#it’s literally the body episode of magic school bus

[madjackbrock]

“I will consider sparing the poet behind it.”

“Briefly, at least.”

In hindsight, I suppose it’s not surprising a God’s body would adapt to such efficient measures. As what is the storage of fat but the efficiency of energy-use and conservation?

At some point, His godly fat cells stopped needing the digestive process, when it came to a certain percentage of the consumed human population, any how. Not that He could classify us as such. It was clear there were only two categories left from His perspective: Himself and food. And we were NOT Him…. yet.

But the adipose cells could sense us, perhaps detecting the DNA we share, inferior as ours might be. They seemed to summon us directly through the blood stream.

I’m not sure what made us special. What about us pleased His body to adopt such a process. Perhaps it was random chance? Perhaps it was more? Either way, here we found ourselves, before a growing army of round yellow spheres pulling into themselves every glucose and vitamin atom within their reach. And we soon discovered we were no different; Helplessly relegated to nothing more than little nutrients to be absorbed.

The literal balls of fat moved quickly once we were within reach. At the time they were only a little bigger than us, but that was plenty large enough, it turns out.

They drag you in with some kind of suction. Or perhaps magnetism. An inescapable pull similar to that a riptide or undertow. And once you touch their surface, they pull you in for a sort of hug. The soft, warm water-bed like consistency of the membrane embraces you almost affectionately, squeezing tighter and tighter until, with a sort of pop, you find yourself on the inside of the fat cell. Surrounded by a translucent, yellow, pillowy gel. And what was a soft membrane wall on the outside is more like a wall of tough tire-rubber on the inside.

No amount of pounding, clawing or scratching was going to penetrate the walls of our new prisons. It became pretty clear, pretty fast that these cells followed the same dogmatic rule observed by the planetary-like specimen they made up as a whole: Consumption is a one way process.

What started out as somewhat tight quarters didn’t remain that way for long, as the surrounding walls of the cell slowly began to pull away in all directions. I still can’t fathom the amount of matter, nor the rate it must be consumed, for adipose tissue to expand at such a visibly notable rate. And it was clearly accelerating.

I didn’t have to guess what was happening. I knew. Larger hands were stuffing a bigger maw, that lead down a wider throat, and into what science can only classify as a new type of black hole.

At first the fat cell was a solitary prison. But as it widened it began pull in more specimens. First one. Then a few. And then many. Through the clear membrane I could watch the process unfold in adjacent cells. Watch as little people are helplessly jostled around in them, like confetti in a water balloon.

And as each cell got too full it would divide, creating a new equally large, equally hungry adipose cell. The God wasn’t just growing larger, He was growing fatter. By A LOT. And as the army of adipose cells grew, in both number and size, they became equally ravenous and aggressive. Most likely mirroring the God’s mounting greed. A feeding lust expressed intensely right down to His cellular level.

Even now it’s hard to grasp: a being so powerful that a single fat cell could effortlessly dominate hundreds of people. Soon perhaps cities of people. Even as I watch it unfold, it feels so unreal. So impossible. But it’s still much more pleasant of a thought than the one I’m actively trying to keep shut out of my mind.

You see, we’re here for a reason. And it isn’t that we’re being spared. We aren’t here to be closer to the Divine, or learn the anatomical workings of a God, like some twisted episode of The Magic fucking School Bus.

No. We’re here simply as storage. Convenient calories set aside for the leaner times to come. After all, there’s only so much raw matter drifting around in our galaxy. And as God sucks the last cosmic crumbs from His chubby fingers, it will finally be our turn.

God’s adipose cells will get to work, slowly breaking us down to our raw components to help fuel the only goal left in the universe that matters: His infinite growth.

It’s just science, people.

#giant male #male giant #mature rp #adult roleplay #giant #growth

[wildmelora]

finally realized what last night’s episode reminded me of

#it’s literally the body episode of magic school bus #cr spoilers #critical role #the episode is called Inside Ralphie btw

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 26, part two

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Content note: This episode has a lot of lightning, but this post does not have lightning flashes--I’m using mostly stills for those parts, or I’ve snipped out the unfriendly frames before giffing.

Qing-Jie

Having successfully ruined Jin Guangshan’s party plan to get the Yin Tiger seal, Wei Wuxian dashes off to tell Wen Qing where her brother is. She hops up to hit the road with him, but then sorta-faints because she’s starving. In a rare moment of tenderness between these two, he catches her and gently sits her down again. 

Normally they’re busy out-toughing each other, both before and after this moment, but right now Wen Qing is openly vulnerable. Wei Wuxian responds to that, predictably, with all of his kindness and with his usual slew of unwise, impossible-to-keep promises.

As she eats the bread he’s brought her--a parallel to an important piece of bread in his early life--he says they have to believe in Wen Ning’s survival. Cut to: Wen Ning, not surviving. 

I mean, yes, yes, he’s only mostly dead, but he’s never going to be fully alive again, so.  

24 Hour Party People

Back at the party, Jin Guangyao, deliberately, I think, goes to offer his pops a drink while his pops is still super furious and looking for someone to take it out on. The servant lady is like, better you than me, pal, and helps JGY get his drink ready. Pops, predictably, knocks the drink onto Jin Guangyao.

(more behind the cut)

Lan Xichen is standing by with a hanky and a face full of worry. Lan Xichen is so Lanny that he thinks JGY needs to go change clothes after getting clear alcohol spilled on him, rather than just letting it evaporate and smelling pleasantly of booze for the rest of the evening like a normal party guest. 

JGY launches into a criticism of Wei Wuxian, which Lan Wangji listens to very carefully, frowning. Lan Xichen, Nie Huasang and Jiang Cheng listen as well, and don’t speak up. 

A Clear Conscience

Then Lan Wangji *literally* steps out of his brother’s shadow, and speaks in defense of Wei Wuxian. This right here is Lan Wangji’s turning point, as far as I’m concerned. Xichen is gazing at JGY, totally on board with JGY’s spin of the situation, and his shadow falls away from Lan Wangji’s face as LWJ steps forward.

Lan Wangji says, isn’t what WWX said true? JGY puts on his customer service smile and says that the truth isn’t something you’re supposed to go around saying out loud. 

I’d like to say this is what’s wrong with cultivator society but this is really a universal human thing; every society has rules about upsetting the social order, and they are very frequently at odds with basic compassion and morality. 

Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng stay silent but Lan Xichen goes and throws Wei Wuxian under the bus carriage, saying his character has changed. 

Lan Wangji nods decisively at this, and bows to Lan Xichen, silently asking permission to follow Wei Wuxian. Lan Xichen grants permission, telling Lan Wangji to do his best. Lan Xichen probably thinks he and Lan Wangji are in agreement, in this moment, but that nod of Lan Wangji’s was nothing of the kind.

That nod was Lan Wangji agreeing with himself; he is going to try to bring Wei Wuxian back but he is also going to listen to him.  Meanwhile Lan Xichen is tying himself in knots to appease Jin Guangyao. The divergence between the brothers will just grow, from this point onwards.

Lan Wangji leaves to go follow his boyfriend conscience, while Jiang Cheng continues to silently listen to the commentary of others, and gets so mad he crushes a wine cup.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Night.

Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian arrive at the prison camp, and the first person they encounter is Granny, with a defaced Wen Banner in her hand and Wen Yuan on her back. 

Whenever I read a meta or a fic that talks about how the juniors are so sweet partly because they are “untouched by the war” I want to point to this moment. A-Yuan endures an absolute truckload of war trauma by the time he’s four years old, and while Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji both deserve a lot of credit for saving him at great risk to themselves, Granny and Uncle Four are the first heroes of A-Yuan’s story. His kind, mellow personality has a lot in common with theirs. 

This is followed by an eternity of Wen Qing running around asking if anyone’s seen her brother. Eventually Wei Wuxian gets tired of this and gathers the guards together, threatening them with Chenqing. 

He doesn’t need to play it; just holding it up has every Jin dude instantly kneeling and scared. 

The guards send him and Wen Qing go to a giant field of corpses, where Wen Qing runs around checking to see if any of them is her brother. Wei Wuxian starts off kind of detached and angry, but eventually snaps out of it, tucks away his flute and starts helping her to search. 

Wen Qing finds Wen Ning, mostly-dead with a lure flag speared into his belly. Wei Wuxian grimly takes in the situation from across the field of corpses. 

When he arrives at Wen Qing’s side he sees this talisman in Wen Ning’s hand. 

This is the talisman that Wei Wuxian made for Wen Ning back in Gusu summer school, before the war. It’s the one that Wen Ning was wearing at his waist when they met up after the massacre of Lotus Pier. It’s supposed to literally protect Wen Ning from having his spiritual consciousness snatched, as well as being a symbol of Wei Wuxian’s sense of responsibility for, and affection for, Wen Ning. 

Wei Wuxian, understandably, loses his shit at this point. Less understandably, he is about to decide that the best way to express his sorrow and rage is to re-animate the corpse of his friend, right in front of the corpse’s sister. Like, seriously, dude. Dude. 

Ghost General

This super-questionable decision leads to one of the most badass sequences in the show, which is unfortunately chock full of lightning flashes, so not everyone can watch it. Wei Wuxian and his flute and swirls of resentful energy come marching out of the darkness of the corpse field, back to the guards. 

The guards have decided to slaughter all of the prisoners and then run away, which would be a good plan except they should really have skipped right to the running away part of things. When Wei Wuxian accuses them of killing the prisoner in the corpse field, they claim that the Wens have a habit of falling off of a hill and dying. Wei Wuxian can relate. 

At this point Wei Wuxian summons up Wen Ning 2.0, ultra badass edition, who comes flying through the air with his odd, straight-armed fighting stance and cool solid-black eyes and rock-and-roll hair. 

Soundtrack: *Four Sticks*

Wen Ning proceeds to whale on the guards and scare the shit out of his relatives.

Then Wen Qing shows up and begs Wei Wuxian to stop. She explains that Wen Ning is only mostly dead. Like, if he was fully dead would she be okay with this? 

Wei Wuxian tries to reel Wen Ning in and realizes that he is not actually in control of Wen Ning. Ok, see, right from the first day of Wen Ning 2.0, WWX is aware that his control is iffy. Why does he think he’s going to be able to control him later? 

Anyway, this is where we learn Wen Ning’s grown-up name is Wen Qionglin. Wei Wuxian yells this name, and Wen Ning looks up like a cat hearing the “food noise,” and then proceeds to get control of himself. 

This is such a nice symbolic moment, that will be replayed later in the temple, when Wen Ning saves Jin Ling from Baxia. 

Wen Ning has a remote-code-execution OS vulnerability throughout the story; his soul is at risk of being stolen, and he is magically controlled by Wei Wuxian, Xue Yang, Su She, and Baxia.  Meanwhile Wen Qing, Wei Wuxian, and random kids on the street mostly treat him as a child, despite his clear adult capabilities. Wen Ning’s journey in The Untamed is at least partly about asserting his full adulthood, and his ability to overcome magical control is directly connected to that journey.  

After getting Wen Ning to chill, Wei Wuxian calls the floating resentful energy back into his own body, which looks about as comfortable as swallowing a burp. 

On the plus side, apparently resentful energy keeps your hair dry even when it’s raining.

Wei Wuxian should take a page from the guards’ book and slaughter all the Jin witnesses to this situation, but he decides to be the better person and let them live. They go running off down the road, where they encounter Lan Wangji and give him the 411, saying that Wei Wuxian resurrected dead people.

Meanwhile Wei Wuxian collects Wen Qing--half-fainted, again, in an echo of the start of their journey--and collects the Dafan Mountain Wen group, who are hiding, wisely. When they see Wen Ning, Uncle Four and some others start to freak out, but Wei Wuxian tells them that fierce corpses are cool, and they all grab horses and mount up.

Where Are You Going?

Lan Wangji is waiting for them, nonconfrontationally indulging in some visual poetry while he waits. 

In a show where every prop is exquisitely, carefully designed to enhance our understanding character, his Gusu-toned umbrella reveals surprising red and yellow threads woven in, right above his eye line as he looks at Wei Wuxian. 

Wei Wuxian speaks first, saying “you came to stop me?” Lan Wangji doesn’t answer, but asks him where he’s going. Then Lan Wangji warns him that he’s about to abandon orthodoxy forever, if he follows through. 

Wei Wuxian challenges this idea of orthodoxy, asking if Lan Wangji remembers the promise they made together, back in Gusu. It’s worth noting that they both appear to think of it as a co-promise, even though Lan Wangji didn’t speak aloud at the time. 

The conversation will continue in the next episode, because what’s better than a rainy romantic cliffhanger?

Soundtrack: Four Sticks by Led Zeppelin

#the untamed #the untamed gifs #wangxian #wen ning #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #episode 26

[sometipsygnostalgic]

adventure time wizard city liveblog

 well here we go

my last adventure time liveblog, i havent actually done one of these in MANY years... probably not since 2014

this takes place at the same time as obsidian?

DID-- DID CHOOSE GOOSE JUST DIE

DID BUFO JUST KILL CHOOSE GOOSE

yeah i know that’s bufo, they only made it enormously obvious, tsk tsk

@spaceacepearl​ joked about us seeing choose goose get sent to hell but i diDNT EXPECT IT TO HAPPEN

This music is i assume by one of the many musical artists Adam Muto listed on twitter, it rocks. It’s not as hardcore as Obsidian’s intro, but it’s suitably chill for the scene. 

“get offa my bus kid”

Those wizards in the left and far right groups appear to be new! 

OH MY GOD--

HELP?????? NEW PROFILE PIC TIME

HAHAHAHAH

THE MUSICAL CON DID ME GOOD, I DID REALLY LOUD AUDIBLE LAUGHTER

i bet hanna and co had fun making these signs

my favourite is the cat with “FAMILIARS HAVE RIGHTS”

cadorka..... wow

We’re not even four minutes into the ep and peppermint butler has already killed someone in front of a large group of witnesses

“this smells of DARK MAGIC” “yall kids know thats illegal right” peps watches the other kids nod before later joining in, LOL

i cant believe pep started the great gum wars and got killed by golb

SOMEONE has been playing Overwatch... 

i-- i still cant believe choose goose is fucking dead

how long was he stuck in hell for, or was that recent to together again after new death showed up 

i have to admit im not a big fan of spader, too perfect, and not in that funny way either. i hope they give him some characteristics that make him stand out. 

im getting flashbacks to OK KO and Owl House here...

Cadebra using music is a reference to Abracadaniel’s love of interpretetive dance in Play Date. 

“they only laugh because youre different” “i know” “SO STOP BEING DIFFERENT” oh my god it’s like talking to my own parents cadebra is actually... a LOT like me, less in her hyperactivity but more in her nonchalant enthusiasm and almost acceptance of the inevitable bullying because it means more time in people’s consciousness

ahhh - it’s quietly revealed here that she is responsible and a skilled magician, she is just bored of magic! i like that she parents abracadaniel instead of being downtrodden by his ramblings. 

PEP NO--- oh i see the problem, he hasn’t got his Bug Milk... sorry Martin Olsen fans, no Hunson today. At least we get one more Phil Face for the road! 

candy people in their natural habitat

Ahhh that’s Doctor Calidoneus! The voice actor was at the recent Distant Lands panel alongside Pep and Blaine’s actors. 

“pretty sure hes just trashcandy” - i like you, sassy antler lady

the mystery of how he gets clothes

and once again spader is proving to be the most irritating distant lands character of the lot, there is no subversion here. where is the subversion?  

NANI

what is going on here? are pep and peppermint the same person or not? im sure they must be, but there is something going on here with peppermint butler’s soul being trapped in the body of his child self who hasn’t got the same memories. 

OH, HYNDEN WALCH DID A NEW LINE yes this is what im here for, special over 

peppermint butler cursed himself... of course he did - Shado was correct!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHAT THE FUCK

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

ROCK STUDENT, BLESSED ROCK STUDENT, WAS THAT POOR GUY WHO LOOKS LIKE A JAWBREAKER

love the reference to astral plane, of course pep cant astrally project because cursed pep is still inside of him 

wow, blaine, wow

they have a crush

LITTLE DUDE! COLE SANCHEZ!

i love the dynamic between cadebra and abracadaniel, imo so far it’s the heart of the special. im not really gripped by peppermint butler’s school troubles. i imagine someone else probably will be but i want to run past that shit as far as possible. 

TRDGFYGHJH

WE

WE MADE  A PREDICTION THAT WAS JUST LIKE THIS

PEPPERMINT BUTLER GETTING TURNED INTO THE FOUR COMPONENTS OF PEPPER MINT BUTT LURE WAS IN THE WIZARD CITY PREDICTIONS ART DRAW THAT HASNT BEEN POSTED YET

ILL SHOW YOU WHEN NICK POSTS THE VIDEO and then ill tell you who made the prediction because i... think it was nick himself, insanity 

who plagiarized finn’s signature???

turns out pep really DID take over wizard city!!!!

i love this band

i understand your pain peps

you probably have a bit too much in common with your mother, and i imagine it isn’t easy being turned into a kid and not being able to do stuff that came so easy. you’re disappointing yourself! (he’s literally disappointing himself)

I’m less than halfway through the special, what the fuck. I wasn’t wrong when I said Wizard City had a lot on its plate. It’s noit that I’ve been particularly gripped up to this point, though to be fair I didn’t pause at all during the other specials barring Obsidian. 

that... that poor kid is still a rock

and then the preview happened and bufo casually revealed to the audience that, yes, he killed choose goose

i dont know whats happening with pep but it seems he needs to be exorcised of... pep. which is a shame. i hope they learn to coexist. 

i have to say the background work in this special is really good! like, really damn good. 

WH

WHAT

DID SPADER JUST DIE

IS THIS WHY PEOPLE THINK PEPBUT KILLED HIM 

oh thats right - abracadaniel is cadebra’s uncle! this must be abracadniels sister. sorry, folks, he doesn’t fuck. 

Where are they? Is this anywhere near Wizard City? It’s an unpopulated prewar wasteland. 

THESE ARE JUST HUMANS

OF COURSE SHE WANTS TO PERFORM TO MILQUETOAST HUMANS

my child

is this an art style choice or did they get the people from that one studio to make this

HANNA FINALLY GETS TO FULFIL HER DREAM OF INSERTING KANEDA INTO ADVENTURE TIME

the red jacket he wears and his head pill shape is a big kaneda reference actually, which i suppose makes sense considering he’s a rival to our protagonist, but it’s a bit on the nose

bufo killed one of his own students? but why????

“MY UNCLE’S A COP”

“no one likes a rat”

i actually really like blaine, though im confused. did their VA change halfway through the special?

HOW NATURAL, NO WASTE, IT IS AN ENDLESS CHAIN

did doctor caledonius steal the trophy,,,? 

EVIL SNAIL EVIL SNAIL

MONMSTER HUNJTER DISCOVERY NOISE, this time it’s a tetsucabra

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I HAVE QUESTIONS

god i wish this is what this special was about, i miss adventure time

these remind me of the comics with their art style :) i wonder who designed them? the one on the right with pb and pep, in particular, very comics-y. 

fdgfhgf because he’s like 500

“pep can be kind of a jerk but he wouldn’t kill anyone”

sorry, cadebra, i have news for you

is doctor calednoius the true villain? if bufo’s out of the picture, she MUST be, 

ANTS

oh no, he might gbe stuck in wizard city :( 

HELP

the writing on the wall...

SPADER LITERALLY FUCKING DIED OH YM JESUS CHRIST

PEPPERMINT BUTLER’S OWN CULT????

THIS IS JUST OK KO NOW

okay im not surprised all the teachers at wizard city are cultists in worship of peps, maybe they killed spader and bufo because they bullied peps T_T

wait no, they thought spader had the potential, but sadly not

HE FUCKING KILLED HIMSELF

sorry, i was distracted by the pretty dope fight sequence and now the special is over????

fucking jesse, hes probably at least partly responsible for the cult nonsense

This credits art is by Maya Petersen!!!! Holy shit it’s adorable!

LRETGFDRGTFGMHGFHFG

LEAF MAN

DO YOU THINK THEY PUT HIM IN RETROSPECTIVELY

DO YOU THINK MAYA PETERSEN DREW THIS AND ADAM PUT IT IN THE EP RETROSPECTIVELY

HE LIVES

MAYBE THIS IS WHY CHOOSE GOOSE WENT TO HELL

okay, it’s over :) 

first thoughts out of the way: not a big fan of this special. it’s like watching a completely different show. it’s not got the PZSHAHH of the normal wizard city stuff and there weren’t a lot of funny jokes or even hearty moments in the thing. 

it suffers from a lack of invested character interactions, much like BMO did. there was not a single main cast member in the whole thing! and like i said before, much of peppermint butler’s character in the show is based on his very sweet relationship to his mother, princess bubblegum, so when they showed a single (hilarious) photo of them together it made me sad we didn’t get any scenes with them together. it would have STOLEN this episode. and they teased the hunson golf photo, and death!!! and jake appeared in a photo T_T last jake appearance. 

it also suffers because Peppermint Butler is clearly not himself, imo he was way more entertaining in the Together Again special, where we seem him back to his “normal” self. 

i dont think peps being a dark wizard was something to “kill off” exactly. i wonder what was going on there? was that actually peps, or was that a spirit he cursed himself with based on himself? we at least know in the future he does become a dark wizard again, and even princess :) this special didn’t answer those questions but lol. 

THE GOOD STUFF, because yes, there was a lot of good stuff! 

God, I’m with Aracle and Maya on this - I LOVE Cadebra and her relationship to Pep. I wish she was even in more of this - I would love to watch the adventures of Cadebra and Pepbut in their first year of school, like in the end credits.

That, imo, is where the heart of the special lay - Peppermint Butler’s attempts to impress himself, versus Cadebra’s self acceptance and desire to follow her dreams of being a goofy goober, no matter what other people thought of her. 

It turned out that Cadebra is a responsible student and family member. I really liked that. Her scenes with Abracadaniel were, somehow, my favourite in the entire special! 

I like that theres a lot of cool magic towards the end of this special, and a lot of HORRIFYING DEATH. It wouldn’t be adventure time if you didn’t randomly kill off child characters. Poor Spader, I hated you but damn, what a grim fate. 

I like that Bufo and Caledonius had this crush/hatred thing going on, but they were part of the same cult in the end. 

I didn’t like the giant peps scene at the end, the monster was extremely milquetoast compared to the madness we usually get in AT. Obsidian, for example, had the awesome Larvo design. Nemesis had some INSANE dark magic!!!!  I wish they drew more from that episode. 

Considering how much Steve Little appears in this special, I do feel bad for Mace (little Peps). He said he would have really benefitted from coaching, but recieved none. He had to re-record his lines 3 times! Judging from his description of events, Wizard City was a hard time for him. 

The wizard school did remind me, heavily, of both The Owl House and OK KO. Personally I was hoping AT would offer me something more insane, but I do love both of those shows, and I know Wizard City was on a really tight schedule. 

I think they should have spent less time on the school bullying plot, and skipped straight to MURDER. 

We did have a cold opening, not on par with Together Again’s at all, but damn!

I am wondering where I would put this in the watch list? I do think it should sit after Obsidian as the third special. The intro scene makes it clear this takes place at the same time as Obsidian!!!

