A POST ON THIS

but basically i think that the entirety of their relationship/partnership, rand has ALWAYS had the upper hand

the way jr seems so threatened by sober rand??? despite being so confident he can outsmart him–

jr doesnt care abt rand bc most of the time he's dr.unk out of his mind

but when he's sober??? EVERYTHING FLIPS 180 AND IT'S LIKE WOAH

jr is aware of how man1pulative rand is, shown in his change of attitude when finding out he's sober

i think if we were to get a flashback, we can finally catch a glimpse of the power imbalance in their relationship

and maybe some angst bc i rlly need that

i truly believe that rand did man1pulate jr in some way,, which is why he's so corrupt now compared to when he was younger

when he "had more hair and values"

in conclusion, i think he effed everyone up HARDCORE. like that guy is EVIL, you cannot fight me on that. we've seen enough of his assface to know that's for sure

#inside job #rand ridley #reagan ridley #tamiko ridley #jr scheimpough #I ABSOLUTELY LOOOOVE TALKING ABT THIS STUFF #especially when it comes to jr and rand like u know those two got smth #THEY HAD SMTH IM TELLING YOU #*rattles the bars of my cage* #YOU GUYS CANNOT KEEP ME HERE FOR LONG #hark goes insane #theories #????

[thefools-journey]

So. Some of you may be wondering why we haven’t written a whole ton about the secondaries or what have you. Here’s the reason: we were waiting for them to end before we really dug into the problems we were noticing. We felt that it was only fair to wait for the routes to finish so that we had an understanding of the writers’ vision. Who knew, we thought, maybe they would see the problems themselves and course correct, maybe they are building to something we can’t quite see yet and these issues will have actual payoff, maybe-

In light of Muriel and Lucio’s endings, and the general mess that has dominated Portia’s route for a year plus now, we are breaking our silence. We are actually going to talk about this shit show.

The fandom at large has talked about a bunch of issues with the secondaries but for me, the cardinal sin, the thing that really all the issues lead back to, is this: the writers lost sight of the tarot themes which so strongly defined and held together the primary routes. Let me explain.

The primary routes each center around three thematic cores:

The Love Interest’s Major Arcana and its Reversed/Upright meanings

The MC’s Fool’s Journey, both how it can go right and how it can go wrong

A question about the MC’s identity and their relationship to said identity

Asra’s route asks: Who was the MC? How does the MC navigate a past they cannot and will not remember? What do they owe a past they cannot remember? How do they handle the revelations of what Asra, Nadia, Julian, etc did? How do you right the past? Can you?

Nadia’s route asks: Who is the MC? The MC has no past. Are they the Fool only? Are they actually the same person they were? How can they tell? Who are they, really? Are they an imposter? No one can answer these questions for them.

Julian’s route asks: Who will the MC become? How does the MC see their future? Is there anything worth fighting for for that future? What will become of them and their loved ones? 

Now, if you notice, these themes are expertly woven throughout the primaries. Asra’s past dominates his route, Nadia is also missing memories and trying to construct her identity both with her family and with Vesuvia, and Julian’s fear of the future drives his flailing for control. Asra has to learn to take a broader view of his actions to get his Upright Ending, Nadia has to learn to trust herself and those around her for hers, and Julian has to learn how to let go for his. These lessons are the issues their cards stand for. The primaries are so dang elegant and delicate in their handlings of theme it is honestly awe-inspiring.

Thematically, the secondary routes have completely lost their hearts. First of all, the MC does not have strong, core questions which need to be answered. They just don’t. I suppose the writers did not want to retread old territory (which is weird considering how tightly bound the primaries are; it really tricks you into thinking you’re living the same events but from different angles depending on your route) but they did not replace the old with anything new. Muriel’s route is, on the surface, about discovering and owning his past, the good and the bad. Why not tie MC’s self-discovery to that story? Or they could have taken the angle that Muriel’s route is about convincing him to be present and active in the world while MC builds an identity for themself outside of Asra, the shop, and the memories they cannot retrieve. Why not tie the investigation themes running through Portia’s early route back to MC and their past? Portia has the unique angle of being as in the dark as MC about all of this, why not discover the past together? And for goodness’ sake, Lucio has no future when his route begins, why not tie that to his need for growth, responsibility, and MC’s own future between the Fool, the Devil, or something mortal and in between?

Secondly, the routes lost their tarot backbone. We have a primer on how to get specific endings for each LI and it still holds, but the writers did not follow through on the thematic coherence of each secondary. The Hermit is looking for something, be it perspective, insight, a solution to a problem, whatever. The key here is that the Hermit must find or learn what they are searching for, this thing must change their understanding of the world, and finally, they must bring this lesson back to the world from which they retreated. Can someone please enlighten me as what exactly Muriel learns then teaches the world around him? Nothing Muriel learns from Morga, MC, or even the Hermit ties back into anything. The Devil warns that you are out of control and exerting a lot of manipulative, destructive behavior on the world around you. It asks you to take responsibility for yourself and your actions. So can someone tell me why Lucio’s route actively avoids any interaction or reflection on two of Lucio’s biggest victims: Muriel and Julian? Why does the route only try to make amends with the “easier” of his victims in the cast? The Star is first and foremost the card of clarity, the light at the end of the tunnel. Perseverance, if you will. Yet Portia’s route has been the muddiest of the trio; the writers drop the investigation aspect of her route in favor just handing her and MC information they could have easily found and muddying the waters with Tasya (she blows up the palace but it’s all okay bc she has a secret daughter Julian never thought to bring up or mention) and the complete removal of the Devil as antagonist. 

