Grian’s unsurprised, when he heads back into Decked Out, to find Tango in the waiting room. He’s lying on the marble floor, one hand pressed against the moss, staring up at the fake sun shining down. In here, away from the much dimmer, bluer light of the citadel, he looks pale. Far too gaunt and skinny. His eyes seem a little sunken-in.
He’s smiling, though. There’s wonder in those sunken eyes. He keeps on looking around with something so fragile in his expression. Grian doesn’t really want to interrupt, but…
“You know you’re not supposed to stare at it, right?”
“Oh! Uh, Grian!” Tango says.
“‘Course, we made it so it wasn’t actually the bright bit. Can look at the sun all you want from here.”
“Yeah,” agrees Tango. “I sure can.”
“Touch grass,” Grian continues.
“I mean, technically it’s moss,” Tango says, drawing his hand away almost self-consciously. Grian swears in his head. Stupid. He wasn’t trying to…
“There were a lot of us hanging out,” Grian says. “It’s a nice room, isn’t it? All fun and cheerful.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it sure is,” Tango says. “Hey, Grian—”
“Nope. Not with me. Not gonna bother you about it. Just—you made something really cool, Tango. Plus, it was nice to see you. Haven’t seen you not in a hole in the ground for a while, you know? This isn’t quite the same thing, but since we’ll all be waiting in here for a while anyway…”
Slowly, Tango puts his hand back on the moss “Don’t worry. I’m happy,” Tango says. “I’m really, really happy. Hey, tomorrow, do you think just as many…”
“Tango, don’t be stupid. There might even be more of us.”
Tango sighs. It’s like some tension Grian can’t even name has left him. It should be nice, but there’s also something almost unsettling about it. The amount of contentment on Tango’s face—well, then again, Grian would be that kind of happy too, if he’d finished something that took over a year, and then it worked and everyone loved it.
“Yeah. That’s good. This is all really good. Yeah, I’m happy with this.”
But there’s something about how he’s showing it.
“Eat some more food while you’re up here. Scar’s been worried about you, and for some ungodly reason he’s been making it my problem. Do you hear me? Do you know how annoying it is when Scar makes something your problem?”
“Trust me, I know. Who else do you think he keeps bothering?”
“Fair enough. And don’t break our queue system! We worked really hard! I think Etho would kill you.”
Tango laughs. There are tears in his eyes, Grian realizes.
“I’m just—it’s so bright in here. And you all were laughing so much. And loved it so much. I’m so… happy. I’m so happy.”
Grian softens. “Yeah. Be proud.”
Tango beams. Grian goes back out of the waiting room. Something about it feels private, like he hadn’t been meant to intrude. He’ll dissect all that later. He’d just wanted to check in, since he’s here to add his decorations to the many cubbies everyone has decorated. Everyone really does love it. Tango’s going to be busy; between maintenance and everyone wanting to talk to him about what they’re doing, he’s never going to get a moment of peace alone. Might as well give him a little bit while he still can.
It feels important, somehow, for Tango to lie there and bask in it, in the moments he can.
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Thinking about fresh faced little 20 year old Neuvillette five hundred or something years ago. All the other dragons are missing or dead so the Hydro Archon (previous) sends him to Zhongli for summer camp on being a dragon. He drinks a lot of osmanthus wine and "summer" lasts for six years. Zhongli gives him one piece of actual advice on scale care then goes on a tirade about how the last Hydro serpent he knew (Osial) was a bitch who stabbed him in the back. Neuvillette gets a complex over it.
Nothing about geo dragons translates over to hydro ones. Zhongli won't let Neuvillette go swimming because "dragons sink in water". A complete lie.
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actually i dont think ive posted my thoughts on ofmd s2 overall here yet have i?
ok here goes: i think it had incredibly high highs, and at some parts i genuinely enjoyed it more than i did the first season, episode 6 being peak imo. however, it had equally abysmal lows with some glaring writing-, tone- and pacing issues that all came to a head in the finale.
i once read someone say that, if you ever feel like a finale ruined the whole story, maybe you should take another look at the story. there were most likely cracks and problems all along, and the finale did nothing besides dashing the hope that these would perhaps be addressed later. very rarely do genuinely well written stories go completely off the rails in the finale and ruin the whole thing.
i think this is applicable here in some ways, SPECIFICALLY in regards to edward. good god edward was a MESS this season, and it's so sad because i loved the starting point! the kraken era was absolutely terrifying and iconic as FUCK but... they shouldn't have leaned so hard into the drama and trauma of it all. don't get me wrong, i loved that it did. it's one of my favorite parts of the season and i'm so glad we got it. but if they wanted this arc to work with the overarching plot as they wrote it, they would've had to lighten up the tone here CONSIDERABLY. had they played the kraken era for comedy then sure! edward's bad youtuber apology would've been funny. his fast redemption would've been less jarring. the lack of consequences less disturbing. but as it stands in the show, this arc is too dark to function with the later episodes.
i feel like they wanted to have their cake and eat it too here. they wanted the gritty drama of ed coming off the hinges entirely but also didn't want to deal with the aftermath of such a heavy arc in their silly pirate romcom. be that due to time constraints and budget cuts or because they were simply unwilling to, doesn't really matter in the end. the result is the same either way: a very tonally messy season with some accidentally troubling implications regarding abuse.
and mentioning troubling implications regarding abuse; izzy. my poor, poor izzy... his arc was absolutely glorious. i liked izzy the second he showed up in s1 and i was absolutely EATING this season up in that regard. and i think in this case, they genuinely did fuck it all up in the finale with that one stupid choice:
choosing to kill izzy was the DUMBEST thing they couldve done here.