Well, that was it, the last ep of AT for the next few years at least T_T

i think together again was the better finale, definitely. but wizard city feels pretty detached from AT for me, despite the familiar characters it tonally isn’t like the show other than the awesome brutal death scenes. I thought the last 11 minutes was easily the best in the special! Which, honestly, is how it should be, though I do wish it gripped me more. Maybe I’m just not the target audience for Wizard City? It feels like something I would find very compelling if I was a bit younger! 

#adventure time #wizard city #atimers

[theunvanquishedzims]

Where is my fic of Steve Rogers, Matt Murdoch, and Kurt Wagner bonding over being bi Catholic superhero drama queens. Where do they talk about their personal struggles with sexuality and faith growing up in the 1940s, a Catholic orphanage, and a German circus run by witches. (Were they witches? I remember magic and a giant demon lady and it turned out to be his adopted mother and sister, who he was also dating because they weren’t THAT kind of brother and sister.)

I want Steve to run into Matt shortly after being defrosted, maybe at the gym Matt boxes at. Boxing was a national pastime and now it’s fallen by the wayside in favor of more glamorous fighting styles. It’s nice to just get in a ring and punch someone, and they’re surprisingly compatible fighters, both slightly too fast and hitting too hard, coming out the other side grinning bloody teeth at each other. Matt smoothly lying (telling the truth) about his blindness forcing him to focus on his opponent until he can almost predict their movements. Steve fumbling with the cover story SHIELD gave him about being a soldier recently returned from war, being slightly too honest about feeling out of touch and like he wouldn’t fit in normal life with everything he’s seen and done in the war.

I want Matt to show up at SHIELD next Sunday morning to pick Steve up for church completely unasked, Steve fumbling into the nicest clothes he owns that isn’t a dress uniform, Matt loaning him a tie and whisking him across the city to Hell’s Kitchen. Matt whispering cues through the service, remembering John Mulaney at the last minute and hissing the correct words so Steve doesn’t say AND ALSO WITH YOU. Pointing out the priest he confesses to that can handle the mention of beating up bad guys without running screaming. Going out to lunch and discussing how Matt’s church is different from Steve’s old one, going back to Foggy’s to watch that John Mulaney show because he’s the only one they know with a tv, Foggy groaning over there being TWO of them.

Months or years later, running into Kurt at the Tower because Tony’s the one who developed the image inducer technology. Steve’s heightened vision being able to pick out the micro nuances where the hologram doesn’t quite keep up, most people would be able to shrug it off with a vague sense of unease, but they stand out to him like glowing red flags. Matt just feeling the buzzing and prickle of electricity all over his--skin? Fur? This man is very hairy and also has a tail. Why is no one saying anything about the tail. Steve almost citizen/Avenger-arrests him but Tony comes to vouch for him and they have their little Mutants Among Us revelation in the private upper floors. Steve apologizes very sincerely and they chat about Germany and circuses, another nearly-bygone relic that Steve misses. Matt is feeling left out, but jumps in when Kurt mentions being Catholic.

After that they’ve got weekly mass and lunches, and hey friendship is weird but wonderful. They give each other fashion tips! Kurt is European and flamboyant, Steve is solidly insisting that the only improvement on slacks and a button-up is a leather jacket, and Matt is literally blind. They get by. Matt introduces them to his tailor, after some private talks Kurt brings all his pants in and gets proper tail holes incorporated. Steve gets sticker shock every time he goes to a department store, but being able to buy at thrift stores and get them fitted is much more in line with his upbringing. Matt’s wardrobe gets some splashes of color that Kurt meticulously coordinates and bans him from freestyling with.

Weirdly enough it takes a really long time for the superhero thing to come up. Like a reeeeaaaaaally long time. Like shading into identity porn amounts of time. Not on purpose. Steve Rogers is a popular name in the US and doubly so in military families, nobody connects Steve the Army vet with Captain America unless they’re majorly into WWII military history, and the kind of guy who’s majorly into WWII military history is the kind of guy Steve tends to avoid outside of bar fights and university lectures. Everyone thinks the new Captain America guy is an Army recruitment stunt anyway.

Matt is blind, has had several high-profile cases against mob families, and lives in a dangerous part of town, nobody is surprised when he shows up places looking a little roughed up and growling about the darkness in mankind’s souls. Concerned, yes, ready to take on the mob, yes, surprised, no. He likes punching things though, so they leave it when he says he’s got it handled. A lot of debate stems from Matt’s growling, they all have strong opinions about morality and crime and institutional oppression. They have varying degrees of optimism/pessimism about God’s judgement and forgiveness, and wildly different ideas about the criminal justice system. (Again: 1940s soldier, US lawyer, and minority immigrant whose typical response to legal authorities is: *smashes a 40 on the ground* SCATTER!)

Tony introduced Kurt and told them he was engineering him the image inducer, but neglected to mention that it was part of his deal with the X-Men to field test his tech*. Nobody knows what he does for a living. Performer? Translator? Model? Escort? He knows a lot of rich people, like the Starks and Worthingtons and Frosts. He travels pretty frequently and brings them back souvenirs. Foggy is just happy that there is someone cheerful and level-headed in Matt and Steve’s Fight Club of a friendship, until Kurt backflips into the boxing ring with a fencing sword and shouts HAVE AT THEE, and oh no there’s THREE of them now.

(Tony is one of the silent investors in the X-Men. It started as just donating an old mansion the Stark family had to house at-risk “genetic minority” youth, then he wanted to help with the renovations to make it suitable for young mutants to practice controlling their powers, and then everyone got a little carried away and suddenly there were some extra basement floors. A few super computers. Something called a Danger Room, which is a misnomer because it’s totally safe, Tony promises. Possibly a donated jet or two, though they shot down his idea of painting it school bus yellow and claiming it as a school fleet vehicle on their taxes. He thinks the whole “X-MEN” thing the media came up with is hilarious, they’re just a bunch of persecuted minorities trying to rescue and educate kids, occasionally scuffling with another group doing the same thing on the other side of the moral line. He stays in his lane and looks forward to their tech challenges as a fun side project. “Full-body hologram” was a winner, even if it took a few tries to get the tail right.)

Just. More interaction between people who can conceivably interact on the regular, not just meet once in a big showdown based on mistaken identity, realizing We’re All Good Guys Here, shaking hands and then never seeing each other until the big world-ending team-up episode. Give me that sweet sweet bonding. We’re fanficcers, we don’t have to worry about coordinating between movies and shows and who’s going to space in their comic this week. We can just say “hey these guys have a lot in common, how about they get lunch sometime.”

#zims has too many feelings about super heroes #steve rogers #captain america #matt murdoch #daredevil #kurt wagner #nightcrawler #x-men #avengers #long post

[in-tua-deep]

tua rewatch with the roommate

Episode five

Oh fuck the “I found you. all your bodies.” scene

“We died?” “Horribly.” throwback to the ben convo o o f

“If perfectly arranged under rubble and otherwise unharmed counts as ‘horribly”’  - roommate

I like that Diego says he’s going to kill Hazel and Cha-Cha like it’s a challenge?? lol five doesn’t care if they live or die he only cares if u do you big dumbass

“Well I know none of the main characters die bc there’s a season 2... and i’m pretty sure they’re all in s2... like all of the family?”

I mean luther is kind of valid for being frustrated that five didn’t share about the apocalypse but also like,,, the first person five told about it (Vanya) suggested he might be insane. so. i can understand some reluctance on his part on top of the whole “the last time my siblings fought this the Whole World Died Including Them i would like them as far away from apocalypse stuff as possible”

okay okay so five says “they turned me into the perfect instrument” so do y’all think that implies experimentation like in the comics or ????

all i can think about during the kennedy scene though is my high school history teacher. he went over the assassination in intimate detail and i’m pretty sure he was writing a book about it and everything. mr. hansen if you’re out there - 

i like feral beard five more than mustache five tbh if i’m picking 

“Someone ELSE shot the president? Was he supposed to shoot kennedy or was he supposed to kill the person who shot kennedy?” - Roommate

love that five tells luther to grow up over murder,,, though to be valid pretty sure they did actually murder people as kids SO. grow down?

fuck i love mary,, will you love me like you loved me in the january rain??? just shoot me in the heart

GOD rob is such a good actor

“wait a second... how is he wearing pants?” oh roommate you have a big storm coming

i have some serious questions about the commission and their methods of communication. where do?? the tubes come from? where do they go after?

Allison: i have a bad feeling [about leonard]

where are these instincts for everything else tho??? her marriage?

“Vanya. she really is trying to look out for you. i really would trust her. you could invite her to come along so she can see he’s perfectly fine??” - Roommate, whose instincts regarding not trusting leonard-harold are spot on

apparently my roommate knows people who put salt in their coffee. i have. so many questions.

“That’s suspicious?? that’s suspicious right?? did he do that? is he a secret serial killer? is he a FUCKING secret serial killer?” roommate when they talk about helen cho going missing

“What do you mean stop showing up it’s been like. a day” - I mean. the roommate has a point. 

Klaus’s depression bath is a mood :(

did klaus put eye shadow on before his bath or did he get his hands on eye shadow in vietnam?? the questions that will never be answered

Five is so enthusiastic about having someone who understands... he doesn’t even notice absolutely Not Being In The Mood,, klaus is grieving and five is just like !!! where did you go!!!! like it was a vacation

klaus: yeah i’m ten months older now. when i’m done being depressed i will lord that over diego for the rest of our natural lives.

does five write in all caps all the time?? why? 

roommate: I wonder what the upper size limit on the knives her can use. like is it machete length? forearm length? what are the limits on his powers. if he sharpened a very sharp mechanical pencil could he use it? if he sharpened a piece of the chandelier? at what point does something become a knife?

me: could he hurl mia (my cat)? mia and her knife feet?

allison also writes in all caps to write leonard’s address

we stan agnes and hazel in this household

“I never said we didn’t !! i just thought she was just a random extra in the first episode and every time we cut away i think that’s the last we’ve seen of her” - roommate because i keep saying that this is an agnes stan household

“OH THERE’S THE PATCHWORK COAT i was afraid it didn’t come back” - okay though good question he definitely didn’t have the coat on the bus. what is it with klaus and his magically appearing coat????

oh :(  oh klaus :(  every time klaus is sad i am also sad :(

honestly a family conversation IS the threat in this family

god though this random vet in this bar is actually an asshole though like. klaus doesn’t owe him shit. klaus served. he’s clearly having a moment with the photo. that could have been a family member or something who died i don’t even know

agnes: i’m a twitcher :)

“like a twitch streamer?” -Roommate

PLEASE give me twitch streamer!Agnes au

look i just enjoy hazel and agnes

roommate: honey you’re too young for her

me: NO DON’T BE MEAN TO THEM,,, agnes deserves a boytoy

“does diego drive a manual?” my roommate once again focusing on things that i do not

five: i have to find the people whose deaths could save the timeline

my roommate: is it agnes?? is he going to kill agnes????

i’m still laughing about that fact that luther is holding dolores.... over the fire escape... she couldn’t drop that far lads

luther’s dumb sometimes but he does have some nice heart to hearts with his brother,,,, honestly he and five get along pretty well in the early episodes. kindred spirits. body dysmorphia and isolation squad.

my roommate has to keep remembering social media doesn’t exist in this universe

i am still confused as to why

that won’t stop me from giving everyone iphones and youtube accounts in my aus though

diego can curve ANYTHING he throws, usually knives, according to cha-cha’s research. but that doesn’t explain the spoilers i have seen about s2 sO

Klaus: You also told me that licking a nine volt battery would give me pubes

HOW DID I FORGET THAT LINE

oh diego got a bullet graze forgot about that as well?? does he ever get like. medical attention for that? diego?????

it really has been like. maybe two days since helen cho died. is no one??? concerned????? they just immediately jump into replacing her??????????????????? hellO? 

“very clear camera angles to show that this actress did not actually play the violin for this role” - i mean that’s fair but ellen is trying rip

me: who’s your favorite character so far?  roommate: that’s a tricky question. klaus is very entertaining to watch. allison is the most reasonable and i’m very interested to know, well, she seems like the best combination of reasonable and has the least selfish intentions. diego and luther i feel like are both good in a bland way in that they’re both doing good in the best way they can which usually involves punching people. five is fun. five is very fun. five is as fun to watch as klaus, they’re both very fun actors to watch on screen. they’re more expressive than diego and luther tend to be.  me: so which is your favorite?????  roommate: first instinct says allison, though she probably has the least dynamic or interesting arc so far

are hazel and cha-cha the best because their victims never see them coming?? like. they aren’t really THAT competent.

“I do LOVE the aesthetic of an ice cream truck playing ride of the valkyries” - my roommate is valid

“LOVE the hypersaturated background in this scene. it’s more fun that having it be desaturated.”

five looks so baby in this scene with the handler :(

still unsure where five got that handgun but i’m vibing

hate when she touches his face !! awful!!!

the handler’s little “all of them??” like yeAH ALL OF THEM even though they irritate the living FUCK out of each other. siblings man

ben gets shotgun for the getaway !!! go ben!

“I’m starting to think... given how space and reality seemed to be warping during her playing... that her medication... isn’t for anxiety...” - oh, oh roommate

ah i blocked out the leonard vanya make out as well

“DIDN’T YOU MEET HIM TWO DAYS AGO?” - yeah i feel u roommate

yup there’s helen’s body

“CSI call crime scene investigation - that’s going to start to smell real soon”

pogo: and you understand that the children can never know

me: actually pogo fuck you

and that’s episode 5 everyone thank you and goodnight

episode six

i do love a good flashback to klaus

klaus: sees a shirtless soldier and instantly falls in love

they don’T EVEN QUESTION HIM just “KATZ GET THIS MAN A PAIR OF PANTS” and they go with it?? he just APPEARED and they don’t even care

klaus was really just vibing in the 60s huh

wait this is like 1962 or 63 right

when does s2 take place?? also the 60s right???

didn’t kennedy die in 1963 i feel like what i know about s2 contradicts that date but i could have sworn they said a round trip to 1963??????

luther is SUCH A MOOD in the family briefing.

“aww he’s a bad liar” - roommate

“I realize that [the umbrella] was necessary for the title drop but where the fuck did that come from”

@ the handler please stop touching five,,, but also five has such. non reactions to her touching him. which worries me. like she grabs his shoulder walking alongside him and he doesn’t even look at her

why are there gas masks in the briefcase room...

can you IMAGINE if your boss toted a child into the room and introduced him as the Legendary Time Travelling Assassin that the whole office had a betting pool over who would die that one time and is Definitely approaching 60 not 13... and then called him LEADERSHIP MATERIAL. implying that this child will probably get a promotion before you do?? can you IMAGINE?

“again... two days ago...” roommate about leonard and vanya

vanya really chose literally just the worst time to come back to the academy huh

okay but vanya going off?? valid, but also,, i mean. it IS their dads fault that they don’t have any relationship with vanya?

luther: it’s about the moon  roommate: critical role moon theory

hey like. how did the family get together in the first timeline holy fuck. it’s hard enough to get them together when they Literally Know The World Is Going To End

so remember diego getting grazed with a bullet yeah well he has a sling on now which makes sense!! and yet. when five got grazed by a bullet he SLAPS A BANDAID ON IT. someone please address this.

five is such an asshole coworker i love it

i wonder if dot is a mother. or just a nice coworker. she keeps trying to talk to him and invite him to lunch aww

i wonder if it’s purposeful on the handler’s part to call him “mr. five” instead of “mr. hargreeves” to like... further isolate him from his family? by removing his last name they’re sort of removing his ties to his siblings considering it’s not like they’re related by blood

forgot how much i hate the bathroom scene !! wow !! hate it so much!!! there’s so many violations of social etiquette in such a short scene! it’s so deeply uncomfortable!

luther: stop it pogo! you know everything our dad did

i am remembering once again how much i hate pogo all over again!! reginald literally locked klaus in a mausoleum!! he abused the kids! pogo didn’t even speak up about sending luther to the MOON,,, oh luther :(

he just learned his dad exiled him for no reason he has lots of rights his entire world view was just shattered wow i am like infinitely more sympathetic to luther on the second watch

“I knew allison and luther was a thing. you told me allison and luther was a weird thing. still not a fan.” - my very valid roommate

they could have made the fort so much more sibling-y instead of romantic and it would have been so much better honestly

oh dave :(

“I wonder who her primary care physician is and if she can find out what that medication was...” roommate i wish i knew

“I’m trying to decide if he knew ahead to time to try and get at her specifically or like... i don’t know when he took the figurine I was like ‘doesn’t he own an antique shop is he there to steal antiques from the family home’.” roommate on leonard

forgot the handler gifted five a suit. also don’t like that. don’t like her talk about his body and everything either.

“is it too much to ask to give him two outfits? one he can wear now and one with the new body?” - roommate

honestly with hazel’s talk on budget cuts i’m not surprised he only gets one suit

STOP TOUCHING HIS FACE,,,, HANDLER. STOP TOUCHING HIS FACE

five and his sweet tooth. don’t take the candy five. come on. what did your father TEACH YOU. honestly reggie probably was like “let them get kidnapped it will probably teach them a life lesson”

“there were like... villages that needed rebuilding after disasters. he could have been sending these packages to legit lunar research facilities. legit facilities would have adored to have that information.” 

okay but people KNEW he was on the moon. cha-cha mentioned it. it was in vanya’s book. why were scientists not knocking down reginald’s door demanding the research??? if i was a moon scientist i would have the mansion staked out trying to demand info jesus

“love his eye fluttering in the way of ‘oh shit i got something in my eye i can’t break character scene is still going scene is stILL GOING’“ - hilarious observations from the allison luther fort scene 2.0: grown up version that gets erased

did they just leave the fort up all those years. did no one USE the green house??? did grace lovingly work around it all that time?

oh :(  dave :(

grace is capable of lying and pogo is a shadowy motherfucker

“okay now that they’re actually putting it into the plot i understand why you don’t think he’s trustworthy but you really got on my back about that”

in my defense i just hate him tbh i did not like him when he first showed up and i never particularly liked him tbh

allison: i think you’re the only person who knows who i am and likes me anyway

me, remembering the theory that allison rumored luther to love her: HMMMMMM

okay but i think the luther and allison dance scene is fucking HILARIOUS. absolutely ridiculous. i mean i hate that it’s incest but also the fucking LIGHTS DESCENDING. the RANDOM WARDROBE CHANGE. 

roommate likes the green underskirt thing under allison’s random dance dress

are they just doing this in public???

ugh. the kiss. ugh. erased that from my memory as well

“they clearly want romance in this show but they painted themselves into a corner with the siblings thing” - roommate

five and his fucking STAPLERS isn’t this the second time he’s knocked someone out with a stapler?? the bank robber and now gloria??

five please your siblings were finally doing some decent work on their own issues :/

five is the kind of dramatic as fuck entrances 

“love how he just grabs [allison’s] coffee. kid needs a coffee after all that.” - roommate

five actually does a good job of rallying the siblings though?? they just broke the fuck up in the og timeline

“something tells me that harold jenkins might be leonard”

oh roommate

episode seven

uh oh harold was born

i feel vaguely bad for him

“me the night before a convention” - roommate on harold’s tape and cosplay and everything

okay but how did reginald even KNOW harold jenkins had no powers?? did he? keep tabs on all the forty some kids not just the seven he kept?

but also why the fuck are these people laughing at An Actual Child fuck all of them honestly

“did HE kill hargreeves?? I mean. he’s got motive.” - roommate

harold really said “i think my superpower is actually this hammer motherfucker”

how did he get twelve years?? was he tried as an adult?? was he in juvie? how old WAS he

twelve years ago... they’re 29 soooo seventeen? he did NOT look seventeen? he was NOT seventeen in that flashback what???

roommate theorizes that harold ran off after the murder and committed petty crimes until caught and tried for murder when he was seventeen so was maybe 13 in the flashback

okay so i looked up the timeline and he got out in 2014 or something so he was like 13 in the flashback which makes SO much more sense honestly but also what the FUCK was he doing for five years

“he’s actually laying out all the facts as he knows them and I appreciate that.” -roommate about five briefing the team

five?? the only member of the family with communication skills? it’s? somehow more likely than you think?

“allison’s pants that she’s wearing now are the most perfectly tailored things i’ve ever seen. not even a wrinkle when she’s standing still. do you know how hard that is to do?” again my roommate noticing the things i absolutely do not

five. five. you have a GUT WOUND and also jumped a BUNCH OF TIMES. you are not blinking into the police station and getting the file. you need some SLEEP. and REST. and WOUND CARE FIVE FOR FUCK’S SAKE. you still have a GUNSHOT GRAZE on your upper arm and a SLICE on your wrist from DIGGING OUT A TRACKER. FIVE.

diego wants to be batman SO BAD.

five crossing his arms and Not Uncrossing Them because he’s literally HOLDING HIMSELF TOGETHER.

wow luther is really handling this so much worse in this timeline rip

luther is losing validity points for CHOKING KLAUS i knew this happened but i didn’t remember how awful it was !!! bad and terrible! and luther is very drunk and very sad and very angry. oh. he’s saying he never left the house and never had friends for nothing :(

klaus had the realization that reggie was an asshole YEARS ago and he’s just kind of like “aww. luther :(” 

klaus is trying so hard

“Klaus has had the most heart to hearts with the most siblings honestly.” - roommate

allison at the beginning making her laugh in the office with the EYES, five on the steps of meritech, diego after the vet bar, luther on the couch...

wow cha cha really thought hazel was talking about how meaningful his partnership was with her when he was talking about agNES

five limping up the lawn and staggering up the stairs and clinging to the rails baBY SIT DOWN. YOU ARE BLEEDING.

“inspiring leadership” “one of the greats” what a sibling moment honestly.

five really said “i think i will pass the fuck out now”

five really said “hey i am literally willing to die for this mission because this mission is the safety and lives of my entire family and i love you guys :(”

except he doesn’t because five is decent at information sharing but getting feelings out of him feels like pulling teeth at times smh

is leonard trying to vicariously live his “normal child born on the umbrella academy day discovers they have had powers the WHOLE TIME” dream through vanya??

we yell about how leonard and vanya have known each other for like a week but i mean same for hazel and agnes!! he’s literally asking her to run away with him and she says yes !!!!! agnes is here for the romantic adventure with this man she’s really living her first hot girl summer and living for it

“she’s having her own little rom com! she thinks she’s living in a rom com not a dark sci fi!” - roommate accurate as usual

she just called ben the emotional support ghost and i mean... she ain’t wrong

honestly klaus should have just left luther to his rave, he didn’t get to party in his teens or during his college years or anything

i do appreciate the viking yell of “B R O T H E R” that luther greets klaus with though because that’s exactly how i greet my own siblings whenever i see them

oh klaus :(

oh klaus :(

he’s having war flashbacks, cravings, is in withdrawal, AND experiencing sensory overload while reliving one of the more traumatizing moment of his life

oh klaus :(

five in a bed for the second time of the season which is nice for him. if only the first time wasn’t because he passed out drunk and the second time wasn’t because of a whole shrapnel wound. i am now that captain of the Let Five Sleep brigade holy SHIT like at least they imply that the others sleep five is just feral and ready to go at all times

are the police allowed to just. remove someone’s arm sling? is that permitted? his arm could be fucked up? i mean. it is? he was shot?