So that leaves just the Fool’s Journey trying to hold this stool up with only one leg. And well...it doesn’t go well. At best, the secondary route books pay the barest surface level homage to the themes of the individual cards. At worst, they ignore the cards completely. Muriel's Moon book has nothing to do with illusions or delusions or lies or even an Alice in the Looking Glass upside down world. Portia's back half is a complete and utter mess, starting with her Temperance book being so badly mangled that Muriel's aftermath book does it better. Lucio's route too bungles the Tower and the Star. There just isn't enough here to carry the routes alone.

Add to the core loss the loss of intertextuality. The primary routes are very good, even great but they too do have their moments and mistakes. What helps strengthen them when the cores stumble is how the trio is woven together. Things you learn in Asra's route can inform the way you play Nadia's, for example. Julian's route informs what is going on in Asra's route and slots some missing puzzle pieces together. Nadia's route tells you of the power struggles she is facing and informs the other two routes' handling of Julian and his trial. On and on, the three routes support each other because they are built out of the same basic plot beats, just tackled in very different ways. Now, the writers are allowed to try and write whatever they want. They apparently wanted to be more experimental and less tied down to an overarching plot with the three secondaries. Okay, fine, they are allowed to do that. The problem is that they sacrificed one of the key strengths of the primary trio and didn't replace said strength with anything else. They also, on some level, harmed the very premise of the game, which is that only the player's choices and route selected change the overall plot. Instead of feeling like legitimate possibilities or offshoots of the same timeline/plot, the secondaries feel almost like Arcana AUs. The secondaries throw out all relations to the primaries and each other as quickly as possible and for what? 

It is probably the height of arrogance to suggest fixes for works whose behind the scenes I do not know. At the same time, some small, obvious changes could have salvaged Muriel and maybe Lucio's endings (rip Portia). Instead of having the Hermit appear as a disappointing cameo, why not have him say something cryptic to Muriel, then have MC start trying to seal the Devil. Then let Muriel use his forget me mark to cloak MC and hide them from the Devil's attacks. Protecting MC by hiding them from Lucio, keeping him focused on Muriel, seems to me a simple third solution between Muriel's desire to run and his desire to never fight again. It lets him stand up to Lucio and let him have it while holding onto who Muriel has become. The Reversed End would have MC try to draw Lucio's attention at some point, disrupting the sealing, and eventually leading to Muriel killing the Devil. With Lucio's Upright End, I just have to ask: why doesn't MC fully claim the power of the Fool instead of the Devil? We don't need the other Arcana involved in this fight; we have three routes that demonstrate that. Just have MC pull Scout into the conflict, then have Lucio tell MC he believes in them, then add his power to the mix. You got yourself a full Fool who leaves Scout guarding the realm until they and Lucio's mortal bodies fail and they return to the realm to be together forever. Boom, you're done, you can even add some ambiguous lines so that players can decide how happy their MC is with this arrangement, send me the check.

Here is the bottom line. Our group is full of aroace, and several combinations therein, individuals. We are the last group who should have gotten into a dating sim of all things. But the Arcana did something with the primaries that was special; they wrote a compelling plot with dazzling lore, complex characters, and strong themes wrapped up in a dating sim bow. The writers know better and we know they know better. I do not know what happened with the secondaries, especially around books 10-11, which is where minor issues slowly start spiraling into major ones, but it is clear that Nix Hydra needed some more planning before they released these routes. Hopefully they will learn.

TL;DR: Nix Hydra fired their tarot consultants about eighteen months ago and it has wrecked their secondary routes until they were just embarrassments. They never intended for the secondary routes to even exist and once they had to make them, they scrambled and threw out everything that made the primaries work.

- Mod Telos

#the arcana #The Arcana Game #arcana game #arcana game meta #arcana meta #arcana discourse #the arcana lucio #Lucio route #the arcana muriel #muriel route #the arcana portia #portia route #lucio morgasson #lucio montag #muriel #portia devorak #The Wheel Turns

[darlington-v]

I know different interpretations of a work are generally enriching and cool... but c!dream villan interpretations is like how to tell me you only watch Tommy without saying you only watch tommy.... which would be fine but its not a great place to be making statements about the whole nature of the dsmp lol

Wild speculation, but sometimes I wonder if like, because the dsmp didn't really start as a narrative, and a lot of fans don't nessecarily enter it expecting a narrative, but then there is one and the fandom is really discourse heavy and everyone is sort of excpeted to have an opinion while maybe not expecting to form one from the begining or not having a ton of experience with narrative in a way that would "expect" them to have an opinion or not take things at face value??, I don't know if I explained that well at all... and I don't really even think thats right nessecarily... but like wow sometimes some of the takes about power and government and villany...

Honestly, it makes sense!!!