ive talked about this over and over and over again. ive reblogged so many meta posts. and still i am left absolutely flabbergasted by how stupid of a decision this was. the fridging, playing at the fallen woman trope, killing the beating heart of the season and the character who delivers what is essentially a thesis statement, killing off the character whose arc is about coming to terms with his disability, having him die in edward's arms, comforting him and apologizing after an entire season of finding community and love outside of edward, the absolutely godawful pacing of it all, the extremely easy and obvious solution of just having IZZY become the new captain of the revenge to mirror s1 and hammer home how much he has developed since then in one go... i could go on. and i have. it was a stupid writing decision, completely fucked the tone and pacing of the finale and took away attention and time from things that really would've deserved a better wrap up (lucius and black pete deserved better)
now. the whole prince ricky & zheng plot line... yeah that shit sucked ass, sorry. they bit off more than they could chew here. i honestly think those are the arc words of this season:
✨️ bit off more than they could chew ✨️
right off the bat: i think he was good as a concept. bringing in a foil for stede who just doesn't Get It as stede does could've made for very good comedy and drama (and to be fair there is some of that). but that shit got away from them extremely quickly. nothing about how he's implemented past his first episode works, and i think this is very specifically because he's mostly played as the comic relief in his debut episode. making this completely bumbling fool, who gets his nose hacked off on his first job, the main villain of your entire season is... definitely a choice. idk. he didn't work for me at all.
ok wow mentioning shit getting away from the writers. this definitely got away from me. this was supposed to be a short lil post. well. i guess tl;dr i loved this season but jesus christ there was a lot wrong with it. if you want to hear more thoughts. ask box is open. be my guest. i have more to say so even if you dont ask i might add more to this at some point but im tired and have work tmrw.
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I lost one of my chickens :( she was caught and carried away by a fox... I’ve been growing complacent about my chickens’ safety I think because we’ve only had one other attack before, a goshawk that swooped in abruptly (unsuccessfully), but no fox sightings nearby so I’ve been assuming Pandolf was a great deterrent. Which he is, just not foolproof. I’ve talked to some people in town about this and they were pretty philosophical about foxes stealing chickens, like “it’s the tribute we pay to woodland animals, it’s just a few hens here and there.” I don’t begrudge the fox for being a fox, if anything I have a renewed respect for foxes because everyone I talked to proceeded to give me their best / worst fox stories, and most of them involved foxes outsmarting humans (learning people’s habits / timetables, opening latches, faking a limp...) Still I feel terrible for my hen, she was only three. RIP Cordy :( You’ll be remembered fondly... (except by the cats.) I feel bad for the other hen too, who just lost her pal!
When I said that last thing, one of my neighbours jumped on the opportunity to try and convince me again to accept a rooster from him. He had a rooster baby boom last summer and I’ve been telling him for months that I don’t need a rooster, I don’t want to raise chickens I just want eggs, and his new argument was that a rooster would protect my hen (or if it comes to that, would heroically sacrifice himself rather than let the hen be eaten—I’m sceptical...) I asked around for a young hen but there aren’t any to be had in this season, so my remaining one is going to be alone until the spring, and my neighbour said she’d get stressed and male company is better than no company. (I wish I could ask my hen what she wants! Maybe she’s penning A Coop Of One’s Own as we speak.) I said the rooster was more likely to stress her out and harass her and he said nah they’re free ranging all day, it’ll be fine, and he’s young so your adult hen will boss him around. I was like, but then will he be any good at protecting her? etc. etc. and after a while I caved in.
When I told her about this on the phone my mum sighed “you’re terrible at saying no”—excuse me, I said no so many times and the guy just kept ploughing on until he could foist a rooster upon me. I’m good at saying no, other people are terrible at hearing it! I reassured her that I had only agreed to take the rooster for a short probationary period, and if he bothers my hen too much I’ll drive him back to his native farm. My mum was like “Drive him back? look I’m sorry I raised you as a city kid but there’s no need to waste gas on driving a rooster around, I’ll have no qualms about wringing his neck for dinner if he’s more trouble than he’s worth.” The rooster’s fate is not sealed though, if he is anywhere from vaguely useful to not actively problematic I’ll keep him, so we’ll see...!
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EMERGENCY CAT SURGERY | Pickle needs HELP!
I never thought it would be my turn to make one of these posts.
TW; CAT INJURY
Sunday night, my 6 month old kitten, pickle, had a really bad fall down a hardwood staircase after getting startled, and upon impact with the first floor, his little femur took the entire force of the impact and it snapped clean in half. My heart dropped to my stomach when I heard him thump hard against the ground and he began to cry, we immediately dropped everything and rushed him to the emergency vet nearby.
Turns out, the injury was worst than we thought. He needs orthopedic surgery to fit his femur with a metal plate. This will help him recover faster with the best successful outcome for his quality of life, but this is going to cost a staggering $4,000 dollars. He hasn't even celebrated his 1st birthday yet, he's still just a baby and this terrible accident happened. Pickle is truly my best friend, he has been my little beacon of light through it all, he is the one who sits with me while I write long chapters for my novels, and I will do absolutely anything for him.
My heart is fucking shattered seeing my normally happy and high-energy baby have such a traumatic injury like this. I know this is hard on his mental health, too.
Please, if you can, help us help pickle. If anyone is willing to donate to our GoFundMe to help us alleviate the burden of surgery costs while I'm literally still desperately job hunting, it would help me and my partner more than you can imagine. If you can't financially support it at the moment, don't worry, I completely understand. But please, share this post as far out into your friends list as you can. Sharing will still help us out so so much.
Whether you donate or share, Pickle thanks you for helping his little leg get better. ❤️🩹
VISIT GOFUNDME
CA$HAPP: $EricEdrington
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