“I saw everything my brothers and sister could do ruin their lives” VANYA some REALIZATION up in here,,,, admitting that the umbrella academy wasn’t exactly a desirable place to be is actually some real growth for her and leonard just fucking shuts her down? fuck that man

VANYA SEE THE RED FLAGS FOR WHAT THEY ARE COME ON

oh klaus :(  oh luther :(  oh :(

“love his corset side pants, like benedict from violet evergarden” - on the topic of Klaus’s pants

“I made everyone else so I must have made you” says god except for the fact that the kids just... surprise popped up instead of coming about the natural way. maybe god DIDN’T made them????????

oh klaus :(  prepare for disappointment :(

oh i didn’t notice the photos of the umbrella academy in the barbershop the first time i watched this

so klaus gives an age for the mausoleum... thirteen... do you think that was before or after five left? statistically it’s probably after bc it was only a couple of months after they turned thirteen that five vanished

Klaus’s “we were just kids” breaks my heart every time

if i was one of reggie’s kids i would have just not gone to the funeral. rip to the hargreeves kids but i’m different

he doesn’t even call klaus klaus in death, he still calls klaus number four. fuck that man.

“i was gonna say i’d have been very very surprised if they kept him dead” - roommate on klaus waking up

“Five bucks says he set these guys up to try and get something out of her” - the roommate being very perceptive

cha cha is VERY rude to my girl agnes

honestly why DIDN’T hazel just kill cha cha after her whole speech and threats about killing agnes slowly in front of him???? like he literally watched her try to kill him as well

why wasn’t diego arrested in the original day that wasn’t actually?? he was being considered already. he still left the house, albeit with grace instead of allison. why wasn’t he arrested then???????? 

roommate thinks it’s interesting how committed the show is to their old timey shit. she used a nicer words like anachronisms but the point is: w h y

are these episodes even longer than i remember?? holy SHIT

#tua rewatch #honestly these are half proof to my sister that i am watching tua #she keeps yelling at me about s1 #there can't be that many more episodes right #apparently there are ten episodes in s1 #that's a whole 'nother three hours #jeebus #and then ten more hours for s2 #so LONG

[aclosetfan]

To be written ideas: Number 16

Thanks for playing along!! @kayyee also asked for 16!

haha omg I haven't touched #16 in like four years. Okay, don't judge me, but i've got it titled in my outlines folder as "PowerPossible"

The outline's pretty long. i've actually shortened it for you all lol. Please let me know if you want to hear more about this one!! I can talk about it for a while :) Read below the cut for all of it!

this story's the obligatory Human/tmnt/Kim Possible-ish AU. The girls are NOT related and have no powers (in the beginning).

Family dynamics:

BC: Professor and Ms. Keane are her parents, she has a little brother named Ken (ppgz reference ;p). According to BC, Ken is their favorite child. She's just jealous because Ken has more in common with the Professor, who BC truly adores. She and the Professor have trouble relating because she's into sports, he's not. However, the Professor and her are more alike than she knows. Ms. Keane is still a kindergarten teacher and is the reason their family moves to Townsville.

Bubbles: Her parents died when she was young and now, she lives with her grandparents, the Mayors! The Mayor is still the Mayor of Townsville. (btw Im 85% sure that canonically his last name is also Mayor) The Mayor is under HIM's thumb, and when he finally messes up one too many times, HIM has him "taken care of." However, that's like towards the middle (?) of the story. So, in the end, Bubbles only has her grandmother.

Blossom: Two moms! Ms. Bellum and an unidentifiable second mother, who isn’t important (lol). 2nd mother isn't dead or anything, and she's happily married to Ms. Bellum--she's literally just one of those "mentioned in passing characters who are constantly out of town." Ms. Bellum is the Mayor's secretary, which Blossom uses to her advantage.

PLOT

The story starts out with the girls in kindergarten. Bubbles and Blossom are friends because Bubbles is the only person who doesn't think nerdy lil Blossom is annoying/socially awkward/too smart for her own good. Blossom in turn doesn't make fun of Bubbles being a crybaby. Buttercup's kind of a bully, but she's really just mad that her family had to move to Townsville. Ms. Keane (BC's mother) finally has enough of Buttercup's rebellious attitude and makes her sit with Bubbles and Blossom. Together the three girls find themselves in a confusing and troublesome situation: what happened to their class pet Twiggy??? (that hamster in that one episode). They solve the mystery (i.e. Mitch), and Ms. Keane frees Buttercup from the "loser lame-o sissy table." Except Buttercup ends up staying because *spoilers* they become best friends. (and she likes solving mysteries with them)

FASTFORWARD TO HIGHSCHOOL-ISH AGE

The girls are as thick as thieves and have a bad habit of sticking their noses where they don't belong. Blossom's the brains of the operation, Buttercup the muscle, and Bubbles is the obligatory "guyssss you promised we were going to the mall today not solving crime!" (Like Arnold from the Magic School bus who's like "oh please let this be a normal field trip!" And everyone is like "With Bloss and BC?! No Way!")

They've hit a "mystery" dry spell. At this point, none of their "mysteries" have been high stakes. Just petty stuff, but BC wants more. After another bust, she goes home and overhears her father (who's still a high-profile scientist) on the phone talking about the "odd mutant/monster-like" sightings that happened a few days ago in Townsville Central Park. Buttercup takes it as an opportunity to 1) help her dad and win his favor (that she already has smh) and 2) to break the dry spell she and the girls were going through, so they set off to investigate. To protect their identities, the girls essentially "mask up" and by the end of the story are described by the Townsville News as vigilantes.

Eventually, the girls stumble headfirst into Townsville's underbelly and the adults in their lives are all connected. They find that there is in fact a mutant uprising that has an overwhelming connection to the Professor, his ex-lab partner, the Mayor, and a mysterious man only referred to as HIM. And, of course, Chemical-X. X was the once abandoned project of the Professor and his once lab partner Mojo Jojo. It was supposed to be a miracle medicine! Now, in Townsville's underbelly, it's a popular/very dangerous drug/commodity.

At one point in the past, during a fit of rage, Mojo had mutated himself with an unstable vial of the chemical—accidentally--and fleed with the only "perfect" vial. He runs into a sickly man (who becomes HIM) and is conned out of the chemical. HIM takes the chemical and it "cures" him from his disease. It also gives him "superpowers." (NOTE: chemical-x superpowers varies person to person) However, the chemical is also unstable, and now HIM wants (NEEDS) a better formula, one that isn’t tainted (as Mojo still cannot figure out how to make it correctly) and will do anything for it. This is something that HIM believes the Professor can do. So, the Professor is essentially blackmailed into working for HIM (like most everyone who is in a position of power in Townsville). It's an expensive endeavor, so HIM sells the "almost perfect" batches (which in small doses can make a person feel invincible, but is highly addictive) to the crime syndicates. If you take an "almost perfect" version of Chemical-X, you generally need to keep micro-dosing to stay alive or your body starts to fail. (This is why HIM needs that PERFECT version)

Unbeknownst to everyone, The Professor was only ever able to perfect the formula once and it was by complete accident. (the version HIM had gotten was very close to perfect, but not all the way). Even the Professor doesn't know how he did it. (But that's because it wasn't the Professor who had perfected it--the Girls had done it accidentally during a sleepover in middle school (which the ever studious Blossom had recorded in her notebook). The Girls had been playing "scientist."

However, the Professor HAS figured out an Antidote-X. Again results vary. His version works best on the lab rats the original research group had experimented on. Blossom ends up perfecting Antidote-X for humans and the Girls are able to reserve mutations they come across on their "patrols", which pisses HIM off to no end, resulting in a bounty on their head. (He doesn't like the lose in profits)

As more mutants begin to appear and HIM becomes more frustrated at the lack of progress, Townsville becomes a darker place. At the height of this frustration, he kills the Mayor (who was wanting to break ties with HIM b/c of Bubbles' pleading). At that point, the Girls know who HIM is and what he is capable of. Since they have no one of authority to turn to that can stop HIM, they work together to create the perfected chemical-x like they had all those years ago in hopes that they can appease HIM and free the Professor.

The Girls figure out the formula, and in a race to save the City and, most importantly, the Professor, they confront HIM. Because they're kids, they naively think that they can trade the formula for BC's dad. It doesn't end up working out as they planned. In the end, HIM injects BC w/chemical-x (PERFECTED version), and she gains superhuman powers. To keep the ending vague, the Girls end up saving the day ;)

Important Characters the Girls Encounter:

Amoeba Brothers: the brothers are the first failed chemical-x test created by the Professor's research team that did not result in death. They haunt the sewers after they escaped the lab. They are the Girls first encounter with the mutations/mutants running rampant in the City

Gang Green Gang: Delinquents chosen by the City to be injected. Again, the tests failed. Had temporary "powers" but they teetered off quickly and the boys permanently stayed green (weird side-effect)

Bunny: Sad. She is also a failed test, but she is mutated while the Girls are actively investigating the case. She has super strength and was able to break out of the lab. The Girls hunt her down and they end up trying to help her. However, she passes away. This has a lasting effect on the girls.

Sedusa: she's definitely in the story idk how yet. lol. I just really like her as a character.

Princess: For financial support, HIM promised Mr. Morebucks that'd he'd give Princess superpowers like she wanted when the formula is perfected. But she’s mad, impatient, and power-hungry. In the end, sick of HIM's games and the Professors inability to give her what she wants, she injects herself with the chemical. It works for a bit, and HIM's like "holy shit did we do it??" but after a few days, she becomes unstable. (Her death is captured during live television b/c she makes her superhero debut a Whole Thing). Knows Blossom and Bubbles b/c of their parents. Doesn't like them. Doesn't bother to learn BC's name. Just canonically a brat.

The RRB: Adopted by HIM (and Mojo) "out of the goodness of their hearts." (PR stunt). They were really adopted to be test subjects, but HIM ended up liking them more than anticipated, so HIM decided that they'd be injected AFTER chemical-x is perfected. Absolute shit-heads. They can do whatever they want and no one can tell them "no." They cause havoc for the Girls to keep them off HIM's tail. Drive futuristic motorcycles that leave "light trials." Mad that they can't pin down who the Girls are.

#long post #plz read under the cut too #my outlines #outline ask game #where you pick a number between 1-21 and let me talk about fics I want to write #let me know if you want to know more! #like i said I could go on forever about it #i tried giving the short version of my outline lol #I’ll do better next time 😔 #it just doesn’t make sense if I don’t give a lot #didn't edit so let me know if I need to explain/correct something #ppg fic outline

[shiny-procrastinates]

(re)Watching Magia Record S1 - part 2

part 1 here

I had no idea it’d turn into a run-on text when I posted the last one, am now regretting several life choices.

Hello everyone and welcome to the second post of this series where we watch Magia Record together! (Hopefully)

Last time our cute protagonist was kidnapped by a witch and taken to a mysterious city called Kamihama, only to be saved by a singing chibi Kyuubei, getting kicked out by a blue haired op magical girl, and remembering that her long forgotten wish was to cure her missing sister’s illness. You know, happens everyday.

So then, where is Iroha’s younger sister Ui? What is going on in Kamihama? What’s up with those full-body tights? Guess we’ll have to watch to find out! (There is no answer to the last one.)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record Episode 2

So we kick this episode off with what seems to be a flashback of Iroha visiting her younger sister in the hospital.

The smile that was not protected.

They do some sister bonding and we are now back to the scene of Iroha making her wish, just a little trippier this time.

Iroha’s covered by some white sheets and…

Of course, it was all a dream. Yes, we’d like to know that, too, Iroha. I like how the camera moves back to show the empty part of her room, emphasizing how her sister’s completely gone.

And cut to the op. Talking about nice shots, this one’s my favorite in the opening:

Later, Iroha is telling Kyuubei about her wish. Today, she just bought her lunch instead of making it. Did you oversleep?

Regardless, Kyuubei does not know her sister. He asks if Ui really existed. According to him, it would take something like a magical girl’s wish to erase someone’s existence completely like that, so he suggests it’s more likely that someone implanted false memories in her. Iroha, however, believes those memories are real, and plans to visit the hospital she saw in her dreams in search for clues.

So Iroha is now going to Kamihama. She tried to get in contact with Kuroe but couldn’t reach her. Considering how determined Kuroe was to go to Kamihama though, she might be there already.

Iroha asks Kyuubei about the chibi Kyuubei from earlier, but Kyuubei doesn’t know anything about it. Rather, he says something like that shouldn’t exist.

This bus has ads. And Iroha really does like kids a lot, doesn’t she.

Alas, it seems you can’t even ride a bus in peace in this town. Before she can arrive at the hospital, Iroha gets caught up in yet another witch’s barrier.

Hello, Witch Delivery Service. How can I curse you today?

Once again, she’s not alone in the Labyrinth. There’s another girl getting her butt kicked having a hard time with Kamihama’s witches.

The new girl knows she can’t win, so she’s all in on running away, but Iroha can’t just leave the passengers to become witch food. They’re weak though, so as soon as they stop they’re attacked and end up stuck in a web.

:fuyuu～:

When all seems lost, in comes our knight in shining armor, with her weird shaped sword. If it was jagged, you’d think someone took a bite out of that.

This confident, strong-willed magical girl is called Momoko, and she came to help out the girl from earlier. I can’t screenshot this, but it’s cool how the camera slightly shakes as if affected by the wind when it shows her from the front.

Then there’s Rena.

The two join hands and do something like enchanting, I suppose. Borrowing Rena’s water powers, Momoko dives straight into the enemy and clears everything, not like a tidal wave, but literally with one. Iroha is very impressed… and then she gets run over by a ball of fur along with Kaede. gg

Iroha was abducted, this was actually sci-fi all along.

Of course not, though Madoka does happen in the near future.

Iroha wakes up to find herself in an unfamiliar place. Momoko explains to her that they are at the Coordinator’s, some sort of hospital + consultation center for magical girls… Iroha, please don’t repeat “magical girls” as if it doesn’t ring a bell, you are one.

You’re too nice for this world, shame only suffering awaits you.

Rena criticizes her, but Momoko reassures Iroha that’s just Rena’s way of showing concern. Seems about right.

Momoko offers to escort her back to the station, and Iroha asks if there really are that many witches in Kamihama. I’d say yes, considering how we’ve already seen three in only two episodes. They were way more rare in the og.

According to Momoko, it’s just like the blue haired magical girl had told her yesterday: not only there are a lot of them, they are also stronger than normal. However, Momoko says it was not always like that.

Iroha still needs to go to Satomi Medical Center to investigate her sister’s disappearance, so she explains her situation to Momoko’s trio.

:momokoncerned:

Rena’s not keen on believing Iroha’s story, but Momoko can’t leave someone in need, so she decides for her team to help Iroha. Even Iroha’s perplexed.

Rena complains that they already have their own investigation going on, but the other two argue that they haven’t found anything anyway and Rena was the one who least believed the rumor they’re investigating. Iroha just has no idea what’s going on.

It seems Momoko’s trio is chasing down a witch called the chain Witch, but Iroha has never heard about it.

Feeling bad about the trio arguing, Iroha says it’s fine and that she doesn’t want to bother them with searching for her sister too when they already saved her earlier, but Kaede pushes the point of “we’re all magical girls after all”, even when Rena’s clearly unwilling. They then finally properly introduce themselves.

The fiery blonde is Momoko Togame, the red haired druid is Kaede Akino and the blue haired tsundere is Rena Minami. They’re a magical girl team acting in the Shinsei Ward in Kamihama.

The group heads to Satomi Medical Center but, as expected, I guess, they wouldn’t let Iroha in. After all, not only her sister is not hospitalized there right now, as there are no records of her ever being there.

So the obvious choice here is going for some burgers.

Momoko says about Momoko.

She snatches the lunch from Iroha and goes upstairs… then she’s Rena. Guess we can assume Rena’s power is shapeshifting. Iroha is understandably very confused. (poor girl’s been like that ever since she came to Kamihama).

I do want to be spoken, too.

Iroha apologizes for having them accompany her for nothing, and says she’ll find a way to get to Ui’s hospital room. Momoko’s trio seems to have some plan, but Rena refuses to do it. Kaede confirms that Rena can shapeshift.

Momoko and Kaede want Rena to shapeshift into a nurse and infiltrate the hospital, but Rena doesn’t want to take the risk. Kaede and Rena then start fighting. Kaede’s upset that Rena refuses to use her powers for others, while Rena doesn’t want to put herself at risk for a stranger. Rena gets worked up, and ends up saying something bad enough to erase the background stickers.

Yeah, getting caught up in a friend fight is quite awkward isn’t it.

Rena runs her mouth and accidentally says Kaede’s wish is stupid. But magical girl’s wishes are their biggest desires when they make them, so it’s extremely rude to diss one. Kaede starts crying. Rena really screwed up there.

If only the background could talk for you, Rena.

Kaede is so upset she breaks up her friendship with Rena and walks off. Momoko tries to cheer Rena up with a mood-deaf joke, but it backfires and Rena also runs off. It’s nice how the girl’s thoughts they can’t put in words are expressed by the background stickers here. Rena would’ve seemed like a jerk if not.

Iroha and Momoko make their way back to the station. Momoko apologizes for the previous scene and Iroha apologizes for making them fight, but Momoko reassures her that that happens all the time.

Yeah, seems tiresome. From my experience, poking your nose in your friends’ fights more often than not only makes them both turn against you.

Iroha asks Momoko if the Chain Monster she joked about earlier was the same as the Chain Witch, and Momoko tells her about the rumor of the Staircase of Severance. According to the rumor, if you end your friendship with someone and write your names on a certain staircase at the school Momoko and co. attend, the first person to try to make up will be abducted by the chain monster. It would be fine if it was just a rumor, but the people who had their names written in the staircase did in fact disappear, and-

Hands- *cof* I mean, what do you have to do with this?

No, Kaede, don’t do it, it’s not worth it!

After a brief flash of a call to(?) or from(?) Momoko, Iroha meets up with her and Kaede at the station. According to them, Rena has been missing ever since their fight, and I’ve just now noticed the detail on the background showing the train lines. Nice.

The girls search for Rena until late, and finally find her at the arcade. Rena tries to pass herself for someone else, but the keychain doesn’t lie. Rena runs away, turning into a lot of other people, and the girls chase after her. As they do, chains follow their path.

Kaede catches Rena and asks why she’s running away. She says their friendship isn’t over, since Rena didn’t throw away their mascot, so she’ll apologize again if she has to and she won’t let go until Rena forgives her.

So Kaede apologizes to Rena and says they’ll go back to being friends. Rena then starts seeing chains.

The familiar-like things start mocking her. They say Rena wrote their name on the Staircase of Severance, so they won’t let them go back to being friends. Rena’s also the only one who can see them. The chain monsters start saying what should be the reasons why Rena would break up their friendship, which Rena desperately denies. The monsters then take Kaede away.

And that’s it for this episode. The rumor of the Staircase of Severance was true, Kaede was kidnapped and we still have no clue what that flash to the blue haired magical girl when Momoko was talking about the rumor even means. Leaving this episode with more questions than answers, and barely making any progress on Iroha’s investigation, we now get the ending for this season: Alethea, by ClariS.

It’s a beautiful ending, but it’s kind of funny having this when Yachiyo’s name hasn’t even appeared in the anime yet. I actually thought for the longest time that this song was called Alicia since the katakana sounds like that (or I may have misread it), so you can imagine my surprise when I learnt over a year later I was wrong lol

There’s also the little but nice detail that Yachiyo’s holding the umbrella she has when she meets Iroha on the opening.

With that, we are done with episode 2! Will our girls be able to save Fuyuu from the Chain Witch? Will Rena be able to be honest for once? Guess we’ll have to find out next time! Looking forward to having you guys for episode 3, same hour, same Tumblr blog.

(P.S: I went with Staircase of Severance for the name of this rumor since that’s what is being used in these subs, but I think it’s Friendship Ending Staircase somewhere else. Same thing tho)

#puella magi madoka magica #pmmm magia record #Magia Record

[cynthiaandsamus]

Custom Toonami Block Week 72 Rundown

Code Geass: Lelouch continues his plan to kidnap a little Chinese girl and Todoh gets to show off his new Zangetsu so the Black Knights enjoy having two Knightmares worth a damn for once, though as if on cue Kallen gets caught in the most bullshit way possible bringing them back down to one Ace. Xingke has home field advantage and a new Knightmare with spinny dealies and turns Zero’s bullshit tactics of fighting in the one place that basically wipes out the enemy for him against him. However the gods of the Code Geass world themselves said “You know Xingke’s way too OP, better Kimimaro him and make it so he’s terminally ill so he can’t do too much” so now the Black Knights are literally backed into a cave and instead of letting Xingke just finish the job the Chinese government swoops in with Britannian reinforcements to try and claim victory and seize power all at once. Also Lelouch is somehow back at school despite being in China and I don’t remember this part at all but I guess it answers my question from last time. I think it has something to do with Sayoko and  realistic Lupin III style mask or something.

Inuyasha: The Panther Demon filler continues as Inuyasha’s Group, Koga and his two goons and Sesshomaru/Jaken make their way into Panther Demon territory after Inuyasha breaks their barrier. Koga meets up with Royokhan and gets the low down on the Panther Demon backstory with Taiga killing their leader hundreds of years ago and then Sesshomaru beating them 50 years ago but losing a lot of men in the process. It’s kind of a neat turn seeing Jaken go try to get Inuyasha and Sesshomaru’s like “fine I guess we’ll let him help” and then getting mad when he finds out he can’t even come because he’s nailed to a tree. Like it’s a weird bit of complexity for Sesshomaru to feel betrayed by not getting help he never really wanted and now being determined to fight off the Panthers alone. Anyway all the groups square off against the Panther mini-bosses, Lightning Panther beats Miroku and Sango and gets them captured with Kagome, Wind Panther fights Koga to a draw, Ice Panther continues her beef with Sesshomaru and Fire Panther keeps teasing Inuyasha. It’s kinda nice that they give every group someone to fight and something to do but I kinda wish these fights lasted longer and Fire/Ice panther were scaled up a bit to match Inuyasha and Sesshomaru’s power because they’re firing huge sword beams at this point and it just doesn’t seem like they’d have this much trouble with them. Also Jaken and Inuyasha meet and both of them are like ‘hey you seen my group?’ which I just thought was funny.

Yu Yu Hakusho: A new arc begins and honestly this is the Yu Yu Hakusho arc I remember the least because I think I missed an episode or two in the middle of it since YYH came on right around when I got home from school back in the day. But yeah, Kuwabara suddenly decides he doesn’t wanna do demon shit anymore and Yusuke’s like “fine it wasn’t your job anyway you made me let you come last time” and then Kuwabara immediately backpedals on it because there’s a hot girl he wants to save. Also they still need to give Keiko a lame backstory about Yusuke interning with a detective that doesn’t explain all the zombies after her but Kuwabara’s sister being like “Damn who’s the spirit baby, here’s $50 for the bus” is fine apparently. Anyway we get the Toguro brothers’ introduction and it’s neat to see them effortlessly make Yukina cry to make jewels and then have Younger Toguro give her some advice about making herself cry on cue so she doesn’t have to suffer every time which is some weird tough love take it or leave it advice that says a lot about his character right away. Also Yusuke and Kuwabara fight a giant plant demon who’s all like “Yeah I’m a demon but I got bills to pay bitch” and like what bills does a demon have and why can’t they just steal from the rich human but it doesn’t matter because Yusuke and Kuwabara just blow him away.