I think something interesting is like.... looking at how animatics have shaped the like tone and culture of the fandom essentially. Like, an interesting fact that I didn't really fully grasp until SUPER recently is like...

c!Wilbur out the gate admits he is manipulating c!Tommy. Like his first youtube video on the Dream SMP he admits his goal is to manipulate c!Tommy and people like c!Tommy into helping him achieve a potion ("drug") empire to monopolize on potions because there were a lot of people on the server who like to min-max, which is to put all of your effort into this one specific skill essentially. so like... i know minecraft doesnt have a skill tree but if it did, it would be putting all your points into that one specific branch of a skill tree. So he wanted to exploit the labor of all the TommyInnits to.... maintain a Potion Empire.

THIS IS A LONG POST BC I GOT CARRIED AWAY SO BUCKLE UP

And I don't think a lot of the fandom who joined later on knows this. I certainly didn't until like a week or so ago? Like... I knew c!Wilbur had been manipulative from the start because I'm a mod of (shameless self promo incoming) @dsmpanalysis and we have a lot of different POVs in that mod team and discord and we talk about it really frequently. I joined the fandom as someone who was really big on L'manburg ESPECIALLY crimeboys, and have turned into.... *gestures vaguely to my blog*

And ngl I owe a lot of it to @1-michibiki-1 in terms of c!Dream "Apologism" but all of the mods there have expanded my thoughts and views on the storylines of this narrative.

My application consisted of like largely essays about like... how I think Dream was the villain but he was meant to be the villain because you don't get any insight into his character WHICH.... IS A FAIR ASSUMPTION AT FIRST GLANCE. People are easily villainized when you cannot get a glimpse into their thought process. It's easy to dwindle someone down into this flat character and starting out I knew Dream didn't stream the SMP on purpose.

And I personally came to the conclusion of "Oh! So Dream is supposed to be the villain." However as the story continued and I learned more about what Dream went through I began to realize that... it's more than likely a form of a red herring. My opinions on this were immediately solidified when I watched Ranboo's 2 MIL stream because both Ranboo AND Dream agree on enjoying red herrings.

There have been MANY times were Dream has said that c!Dream is a complex character and he's not a wholly evil guy and there have been times where the narrative has honestly just proved that.

Anyways, what's important though was that... I learned most of this from other people who were more focused on c!Dream rather than myself. Eventually I shifted from c!Tommy to c!Ranboo and c!Techno after c!Tommy betrayed c!Techno and I began to realize.... everything I learned before hopping in wasn't exactly what it seemed.

Part of this is because I'm older, I heavily identify with c!Techno's sense of loyalty and philosophies on government, but I especially identify with the anguish c!Techno voiced in... a lot of lore but especially the lore around Doomsday.

I'm not 16 anymore. I don't always feel wronged by adults, or older people in my case, whenever they absolutely have done something wrong by me, but I do feel wronged by my close friends. I also felt like c!Tommy's sense of loyalty didn't line up with mine after what felt like him constantly flip-flopping and refusing to understand c!Techno's morals on government didn't line up with his.

In short, it was easier to identify with Tommy in these animatics versus in the actual stream content because c!Tommy is played by a 16 year old. I'm not a teenager and my line of thinking doesn't entirely line up with people that age anymore. It's harder to place myself in the same shoes of someone's OC who is played closer to their actual age, because I'm not that age.

Regardless, I was still on the c!Dream is a villain train. I wasn't ever like... c!Dream is repulsive I hate him, but I was like omg hot villain lad go brrr.

Even when the first like... mellohi, panic room, Ranboo lore stream popped up I thought "Oh! c!Ranboo corruption arc?"

And I was excited because I really wanted this shy, nervous character to turn into villain buddies with his good pal c!Dream. I'm a total sucker for villains and corruption arcs and all that good shit.

SO I STARTED GETTING REALLY INTERESTED IN ENDERSMILE. I'VE BEEN ON ENDERSMILE SQUAD OUT THE GATE. NOT THE SAME WAY I AM NOW, BUT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED THEM TO TEAM UP.

So... upon not really keeping up with c!Dream and being relatively??? indifferent? I don't think I started arguments on c!Dream back then, but I might have. But I remember like... starting to participate more whenever c!Dream came up and looking more into Dream's character BUT ESPECIALLY TALKING WITH OUR SERVER'S C!DREAM SPECIALIST MICHI ABOUT DREAM A LOT MORE.

And because Michi has been a watcher since day one and was a DTeam fan rather than a SBI fan, she was able to provide me with more information on how the server worked pre-Tommy but especially pre-Wilbur.

Now, you could definitely argue well Michi probably has clear bias but it made sense to me when I looked back on how the storyline had been constructed and was going along, and everyone in the server talks a lot about our own biases and how we want people to maybe not lean so hard on them. Michi would also provide like anecdotes on what had happened and I'm sure links were probably provided at one point but the point was I felt like Michi had no reason to lie or manipulate how the story was told and if she did, eventually someone would have pointed it out because... Group of like... right now it's around 20 or more analysts but I don't remember how many at the time there were. POINT BEING, WE'VE ALL GOT POINTS TO PROVE AND IN MY EXPERIENCE NOT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SHY TO PROVE THEM.

So if anyone ever had any differing opinions they would be talked about and we literally had and still have discussions.

REGARDLESS.... I DIDN'T FACT CHECK IN DEPTH BECAUSE I THOUGHT PEER REVIEW WAS ENOUGH WHEN YOU HAVE LIKE HOURS UPON HOURS OF STREAMS TO WATCH.

Anyways. Eventually I started paying closer attention and looking more into c!Dream lore but only recently have I started to triple check before speaking about c!Wilbur lore because I know everyone has biases and while I did trust everyone's thoughts and analysis in the discord, whenever I make essays I typically like it to be largely air tight and if theres a mistake, I want it to be because I forgot not because I just trusted what was said. Plus, I wanted to get down to the specifics of how Wilbur had always started with manipulation on the mind.

SO I WATCHED HIS FIRST VIDEO ON THE DREAM SMP.

AND WHAT I WAS NOT BY ANY MEANS EXPECTING WAS WILBUR TO SAY WORD FOR WORD, VERBATIM,

"SO WHY DON'T I START AN INDUSTRY WHERE I USE THE TOMMYINNITS OF THE WORLD TO WORK FOR ME, TO CREATE THINGS THAT THE MIN-MAXERS OF THE WORLD WILL WANT."

Like... this is in no way an attempt to like hardcore villainize c!Wilbur like everyone does Dream, it's just more so to like REALLY outline how far off a lot of fandom interpretation of c!Wilbur is....

Because of SBI focused animatics.

Now, when I joined I watched A LOT of animatics that really highlighted like... Wilbur being this self-loathing JD-esque, "I destroyed it because I had to because the world was against me because no one loved us, Tommy" type of character. At least... that's what it came across as.

And it definitely highlighted the fact that Tommy was a victim, which he is. He is undoubtedly a victim and no not even any dream apologist can change my mind otherwise. Tommy, despite being an instigator sometimes, didn't deserve the abuse he received.

But these animatics never shown the fact that c!Wilbur started L'manburg as a shady ploy to exploit people like c!Tommy and vilify c!Dream so he could have power.

And that was easy because Dream and Tommy had wars before. They had spars and pranks and here's the plan to take back my disks and here's the plan to out smart the thieving little child etc etc.

And all of the animatics I watched never mentioned this. Neither did the recaps though. The recaps gave the events flat out, there didn't sound like there was bias, and honestly I don't really know if there was rather than like... a lack of nuance. And it's hard to provide a recap with that much nuance in a short period of time for a youtube video, to be perfectly fair.

However, this creates a perfect formula for entirely rewriting the history of a server. c!Wilbur quite literally fucking succeeded TO A META LEVEL. He slandered and ran smear campaigns against Dream and like he even does that with Sapnap in the beginning. But what's crazy is that it transferred over into the meta! Most of this fandom understands Wilbur as a victim of mental illness, and yeah maybe? He definitely wasn't mentally well by the end of pogtopia, but he never started out with honorable intentions. L'manburg was never a victim, only its citizens. The TommyInnits of the world.

I just think it's like... such an interesting case study. Because this is like... an opinion like shared by at least half of the fandom, but the vilifying of c!Dream is shared by MOST of the fandom I would argue. Which is like even more crazy for me because that was c!Wilbur's goal!!!

LIKE I GO INSANE WHEN I THINK OF THIS BECAUSE HIS REACH IS JUST TOO POWERFUL. HE'S NOT EVEN ENTIRELY REAL, JUST A MANIPULATIVE PERSONA OF SOME BRITISH GUY.

And I mean... maybe people who have watched Wilbur's video on the SMP still maintain this idea that Wilbur wasn't always the bad guy, but honestly... I wouldn't be surprised if their introduction was still an animatic. Like bias is hard to check and I'm not going to lie I could have sworn I watched both Wilbur's AND Tommy's video on the SMP in the beginning and yet I STILL was a ride or die for tragic yet on some level still honorable Wilbur and a resilient Tommy.

Like... upon watching Wilbur's first video... possibly again I was surprised because I thought I did watch it like right before I even started watching the streams and yet I was still so invested in c!Wilbur as this tortured anti-hero.

It took 6 months of... not being in an echo chamber, full of multiple different people of different ages, different stream POVS, and people who joined the fandom at different points in time.

IDK IF THIS WAS EVEN ENTIRELY RELEVANT IT JUST FELT TANGENTIALLY RELEVANT AND THIS WAS SOMETHING I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT FOR A HOT MINUTE AFTER LIKE WATCHING WILBUR'S FIRST VIDEO AGAIN.

TLDR;

SBI CENTRIC ANIMATICS HAD A LASTING AFFECT ON THIS FANDOM AS IT'S HARD TO GO BACK AND ACTUALLY CHECK THE NARRATIVE FOR SOLID FACTS FOR YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION BASED ON THE FACT THAT THIS NARRATIVE SPANS OVER HUNDREDS OF HOURS WORTH OF TWITCH STREAMS.