Fate Zero: So the church is like ‘yo free Command Seal to whoever fucks up Caster’ which is strange because yeah Caster’s killing children and shit but UBW Caster killed a bunch of peeps too and no one blinked an eye and Kiritsugu blew up a fucking building and no one cares so I have no idea where the line is here. Also Iskandar gets a shirt from amazon and it’s hilarious but he forgot to order pants and Waver tells him he’s not allowed to wear pants until he murders a historical figure and Iskander’s like “you know what that’s fair” so he’s just gonna be freeballing it for a while I guess. Strategy meeting with Kiritsugu, Iris and Saber happens and Saber seems more than a little pissy that Kiritsugu doesn’t address her directly and is basically treating her like a Pokemon. They talk about the four spots the grail can appear at and since we’ve already seen UBW we know it’s gonna be in the huge residential place so it can murder everyone and also Shirou. Also Caster shows up for Tentacle Hentai time with Saber along with more child murder but Lancer’s like “Hey I am the Vegeta of this story and no one kills Saberot but me” while Kiritsugu does his Homura Akemi thing to fight off Kayneth’s T-1000 Black Clover Nozel Silva Mercury Magic which is just amazingly amusing to me that Kiritsugu’s fighting style is to just shoot all these demi-god mages in the face and end his battles in the most anticlimactic way possible.

Konosuba: So Kazuma’s dead again. Shoulda really occurred to him sooner that dying again would get him reincarned again but nah, Samurai Santa has to come off him so he can meet Eris but he actually seems to miss his friends a bit. Like he doesn’t ask to go back specifically we’re not being that cheesy here but considering Kazuma’s two purposes in this story are to complain and explain the joke it is nice that he has some lingering feelings for his party. Then Aqua’s all “Hey fucker get back here, you’re not getting rid of me that easily” and despite Eris saying they can’t just revive him because he doesn’t belong there Aqua just does it anyway, really gives the vibe of an older coworker being like “you’re not supposed to do it this way but this is the way I do it” kind of deal. But yeah Kazuma has a crush on Eris now and despite these guys saying how much they hate being in a group together they sure seem to turn down every out they have to get away from each other, idk I get the joke and jadedness but a little more sincerity would be nice.

Sailor Moon Crystal: Usagi wakes up at Mamoru’s place and he gives her his backstory about how he became Amnesiac Batman in Evening Wear. Luna knows Sailor V but for some reason is really cagey about divulging that to the rest of the group even though literally everyone has been assembled now. There’s a dated plot about Blockbuster taking over people’s minds that Usagi literally handwaves away when Zoisite comes out and punches her and defeats the whole team with one dark energy wave. Tuxedo Mask comes in and punches him in the face and then remembers he doesn’t have any powers and gets owned. The two have a sweet but ultimately cringy reunion before Sailor V saves their worthless asses.

Durarara!!:  With Mikado’s status as Founder of the Dollars revealed, Seiji goes on a stabbing rampage again and luckily keeps stabbing the only people that don’t actually get hurt by it, this time being Celty. Celty’s about to go grim reaper on Seiji’s worthless ass before Mika Harima runs in and tells everyone she isn’t really Celty’s head, weirdly enough Mikado recognizes this right before she says anything somehow, like makes sense Celty realizes it’s not her head but Mikado has no frame of reference aside from knowing she was wearing Mika’s clothes which in her cover story would be explained by Celty’s head leeching off Mika’s dead body. But yeah despite Seiji spending 18 hours a day staring at Mika he apparently couldn’t tell either which really throws a wrench in his “power of love justifies indiscriminate murder” philosophy which amuses both Izaya and me. Mikado breaks down the craziness that’s just transpired what with the stalking, murder, incest, identity theft, actual theft, and stabbing and tries to put a positive spin on it in that Seiji and Mika are both fucking crazy and deserve each other but it’s a hard sell my dude. Izaya tells Mikado that he’s going to be an excitement junkie like him soon if he keeps ramping up life in this crazy city and Celty just kinda forgives Shinra for knowing where her head is without telling her and also plastic surgerizing a yandere girl to look like her and give her her name which seems a little weird for them to just punch each other and call it a wash when Shinra was arguably as yandere as Mika here and they still get unofficially married. Seiji tells Mika he doesn’t love her but because of all the shit she went through to literally mold herself into the object of his obsession he guess she can hang around until he gets the headless sex toy of his dreams so… happy ending I guess. Everyone in this town is fucking crazy and they forgive each other way too easily but for a show that swings back and forth between how fucked up people are and saying humanity is fundamentally pretty decent I guess that’s kind of the point.

#ooc #Toonami #Custom Toonami Block #Code Geass #Inuyasha #Yu Yu Hakusho #Fate Zero #Konosuba #Sailor Moon Crystal #Durarara!!

[callunavulgari]

Scrapbook 2021 | Part I

For anyone that’s new to this, this is how I keep track of all of the things I enjoy and/or create throughout the year. I have literally been doing this since I had a livejournal. I think the first one was 2011? Maybe? In which case, woohoo, ten years of scrapbooking!

It’s a nice little snippet of my life and helps to organize my brain.

A reminder:

Normal font - Indifferent/Neutral Italicized font - Enjoyed bold font - Loved with an asterisk* - All time favorite (bracketed titles) - Re-watches/Re-reads strikethough - Disliked

Goals are: read 80 books, finish five video games, write more than 20 fics or something larger than 20k, and write either an original short story or start a novel. 

Past Years

MOVIES

January

(Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring)

(Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers)

(Lord of the Rings: Return of the King)

Robin Hood

(Hook)

Wolfwalkers

February

(Age of Ultron)

From Up On Poppy Hill

(Tangled)

(Onward)

(The Mummy)

(Hercules)

(Promare)

March

Raya and the Last Dragon

(My Neighbor Totoro)

April

(Hunchback of Notre Dame)

(Tarzan)

(Beauty and the Beast)

Weathering With You

BOOKS

January

A Deadly Education | Naomi Novak [Fin]

Home Body | Rupi Kaur [Fin]

The Sunken Mall | K.D. Edwards [Fin]

Bloom | Kevin Panetta [Fin]

The Angel of Crows | Katherine Addison

All the Stars and Teeth | Adalyn Grace [Fin]

The Adventure Zone: Vol 1 | McElroys & Carey Pietsch [Fin]

I Hope You Stay | Courtney Peppernell [Fin]

Pillow Thoughts | Courtney Peppernell [Fin]

Piraneesi | Susanna Clarke [Fin]

The Ex Talk | Rachel Lynn Solomon [Fin]

February

The Adventure Zone: Vol 2 | McElroys & Carey Pietsch [Fin]

The Adventure Zone: Vol 3 | McElroys & Carey Pietsch [Fin]

The Angel of Crows | Katherine Addison

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink

March

Winter’s Orbit | Everina Maxwell [Fin]

Fireheart Tiger | Aliette de Bodard [Fin]

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink

Fire | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

Bitterblue | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

The Witch’s Heart | Genevieve Gornichec [Fin]

Winterkeep | Kristin Cashore

April

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink [Fin]

Winterkeep | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

The Memory Theater | Karin Tidbeck [Fin]

These Violent Delights | Chloe Gong 

(Red White and Royal Blue | Casey Mcquiston) [Fin]

Rule of Wolves | Leigh Bardugo [Fin]

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink [Fin]

Not the Girl You Marry | Andie Christopher [Fin]

The Echo Wife | Sarah Gailey [Fin]

The Midnight Library | Matt Haig

Catherine House | Elisabeth Thomas [Fin]

Séance Tea Party | Reimena Yee [Fin]

Lumberjanes vol 1 | Noelle Stevenson [Fin]

PODCASTS

January

The Unseen, Christmas and New Year Special

The Penumbra Podcast, Juno Steel arc, Heart of It All and What Lies Beyond

The Penumbra Podcast, Second Citadel, Strong Arm of Justice and The Priestess’ Fortune

I Am In Eskew, Episode 16

Welcome to Night Vale, Episode 67, 68, and 69

The Magnus Archives, Episode 190 and 191

February

The Magnus Archives, Episode 192-194

The Adventure Zone, Episodes 15-60

March

The Magnus Archives, Episode 194-200 [Fin]

The Adventure Zone, Episodes 60-TAZ BALANCE ENDING

MBMBAM, Episode 1

I Am In Eskew, Episode 17-22

April

I Am In Eskew, Episode 23-END

Alice Isn’t Dead, Episode 18-END

TV SHOWS BY SEASON

January

His Dark Materials, s2 [Fin]

Watcher Entertainment

Buzzfeed Worth It

(Black Sails, s1)

The Queen’s Gambit**

February

Cherry Magic

Wandavision, s1

Watcher Entertainment

The Owl House

(Little Witch Academia)

Star vs the Forces of Evil, s3, s4

Bridgerton

Buzzfeed Unsolved: True Crime

Heaven’s Official Blessing

March

Wandavision, s1 [Fin]

Watcher Entertainment, Puppet History & Watcher Weekly

Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Word of Honor

April

Word of Honor, s1

Watcher Entertainment, Puppet History

Falcon and the Winter Soldier, s1

Kim’s Convenience, s1, 2, 3, 4

Leverage, s4

Shadow and Bone, s1

The Great, s1

VIDEO GAMES

January

Hades, 37 hours [Fin]

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, 35 hours

February

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, 35 hours

Hades, 75+ hours? 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 16 hours

Persona 5 Royal

March

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 45 hours

Persona 5 Royal, 141 hours

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, 35 hours

Concrete Genie, 3 hours

April

Concrete Genie, 6 hours [Fin]

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 65 hours

Persona 5 Royal, 160 hours

Monster Hunter Rise, 2 hours

Civ, 5 hours

DELIGHTFUL FIC

January

Modern Rustic by beethechange | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 22k | “I think,” he says, finally, “that if we looked around this place hard enough, we’d find a rose underneath a—a glass thing, what’s it called—losing petals. Metaphorically.”

easy livin' by sarcasticfishes | Buzzfeed Unsolved (Fallout AU) | Ryan/Shane | 6k | The Wasteland - and Ryan - through Shane's eyes.

(in nocte consiliam by oxymoronic | Bartimaeus | Bartimaeus/Nathaniel | 4k | London, 2003. Britain is on the brink of war, and someone is trying rather hard to kill John Mandrake.)

made of glass the way you see through me by uneventfulhouses | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 19k | Will it always be like this? Ryan wonders, watching Shane lope up the snowy walkway and pushing his way through the front door, humming some jolly old tune in that way Shane’s prone to do. Theatrical, performing for an audience even though Ryan is the only one around.

All Your Stars In View by alpha_exodus | Harry Potter | Draco/Harry | 18k | Life after the war is difficult for Harry, especially when the only thing that makes him feel better is, oddly enough, being around Malfoy. So when Malfoy asks to paint his portrait, Harry can't refuse, even if it means baring himself in more ways than one.

13 Genuinely Awful Things About Steven by thefourthvine | Buzzfeed Worth It | Steven/Andrew | 10k | Andrew’s learned to like cake, he’s learned to like oysters, and he’s learned to like Steven.

we’ll make a brand new start of it (in old new york) by misantlery | Buzzfeed Worth It | Steven/Andrew | 10k | “Just to be clear,” Andrew says. “You want me to pretend to be your boyfriend at a party to spite your high school bully and your high school girlfriend and possibly the entire state of Ohio?”

Russian Roulette Croquembouche by misantlery | Buzzfeed Worth It | Andrew/Steven | 9k | “Get that on your business card,” Andrew advises. “Steven Lim, video producer, world traveler, fancy dessert boy. Human cream puff.”

rose-colored boy by juniperProse | Buzzfeed Worth It | Steven/Andrew | 2k | Andrew’s eyes are pink.

Like Wildfire by makemadej | Watcher Entertainment | Shane/Ryan | 20k | “Is this gonna be a thing with you?” Ryan demands. “You can’t keep committing to stuff that no one else knows about! When people online say they want you to be more open and vulnerable, this is not what they mean.”

Scratching the Itch by bendingsignpost | Doctor Who | Rose/Ten | 20k | Her mum had always told her that blokes had only one thing on their minds, but this was taking it to an entirely new level.

lie back and let me unlock you by Lise | The Untamed | Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang | 7k | Xiao Xingchen, reluctantly, admits to certain fantasies that he has. His friend is happy to indulge him.

in our respective ways by Lise | The Untamed | Jiang Cheng & Lan Wangji | 6k | Jiang Cheng has his golden core back. But he seems to have lost Wei Wuxian.

By Proxy by Lise | The Untamed | Jiang Cheng/Lan Wangji | 12k | Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji, looking for comfort in all the wrong places.

some good mistakes by Lise | The Untamed | Jiang Cheng & Lan Wangji | 18k |  Or, the one where Wei Wuxian vanishes and Lan Wangji, reluctantly, asks for Jiang Cheng's help tracking him down.

efforts in a common cause by Lise | The Untamed | Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang/Song Lan | 12k | Everybody's walked out of Yi City alive. Now it's just three badly adjusted adults (and one badly adjusted teenager) trying to make things work - a project somewhat derailed by a night hunt that turns out to be something else.

swinger of birches by astronicht | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 23k | Lan Zhan is a little witch in the house on the hill, whispering out a love curse. Wei Ying is a witch undead, undone.

let me desecrate you by hkafterdark | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 6k | “Dangerous words.” Wei Wuxian drew back. The flickering candlelight gave him an otherworldly appearance; that, and his beauty, unchanged since the first time Lan Wangji had seen him. “You aren’t afraid to be at the mercy of the fearsome Yiling laozu?”

The Demon Affair by stereobone | Yu Yu Hakusho | Hiei/Kurama | 9k | Kurama accidentally seduces Hiei into a relationship.

i came to win (and i won) by paperclipbitch | The Queen’s Gambit | Beth/Benny | 3k | They play chess, and they fuck.The two things are not the same.

February

Sylvain Gautier Would Love To Try To Solve All Your Problems Through Sex (Hey It Might Help) by Fall Out Boy by harriet_vane | Fire Emblem: Three Houses | Sylvain/Felix | 22k | In which Sylvain wakes up on the wrong tour bus, and refuses to be their sex therapist (unless Felix asks nicely)

Turnabout and Start Again by runningondreams | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 34k | WIP | Wei Wuxian lives. The siege fails.Thirteen years later, Lan Wangji wakes in a body that is not his own.

μήτηρ, in the Greek by antistar_e (kaikamahine) | Hades | Nyx & Persephone, canon relationships | 37k | At the end of this recounting, she tilted her head and asked politely, Is this not how you have children?Uh, no, said Persephone.

that voodoo that you do so well by veterization | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 18k |  Ryan buys a voodoo potion oil at Voodoo Authentica meant to attract Yummy Boys. Appropriately, things happen.

A Bridge Between by Runespoor | Spirited Away | Gen | 3k | Years later, Chihiro moves into a new apartment; her parents help.

the ghost king's bride by arahir | Tian Guan Ci Fu | Hua Cheng/Xie Lian | 10k | Ghosts won't stop giving Xie Lian flowers, Hua Cheng won't stop teasing, and Xie Lian is out here doing his best, man.

Side bitch out of your league by rohkeutta | Captain America | Steve/Bucky | 3k | “I tried to call Sam,” Captain America says, bewildered. He’s sprinting like Usain Bolt and doesn’t sound even a little out of breath. Fucker. “Who’re you?”

cause in your warmth (I forget how cold it can be) by madnessandbrilliance | Promare | Lio/Galo | 7k | Lio is always freezing. Galo is always warm. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the rest.

backdraft by broments | Promare | Lio/Galo | 32k | It happens in an instant, Galo gaping like an idiot while Lio presses forward to defend against the perceived threat, the weapon sparkling but not burning as it kisses Galo's throat.

your perfect crime (& how you laugh when you lie) by aroceu | The Untamed | Lan Zhan/Wei Wuxian | Death Note AU | 8k | The first time a convicted murderer dies of a heart attack in their jail cell, no one thinks anything of it.

Yosuke will now die for you! by DragonBandit | Persona 4 | Yosuke/Souji | 5k | ...This, causes problems.

dramamine by brawlite | The Untamed | Song Lan/Xue Yang | 7k | Song Lan is having a bad morning. Help comes from the last person he'd expect: Xue Yang.

Hearth and Home by lady_ragnell | Leverage | Alec/Eliot/Parker | 1k | When Eliot goes to a temple, or when he’s in one place long enough to build a shrine, he doesn’t do it for Ares. He does it for Hestia.

Where One Ends and the Other Begins by kalliopeia | Leverage | Alec/Parker/Eliot | 30k | Nobody’s particularly shocked when the job goes spectacularly sideways because their loot turns out to be magic. Parker and Eliot begin reading each other’s minds, accidental sharing happens, and shenanigans result.

Hungry Thirsty Roots by coolkidroland | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 56k | In which Akira absolutely does not learn to leave well enough alone. **

Without Grasping Yet by Angelic_Ascent | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 8k | Akechi and Akira end up far too cramped for comfort in the Morgana bus. And then they're left alone in Mementos.

Falling Up by KivaEmber | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 2k | “If it helps…” Akira spoke up suddenly, his tone morbidly amused, “I forgive you, for shooting me in the face.”

March

Touch of Forbidden by tirsynni | LoZ | Ganondorf/Link | 2k |  Nabooru warned him not to travel to the Spirit Temple. So of course Link went to the Spirit Temple.

breaking the same old heart by tardigradeschool | The Adventure Zone | Magnus/Taako | 11k | Taako and Magnus in triptych: before, during, and after the Bureau.**

your head is good, it’s loyal, it’s clean by Anonymous | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 4k | "Here, I do this all the time."Too quickly for him to react, Taako plucks away one of his golden rings and slips it onto the ring finger of Magnus' left hand.

bruising kisses, whispered confessions by tangerine_skye | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | The trio stop over at an inn for the night. Taako and Magnus share a bed.

i can see what's coming (but i'm not saying it) by pansywaist | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | His breath is still hot on Taako's lips, distracting enough he almost misses the strained whisper: “I thought I was gonna lose you.”

Emergency Consolation in the Pocket Spa by Anonymous | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | If Magnus wants to hug a wizard, Magnus gets to hug a wizard.

together for the long haul by kismetNemesis | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 6k | Magnus and Taako were married on a bright spring day in the year after they saved the world.

thin skin, bruises, and a cold cup of tea by GayFrankensteinsMonster | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | Sleep is for the weak, and Magnus has no weaknesses, except for his own natural curiosity.

tender is the night by dollylux | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 10k |  “It’s just…” He runs a hand through the thick bramble of his hair, gripping the crown of it to anchor himself. He sighs, slumping back against the footboard. “I guess I’m just not very good at one on one. Like, not… not in any way.”

a note is attached to the top of the vial by GayFrankensteinsMonster | TAZ | Kravitz/Taako, Magnus/Taako | 5k |  Elves have a lifespan of up to six hundred years. The people that you know don't even come close to that.

Pieces of Memory and Heart by ellemaris | Raya and the Last Dragon | Raya/Namaari | 1k | Raya isn't sure how to heal everything between Heart and Fang, but returning something important to Namaari seems like a start.

the gods laugh by miss_aphelion | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 11k+ | WIP | Wei Wuxian is just getting used to being alive again when he's ripped from the world he knows. He wakes in a place where his sister and her husband live, where his brother doesn't hate him, where the Wen remnants have all survived.

In Your Room, In Your Bed by giraffeter | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji/Jiang Cheng | 25k | After Wei Ying is disowned, Yu Ziyuan forbids Jiang Cheng from letting Wei Ying live with him. Jiang Cheng lets him stay anyway because Fuck That. He tells his parents Lan Zhan is his new roommate instead.

in the blossom season (in the pouring rain) by varnes | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 14k |  “Doctor Flowers,” Lan Zhan repeats, pointing at the tiny plum tree, just to confirm that his son is suggesting a magical tree named Doctor Flowers sprouted overnight and made their tame family project turn into a verdant jungle.

34 years old - 5'8" - DL - no-BB by withpractice_ff | Ace Attorney | Edgeworth/Phoenix | 3k | Phoenix finds Edgeworth’s Grindr profile

spinning with the stars above by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 7k | Wangji returns home to Vulcan for the first time since he left for Starfleet Academy, this time with Wei Ying at his side. He’s not expecting Wei Ying and his uncle to be fast friends, but things go poorly in a very different way than he was expecting.

every breath that comes before by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 10k | Or, what if that cup of wine Wei Wuxian drank for Lan Wangji after the Phoenix Mountain hunt wasn't just wine?

never love an anchor by tardigradeschool | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 31k | A fisherman and a selkie fall in love beside the sea. Regretfully, things are never quite that simple.

Be Careful by giraffeter | The Untamed | Song Lan/Xue Yang | 5k |  Song Lan and Xue Yang try to survive a week in their shared apartment without Xiao Xingchen as a buffer.

  won't you let me know you now by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 12k | WIP | “Have you ever heard of a mind meld?” Wangji keeps his voice as level as possible, as if he is not revealing foremost Vulcan secrets.

April

running for a soft place to fall by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Lan Xichen & Lan Wangji | 10k |  As he leaves for his coming of age test at age twelve, half-Vulcan Xichen has a goal in mind. The rules of the kahs-wan prohibit taking food, water, or weapons. In accordance, Xichen is bringing none of those things, but he does have a compass tucked into his pocket. He is going to find his father.

an act too often neglected by Ariaste | The Untamed | Lan Xichen/Meng Yao | 60k | The single faceless, anonymous photograph on the profile that catches his eye is shot in elegant black-and-white, and there’s something about the crispness of the focus and the markedly off-center composition that says art, for once, rather than mugshot.The caption below is equally sparse: “5’6. Demanding.”

where you go, I'm going (so jump and I'm jumping) by Aria | The Magnus Archives | Martin/Jonathan | 6k | "I don't think so," Alex said. She looked at Martin. "Is this really how it went?"

Morning, keep the streets empty for me by feyburner | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 6k | Ghosts were drawn to the ring roads.

2am on a saturday by detectorist | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 11k | In which Lan Zhan gets high, slides into Wei Ying's DMs, and somehow ends up having the harmonica played to him at 2am in the morning.

Grief Kindly Stopped by ShanaStoryteller | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 5k | Nothing leaves the Burial Mounds alive.

superhero love triangle by Asuka Kureru (Askerian) | Bleach?! | Grimmjow/Ichigo | WIP | 17k | You know those classical superhero-genre love triangles that actually only contain two people? Yeah.

Boat Basin by downjune | The Falcon and the Winter Soldier | 5k |  He thought the 21st century now maybe suffered from an overabundance of classifications for all the different ways to fuck and/or romance a person, but the most important thing—and his therapist had emphasized this—the most important thing was connection.

my touch magnifies by isozyme | Word of Honor | Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu/Ye Baiyi | 7k | Wen Kexing gets hit with fuck-or-die sex pollen on the way to Longyuan cabinet. Everything would be fine, except Zhou Zishu’s been keeping an unfortunate secret: the nails in his chest mean he can’t get hard anymore.

DELIGHTFUL FANVIDS

January

2020 || Multifandom Mashup

Hades - Official Animated Trailer

Hades Mini-PMV: This Year

2020, I guess

MARVEL || Energy (ft. Easy McCoy + Black Hydra)

obi-wan || give it

2020 ll Multifandom Mashup

Multifandom | Goodbye 2020

Multifandom | Goodbye 2018

2018 Multifandom | MASHUP

His Dark Materials - No Sanctuary

Lyra & Mrs. Coulter | Hurricane

► mrs. coulter || way down we go [hdm]

Wonder Woman || BORN READY 

Vikings | The End of the Journey

February

MARVEL || Ready Set (ft. Vo Williams)

MARVEL || Here We Go (ft. Chris Classic)

MARVEL || Is You Ready || The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Never forget || Hualian - Hua Cheng x Xie Lian AMV 

【魔道祖师 / MDZS】Animatic - The First Siege | Safe & Sound

The Jedi Way | THE MANDALORIAN

Multifandom || Going Bad (feat. Drake)

March

Broccolli Casserole--The Untamed

Hey Brother - The Adventure Zone Animatic/PMV

The Adventure Zone: Balance trailer

The Adventure Zone: Balance Arc Trailer (Animatic)

13 Year Olds (A MDZS Animatic by Arcxus)

Multifandom || Die In This Town

DNA | shadow & bone

(Marvel) Wanda Maximoff | Grief

Defying Gravity | MDZS/CQL Animatic

It’s Quiet Uptown | MDZS Animatic

To The Stars

(Marvel) WandaVision || Awaken

Walt Disney Animation Studios | A Magical Journey

We don't have forever.

stop living a fake life.

► Wanda Maximoff | PAINT IT BLACK (+15k)

Multifandom || Take It (c/w Quang Truong) ft. @SEIGE WORLD​

Kylo Ren | STAR WARS

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

April

MARVEL || Natural ft.ImagineDragons

​ xue yang & xiao xingchen ➤ gasoline

WEN KEXING || GASOLINE

Wen Kexing ✘ Zhou Zishu || Dandelions

Play With Fire - Wen Kexing

TOXIC ~ Wen Kexing ~ word of honor ~ 山河令

(Marvel) Bucky Barnes | Free

Bucky Barnes | Feeling Good

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier || Next Level ft. @7kingZ​ || (Marvel)

Eternity looking down on us.

The complexity of reality.

Captain America

✗ The Crows | Trouble (Shadow&Bone)

Shadow & Bone | Paint It Black

The secret fate of all life.

DELIGHTFUL MUSIC

January

A Better Version - Jessie Shelton

Start a War - Klergy, Valerie Broussard

Meet Me in the Dark - Melissa Etheridge

ily - Surf Mesa, Emilee

Space Man - Eurielle

To Be Loved - Aurora

In the Blood - Darren Korb

Can’t Help Falling in Love - Tommee Profitt

Astronomical - SVRCINA

Oh Comely - Neutral Milk Hotel

In This Shirt - The Irrepressibles

goblincore + cottagecore

moonlit love letters 🌙💌 (sailor moon-inspired lofi mix)

Moonlight Densetsu Lo-Fi Remix 1 hour version

Peaceful Meditation

February

Never Forget You - Zara Larsson

Is You Ready - Migros

Recomposed Four Seasons - Max Richter

The End - JPOLND

Love Yourself - Sufjan Stevens

Deja | Daniel Roure

Used To Like | Neon Trees

Material Boy - Sir Sly

Willow - Taylor Swift

Overture - Apashe

Evangeline - Josh Garrels

Gris, pt 1 - Berlinist

Inferno - Hiroyuki Sawano

March

BAMBAM - Angie

Dictator - Rei Ami

Demons - Hayley Kiyoko

Runaway - Rei Ami

Deep Blue - Marcus Warner

Brave New World - Kalandra

Nero - The Speed

The Path of Silence - Anne Sophie Versnaeyen

Tuleloits - Kerli

Soft to Be Strong - Marina

Relic - Reeder

Ascension - Gorillaz

Will You Follow Me Into the Dark - Klergy

Voidfish (Plural) - Rachel Mitchell

Raya and the Last Dragon soundtrack

Unicorn Wizard - Ninja Sex Party

Me Too - Meghan Trainor

Umbrella - Rihanna

Colors Flying High - Lollia

Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There - Lyn

lovely - khalid

Burn My Dread - Lotus Juice

Progress - The Dear Hunter

My Mother Told Me - Rachel Hardy

Savage Daughter - Sarah Ross

Four - Sleeping At Last

April

The Other Side - Amarante

Predator & Prey - Griffin Puatu

As the World Caves In -Matt Maltese

Tell Her I Wasn’t Scared - Dan Thiessen

Esmeralda - Adriel Genet

Woods - AfterInfinity

So Human of You - Shireen

Flags of Rome - Jesper Kyd

Do It All the Time - I don’t Know How But They Found Me

Hummingbirds - Venus Hum

On and On - Curtis Harding

Grand Escape - RADWIMPS

my ex’s best friend - machine gun kelly

Sofia - Clairo 

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Charlotte Lawrence

Next Level - 7KingZ

Tell Me - Johnny Jewel

Get Out of Town - Firefles

Music for Anglo Saxes

I See Darkness In You - Red Mecca

Satan Is His Name - Holly Golightly

Rocky Trail - Kings of Convenience

Story - NF

Because the Night - 10,000 Maniacs

Use to Be (L.O.V.E.) - Chelsea Collins

Bird on a Wire - Simone Istwa

Huzzah - Nathan Barr

POSTED FIC

January

gonna make you feel, boy | Hades | Megaera/Thanatos/Zagreus | 1,101 words | “You can touch, you know,” she murmurs, satisfaction and anticipation warring within her. Her pulse pounds. Zagreus’s eyes have darkened, his pupils eating up all that color. He looks good enough to eat.

February

how long do we have? | She Ra | Adora/Catra | 1,539 words | “The war is over, Adora,” Catra tells her. Adora hums. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

March

only fools rush in | The Adventure Zone | Taako/Magnus | 5,209 words | “Okay,” Taako says, sitting down heavily. “So. Ancient ritual to… bring people together?”

til my lungs both billow out | The Magnus Archives | Jon/Martin | 748 words | The knife goes in. The tape runs out.

the echo, as wide as the equator | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 2,927 words |  “Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispers after it is done.

April

N/A

WIPS | UNPUBLISHED | ORIGINAL

January

1685 words of Buzzfeed Unsolved, tattoo AU

February

N/A

March

3121 words of Magnus/Taako, Stolen Century verse Posted!

April

852 words of Steve/Billy

FANMIXES/GRAPHICS

January

got the morbs: sad/somber songs for sad/somber people

2021: a mix for the year that comes after 2020

Sahara Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Spanish Sahara

Fire Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Play With Fire

Consequences Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Consequences

Paradise Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Paradise Valley

Real Boy: a Zagreus playlist

February

N/A

March

only fools rush in: a taako/magnus playlist

pomegranate seeds: a persephone playlist

make them bow: a megaera playlist

fuck feelings: a taako playlist

til my lungs both billow out: a jonmartin playlist

April

i am my mother’s savage daughter: a playlist for the girl

#heather says what #heather writes #scrapbook #2021

[thestudyfeels]

How To NOT Be Depressed.

(Or If You Prefer — How to Be Substantially Happy About Life.) 

WARNING: This is one rollercoaster ride of a post. Proceed with extreme caution. For some, the staggering levels of insight may induce true purpose and re-establish their warrior spirit. For others, side effects may include grammatically incorrect hate or aloof eyerolls. We advise exiting if the said group includes you, for we're very tired of cleaning vomit off the seats.

Step aboard at your own risk.

If you’re one of the brave souls who stayed back to join us, I congratulate you for even I am scared of how crazy this post truly is. Alrighty then, kick back and relax folks, today we’re having a mature, adult conversation. Merely another cheery afternoon spent talking about life and its realities. Not too bad, eh?

Before we begin, spoiler alert! For those of you already turned off by the mention of 'depression’ and packing their bunnies to leave, sit tight. This ISN'T really about depression. This is about HAPPINESS. No clickbait. That got your attention, right butterfly? Nice, now stay.

A welcoming, maybe demanding A/N: Do me a favor and read this in one go. Maybe even plug in those headphones and listen to the songs dedicated to each part as you read. It's long, you have the new Riverdale episode to catch up on, but don't hop away just yet because (I had a couple moments writing this, alright) it's life changing. You'll prolly cry a few tears of realization, nod all nod-able body parts in agreement, beat your chest at random instants 'cause the hype’s too real, and perhaps, if it isn’t too much to hope for, finally go change your life for the better. In case you've forgotten, this'll remind you that there’s always hope, that you're a born conqueror, and you were made to THRIVE, not survive. Convinced? Kay, roll the cams.

   To clarify first-hand, no, I'm not depressed although I’ve experienced mild depression for a period before. Glad to say I'm out of it but I still struggle with tackling what I'm about to detail next.

Insert bitter voice, it’s this: My life is nowhere near I want it to be. Though I know vaguely what I wanna do, I haven't yet figured out how the hell I’m supposed to get there, or how my dream life is to be sketched out. It’s all a blurry mess. Which, to put it bluntly, hurts. I HATE feeling powerless and worthless, roaming about aimlessly.

There are many such moments where I hit the brakes to wonder why I’m not living THE Life already. There have been several times when I curl up and cry a frickin’ Amazon. There are horrible nights where I'm shaking with emotions, but they won't release, leaving me choked. (…not in that way, you hoes. Um, just ruined the dramatic mood with a lame dirty joke, sorry.)

   They say talking helps and that's why I figured I'd drop in. But perhaps more importantly, I wanted to hang because no matter how unfocused the lens may seem at my future, I don't consider myself a dopey loser incapable of the crazy dreams or wild bucket lists I fantasize about– and I thought I'd skip along to remind you that neither should you. (Or maybe I just came to sniff the new appetizers, who knows?)

PS: I also broke a sweat listing six ways to get outta depression– alternatively, to be more of a conqueror– because y'all are always pestering me with asks that go “how do I conquer omg send supplies” (Like, imagine a conqueror saying that! Oh, the crime, the atrocity!)

So yes, you're welcome. Have a feast with this litness.  

The main reason behind people being so frightfully sad, I’ve found, is a huge lack of fulfillment. We don't do what we love, for either— [ 1 ] we aren’t living life the way we want to (since we keep doing things we feel we're supposed to do) OR [ 2 ] because Mama, Papa and Mrs. Carter next door feel that struggling is the only way, and project their traditional beliefs onto us. Either way, whether or not we consciously realize this, subconsciously, we're all hurting because of it. Badly.

That lingering feeling of emptiness never seems to leave. You feel drained every night when you drop into bed, not because you gave it your all, but because you couldn't. And so, we do the next best thing. Drugs. Maybe not literally, but figuratively. We numb out this subconscious pain by binge watching Netflix shows. We deaden ourselves to that discomfort by reading smut in the bathroom or by playing dumb video games all day. We try (and fail) to extinguish this feeling of not ‘being enough’ by having silly flings or fake friendships.

And ultimately, we NUMB ourselves out to LIFE for we can't bear to live the way we're living. There's a reason why “How to Stop Procrastinating” posts are so popular (they’re a blogger’s most foolproof way of paying the month’s rent, and yes, even I'm guilty of a couple). We’re constantly having FOMO and tuning into others' highlights on social media– completely missing out on our own lives in the process. We fail to realize that the culprit is lack of genuine purpose more than zero self-control (or maybe it’s both, but that’s a tale for another day).

[On a side note, obviously I did generalize a bit– video games can be a passion for you, watching shows a way of winding down. But for most, they’re only DISTRACTIONS, just another way of ignoring the calls of life by hanging up the phone.]

   And here's the bitter truth about depression: The longer you wait to start living authentically, the more you start tuning out the inner cries wanting change, the faster your dreams start to ebb away, and the more you'll want to become insignificant. And to me, that's the scariest part of this journey to my dream life.

Nothing frightens me more than knowing that the moment I stop pushing, the very moment I give in to distractions and fears, my goals will stop manifesting themselves and I'll be stuck in this small town with its small people eternally. And THAT, I'm certain, won't be any more fun than working your way through a soggy ham sandwich, ironic as soggy is what life has become. (Yes, I have a thing against soggy sandwiches. They were a kid's worst lunch nightmare.)

   If you relate, and I’m sure you do (it’s probably why you stopped scrolling through cheesy fanfic for ten minutes to read this, I know you amigo) — here are six ways to NOT be depressed. Or more accurately, to gift wrap yourself some sweet ol’ happiness.

You're a Samurai and the Following Be Your Katanas —

Hol’ up. The second you reach the End Card, I want you to drop your Cheerios and implement at least THREE of these six strategies. Just follow the Takeaways, I've made this really simple. And as a rule, one of them has to be this one. (Look, don't whine. If you wanna climb outta that dark hole, you gotta put in some effort. So pop that booty, and let’s get down to business!)

Here’s the most truthful, though cheesy thing I’ll ever say: I would be nowhere I am today without this blog. If not for it, I would most likely be weeping in a dug-out hole somewhere, drowning in my salty little pond of tears and chiming every loser’s favorite words (“there's no point”). Creating this blog gave me a definite purpose – putting out fiery content, dipping myself deep into my newly found passion for writing and influencing, and connecting with other conquerors on the platform.  

I meet a lot of folks, whether at Sad School, Mouldy Mall, or Boring Bus stop, who always seem to be in a state of death-inducing boredom. When asked about their favorite thing to do, they’ll mumble “sleep” or “food” like Siri narrating your cat’s evening routine. And then you see adults, dragging through life mindlessly. Utterly clueless, floating like a piece of driftwood in an ocean bubbling with life. My sympathy quota gets overdosed everytime I think about it.

   To spell it out, find something to do. Anything! Learn a language, try some ballet, take pictures of your neighbor's rose garden, make an art piece and show it to your mom, stitch buttons onto shirts for fun, heck, make an entire shirt out of buttons, take a break from reading smut to write your own, frutify your farts, WHATEVER, just get up and move.

And here’s why – nay, not to keep you engaged or make you feel less worthless, not that bullcrap. It’s to put in gear the journey of figuring out what is the shite that you love doing. Too often we get stuck thinking about what our oh-so-great passion is. Get this, passion is energy. A spark for something. A magical fortune cookie which, when cracked, seems to explain everything, gives you the very reason for being alive. You can only feel that fire, that wild love, when you actually do it. So get cracking is all I’ll say!

Takeaway:

Attempt something. Nah, scratch that, imagine you’re in a sweet shop with shelves lined with free samples and try everything. Pick up that Polaroid cam, take that dreaded history course, buy that children’s cooking kit– in short, start working. Pull out all the stops, get curious, and get creative. In the process, if you promise to try hard enough, you WILL (money back guarantee) find out what makes your little heart burst with mad happiness and would willingly do for free, if needed, because you really are that crazy about it. And that, my dear, will be your oh-so-great-indeed passion. Have no doubt, you’ll never be “bored” again.

Real talk, having a dream is a big deal. And unfortunately, I’ve witnessed, rarely anyone has one to begin with. They’re either more dead than the cheap skeleton I bought for Halloween or believe they have a dream, but in reality, it belongs to mom, dad, or Uncle Sammy. Listen, doing something for someone you love (my Uncle Sammy used to supply me with cold cash whenever he came around, loved that guy) is great! YET, if you’re willing to throw away your life to fulfill others’ expectations, convincing yourself it's because they love you, even when YOUR lonely heart craves bigger things than just a marketing job, then you, my friend? Are the biggest fool. Don’t get offended, we both know it, this girl needn't ramble.

Recently, my relatives were over (nope, sadly not Uncle Sammy) and my cousin and I had a chat about life (correct, I grab every opportunity to do so). It wasn't very exciting I must say, he kept staring off into the distance (I wonder why), but what he SAID is what I'll talk about. After I’d gushed about my dreams, he asked skeptically if being an influencer would still be an ambition two years from now when I graduate. I raised my eyebrows, mock hurt, like eff you son, I ain’t giving up on my dreams! But that question got me thinking.

Life is wild. Unpredictable. An unexpected call, a single person, a random BLOG POST (cough) – can turn your life upside down, sometimes in the affirmative, other times not. This variability of life isn’t uncommon, and everyone experiences some part of it– unpaid student loans, failing startups, talent and art going unnoticed in industries dominated by wealth and connections, you name it. If all of that doesn’t make you run for the Himalayas and abandon any dreams, throw in a quick side dish of dysfunctionale famiglia with a sprinkle of self-image issues.

It ain’t easy, darling. The world is one cruel headmistress; it loves slapping awake the daydreamers and wishful thinkers. That hasn't ever actually stopped the dropouts and class clowns from building castles in the air though. And the common blueprint you notice they follow? Let me introduce you to…  Madness. Obsession. Maniacal obsession, to say. (Yes, I'm done playing with my words.)

   I struggled writing this point. A pestering voice in my head kept mumbling – They'll go back to doing the same sad shit anyway. Um, does anyone even read your posts? Lol, call yourself an influencer, hun. Hesitation started creeping in. Then the irony of the situation struck me. I laughed, shook my head and got back to typing.

We ran out of juicy gossip weeks ago, so here’s your tea served cold: insecurities and self doubt WILL get in the way. That whiny voice was just a mild version of what you face when you go all in. Fear traps you in its cage, and those who prattled behind your back now progress to talking shit in your face. Criticism and self doubt resurfaces, so unless your defenses are strong, you'll be crushed. Destroyed REAL quick.

When hell breaks loose (oh honey, and it WILL), your self defense comprising of maniacal obsession must be well learnt. Let them attack, mock, heck, drag you away from the desk and hurl you at the top of a damn mountain, but you better STILL hike back down, show them the middle finger, and continue working. That's how bulletproof you've gotta be. That's how madly do you have to love your dreams. And if you really think this will be a cake walk or want to continue complaining about Stuart being born with a silver spoon, hop off the train already. Your destination isn't on the tour list.

Look, my dreams terrify me. But they certainly make me feel more alive than complying with what every parent said about getting good grades and holding together a roof on my head. My ambitions set me free, give me a reason to fucking live. And yet, every now and then, something makes me question them. A fear engulfs me, some doubter proclaims I suck, someone I love is so blinded they can't see my vision. And that's okay. My defenses are way stronger. The next day rolls round, and you'll find me hustling again, thriving again. All because I know that even if no one reads my posts (the worst case scenario, I know y'all love me lol), someday in the future, someone will. I know that even if I’m not an influencer yet, if just one reader becomes a conqueror because of my words, it would be a win. A big win. I'd have done my job. All because I’m wildly, yes maniacally, obsessed with my dreams.

So hey, cousin? This influencer thing? This will be my dream long after I've graduated. Till the day I die, and maybe even then I'll rise from my grave to give a dead pal a lively pep talk. My watchtower has just been upgraded, so thank u, next.

Takeaway: 

“General, we've arrived!” Finally! Position those cannons, Martha, let’s talk them through the defenses. All aboard? AHOY MATEY! (wait, that was one for the pirates). Step one, dare to create a dream in your mind’s eye. The bigger, the crazier, and the scarier, the better. Doesn’t matter how impossible it is, don’t care how many voice their opinion against it, just imagine, keep a million possibilities in mind.

Once you see the life you truly want (you’ll know, everything will seem to zing)— have a sip. Become OBSESSED for that life. Thirst after that vision, itch to manifest it, and pine for the satisfaction that’ll come to your soul once it’s made a reality. Fall madly in love with the process and how magical it feel when you do it. And THEN, bellow a loud war cry and charge headfirst into battle, shields held high at all the criticisms. We conquerors never cared much for them anyway.

(play ♬) Picture this: forehead stamped with beads of sweat. Calloused hands working their fingers to the bone and eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration. Conjure an image where powerful beats are pulsing hard in your ears, synced with your own elevated heartbeats, and you’re thriving. Performing. Winning. Guess the secret to that? Preparation. Champions prepare. You can’t throw anything to the winds or rely on ‘luck’ or chance to conquer.

Tough days are in everyone’s calendar, be it your extra cheerful neighbor, Sally, or lone wolf classmate, Derrick. We’ve all found ourselves sulking over an awful situation, scooping into mint ice cream to forget mistakes, errands, and ghosting exes. Yet guess what? The solution isn’t the proclaimed “be positive!” or “It all happens for a reason, don’t you worry” - the key is coming up with a method to dodge the discouraging effect these hiccups have on us.   

So every bad day, I bring out a mason jar containing a knot of chits and one secret letter which is, on most days, kept hidden on the top shelf of my cupboard. I make myself comfortable on the bed, read all my bits of paper carefully, including the letter addressed to yours truly, close my eyes, and mentally fight back whatever’s bringing me down.

A short while later, I get up, now a warrior, and go slay the rest of the day like it was my last one on this planet. That jar is my jar. A Conqueror’s jar. One look at those powerful reminders, and I’m grounded once again, the beast within me now unleashed to kill.

Takeaway:

Honey, go get yourself a jar. Along with some papyrus and ink. Then start jotting down. Document past victories, future visions, fears that mean zilch to the person you’re about to become, batty goals you’ve still gotta chase, reminders that the majority will never understand what it is you’re tryna do here, and how that’s perfectly alright 'cause you'll find your conquerors, your squad one day. Create your victory jar. And then go knock ‘em down dead. Bad days stand no chance against you. You’re a winner, a fucking rebel. Go take what’s yours.

Y’know, I’m perfectly aware that many muggles reading this will whine that dealing with depression ain’t no piece o’ pie and it’s hella hard to get up and take the crown when you feel like a pile of dino dung.

Stop it. Get some help. (See what I did? Like Michael- ok ok, calm thyself.) For real though, and I’m tired of repeating this with my kitten stamped microphone (but I’ll keep at it ‘cause it’s that significant) – whining is WORTHLESS. It saps up precious energy that could be used to make life a scrumptious smoothie. (Loothie? As in life + smoothie? Right, yes, I’m shutting up.)

And even THEN, we find denizens complaining about slow WiFis and thin crust pizzas and how the market’s down and the government’s incompetent. Because blabbering makes us feel important. Heard. But keeping yo’ trap shut and actually doing stuff? Hustling for your dreams when nobody’s watching? Actually walking the talk? C’mon, Emma, don't be naive, ain’t nobody getting recognition for that.

Trust me, I get it. The world is yet to become a feminist, turns out your boyfriend was cheating on you while you were looking up wedding dresses, mommy’s a drunk loser, and idiots are being voted into office. It’s a lot to handle. But thanks to our immense and ever increasing population (we folks really love our rumpy pumpy, can you tell) — there will surely be one chum, facing exactly the same misfortunes as you, but still turning up at every party and bulk-spamming his friends with puppy pictures while you sit and wail. (One Moaning Myrtle is enough, thank you very much.)