#asks #anon #dream smp #dsmp #dsmp analysis #dream smp analysis #dsmp meta #dream smp meta #my analysis #long post

[rabdoidal]

for d&d court (hope u arent getting tired of these asks haha):

your honor,

the case i bring before you is cold, and could be considered settled by the passage of time. however, i still think about it a lot, and the character involved was one of my all-time favs, so i beseech yourself and the court to hear it for closure if nothing else.

i joined a group running 5e and the “out of the abyss” hardcover in 2018. the dm introduced himself as a fan of OSR and “hardcore” roleplaying and promised he wouldn’t be pulling punches running the book, which is set in the underdark and pretty vicious at low level. i signed on for this and the party, indeed, endured lots of grueling encounters. i’m fuzzy on the details now (its been a few years), but we’d found ourselves in a sort of side cavern/tomb dealing with either a demilich or some other undead spellcaster. the main hazard beyond that enemy was a sort of deadly mist that inflicted damage on failed saves.

the party is in a bad way. i’m playing a battlemaster fighter with mostly support techniques bc i like to help back up clerics/bards, but i’m also playing a dex fighter dual-wielding, so i’m not tanky. there’s a lot riding on my turn but i also only have like 5 hp left. the dm calls on me and i get to work— attacking, using a battlemaster technique to give out some temp hp, action surging for more damage, etc. all this to say, it’s a full turn and things are looking up for us. then the dm goes “wait, i forgot to have you roll a save for the mist. go ahead and do that now.” and i do. and i fail. and the damage is enough to down my character. and he says that since that roll should’ve happened at the beginning of my turn, he’s applying it retroactively, and my turn never happened. our cleric couldn’t get to my fighter in time to stabilize me after, so i took damage from the mist while downed and died permanently (along with the cleric, everyone else got saved by late-arriving npcs).

i took this as my cue to gracefully leave the campaign, bc my char dying on the floor to an ambient effect left a very bad taste in my mouth and i concluded i just wasn’t interested in continuing with that group/dm. but ive been haunted ever since by the question: do i have a right to be angry about what went down? applying the save retroactively is i think what the rules would require, but bc it was dm error and i had played out my entire turn, i feel like the failed save and consequences should’ve happened at the end? my char might still have died, but prob not the cleric. and ever since, i can’t mentally shake the char’s death, so i haven’t had the heart to just ignore it and remake her in a new campaign.

thanks in advance for your insight and judgment, from me and the unquiet ghost of tova, the tiefling fighter.

Hey there! I do think rules as written, the save should've happened at the top of your turn, but it was absolutely the DM's responsibility to keep track of their AoE conditions - personally I usually do rolls like that at the end of a turn because I'm nice, but even for a hardass DM, I think making it retroactive is a bit harsh, especially considering battlemasters have a lot to do in terms of initiative economy. I think a middle ground solution would have been to do a luck roll off between you and the DM to see if the effect took place before or after your turn, or perhaps allowed you to take 1 attack rather than both.

Unfortunately, brutal campaigns, while fun and engaging for long-time players, do give you a sense of detachment from your character. If they're just some meatbag that can die during any given session, there isn't that effect of heightening tension - its all tense all the time. It sounds like that isn't your type of play style, considering how attached you were to Tova. I hope you found a campaign (and a DM) more your style in the years since!

#personal #dnd court #long post

[terrainofheartfelt]

I was watching season two of Gossip Girl recently, and I wanted to ask what are your thoughts on the Chuck and Dan dynamic? Personally, I am somewhat fascinated by their, to say the least, odd relationship. They seemed like underrated foils for each other; when one was up, the other would be down. I am curious what your thoughts are, though.

Hi! I've left this sitting for a few days because it is such a fascinating question and I wanted to give myself space to mull it over.

I would also like to go ahead and tag Ivy now, because he's written much more on the two of them and given much more thought to this dynamic, so @natearchie, beloved friend, please feel free to add your insight!

They really do seem to be foils for each other in many ways, especially in the earlier seasons. To get into s2, specifically, since you mentioned it, looking back on it there's this almost biblical kind of way that Dan and Chuck end up playing out the conflict between their fathers, if that makes sense? I mean, they are at odds for other reasons besides this: Chuck's assault on Jenny, the discrepancies of wealth and privilege between the two, etc. The beginnings of the show set it up too: that Chuck has always been in this UES world and will move through it with a self-possession that cannot be taught, or learned, and Dan will, on some level, always be a tourist, never being quite able to make a home in it.

And, as I slipped it into this web-weaving/song-lyric post, Dan is drawn to that aspect of Chuck's character, especially in s2, and is darkly fascinated by the very different way Chuck lives his life, unafraid of consequences (it is why Georgina is such a magnetic person to him too).

And in the inverse, Chuck is openly derisive of Dan, as more people of his circle are drawn to him (first Serena, then Nate, and eventually Blair), to this level of what is this humdrum humphrey's deal? and he sort of develops a jealousy for Dan's traits, like Dan envies his confidence and privilege, Chuck envies Dan's sincerity, almost? and, to put it plainly, the fact that he is loved, and lovable, and loving. Serena and Nate love him, Blair in the earlier seasons kind of begrudgingly respects him, and Rufus wouldn't turn his back on Dan for anything.

So, back to the dads. The first thing my mind jumped to when I first read this ask was the "your father killed my father." Biblical. and surrounding that event, and going forward from it, Chuck acts like his personal disdain for Dan is predetermined, they are fated to be enemies.

The show pretends to present a lot of crossroads over the course of the show for Chuck to make amends and change and turn from a wooden puppet into a real boy, but I think the real opportunity for it was lost in the aftermath of Bart's death in s2, he could have chosen to walk away from the role Bart had forced him into, the role he felt he was forced to play out on the great stage of fate: Rufus v. Bart, Dan v. Chuck, Brooklyn v. UES, poor v. rich, and despite the opportunity presented to him here, he couldn't do it - but, as the show demonstrated from the beginning, Chuck was the one who didn't want any of the cycle to change, even though he was the one who probably needed it the most.