Look, I’m not undermining your worries or obstacles. I’m only reminding that you have the marvelous choice of positivity. To CHOOSE hope and a better future when others won't. To FIND (and it's always possible) something to look forward to even when the to-do’s a big snore. To KNOW, deep inside, that you're a magnificent conqueror, no matter what mess you’re in at the moment, and that the world dances to your rhythm. Realise that it's up to you to let yourself be happy. At any moment, you have the very say-so to get up and start rocking. Dumbledore said it himself, “It is our choices, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” So choose better, and you’ll unconsciously do better as well. And yes, that being said, this is the last HP reference, don't fret. Be positive instead. (Edit: Ha, look at these quips, the girl's all grown up now.)

Takeaway: 

Your new occupation is to be a sunflower. If you think back, you'll probably recall Miss Honey rattling on about phototropic movement in AP biology. No? Me neither. Point is, sunflowers always face the sun. Put them ANYWHERE, hide them in the dungeons, throw them in a trash bag and shoot it off to the moon, they’ll still turn around and face the sun. No matter what. And taking inspo from that, you too can stop scripting creative soliloquies for being depressed. Happiness is YOUR right, YOUR priority, don't let anyone take it away from you or diminish its importance. DON’T let sadness ruin your vibe, do what you've gotta do to protect yourself. Track happiness in yo’ journal, set 84 reminders on your phone, and tattoo “Long as you’re beaming up at the sun, all the shadows will be left behind” on your boobs. Do whatever, just don’t turn the corners of your mouth down. You’re so pretty this way.

The other day, I was doing the deathly Plié Alternative Heel Lifts (these names, I swear) and my legs felt dead. Gone. Put to sleep like the Wicked Witch of the East. Now obviously, the timer wasn’t not even halfway done yet, but my cheeks were already flushing red like dear Santa, and NOT because I was high on choco chip cookies. I sighed, and at that point, I was so over giving up. All this while, I’d been whining and protesting because my muscles felt sore, but in that moment, I made up my mind. I bit my lip and kept going. On and on. Keep pulsing, you got it, don't stop, was the mantra I kept chanting.

   Won’t sugarcoat it, I honestly hadn’t died this much since that time Miss Honey buried me alive with trig assignments. My legs were now basically Play-doh and I was shaking, fighting for balance. A few seconds in though, something crazy happened. My legs went numb. My grumbling mind quietened and the pain vanished. That evening, I had the upper hand, not my physical perceptions of myself. I was powerful. Flawless. (Hey Santa, do you even lift bro?) Real talk, I was in the Zone, bitches.

I’m not sure if that was the result of excessive pain or because Wonder Woman’s spirit possessed ma bod, but staying loyal to my love for metaphors, I’ll use the experience to explain what I’m tryna get at here.

   Look, here’s the real deal — if all of the greats gave up the second things got frowny, we probably would have no one to worship. Nix role models, nix inspirations, none to stalk on Insta - we’d all be bumbling about like Sad from the even sadder Emoji movie (no shade, emojis be lit).

And that'd be very sad (pun definitely intended). Hence, cue some tangible ways to boosting your grit, so that you can be your own superhero:

1) Get yo’self a goddamn motto,

2) Know your “Why,”

3) Repeat the cycle till it’s in your blood. Btw, Shawn, if you here, I’m still a single pringl—HEY PAL I SEE YOU, DON'T SCROLL.

Seriously, don't brush these prime steps aside. We're always going for the advanced modes, and deeming these basic levels a waste of time. Well guess what, compadre, YOUR LIFE IS A GODDAMN WASTE O’ TIME IF YOU DON'T HAVE YOUR BASICS RIGHT. Excuse my outburst, but listen. You can’t do a hundred bicep curls on your first workout if you haven't lifted anything more than a crisps packet. Likewise, if you simply jump into Life one day, and decide “ok, here it is, 12 habits to build, sleep schedule to fix, man to ask out, let's go,” you ain't getting nowhere, chum. Start small. Take baby steps. It's clearly not as fun (definitely negates the bragging on Facebook part of it) but it'll stick. You’ll create a consistency that not even Grandma's cake batter can achieve.

1. Talking mottos — For context, a motto that I always mutter (my mom thinks I'm cursing, oh what a bad child) every time I spill milk while making coffee is “Do more. Give more. BE more.” Not only does it help me stay right on track for the rest of the day but it helps me clean up my mess, figuratively and otherwise, or I’d just be sitting in a puddle of spilt milk, cursing adulting for real this time and with more laundry to do.

2. Why you need the Big Why — Owning up, I’m guilty of attempting to learn Welsh for less than 48 hours because I hadn't a single reason to speak the language. A similar thing happened with half of my 2018 resolutions, which had a bunch of rubbish like “Floss daily”, something my eyes got trained to skip because, um, who the hell flosses every day?

Lame humor aside, I still workout almost daily because I have my Why straight. 1) I want to feel good about my body and get closer to the confident badass I envision my future self to be, 2) I simply HAVE to sustain my health to live to build my legacy and fulfill my dreams of opening a bakery at 90 and 3) Because I’m an influencer, and want to walk my talk and be the inspiration people need. Those are the reasons as to why I turn up to my yoga mat everyday, shut my jabbering mind, and keep on pulsing. This “Why” strategy applies to everything. Wanna get outta depression? Why? Wanna lose 20 pounds? Why? Wanna listen to your dentist’s desperate pleadings and floss already? WHY EH? Unless you know your intentions, you’ll give up at the first chance you get to not act on your goals. And watch out, because there'll be a LOT of those.

For me, leaving a legacy behind means more than having a slice of cake or missing a workout because there’s a fun movie playing. Find what's important to YOU, make it your why, and go marry your goals.

3. And then, Repeat — Bear in mind, if you're not living your best life yet, there are NO weekends. NO work-shy days. No weak days, no pick-me-up days, no eat-candy-do-nothing days. Everyday is a damn Monday. EVERYDAY is life or death. Every holy day you wake up is a chance to push your limits, challenge your mindset, and see how far you can go. And every 24 hours, when the cycle starts again, it’s your mission to race to build a stronger, wiser and crazier you.

And who knows, perhaps one day, you and I will just be casually sipping tea in our dream home, laughing at how the milk is still being spilt but knowing, proudly, fiercely, that we’ve come so far, even though there’s still more left to do, more to give and so much more to be.

Takeaway: 

Quit quitting. You're, guaranteed, 20x stronger than you think. I doubted I could go through with the workout, it seemed beyond my present physical capabilities. But I did, because I treated it as life or death. Understand this, the second you start making excuses, for being depressed, for taking an unnecessary day off - you give away your power. You are a very powerful being. You're limitless, capable of everything.

I'm not throwing these words around to make you feel cute, I actually mean AND believe them. There’s so much that's been done already— the iconic four minute mile by Roger Bannister, invention of the light bulb, cars, toothpaste and other junk, people who lost both legs and climbed Mt. Everest, we sent a man to moon in frickin’ 1969 (50 YEARS ago), some ran a 26 mile marathon with zero training, love and hope is still strong in this world, oh let's also add coffee and motivational music— and YOU think you can't finish a workout or get outta depression or meet your idols or marry the man of your dreams or become the artist you wanna be? Ridiculous. Don't give away your power that easily, this ain't no charity shop.

(play ♬) Having personally dealt with unwelcome yet familiar feelings of emptiness quite often, I’ve now reached a point where each bad day is simply a reminder of how long my journey ahead is, and just how badly I want to reach my destination.

We finally near the end of this novel of a post (thanks for sticking around, bud), and my best advice would be this: Rather than wallowing in self pity and throwing one-man parties because your life is so awfully dreadful, know that even when life throws you to the floor, long as you can look up, long as you can read an entire book about defeating depression (cough)– you can GET UP too. Let those emotions of sorrow and frustration blaze up into a roaring, crackling fire that doesn’t consume you, but instead, urges you, fuels you.

Lately, no matter how much shit I go through, how many arguments I tumble into, or how barren my dreams look sometimes, I don’t break down. And no, it wasn't always like this. I never even had aspirations to name two years ago. Six months back, it had become a night routine to cry. Not anymore.

Now, every setback and every failure only pushes me to be stronger and give more than I ever gave. The day I made the decision to Conquer (truly, madly, deeply, with all of my heart) was also the day I said a big, loud ‘fuck you’ to every resistance that was to cross my path. I had finally understood that life was nothing but a battle of WILLS, that it was all in or nothing, and I made up my mind once and for all to NEVER give in to depression, or to society, or to anyone who tells me I cannot make it.

I had conquered depression. There was no looking back now.

Takeaway: 

Here’s something no one will tell you: the key to bringing depression to its knees is seeing it positively. Pretend that it's a friend continuously sending strong, aggressive signals urging you to be happy. And what do you do when a caring friend throws some holy light? You listen, push past your ego, and follow accordingly.

And if that parallel seems unconvincing, here's another one (sup, DJ Khaled. This post is turning musical, sorry): it's scared of you. Depression is scared shit of you. Y'know how bullies are, right? Majorly insecure, self-loathing too perhaps, hardly fans of self love, and always trying to numb all that subconscious pain by inflicting pain on others. Depression has the same instruction manual. Your fears and doubts are your (pathetic) bullies, and depression is the big ol’ crony who does the dirty work for 'em.

Whenever you decide shit this is it, I'm going for it, they go paranoid and try stopping you because they've seen no better. And if they succeed, BOOM, you're depressed, paralyzed, your qualms reigning over you again. Don't let them in. I'll say it a thousand times if I gotta because I want (HAVE) to see you conquer – you're so much stronger than you think you are. You can do so much more than you think. It's all in your head! Don't just sit there, click away, and go back to living a sad life. You’re better than that. DO better than that. You’re meant to freaking CONQUER, straight-up dominate, my pal. Pay heed to that voice craving freedom. You got this. And you better know it.

One thing’s fixed like the (beloved by all) proportionality constants in Physics, you will come across depressing mornings and sluggish evenings even in the future. I assure you. Lots o’ bad hair days in the calendar, sis. But here's what you’ll do: you'll deactivate the miserable thoughts, keep a cool head, remind yourself that this is yet another test (better, rap your new mantra) and USE that hurt, pain, and anger to create a fervor and passion that wreaks havoc on its obstacles and drives you to accomplish EVERYTHING you've ever wanted to do. The easy choice would be to just give up, bellyache about the situation, and want sympathy for your worries. Yet, what you'll never do is… exactly that.

Rule 1) NEVER give up. Stand your ground. Have faith in your strength. Know that you'll have your way soon enough anyway. Rule 2) NEVER complain. All it does is drain your energy, that precious fire you could to high jump your way into the clouds. Makes you a pathetic wimp too, definitely not something you want on a warrior’s resume. Lastly, Rule 3) NEVER seek validation. From anyone. It sure feels nice to be acknowledged and encouraged, but grasp this— this is your journey. YOUR life and YOUR vision. Validation won't get you anywhere, for there'll never be enough of it.

Cuz Marty, if you're tryna bring something new, different, and authentic into this world – you'll most likely be hated on badly, before you'll be loved madly (hi, me a rapper). Learn to invite hate instead—IMPORTANT: hate from others, not yourself. Sounds counterintuitive, but this is the real tea: hate is good. It means you're standing up for something, refusing to fit like a puzzle piece in society, and being UNAPOLOGETICALLY yourself. And it’s certainly a sign that you’re on the right path if you can ignore that hate and stick your tongue out at it.  

Yet another reason to never seek validation is simply this: you have to fight for yourself. In order to meet your own expectations, reach the doorstep of the best version of you, and transform this world, you'll have to go wildly IN. Toil and hammer away. Shut out all the haters and non-believers, listening only to your gut. Importantly, learn to accept the rejection slips, validating yourself not with what Molly says about it being okay, but with the reminder that your time is coming soon. Depend on yourself. Validation will NEVER be enough.

I get it, it's a lot of homework, but perhaps you already realize that it’s THIS work that'll change your life forever. Not “how to not procrastinate, Jesus take the wheel” or “HELLO, life's a mess so here are ten things to do (you won't believe number four!)”. Clickbaits don't work, stop believing that a fancy planner is going to be your savior. There is no rule to making your life a masterpiece. You'll have to get to know yourself and your dreams (journaling, meditation, silent pondering), build the work ethics and the mentality needed (lots of work in this one, yet no strict framework to go about it) and GET GOING.

AND with that firework, I'll begin to slip away now. Again, I won’t say it’s easy, that’s cock and bull. Life’s no fairytale. You will never feel ready to start bringing your dreams to fruition. But, my darling (I’m being so nice yo, follow me), you must. You must force yourself to work for the future you want till it becomes a habit, an obsession. The world badly needs heroes; confident people who can stand for themselves so that others can stare at first, maybe even hate a little, but then follow because they seem unstoppable and are, truthfully, having the most fun at life. YOU'RE one of them. No validation, just plain facts.

You see, conquering is a LOT of blood and sweat (K-pop, anyone? BTS? Lmao, this is me tryna clickbait y'all to read). Even getting up will seem huge when you're just starting out, and this is one long road, dear pal. Still then, I have enough faith in you to hope you don't give into your fears, I hope you willingly chase discomfort, and I hope you find the courage to do all that you want to do, while that heart's still beating.

I hope you conquer. I'll do too, and I'd really like to see some familiar faces during the ride.

Peace, amigo.

A loud ass A/N: And now, we come the most important part of this post. WAKE UP Luke, stop snoring, and take some notes. Remember kids, I won't accept anything but an A.

   If you couldn’t identify yourself throughout this post and currently are scoffing like um woman, that's not really why I'm depressed, hang in there a sec. Yes, you can stop singing It Ain’t Me now. You've a very nice voice by the way.

I'm not a doctor, and I don't have enough exposure to know why so many earthlings are depressed today. HOWEVER, by talking to many, following their stories, watching and reading stuff – I do know with firm conviction that a majority suffers from severe unfulfillment. Don't believe me? A study shows 85% of the working class worldwide hate their jobs. Do you realize what that actually means? EIGHTY-FIVE PERCENT of the THREE BILLION PEOPLE employed today, hate being employed in the first place! They do it for prime survival, to sustain themselves. And that's just jobs. I won't scare you, but 50% (yes, HALF, you heard that right) of students HATE going to school. Kids waste SEVEN hours of their life every day going somewhere they dislike, doing something they hate. Who's singing now?

People find themselves trapped in golden handcuffs, taking the paycheck despite the passionless job. They push aside the art and business they love, to become a slave of good ol’ cash. Several surround themselves with negativity and get frustrated when unable to escape the choking (no, not THAT kind again, hello someone pour holy water over this post) atmosphere. An innumerable are forced into taking up courses that they don't care about under parental pressure. The reasons are endless, and I don't think I'll amuse myself listing all the sad excuses.

This has always been the story. Hundreds of influencers have preached the same words I’m tryna put into your head here and you’ll yourself say you’ve heard this a million times. YET, you’re dissatisfied. YET, you feel like crap everyday, feeding yourself the same lie that the next day will be better, that you’ll get up tomorrow– while you let life beat the shit out of you.

That’s why, all of my words, everything you’ve read today - all of that boils down to just one single question. A difficult but necessary choice. Will you let this happen to YOU? Will you, seriously, even after this wild ride together, go back to doing nothing and being nothing? Will you, for real, continue deceiving yourself, sacrifice your happiness for the sake of pleasing everyone else, and remain a statistic on a website?

   (play ♬) If you’re not sure of your answer, read: Look, making you feel guilty is not my intention, because that’s not how this works. I need you to understand instead. Guilt wears off, it’s only understanding that brings about change. So, just for old times’ sake, I’ll rant a bit more (ik, just can’t seem to leave y’all).

You’re so, so young right now. More than half of your life is yet to be experienced. None of this probably makes much impact right now but it will the day you die. Remember, on your deathbed, you won't EVER look back and say, “Damn, wish I'd spent more time at the office. Saved up just one more dollar. Could’ve got that promotion before Amy.” Nay, it won’t even be on the calendar. That day, one foot in the grave, you'll reflect and wonder why the heck you didn’t let yourself be happier. Why you took up that lacklustre, soul-sucking architect job when all you've ever wanted to do is keep laughing. Why you didn't ask your crush out, why you were so afraid to walk up to that audition, because dammit, you could’ve been running your own comedy show by now. Why you dragged around a karaoke machine all this time instead of singing your own song. Why you couldn’t love yourself. Why you submitted. Why.

And the moment you realize that you hadn't lived a life for you, you’ll be crushed. Broken. The arthritis in your grannie joints won't even compare and neither will the mild dissatisfaction you’re feeling right now. Those whys will haunt you, they'll terrorize you, break you. It'll hurt tremendously to know that there isn't a single thing in your long life that you could call completely your own.

 With every death today so many dreams are left unachieved, crazy things left unchecked on the bucket list, and unique potential left unexpressed.

DON'T let that be you. Please. I'm still a mess myself, struggling to reach class on time and studying subjects that aren't exactly fun, when all I want to do is create content (read: fireworks) that is at a level of insanity, influence folks to do better, hold crazy world tours and meet-and-greets to give hugs, and get an adorable puppy so I can create a dogstagram (yes, I'm that mom). Sure, I could declare it's too hard, hang onto small-minded and negative people who whine endlessly, and follow the crowd, getting lost in it, with ease.

But I won’t because I can’t take the burden of those regrets. That painful unrest and discontent that nothing could cure, not drugs, alcohol, buddies, not even true love. For then I’d be just another drone, my controller in the hands of society, forcing me to see the world through its eyes. I can’t give in because I’m scared, terrified even, of wasting away this one life doing the bidding of others- folks who won't even notice when I’m gone.

It’s easy to be depressed and crib your entire life. It’s easy to think you’re worthless and that trying is pointless since nothing ever goes your way.

But perhaps, if you rise, if you simply DECIDE to have the audacity to fight for what you believe in, if you work and focus on becoming better, things will go your way. Life will bend to you, in awe, at your incredible relentlessness. Life will take one look at you, wonder who the fuck is this person? How the fuck are they so incapable of giving up? And back right away. And then perhaps, life will be such a blast for you that depression would become the past you never had.

   I know you can get there, conqueror. It’s time you knew it too.

🌚🌝 Further reading? 🌝🌚

Last Post :— How To Get Back Into The Creative Process – For you, if you're in a creative rut. Get outta it and go create magic!

5 Reasons Why You're Unhappy — To help you identify & cut out CURRENT sources of sadness so that you can spice up yo’ life with some happiness instead. Definitely recommend reading AND implementing.

The Bubble Trap & How To Get Out Of It — One of my classics. Everyone is in one of these 'bubbles’ till they consciously do something about it; that's just how it is. Are you still in one? (Someone teach me marketing, lmao.)

The 5 Biggest Regrets of The Dying (from Greatist) — I LOVED reading this. Pretty much all you need to cut the crap and do meaningful stuff. Read it, memorize it, work it.

++ Want to request a blog post? Leave your request in my ask box! I'll get back to you with a reply, along with the average time I'll need to birth that magical idea.

Thanks for dropping by! It was a pleasure to have you around. If you wish to stick for a bit, I'd suggest picking one of the related posts mentioned above.

If you wanna check out my blog, here's a little something about me (y'all know I love the attention). What do I write about? Three arenas I dominate, Work, Lifestyle and Life, they are, my mate! Take your pick!

I post new blog posts bi-weekly, and my wins, & journal entries throughout the week, so follow me if you're into conquering life, leaving a legacy and being the baddest badass you can possibly be. I'll be your side pal, cheering you along.✨

And that was it, it's a wrap! Martha, shut the cams, Henry, pause the audio, and Nandita, I know you're pretending to be deaf, but Mom's yelling something about doing the dishes. Better skip along.

And you, fellow conqueror? Keep slaying life, doing the work and making it count. I hope you're well, stay strong and go conquer life. ✧

I'm sending you so much love, see you soon.

— Nandini 💌 (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

#THIS TOOK FOREVER #but i hope this changes u BC THAT'S WHAT IM HERE FOR #unicorn studying #*life #*lifestyle #depression #life #motivation #inspiration #philosophy #lifestyle #conquer #positivity #how to succeed #dreams #no excuses #happiness #believe #faith #never give up #optimism #better every day #quotes #inspring quotes #athenastudying #studylustre #armcnia #new studyblr #studyblrmasterposts #studyblr2019

[ngame989]

SVTFOE 4A Prediction/Analysis Master Post

So we just had the first two episodes come out, and overall I enjoyed them. There’s been a lot of mixed reactions to the details, from myself included, so let’s dive in a bit. Apologies for when this becomes a giant wall of text in the back half, I'm not digging through promos for images.

Butterfly Follies

In the first episode, 98% of it is focused on Star feeling like shit because Moon is missing and nothing she does to try and find her works, and other people keep telling her she is screwing it up. Yeah, many of us thought this theme of “Star screwing up” would extend a bit more concretely to stuff with Marco and Tom, and it was present but only a tiny bit as a reminder. Her interaction with Tom was basically just a reminder that the situation from after Booth Buddies hadn’t budged - Star still was barely paying attention to him, Tom was still not really a companion to her at all, it just isn’t working, but they haven’t talked about it yet.

Tomstar has always had the candy coating of a romantic relationship (nicknames, handholding, occasional smooching, gossip and drama, etc) with virtually nothing underneath. We see this over and over - Demoncism has a genuine emotional connection between them in that moment, but once their relationship starts up again, it takes until Is Another Mystery for even a hint of true, genuine support between them, and it still doesn’t extend to either of them considering the other as a life companion at all. Most of it is going through the motions for both of them. When everyone’s lives were on the line, Tom stepped up, but this doesn’t immediately make him Marco 2 - the issues that existed before, the lack of commitment and drive between them (still candy-coated by nicknames and whatnot) is as present as ever, and arguably more so, now that Star has the events of the end of S3 dwelling somewhere in the recesses of her mind. Plus we get a moment of Tom checking in with Marco about Star’s comment, showing once again that Marco is the one Tom actually turns to for genuine support.

Contrast that with Starco in these episodes. Yes, it’s not magically perfect, there’s still lots of stuff to resolve and many people (myself included) have felt that it was a bit “off” (more on that soon). But there’s still a genuine sense of progression, where Marco is comfortable being close with Star again, being emotional support, even if he doesn’t always know how to help.

As predicted, Eclipsa’s style of ruling has mostly been “make disliking monsters entirely illegal because that’s Equality™” and it’s not working out so well for true social change. I expect this to be a major plot point moving forward.

Honestly, I dunno what all to make of the details of Glossy’s lines here. Considering the situation with Toffee was pretty explicitly Glossaryck’s intentional method of teaching Star how to do things her own way, this definitely isn’t literal. Maybe he’s playing 4D chess, and Star questioning whether Glossaryck was misleading her is all part of how he leads her. There’s a... nonzero chance, I suppose, that there is some more direct connection here and trying to fix past mistakes (since time travel is brought up very shortly) but I’d be incredibly shocked and largely appalled if that’s where things actually head.

(Skipping around on photos a bit here to just get the point across)

So let’s talk about this for a moment, shall we? I’ve seen a lot of talk about this photo and how it’s really sketchy that Star apparently knew it was from the future the whole time, given its past importance in Starcrushed. Granted, we don’t know exactly how it’s going to pay off yet, but I’ll take a strong educated guess - it’s basically a gag because the writers thought it would be fun. A relevant gag and kind of an asspull, yes, but still just a gag. Yes, the photo is now factually from the future and will be relevant again in that capacity, but I’m entirely convinced that the point of it wasn’t to intentionally retcon something about Starcrushed or anything like that - a meaningful photo of Star and Marco was used in Season 2 to generically remind her of their “good times” and their relationship as a whole, and that same photo was used here as a promise of happiness to come, and the primary purpose of the photo in each case is how it was written for that case.

I know it’s not a satisfying explanation, but it is entirely consistent with this show to have details occur that are largely arbitrary and inconsistent, and there’s a consistency to that inconsistency. Adult Marco is another example, Janna implying Kelly maybe had feelings for Marco in Stump Day is another, any time Star yeeted a high school student into some pit of horrors is another. All of these are situations where, if you examine them thoroughly as a whole and consider all the possible implications, they get kind of sketchy really fast. Yes, it is frustrating at times, but I think you just have to roll with it - Marco has memories of a 30 year old when the boarders want to make a cool reference before Marco does a bunch of fancy weapon tricks, but it never affects his normal existence unless it’s needed for a joke/reference. Janna says something that implies complicated romance drama incoming when the boarders want girly banter to accompany dudes fighting, but it doesn’t go anywhere beyond that. Star has a body count on Earth but she’s not a wanted criminal, probably. The consistency here is that if the show kind of glosses over some sort of possible implication and plays it off for a gag, then that’s what you should take it as.

Again, I don’t know exactly how this will pay itself off, but I have an incredibly strong suspicion that the answer to “what were the boarders thinking when they did this??? It screws up a core moment in Starcrushed!!!” is that they weren’t thinking about that. COULD they actually do something more in-depth with the time travel aspect? I guess, but “throwing organic core moments of character/relationship growth under the bus for the sake of wacky over-the-top plot” sounds like the opposite of this show. I’ll cover more about how I think this might actually work later.

A lot of people said Star and Marco felt like acquaintances this episode, and not best friends. I understand where they’re coming from - there weren’t all kinds of hugs and affection flying around, their talks were awkward. But this honestly makes a lot of sense for where we’re at now. We’re completely over the hump where they they're hesitant to even think of themselves as best buddies, where they’re struggling with their feelings just to spend time with the other. Marco is back to making all attempts to be her close friend and companion and support, Star is comfortable around him... but, there’s still some lingering “OK we moved forward from here, what now?” We saw in Divide that a simple hug between them brought out strong feelings for both of them. I think a lot of the awkwardness remaining could be attributed to the strong sour mood of the situation overall, but part of it could also be a subconscious “OK, Marco confessing his feelings made things better, and we’re OK being close, but...” lingering, waiting to be addressed. And given pancake and cereal clips, it will be soon.

Escape from the Pie Folk

I have less to say about this episode, it was fairly straightforward, honestly. It was 22 minutes of adventure and fights while trying to find and steal away Moon - lot of really fun and well-executed humor, it definitely was a strong showing for pretty much all the parts of the show besides “focus on the relationship growth of Star and Marco”.

More Marco trying to be constantly supportive, but still maybe having a bit of lingering tension in the how.

And sweet family moments.

Overall, a very isolated situation, honestly. The actions and interactions of the characters were put in a very specific, very focused situation where “finding Moon” overrode anything else, and didn’t allow for much other special elements to shine through. I liked the episodes, but some part of me was disappointed that most developments besides Moon were put on pause for the premiere. Still, resolving this in its entirety straight away sets up for some pretty strong coverage of the rest...

INTERMISSION

Let’s take a moment to talk about compartmentalization and the rules of TV pacing. I love Star vs the Forces of Evil, and I’m sure many of you do, even if its infuriating and painful at times. A lot of times. But I definitely think the show is special and does things differently than many others, to an extent. And that extent is key - I like to think of it as content vs structure. Content-wise, it is rather different from what you might expect (especially with character/relationship development). Characters come first, always, and there isn’t a sense of outside drama pushing characters around like ragdolls, changing their relationships and emotions in ways that they aren’t already naturally primed to at that moment. Romance isn’t handled as a drama-fest love triangle, with Star and Jackie or Tom and Marco directly vying for the affection of their love interest, nor do those love triangles ever damage the development of the main dynamic, Starco. Basically every shift in Star and Marco’s relationship, the ebbs and flows of it, can be entirely explained by just the two of them. Yes, seeing the other be romantic with someone else was a partial catalyst to individual moments of growth, but by and large Star and Marco themselves have been their own biggest obstacles, their own insecurities and missteps guiding the path of Starco 1000x more than Jarco or Tomstar or plot.

However, this doesn’t mean the show is magically free of the confines of episodic story pacing, and that’s where people often find faults in it. Many, including myself, went into the premiere thinking/hoping that it would include some relationship payoff, or skip some steps and just have Tom and Star break it off right away. And while anyone is free to disagree with the general concept of the premiere being entirely focused on Moon and plot setup, it’s completely logical for the show to take its development in concrete, compartmentalized chunks. An episode dedicating itself to a theme, to a concrete piece of plot, is likely going to focus on that. And this can be nuanced - I don’t think it was wrong of people to think that Follies could have had a theme of “Star confronted with her screwups” in a broader way that included multiple aspects of that, but it doubled down on Moon and it’s totally understandable that she didn’t take time during her hunt to figure out her feelings, etc. Still, it included reminders of the current situation, and we’ll see those pay off very soon. It’s not so reasonable to expect the show to bend over backwards to steamroll through Starco development right away, but it’s also unreasonable to expect no chunks of development at all, or for them to stop randomly. 

More specifically, the way the episodic structure handles these chunks is to follow up underlying buildup with inevitable realizations. It’s very, very rare for an episode that confronts a character with a specific question (e.g. “How do I feel about my Earth life” - Marco in Sophomore Slump, or “How do I feel about Marco” - Star in Starcrushed) to actually have the emotional development required to understand it occur within that episode. Star isn’t confronted with her crush on Marco until it’s developed enough to be ready to burst out. Marco isn’t confronted with his priorities in life until he’s experience enough of a bold, adventurous life with Star that his heart has already decided, and in both cases it’s a matter of a climactic wake-up call to what’s already there. On that note, onto predictions.

Moon Remembers

Well, I dunno much specific to say about this. Seems like this will be the episode dedicated to trying to get Moon her memory back - we have scenes from the promos of them riding warnicorns and Eclipsa playing guitar with her, maybe just trying to jog it. Could lead to some type of plot revelation (”I remember something big I saw in the Realm of Magic!” etc) but who knows. Seems likely that it’s entirely plot/Moon-focused, maybe with some more tie-ins to magic lore.

Swim Suit

This is a big one. So from the synopsis, we know that this is when Star and Marco attempt to have their beach day (which we now know is a celebration of things being “back to normal”, with Moon being back) but get interrupted by Eclipsa. I don’t know specifics of it, but in general, I think this is going to be the episode where Star truly settles in to an understanding of how she feels.

Quick tangent about the photo and how I think it’ll be used: in Follies, it was primarily encouragement for finding her mom. It’s still definitely interesting, and intentional, that the particular reminder of future happiness is a time with Marco, but it wasn’t relevant immediately - I think it will be used that way moving forward. Basically like this - “I kept this photo as encouragement to think positively and know I’d find my Mom. We found Mom, so now I can be happy like in the photo. It feels really good being happy with Marco like I am in the photo. Huh, I wonder why it is that my ideal of happiness is having fun with Marco...” Clearly the underlying feelings are already there, this is just bringing them to the forefront, actually giving Star a chance to reflect on how her heart feels after recent weeks/months and big events. As for specifics, I think they won’t actually take the photo here. They’ll try to have a beach day, get interrupted, and throughout the course of Eclipsa shenanigans, the episodic plot will tie in towards thinking about her feelings, with the end result being a “well, we didn’t achieve Beach Happiness™, but it was still nice.” We already know that an Earth beach is in episode 16, so maybe the photo comes full circle then (and at that point, they’re completely together already, and the photo is spontaneous). Or maybe I’m wrong, but who knows, this is a level of specificity I can’t predict with any confidence.

Also note here that, provided animation studio order stays consistent as expected, the cereal/pancake/babysitting Meteora scenes aren’t actually from Swim Suit, so who knows where those end up.

Overall, my general expectations for this episode are to set the stage for Starco developments, to start the ball rolling on payoff from last season and to start characters recognizing those changes and truly moving forward. Of course Tomstar is likely not going away officially until Lake House Fever, so I don’t exactly expect Star and Marco to talk about their feelings in depth here, but it’ll still be an important episode for Starco regardless.

Ransomgram

Alright, let’s just make something clear here. Yes, we already know Star is going to be fawning over adult Marco’s hot bod here, and very likely before breaking up with Tom. I know a lot of people are gonna find that sketchy, and I don’t entirely disagree, but adult Marco (and Star thirsting after hot dudes in general) has always been a gag never treated with any real serious weight. Both Jarco and Tomstar overall, but especially Tomstar, never really ever are treated with any true weight in the story. Like, yes, it’s acknowledged that Marco and Star kissing while she’s dating Tom are bad, but none of the moments of Marco abandoning Jackie to be with Star, or Star ignoring Tom to be with Marco, or Tom being a really unhelpful/unsupportive boyfriend, are ever treated with any real gravity. In the real world, perhaps these would be frowned upon much more even in weaker relationships, but in the show, “Star and Tom are dating” is taken as a given in the background, and none of the actions that characters take are really ever truly treated seriously as hurtful. So yes, on some level it’s weird and questionable that Star will be drooling over Marco (again) while STILL not talking to Tom, but Compartmentalization™ and the general lack of concern for treating the possible implications of situations like this seriously add up to explain it. Feel however you want about it, but this is how I expect it to work, because it’s how it’s worked in the past.

MHC is gonna come back here, and there might be a connection to the monster side of the plot, figuring out where the old guard fits in with the new regime and how politics are moving forward. Also, as far as Starco goes, I think this will be a sort of emotional payoff to Swim Suit. Not that anything tangible will result within the episode, but showing the differences in how Star acts around Marco when she’s actually admitting to herself that she loves him. Just like how Marco Jr., for instance, showed a very clear and different Starco interaction than 3A episodes, as a result of the concrete development moments in Deep Dive. Or how their interactions in Divide were very clearly the result of changes in Booth Buddies. So on and so forth.

All of this, then, leads into...

Lake House Fever

So this is where Tomstar finally rots. We have all-but-confirmation from animation studios, hints in the title, and background/SFX “leaks” that this is where the Tom and Star clips in the promos are from. So how exactly might this work? I can’t even say for sure, but I think it’s going to follow the usual trend of Tomstar episodes and basically be a vehicle for Tom development. Let’s face it, Star basically got nothing out of Tomstar besides a general passive armor against having to contemplate heartbreak/feelings since Tom filled the checkbox of “romance” in her life. She initially at least did truly fulfill the role of “normal teenage girlfriend” by spending time with him, dates, etc, but that started to wane after Lava Lake Beach and kept doing so more and more, and it’s now basically at the point of Tomstar being a couple in name only, with 0 effort between either of them put into actually... being anything. 

Let’s compare to Sophomore Slump for a minute, shall we? So in that episode, we had Marco who had undergone a ton of previous developments in how much he cared about adventure and a greater purpose in life and Star, and his heart had already basically made up its mind (Scent of a Hoodie’s ending and wearing the cape in Rest in Pudding, as clear signs of this). Sophomore Slump was the direct reality check, the final piece of the puzzle slotting into place, at least with regards to specifically “where he’d rather be” (even if the why still needed a bit more). So we could say, in effect, that Marco had fully developed everything underneath to answer the question of what mattered more to him, the old safe kid Marco’s ideal Earth life, or the new Marco’s life, and the breakup was simply everything that was already there clicking into place - he moves to Mewni immediately afterwards.

So how does this fit into Lake House Fever? I think the positioning of the episode is going to revolve around Star’s “growth” from it to work like Marco’s. In the Jarco case, the breakup wasn’t about Starco specifically, but Marco’s overall goals and focuses in life (Star was a part of that too, of course). It’s fairly clear that the Tomstar breakup will be different - the tension in their relationship is FAR more directly related to Starco itself (and also a much greater overall dysfunction within Tomstar compared to Jarco). It’s not a case of “this is a perfectly working relationship but it’ll eventually have issues, so let’s end it before we both become miserable”, it’s “this relationship isn’t working at all right now, for multiple reasons, among which are that Star prioritizes/loves someone else, but also general incompatibilities between them for committed companionship”. 

I think on Star’s end of things, we’re going to enter the episode with her knowing, very close to the surface if not on the surface already, that she has feelings for Marco and they need to talk, but will just have the one last hesitation holding her back. Not a “I genuinely don’t know who I like/whether I want to keep going longterm with Tom”, but a “this overall situation needs resolved and I just don’t know exactly how to handle it”. From the very limited info we have from the title/promo (no synopsis yet), it seems like Star might be helping Tom with something - he kind of looked ill in the promos. Regardless, I still sort of predict a semi-arbitrary episodic plot leads them to meet up in the episode. Give em a reason to interact that isn’t directly related to awkward and complex feelings, and let the handling of those naturally evolve from there. 

So as for Tom, I think the bulk of the change in this episode will be on his end. I think he’s going to sort of have an attitude not too dissimilar to Star - knowing they should talk at some point, but not really knowing how. I think the bulk of the episode’s plot, whatever it may be, will lead up towards Tom getting the wakeup call that it 100% won’t work and that he needs to pull the trigger on it. It would give Tom a really solid moment to follow up on some of his initial moments in Season 3, would give him some critical agency when he honestly hasn’t had much of it for a while (Starco developments just kind of happen around him, although of course his general lack of presence in Star’s life contributes to this as well - Star’s a fairly absentee girlfriend, but Tom’s no angel either). Getting over that initial hump of awkwardness would still accomplish things for both of them, but Tom being the one to first make the leap of faith into starting the uncomfortable conversation would fit best imo.

As for afterwards, much like how I said Jarco was the final puzzle piece for Marco decisively figuring out his priorities, I think this will be the same for Star’s feelings. She’ll be aware, nearly-consciously, that she has feelings for Marco ahead of time, but will just be stuck on inaction, not being confident enough to take a bold step forward on her own. So I think the breakup for Star’s feelings will do what the breakup did for Marco’s sense of accomplishment - the final domino will not only help her realize that she has feelings for Marco, but prime her to actually act on them.

Now if this breakup occurred earlier, I’d say it could have a major impact on Star’s own growth and understanding, and it still could, but I don’t think it’ll be so likely. There are certainly situations where the breakup would serve as a shakeup for her to consider her feelings, which would then take some more time afterwards to solidify, but I can’t help but assume that’s what the purpose of multiple Starco episodes beforehand is. The situation is too much of a powderkeg for Star to have any downtime with either of them that doesn’t start turning the gears in her brain. Anyway, that’s all for this.

Eps 5-7

Yada Yada Berries/Down by the River

The Ponyhead Show!/Surviving the Spiderbites

Out of Business/Kelly’s World

These, I have no clue on specifics, to be honest. There’s an RDK Ludo episode coming up, so that would be part of episode 5 most likely. Second half of that seems like a River episode contender, but who knows. The first half of episode 6 is some type of variety show involving Eclipsa in part - this may be part of the plot of Eclipsa trying to find her place as Queen. Spiderbites is a possible contender for the babysitting Meteora clip, the first half of episode 7 is Quest Buy with the Ocrams, and Kelly’s World is something with Marco and Kelly. We’ll circle back to these, but let’s look at broader strokes first.

Curse of the Blood Moon

I’m entirely confident that by the end of this episode (at the latest) Starco will be 100% canon, ready to move forward into Season 4 as a couple, romantic uncertainties behind them. It’s the only possible next “big” step in their development, one that was set up very directly in Booth Buddies with the idea that things were different now and they could no longer ignore their friendship meaning more than friendship. I’m sure it will be tied in to Starco relationship progress, but as I’ve said many times before, it’s entirely out of the realm of how this show handles development as a whole to actually prioritize plot over characters and obstruct character development with plot. The “Curse”, whatever it may be, could very well be activated by Starco itself, but it’s entirely out of line with everything the show has ever done with characterization to actually claim plot is “forcing” feelings, capisce?

Now how could this be accomplished? Well, given the pacing of the show in general, concrete chunks of development along the way seem most likely. And Star and Marco acknowledging the stronger nature of their relationship and stepping over the edge towards mutual romance, to me, seems like a different piece of the puzzle than something so strong as becoming 100% canon forever. After all, Bonbon for Jarco still had a Naysaya before it, a setup with clear and direct Jarco moments nudging it over the edge of romantic before going the whole way. Similarly, Tomstar had Demoncism before they officially confirmed they were a couple a few episodes later. 

Curse is definitely going to be a big episode, but I don’t see it being very likely that we entire the episode with the entire prospect of Star and Marco talking about their feelings still completely looming over them. Another major reason I have to believe this, which is in some ways related to the above point, is that the show doesn’t overly fetishize romance. It’s all-too-common in media, especially family-friendly/kid media with romance, to warp the whole concept and make the “confession + big kiss + happily ever after” one monolithic moment at the very end, as the pinnacle of romance, often going so far as to delay natural developments and put roadblocks of misunderstanding in the way to keep the pair apart until both could have this moment. SVTFOE, on the other hand, historically hasn’t done this. It has always, thus far, recognized the ebbs and flows and slower progression of natural relationships, with steps in between “I guess we might like each other” to “yup we’re 100% dating”. So I can’t guarantee anything about the specific pacing along the way, but I’d wager that Starco has already crossed the threshold into mutual romance before Curse begins.

I have genuinely no idea what the plot will be here overall. We have a shot from the promo which is a newly animated version of the Blood Moon Waltz... flashback? Recreating the event? Time travel? I hope not the last one, but I have no clue.

So circling back around, we have the cereal, pancake, and babysitting Meteora scenes which (as far as I can tell, assuming animation studio order holds) are unaccounted for. There’s... I suppose a nonzero chance for a huge curveball, with some of them being Lake House Fever? Star wears the new S4 outfit in cereal/pancake as well as then, and they’re all Sugarcube. Another option I’d been considering was for Surviving the Spiderbites to be their attempt to spend time together, either resulting in feelingstalk or being the result of feelingstalk and tiptoeing into romance, with the cereal/pancake scenes being about trying to have a good “date” but getting interrupted... which is now the plot of Swim Suit, so I don’t know. Quest Buy has always, historically, involved heavy Starco importance, so perhaps that episode is a leadin to Curse on that front. Note that either everyone actually thinking Kelly’s World (and their baking scene in Ponyhead Show) is actually implying more love triangles is wrong, or the writers officially gave up and we can all go home.

As a note, I’m of course not really making any bold claims of confidence in the minutiae of these predictions: there’s so many options for curveballs that I can’t say anything for sure! But I think, in a general sense, the path of Starco buildup towards and through Curse is a sure thing, one way or another, because there’s basically nothing else meaningful that could happen!

Hope you enjoyed the read, and stay tuned for any new updates we get on future episodes.

#svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe spoilers #starco #tomstar

[naturallynaked]

Omfg the biggest ESP moment happened with my boyfriend

The biggest moment

We didn’t have one before

We are going to sleep right

And I’m thinking silently in my head about the magic school bus and wondering if I could show the daycare kids or if they’re too young to understand

And my boyfriend says out loud “you know that show where...”

And I’m thinking yeah what show I’m just thinking about a show

And he said where there was a magic school bus

And I started freaking out

Like I was legit thinking it

That same second

A moment later it turns out we were thinking about THE SAME FUCKING EPISODE OF THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS WHERE THEY GO THROUGH THE VEINS IN THE BODY WITH THE RED AND WHITE BLOOD CELLS

It’s the only episode I remember

He says it’s because I talked about how I’m still spotting and wondered how much blood can there possibly be

So that’s how it came to his mind

But

Like

Literally

What

The

Hell

[nyxshadowhawk]

Goth Tags

I know this is a YouTube thing, but I wanted to do these two lists, so I’m going to do them.

Ways in Which I’m Stereotypically Goth:

I’ve got the romantigoth aesthetic down. I love spooky, pretty things! I love gargoyles and ravens and black roses and moons and weird occult stuff and dark forests... I’ve got three Joseph Vargo posters in my dorm room, and I’ve run out of space to put resin statues in my bedroom. I wear lots of long, flowy black clothes and the occasional Goth Princess gown. I’ve also got an entire box (made of black wood with pentagrams carved in the top) full of silver and pewter jewelry, and Black Phoenix perfumes.

I really love spooky interior design and architecture. I loved Voltaire’s Gothic Homemaking and I drooled over Haunt Furniture. My dream home would probably be a Victorian-style, Addams-like mansion in the middle of nowhere (for when I become a world-famous writer...). I also REALLY love castles and old buildings, especially with gothic architecture and gargoyles. I really liked seeing old castles and churches in Scotland. Medieval Europe is 10/10 my aesthetic.

I’ve always really liked bats. When I was a kid (around six), my favorite episode of The Magic School Bus (for whatever reason) was “Going Batty.” That set off a bat obsession! Reading Stellaluna in seventh grade just reinforced it. I used to pretend to be one and wrap myself up in my blankets like wings. Bats are cute! I recently got back into them! There’s an adorable little plush one hanging above my bed. “So dark of wing and keen of craft, of all night flyers the master’s a bat.” (Actually, the master of night flyers is totally Prince Astor of Umbragard.)

I like horror stories and gothic literature. Back when creepypasta was big, I’d casually read collections of horror stories on Quotev. Now, I really love Nox Arcana’s “Tales from the Dark Tower,” Poe stories, Grimm’s fairy tales, and the like. I actually have a pretty strong stomach. I also genuinely love gothic lit. The Picture of Dorian Gray is my favorite. I didn’t make it through Frankenstein, though, it was too sad.

I’m introverted and a night owl. I wouldn’t say I have a “stereotypical” Goth personality, because I’ve been trying to be more optimistic and happy, and I’ve attempted to make friends, but one of the reasons I like Raven from Teen Titans is because I tend to be the isolated girl in dark clothes who’d rather be left alone. I’m not exactly stoic-- I’m an emotional wreck, but once you get me talking about a topic I’m interested in, I’m all moonlight and fireflies. I’m also a “tortured artist,” and I come alive at night. I stay up until at least 2 AM most nights. I ate breakfast at one today. 

I have a black cat named Edgar. I did not name him! He was given that name at the shelter. All the kittens in his litter were named after gothic writers, because they were all black! (His brother was “H.P.” after Lovecraft.) I was thrilled when my parents said we were getting him, and equally thrilled when they decided to keep his name. He’s such a sweet cat, and I love him.

I like vampires, but I have a complicated relationship with them. You’d think I’d be the kind of girl who’d be obsessed with vampires in middle school, especially if I loved the Vampire Friz episode of The Magic School Bus! But no. I wasn’t into vampires because they killed people and that was disturbing. (That’s why I independently created psychic vampires.)  However, since getting into Castlevania last Halloween, I’ve started to really warm up to vampires. I dressed as Lestat last Halloween, read Carpe Jugulum, have been consuming more vampire media than before... I’m still not obsessed, but I like them now. Still would hate to be one, though. SHADOWS FOR THE WIN!