As for Dan, and his big stupid bleeding heart, the interesting moment for him re: this narrative arc with Chuck (disregarding 5a bc huh???), is the whole story-writing, story-abandoning, and story-submitting thing he does about Chuck. He stumbles into the realm of Chuck Bass, is blown away by it (Dante's descent to broker a pretentious comparison), then is sucker-punched with Chuck's level 9 tragic backstory, and has to reckon with that complexity, that one of the worst people he knows can also carry around hurt like that. He kills the story bc he's led to believe it would do more harm than good, but then he submits it after witnessing Jenny's success, and in doing so, he kind of models the behavior of the Basses over the Humphreys: act with conviction, take no prisoners, who cares who you hurt to get ahead. Dan's crossroads is also about following his father (who is...Not as Bad as Bart, but still Not Great), and navigating between the rigid moral codes than are smothering him and Jenny from thriving, and succumbing to the amorality of the UES which sucks the air out of the lungs of Dan's friends in that world (Nate, Serena, and even Blair). And, if you are looking at all six seasons of the show (which I typically don't for Personal & Spiritual Reasons) Dan loses his balance, and falls all the way down to the tenth circle.

#I've been writing this for a while and i have no idea if it makes sense I'm just gonna post it and hope for the best #this may be the most sympathetic meta I will ever write about chip wiskers #I think I need to shower #gg meta #asks #anon

[pookiesmcbride]

i wanted to rant about something i was just thinking about after reading Melissas thoughts about carol pretty much repressing her feelings for him and refusing herself to rly have him in the “waking world”

the practically canon idea that she’s been repressing feelings is interesting, it definitely makes me think that she won’t be making the first move here if she’s convinced herself so powerfully that she can’t have him. “what do you wanttt what do you wantt” mind-alpha tells her, and she can’t even admit it to herself. we rly did get a lot of insight into carols brain this season !!

but with all that said, i think a lot of carylers have theorized that daryl would always be the one to make the first move and now it’s in PLAIN sight to me after this interview. idk if he’s been “repressing” per say bc i feel he’s worn his heart on his sleeve a LOT lately, but maybe it’s becoming disheartening to him that she doesn’t see what he’s rly thinking. i think of the acorn scene there- he feels he’s been so obvious, saying “it’s not like that, not at all” so matter of factly but she’s there asking “why not?” and he’s speechless. i imagine his brain is like “don’t you know why?” in that scene and it’s crazy to watch, imagine him getting the courage to actually spill that out😩

and with daryl all disheartened, frustrated further bc of carols actions, her ignoring him and his pursuit of showing her he cares, he’s got a lot on his mind. he hasn’t found the courage yet to let it all out and be honest, and obviously the easy thing is to avoid her and give up. i can see him taking that route in the beginning of this season, idk if he decides to get back w leah but it’s a short lived possibility, but even if he’s trying to “save her”, it’s another way to avoid the scary situation w carol. i think if they do get together, leah is going to start realizing that he’s not all in. his heart is somewhere else, and it’s a cz situation all over again. it might be me being hopeful, but i could maybe see leah pushing him to rly pursue what he wants? whether she sees him as a good man who deserves what he truly wants, or whether it’s unintentional and some sort of dangerous situation w her makes him realize he’s been foolish, if that makes sense. but either way, i think he’s going to come to the conclusion that HE has been the one running from her, and i think time away from carol is going to make her start wondering if she should be more forward too. but in the end, daryl will ultimately be the one to take that step, and i think carol will be in the right space at that point to really internalize his words.

anyways this interview is living absolutely rent free in my head and i keep rereading it, getting more and more excited for this season. i hope others are feeling the same way, im holding out hope that angela knows our babies🥺❤️

#caryl #daryl x carol #caryl positivity #carol x daryl

[marimopeace]

there's a limit on how much you can be an isekai intellectual...

a bunch of analyses have been popping up before me all day so i wanted to throw my hat into the ring. all love to ppl who are exercising their creative minds + ppl like geoff here who just talk about these things because of fan interest but i feel like there reaches a point where exploring the "types" of isekai is pointless? i've seen ppl list out the different types of villainess revenge isekai or fantasy mmorpg isekai but eh why fit them all into separate boxes like that?

i think it's easier to think of isekai as a "type" (genre) of itself with only two categories: 1) a focus on isekai (lit. another world) 2) tensei (lit. to be reborn). this allows for a variety of applications and thus tropes that ppl see so many trends of!

with isekai - in another world

you see everything from:

pure fantasy (inuyasha, digimon wait maybe not the best example but in my childhood mind i count digimon as pure fantasy, fushigi yugi)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (.hack//legend of twilight, sao ugh, log horizon, overlord (LOVE OVERLORD!)

otome game-esque worlds >>> this is where it gets complicated with "villainess routes" since i admit there are multiple villainess tropes but this is why it's nice to not think of this as a "sub-type/genre" bc it frees you from those complications! (the saint's magic power is omnipotent, the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap soso cute!, the savior's book cafe in another world, i'm a villainous daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss wait i can't remember if she's reborn in this one lmaooo see this is why rules make everything hard)

with tensei storylines - being reincarnated/reborn in another world as *insert character/role*

you see...

the same tropes!!

pure fantasy (a returner's magic should be special, reminiscence adonis, the lady and the beast, light and shadow, i can't think of a manga off the top of my head for this ah)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (so i'm a spider so what i stan kumoko so hard, her majesty's swarm, can't name another off the top of my head ah i hate lists shorter than two things...)

self-insert based games/novels (fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess, who made me a princess, death is the only ending for the villainess, the villainess wants to marry a commoner, honestly games vs novels are different applications but i'm not in the headspace to try to remember a bunch of both lol)

*insert line break to give random ppl a break from scrolling but tl; dr just enjoy things for what they are no need to micro analyze*

similar variations occur in both genres (if ppl want to be super technical i guess i'm arguing that isekai itself is a massive genre that has the "another world" subgenre and "reincarnation" subgenre tl; dr) so i think it's honestly a huge pain to try to separate all these trends into so many different types of stories. for me personally it's easier to not get overwhelmed by this gigantic umbrella of "isekai" that spans light novels, manhwa, manga, and mobile games by just stripping each story down into its trademark tropes (aka character archetypes, story structures) and slapping "oh this is a person going to a world that's not ours" and "this person gets reborn as blank in another world". none of this "omg this power fantasy is such a this kind of isekai moment" or "there are 14 different types of villainess revenge stories and this series fits into this" bc AH labels! limitations! circle-jerks via ppl trying to compartmentalize everything and sound smart for leaving a comment on story analysis instead of ooh-ahhing over a character's face! dividing things into light novel manga vs manga vs korean manhwa ft. female characters!

the last bit is mainly why i feel frustrated by ppl's insistence to group everything?

the video linked at the beginning of the post (honestly good video essay, i enjoyed it, i just kept thinking in my head the whole time "marimo these are tropes do not take the genre talk literally") has a baby comment thread talking about "korean isekai manhwas" as a genre featuring nothing but reincarnated villainess' and i can't.

like i cannot acknowledge that as a genre of any sort. the energy i felt reading through some of those insights takes me back to 2012 when all yt americans discovered k-pop and deemed all korean music k-pop from then on! (ppl still do this now, yes you are seen and don't talk to me pls i don't like you. k-pop is korean pop music and nothing less and nothing more. take a few seconds and try to parse apart aspects of korean culture instead of slamming everything into a monolithic label that has the letter k and a hyphen.) it feels so odd to see a bunch of young ppl on ig and tiktok acknowledge korean media that happens to be in the form of a webtoon as "oh stories all about young girls becoming villains in stories they made/played" bc it feels so reductive u.u

(positionality disclaimer that i'm praying isn't actually necessary: i am a 3rd-generation korean of japanese descent do not fite me i am exhausted irl of ppl asking for validation/verification bc massive shove off.)

breaking news! korean manhwa...is just as multifaceted as japanese manga...bc how can comics as an art-form not have multiple genres...huh such a shocker?!?! same likely applies to media in other parts of the world like chinese manhwa and french comics--not my place to explain either of those i just know those industries exist bc of wakfu and donghua shows by Tencent.

at the end of the day it's not like analyzing any kind of isekai is wrong--absolutely not!! i think it can be super fun to think about how isekai elements complicate a story (MCs trying to go back home, ppl from the og world, reincarnation plot-twists) or maybe even bash a series for including some kind of other world element when they could have just written a super fun fantasy.

insert marimo's brief ramble that hey you can get sick of truck-kun's hitting disillusioned guys who happen to be super duper smart or girls who happen to be master chefs/craftsmen but transporting a fully-grown being into a fantasy setting is the ultimate cheat code for making mundane modern technology seem cool and overpowered, and being reincarnated as a fully grown person in a world with a pre-made story/game set-up completely bypasses the need for an author to slowly flesh out world-building in a natural progression so isekai is actually a really smart writing tool it's just that there are some series where the author didn't use it well at all and it's cheesy or clearly isekai was misused as a vehicle for character/story development and it was pointless *DEEP BREATH OUT*

in this essay i will argue...lol i am such a culture studies major!! if i were an english major i would be talking all about writing but here i am having a side-tangent about world-building via someone being reborn wow i love this for me (don't get me started on when an author has someone reincarnate as a baby and the story is mostly them having warm fluffy moments with their family--typically father figures--and getting lots of powers i could and would and probably will rant about east asian toxicity)

but anyway am i crazy????? like yes for being passionate about the technical use of a word like genre (i am a scorpio rising let me be fussy pls) but i don't think it's a lot to ask for ppl to not unironically see "villainess revenge isekai" as the definition of korean manhwa.

idk as someone who resonates with why japanese isekai is so popular domestically + why a lot of korean manhwa feat. the same tropes (it's not for great reasons lads it's actually depressing tbh) i'm just starting to feel kind of pained by the generalization and need to separate "cute japanese girl in an otome game"/"japanese boy finds a harem in another world" from "korean girl dies and comes back as a villainess" bc they are just! applications to the same story device!!

recommendations for any who makes it this far down below <3

// also gladly recommend any of the examples i've listed in the above rant as i've read/watched all of them and adore them v much! //

save me princess

super refreshing fantasy manhwa ft. a princess and her ex-boyfriend having to save the world!

the beginning after the end

an AMERICAN web novel turned into a comic (but see it being not korean/japanese doesn't really matter when you just consider isekai as a genre...isn't it nice to not overthink it?) ft. a super-powerful wizard king reincarnated into another world and starting from scratch--gives mushoku tensei vibes but huge twists!

the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion

love love LOVE this story--read the title and you'll learn how this girl reincarnated as the character raeliana in a book gets married to a duke!

trash of the count's family

such a good novel!! a guy gets reborn as a lazy oaf and he takes the hero of the story under his wing...plot twists come up later on!

this time i will definitely be happy!

v good and refreshing for a shorter series! she's been reborn 3 times and remembers every time the hero's stabbed her in the back, and now she just wants to break up with him!

silver diamond

older manga but v good adventure w intrigue! a boy who loves plants get sucked into a desert world with demonic lizards and a mysterious bodyguard by his side. shonen-ai not BL but wonderful vibes nonetheless + great side characters!

the princess imprints a traitor

adore everything in this from the world (not in that way this society makes me so angry) to the machinations at play and the dynamic between the fl and ml

#isekai #mother's basement #inuyasha #digimon #fushigi yugi #.hack//legend of the twilight #log horizon #overlord #the saint's magic power is omnipotent #the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap #a returner's magic should be special #adonis #the lady and the beast #light and shadow #kumo desu ga nani ka #her majesty's swarm #fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess #death is the only ending for a villainess #the villainess wants to marry a commoner #save me princess #the beginning after the end #the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion #trash of the count's family #this time i will definitely be happy! #silver diamond #see i normally put the raw titles for everything but the tiny korean/japanese part of my brain is so tired bc my english brain went off #the princess imprints a traitor #manga #manhwa #donghua

[foulserpent]

ok heres my #thots on evangelion 1+3

yeah honestly i really liked it. idk how much it holds up in of itself, but as something that was really meaningful to me (when i was 15, the age of the main characters lol) the ending was honestly pretty satisfying and not what id expect

like i did choose to learn the spoilers when it first came out, but it still managed to surprise me. like it was ultimately very positive and it was very concretely about healing and ended much more optimistically than you would ever expect (literally like everythings 'fixed')

but also so much is introduced or confirmed without giving explanation. like they just introduce concepts rapidfire via dialogue and youre supposed to just be like yeah ok. yeah ok "anti universe" whatever. youre really just along for the ride.

i really wish rebuild did a better job at characterizing asuka, bc like watching it in context of the original helped but if you had only seen the rebuilds she would be very shallow. and they kinda tried to squeeze in some last minute characterization but it didnt do Much.... i wish there had been more from her in the prior movies but as it stands its alright. absolutely bizarre choice to have her be from a series of clones similar to rei, and they implied that she at least Thinks shinji is the same? idk i prefer her being a normal human but it is what it is. her having an angel sealed in her eye was awesome.

rei's arc is really kinda just aborted and idk if its in a good way or not. id have to think about it. definitely not as climactic as EOE. the original rei makes a couple of brief reappearances but they dont mean a Ton

gendo's stuff was really interesting bc. i learned the spoilers back in march and was expecting it to be a little more manpain-ish, and it KINDA was but in a large part it was shinji coming to an understanding of his parent's baggage which is something im too familiar with lol. their whole fight was such a good sequence also i LOVED how it shifted thru memories and scenery.

i think my biggest complaint is that shinji's healing process is maybe too abrupt from the 'despondent sitting in one place for weeks' thing at the beginning to 'creating a new better world' at the end. but i like the outline of it all. i really like that him and asuka acknowledge their crushes on each other as children but not anymore

kaworu is fucking weird bc they confirm the timeloop thing and give just the TINIEST insight into his own psyche (that he was looking for his own happiness and using shinji as a proxy, not in a malicious way but in a very genuine and desperate way), but still not that much. like, i want to kno what the fuck is going on with him. hes definitely equally fucked up to the other kids. also what was the deal between him and kaji.

i wish they didnt imply that shinji was 'with' mari. like i actually do really like that hes not 'with' the 3 love interests of the original but id prefer the conclusion to not directly involve a romantic relationship with anyone bc thats not whats really important... but mari is kind of like, the external source with no baggage, so at the very least she represents a future i guess. also dont quote me on this but i remember reading in a couple places that she might be referential to anno's wife so it might be personal on the director's part (especially since the closing shot was his hometown)

also theres SO many more questions than answers like they CONFIRM mari was fuyutsuki's colleague somehow and CONFIRM kaworu timeloop and etc but dont really explain anything. which is alright honestly but very frustrating

and i can tell ive gotten older bc what moved me most was misato's reconciling with shinji as a weird kinda surrogate familial-ish figure..got choked up when they hugged.

all in all i think ill always like end of evangelion best but this is honestly a very good way to end it all things considered. theres so many good concepts there and it reflects a transition in the outlook of the series and the director, and it was kinda moving considering i was so invested in the series when i was 15 and its come to a close now. i guess i might have preferred an ending more optimistic than EoE but less idealistic than this (like the world itself being de-coreified but shinji still returning to the village and their community facing an uncertain but optimistic future). but still. enjoyed it.

#spoilers etc #oh also the music wasnt as good as some of the others i think. tho i did like some of it #ill have to go thru the soundtrack later