I LOVE Halloween! I was devastated the two years it was canceled (freak snowstorm and Hurricane Sandy. Oh, by the way, my reaction to the current hurricane was, “He put his soul in a hurricane, now?!). I really miss trick-or-treating. I convinced my parents to throw an annual Halloween party, which gave me an excuse to get even more decorations for my room, and they pretty much can’t host it without me. Everyone shares my aesthetic during Halloween season!

I’m really into witchy and occult stuff. The more cryptic and spooky, the better. I was Wiccan-ish for a while, I don’t think I am anymore, but I’m still exploring my spirituality (through books like Nocturnal Witchcraft and Shadow Magick Compendium) with guidance from Hecate and Dionysus. 

Whether my music taste is truly “Goth” or not, it is certainly very spooky. Nox Arcana all the way! I really go in for the church organ and glockenspiel and chiming bells and melancholy piano and strings and harpsichords and minor keys. Listening to spooky music makes me happy. I have a whole list of creepy waltzes. Neoclassical is my thing. I also like Adrian von Zeigler, Peter Gundry, Two Steps From Hell, and fantasy music in general. 

Un-Goth Confessions:

I don’t like gothic rock. Some would say this means I’m not Goth, and it felt alienating for a while. Siouxsie and Bauhaus just aren’t really my thing. I don’t really like industrial and darkwave, either. The closest I get to traditional Goth music is Voltaire (I love the songs of his that I listen to, but I only listen to a handful), and a few songs by Dead Can Dance. I’m much more into Nox Arcana.

I don’t look stereotypically Goth. I joke that I look like Aurora and dress like Maleficent, because it’s true. My cheeks are permanently rosy and not easy to cover with white makeup (I don’t wear makeup often, anyway.) I have big blue eyes and wavy, golden hair (that I’m not going to dye). I don’t have any piercings— when my sister went for her second piercing, she encouraged me to get my ears pierced, but I broke down crying because I’m afraid of pain. I’m an adult!

I still like horsies and unicorns and other cutesy things from my childhood. I was really into Gen 3 of My Little Pony. I still have some fairy and ballerina stuff, even if I don’t display it. My bedroom is still lavender (and always will be). I definitely wasn’t spooky in childhood, and I’ve still got a non-spooky side. (It was kind of a big deal when I dressed as a rainbow unicorn fairy when I was seven, and then a dark sorceress when I was eight.)  I danced in my company’s adapted kiddie production of the Nutcracker until I graduated. I’ve got fluffy stuffed unicorns right next to my Spiral Bat Cat.

I HATE DIY. I don’t trust it! I don’t want to ruin my clothes with fabric paint or rip holes in things or in any way risk it turning out poorly. My style is tough to DIY anyway, but yeah.

I’m not really into the macabre. I only got into skeletons because of Undertale, and I don’t like, for lack of a better phrase, “the death aesthetic.” Blood, body horror art, the zombie look... I don’t really like anything morbid or sad. I’m iffy on graveyards and coffins.

I don’t like most horror films. I like spooky movies, like Coraline, but not horror movies. Although I like horror stories, I don’t like horror films, less because of the horror and more because they tend to end badly. I don’t like “everybody dies” stories, especially if it’s one where sympathetic people get killed off one by one, or slasher flicks that rely on jumpscares. Old-school gothic horror could work, though. I also like psychological thrillers like The Sixth Sense and Black Swan. Is Interview With the Vampire a horror movie? (I probably underestimate how strong my stomach is. Aladdin used to scare me. Look at me now!)

I still wear a lot of color. About half my wardrobe is black, which is still a lot, but not as much as most Goths. I’ve still got a lot of purple, and other colors.

I’m not a huge fan of Tim Burton. The only film of his that I really love was Corpse Bride. Beetlejuice wasn’t my style and didn’t contain enough of Lydia, Sweeney Todd was a bit too dark and gory (although I did like that one), Dark Shadows wasn’t as good as I was hoping, Alice in Wonderland was cool aesthetically but not a very good film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a dumpster fire... and The Nightmare Before Christmas doesn’t count because he didn’t direct it (and though I like it, I wasn’t blown away by it, either). My reaction overall? “Meh.”

I still contain a childish exuberance. I squealed and bounced up and down when the new Nox Arcana album was released. I will probably do the same before and/or after watching Season 3 of Castlevania, and when Grimoire of Souls is released. This is how I know that Goth stuff is part of my true personality. 

There’s a lot of Goth clothes that I don’t wear, in addition to not dying my hair, not wearing makeup, and not having piercings. I’d wear black heeled boots like Dracula’s, but not platform shoes. I don’t like fishnets. I hate ripped clothing. Not a fan of hoodies. I also will not wear leather clothing. And spiked collars? No no no. I’m pretty much strictly a Romantigoth. Maybe that doesn’t make me less Goth. But it makes me less stereotypical, especially when so much of the Goth stuff online is geared toward that end of the subculture.

And I don’t know if this makes me more Goth or less Goth, but I have one outfit from Hot Topic. And an epic “House of Belmont” t-shirt.

Okay, that was interesting.

“I’M SO GOTH, I LITERALLY DARKEN A DOORWAY!”

#goth #goth stuff #goth tag #stuff about me #facts about me #goth confessions

[gldngrl7]

Binge Watch: Teen Wolf (Spoilers)

I haven’t completed this yet, but I have...opinions.

I’ve seen some TW on my dash, some of it spoilery and some of it...shall we say...pure headcanon. I decided to watch TW before I go too spoiled and to separate the canon from the fanon. After watching a few seasons here are some of my thoughts

I had a hard time with the horror music (aka screaming violins) of the first season. I get that they wanted to be more horror than sci-fi, but jeez! It was like playing Dead Space! Jump scares, foreboding silences at expectant moments that often times didn’t pan out — Despite liking the characters I wasn’t sure I was down for season 2. Thankfully, in season 2 the musical score became more cinematic and epic, carrying themes throughout, rather than just going for the cheap emotional reaction in the moment.

This show has a bad habit of writing out a character just as they get more interesting. Prime example: Derek Hale. He spends an entire season losing his abilities only to find in the finale that he’s actually evolving into a more powerful wolf. Cut to end credits. The next season Derek is gone with little to no explanation. What does this evolution mean? Is it only available to born-wolves? Can Scott evolve too? What caused it? We spent the entire previous season believing that Kate did something to cause him to lose his powers, but that no longer appears to be the case. Oh! You wanted answers to these questions? How sad for you! Moving on. On this topic see also: Jackson Whittemore, Cora Hale, Allison Argent, Isaac Lahey, Deucalion, Kira Yukimira, Morin Morrell, Alan Deaton. Some characters are written out because their character arc reaches completion. This is not true for any of the above, IMO.

This one burns me up a bit. Question; why is Melissa McCall a nurse and not a doctor? Answer: because she’s a woman. I mean, why does Noah Stilinski get to be the Sheriff and not just a deputy? Because single dads get to be the boss while single moms have to be worker bees. Everyday sexism right there on a “woke” tv show. I say the plots would have been better served if she had just been the Beacon Hills coroner. But she’s a single mom so we need to see her struggle with finances (a plot device made convenient by the bag of money hidden under Scott’s bed, and then never mentioned again) and romance, I guess. Scott’s PlotDeviceDad was an FBI agent, and he was one before Melissa kicked him out for drinking. Which means they both likely had careers going before they had their only child. Totally plausible that Melissa could have gone to med school and then chosen pathology because the schedule can be more family friendly.

TW works best in short season format. 10-12 episodes to tell a contained story. Any more than that and the writers start to tell more story than they seem to know how to: stretching it out with unnecessary plot twists and bringing in unnecessary characters which they just kill off when they outlive their usefulness. All of that extra story telling and yet somehow the most basic questions oftentimes never got answered. Why DID The Dread Doctors want to resurrect Sebastian Valet? What was their endgame? I got that Marcel was part of it, but why? Was he in love with Sebastian and for the love of all that’s holy...WHY? Sometimes I felt like the writers plotted long stories believing that if they peppered in enough character development for the MCs then the viewers wouldn’t ask the hard questions. It’s about the holes in the actual story they were telling.

I became inordinately concerned about the (fictional) teenage population of (fictional) Beacon Hills because just SO MANY PEOPLE DIED! Like... surely this would make the national news as a town in crisis! There was literally a sewer full of 24 bodies of missing people and a bus full of dead people! In less than a month. It’s like they had a never-ending supply of teenagers. If I live in Beacon Hills I’m packing my shit and moving to Sunnydale. Surely The Hellmouth is safer.

I reach a level of fatigue about 3/4 through each season. It’s because of this: every big bad is just too powerful to defeat. Our heroes are beaten, broken down, confidence shattered and sometimes their separated through machinations and manipulations. Whatever will they do? Find a way to win in the very last episode, obvi. Sometimes it’s because of the “Maguffin”, the magical object that exists just for the purpose of destroying the enemy, and sometimes it’s because Scott put some plan to double/triple cross the untrustworthy ally at some point unseen by the viewer (they used this one twice). I would much prefer a more even fight for once where The Pack and The Enemy trade wins and losses so that when the final battle occurrs the stakes are higher and it’s anyone’s (lacrosse) game.

Yes these are mostly negatives, but I don’t want you to get the impression that I’m not enjoying the show. There’s a lot to like too. I’ll be back to share some of those thoughts later.

#gldngrl7 binges #teen wolf

[timetrickster]

Living W/ Immortality: Episode 2: The Return Of The Madness

CUT TO:

NEXT DAY. MORNING

FINN is walking to school.

LUCIAN/ NARRATOR (V.O)

And we’re in act 2 of our story. Now… where were we? Ah! Our dual-faced soon to be dumbass was frightened by his first experiences of pain, idiot. He is yet to meet his dark old fool of a mentor and the other two immortals morons.

The song “Vertigo” by Raphael Lake. FINN is silent while walking to school.

ERIN (V.O)

Are you okay? It’s alright if you’re not.

FINN is still silent and doesn’t respond.

ERIN (V.O) (cont’d)

Finn, say something.

FINN

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY?!

(He screams loudly and breathes heavy in anger)

ERIN (V.O)

Calm down, it’s okay.

FINN

It’s not okay! Everything, that happened yesterday. Being stabbed and cutting my own hand, feeling pain for the first time. It was freighting, I never expected this to ever happen in my cursed life and look what happened! Something normal happened.

ERIN is silent now.

FINN (cont’d)

I’m sorry.

ERIN (V.O)

It’s okay. We can figure this out later.

FINN

Thank you.

Without noticing, a STRANGER follows FINN. He brandishes an article of full black clothing with a black trench coat. FINN stops in his tracks for a bit and gets serious in the moment. FINN pauses the music. Stop the music at, “Why’d it end so soon.”

FINN

You see him too right?

ERIN (V.O)

Yup.

FINN

Random stranger, a black trench coat. Kidnapper, you think?

ERIN (V.O)

Most likely, it’s obvious because that entire outfit spells out “You want some candy?”

FINN plays the music again at Verse 2 and continues his walk while ERIN keeps an eye on the STRANGER. FINN keeps walking till the end of Verse 2. The situation gets tense when the STRANGER suddenly appears right next to both of them.

STRANGER (ACHERON)

Hello.

Chorus of the song plays. FINN out of sheer panic gives the STRANGER a couple punches to the gut and face. He then makes a run for it, running past random people in the streets. He turns around to find the STRANGER looking back at him. ERIN takes over suddenly. He runs at the STRANGER about to attack.

FINN (V.O)

Erin stop!

The STRANGER attempts to grab him by the arm but ERIN manages to throw more punches at his gut releasing him from his grip. The song stops once FINN’S body suddenly stops moving and hits the ground.

INT. FINN’S MIND.

FINN pulls back ERIN and both end up in an empty space of darkness. With a light looking above them in a circle.

ERIN

What the hell?!

FINN

We can’t fight him! We don’t know what he’s capable of!

ERIN

Screw being cautious! I’m tired of you wanting the peaceful way.

With the two of them arguing, Neither FINN or ERIN was in control. FINN realizes this at the last second, the STRANGER is seen kneeling down in front of them.

STRANGER (ACHERON)

We need to talk.

He reaches his hand onto FINN���S shoulder. They both teleport to a different location and are sitting on a bench.

STRANGER (ACHERON)

Take your time kiddo. It’s not like I have nowhere to be.

FINN looks at ERIN and he nods in responses. FINN walks into the path of light showing the outside images. He awakens and back into his body. He holds a fighting stance and the STRANGER doesn’t react. He simply motions him to sit.

FINN

For a kidnapper, I expected to be in a dark room or a van or drugged.

STRANGER (ACHERON)

Sorry for not living up to your expectations…  But to clarify, I am no danger to you or the person I can see floating about in your brain. I’m only here as a counselor.

FINN

A counselor?

STRANGER (ACHERON)

Yup and I know you and the other one are immortal.

FINN & ERIN were stunned by the statement.

STRANGER (ACHERON)

I’ve met my fair share of immortals and you both are one of the youngest ones. It’s my job, as a counselor to immortals, eternals, whatever you damn please call yourself.

FINN

There are others like us?

STRANGER (ACHERON)

Oh, yes, many immortals, but recently the Big Man Upstairs decided only three immortals can roam the Earth.

FINN

Just who are you?

STRANGER (ACHERON)

You’ll both figure that out one day. Just call me Acheron.

FINN

Alright, Acheron. Why are you here?

ACHERON

Well, like I said I am a counselor. I’m also here lawfully bound to inform you both of the rules of your immortality given by the Man Upstairs.

FINN

Is there a field trip?

ACHERON

Yes, there is. You’ll learn how your immortality works and you will meet the other two.

FINN

Oh… cool, love a good field trip. I just have a question?

ACHERON

What’s your question?

FINN

Is there a way to take away my immortality?

ACHERON

That’s an interesting question… I have no clue.

FINN WHAT?!

ACHERON

Kid, I’m a primordial being with the main job. This is part-time gig and immortals are born whenever which literally takes years or you and the other two die.

FINN

Jeez, sassy much?

ACHERON

Again, primordial being, watching every being in the universe is a difficult job.

FINN

Oh dang, sorry, it’s just that my powers had gone crazy the other day and I’m curious if there was anything that could affect it.

ACHERON

All your questions will be answered on the field trip to Fortune Valley, meet in Chinatown.

FINN nods as a response.

FINN

Fortune Valley?

ACHERON

There are places in this world, humans without magic or without creature status can’t see. This one is in Chinatown.

FINN

Crap, that’s far from home.

ACHERON

If anybody’s got information, it’ll be the Knowledge Dweller who we’ll meet.

(He looks at his watch)

I have to go, my main job is calling. I’ll meet with you at Fortune Valley, once you get there whenever. I’ll keep my eye on you.

ACHERON gets up from the bench and walks away.

FINN

Wait!

He says as he gets up from the bench. Stopping ACHERON and looking toward FINN.

FINN (cont’d)

Can you bring me back to school? Ya took me to Waipahu and the last time I was here I ran into a group of kids who for some reason had a pink scooter, a shopping cart, a chicken and a red balloon.

ACHERON looked at him with a face that was about to say, “What The Fuck?” He snaps his fingers and they instantly teleport back to Campbell High.

FINN

Thank you.

ACHERON

Oh, forgot to mention.

FINN turns around and ACHERON throws a blue jewel attached to it, and FINN catches it.

ACHERON

Protection charm. Should keep your immortal scent hidden away. I really have to go… I’ll see you both around.

He disappears into a cloud of smoke and FINN looks at the charm in his hand.

ERIN (V.O)

Was it just me… or did he say hidden?

FINN

Yeah, he said hidden…

ERIN (V.O)

You think we can trust him?

FINN

Probably, but the field trip means information and that info could actually help us understand all of this.

FINN closes his hand and walks toward school.

CUT TO:

CHINATOWN AT NIGHT.

Night has fallen and FINN had snuck away from home. His headphones are in and playing the song, “Sorcererz” by Gorillaz. He takes a bus to Chinatown. Shows a montage of him on the bus, bobbing his head, moving from seat to seat, sleeping. He ends up at Chinatown’s East Gate, where two Guardian Lions had stood.

FINN

Well, here we are.

ERIN (V.O)

Alright, let’s hope Acheron shows up before we get robbed.

FINN

Right…

He notices two other people nearby, a boy and a girl. It was ATHENA & TAVEN. FINN attempts to hide but they both notice him and confront him. Sorcererz stops playing

TAVEN

Finn? Is that you?

FINN

(awkwardly)

Hey, Taven, Athena…

Song stops and FINN takes off his headphones placing them around his neck.

ATHENA

What are you doing here?

FINN is nervous and doesn’t know what to tell them. Not wanting to reveal his secret of his everlasting life. He struggles to make an excuse but blurts out a random word.

FINN

Drugs?

ACHERON shows up in that puff of smoke frightening everyone in company.

ACHERON

Ah, you’re all here.

FINN becomes shocked at the fact that his friends are actually the other two immortals in the world. ACHERON moves past him and whispers some strange chant. A portal opens revealing a world different from their own. Red skies were floating in the air and they had entered a place full of exotic creatures. The three kids looked both amazed at what they see before them.

ACHERON

Welcome to Fortune Valley. Lovely place. Now, let’s find the Knowledge Dweller.

FINN/ERIN, ATHENA, & TAVEN follow ACHERON into Fortune Valley. As they walked through the magical town, they passed by different creatures alike.

RANDOM KAPPA

Cucumbers for sale! Freshly stolen from the local farmers!

RANDOM KAUPE

Fresh human organs for sale! Just lured away and ripped apart fresh!

ACHERON leads the three young immortals to what looks like a library.

ACHERON

We’re here.

The enter the library and find a simple mid 50s Chinese old man near a desk.

ACHERON

Wan Shi Tong, hello old friend.

WAN SHI TONG

Acheron…  I’m guessing you’re here with the newborns?

WAN SHI TONG looks at ATHENA, FINN, & TAVEN.

WAN SHI TONG

Interesting, one flourishes in life and this wanders through death. But the two in the middle, they walk in time both light and dark. Fascinating… you know what to do.

ACHERON

Understood. Come on kids, time to learn the rules.

ACHERON leads the three to a room, with a table and a few seats and a mirror in the back.

ACHERON

I have some business to attend to. You three know what to do.

He disappears in his cloud of smoke and the three look at the book.

FINN

Well, let’s do this.

TAVEN

Did Wan Shi Tong know about our powers?

TAVEN looks toward ATHENA

ATHENA

Acheron says he’s a Knowledge Dweller, whatever that is. He must know many immortals that have our powers.

FINN steps into the conversation.

FINN

You guys have other powers too?

ATHENA

I’m able to control plant life.

TAVEN

I can change into a ghost. What powers do you have?

FINN

Accelerated probability, semi-telepathy, enhanced condition. I haven’t even developed any time powers.

ATHENA

What did he mean by the two? When he looked at you.

FINN sighs and closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath and lets ERIN take over. His full physical features manifest.

ERIN

Hi, my name is Erin Nitty. The split personality of Finn. His immortal powers affected me somehow and well I became sentient and we’ve been like this since we were kids.

ERIN retreats back into the mind of FINN and takes over again.

FINN

So yeah…

ATHENA

So the times, you’ve been talking to yourself? That was Erin?

FINN

Yup.

TAVEN

Why didn’t you tell us?

FINN

People would think I’m crazy. Which I technically am, the fact that I have a Hulk in my brain… Can we just move on?

The three read the book, and each learns the rules of their own immortality.

TAVEN

Reliant immortality, their existence tied to an object, soul fragments, or even a person or concepts. So long as these things exist, the user can never die.

ATHENA

Multiple Lives, the user is able to become back to life after being killed or fatally wounded, giving them multiple chances to live. WARNING. User may be limited to a certain number of lives, be cautious.

FINN

Immortality… healing factor. Blah blah blah, know all this. If advanced enough, the ability will cause the body… granting immortality. Turn the page to find out the different levels.

FINN turns the pages.

FINN

Level 1… no. 2? No. 3… fuck no.

TAVEN

Finn? Read Level 7.

FINN reads the paragraph.

FINN

Level 7: Meta Regeneration. The user can heal from anything completely, even if there is absolutely nothing remaining of the body… No. No. No. No No! Why? Really?!

FINN looks at the paragraph in disbelief.

ATHENA

Are you okay?

FINN starts to freak out over this fact.

FINN

I literally can’t die. Even if there’s nothing left. I can heal from a metaphysical level of existence and think my injuries were all just a dream.

TAVEN

You want to sit down bud?

ATHENA

Yeah, you should sit down.

FINN does so and keeps his head down. With FINN’S face down on the table, he mumbles an unintelligent noise.

FINN

I have immortality figured out, I just haven’t figured out my emotions.

TAVEN

Well, maybe there are limitations too. There’s always a way around something, we can find out right now.

TAVEN grabs the book and looks up the weaknesses of FINN’S powers. FINN drags his head on the table and chair to their side of the table to hear the possible weaknesses.

TAVEN

Alright, Divinity… Emotional Spectrum & Self Judgement. An immortal with a specific type of healing can be weak to the Emotional Spectrum. Embodiments of specific Emotions. For example, Love.

FINN’S head raises up after hearing the word.

TAVEN

Falling in love with a non-immortal can result in a fluctuation of their ability, and possibly loss of immortality.

FINN

Serena…

He says under his breath. ATHENA seemed to hear him.

ATHENA

You love her, don’t you?

FINN looks at ATHENA, he simply nods and looks his head down in shame.

ATHENA Hey, don’t feel ashamed. There’s nothing wrong with loving someone. Especially Serena, she a great girl.

FINN

She makes me feel normal. Like my immortality never existed. I feel genuinely happy whenever I’m around her or when we hang out. She makes me feel mortal. And thank you.

NARRATOR (V.O)

Aw, that’s touching. An immortal boy falling for a mortal girl. Now entrance music!

All three of them here the voice talking, looking around to find the source. The song, “Return Of The Mack” by Mack Morrison plays all of a sudden. Shouting is heard from the main room. The three immortals investigate and see WAN SHI TONG being confronted by a gang of mythical creatures.

NARRATOR (V.O)

And so meanwhile our three immortal soon to be heroes are now listening to this new conversation of a turtle, a fox and an owl disguised as an old man.

RANDOM KAPPA

Where are they old man? The three immortals that walked through the valley.

WAN SHI TONG

I have no idea what you’re talking about.

RANDOM KITSUNE

You can’t hide them forever. He’s looking for them you know?

WAN SHI TONG looked at the KITSUNE with grave concern. He realizes who the two creatures were referring too.

WAN SHI TONG (cont’d)

Lucian.

LUCIAN (V.O)

Yes, old man me.

LUCIAN had appeared suddenly, dancing to the beat of the song. While also mumbling the words.

LUCIAN

Return of the mack… Return of the mack… don’t ya know. Return of the mack… here I go.

He was this average man glowing blue. His face was cracking like a porcelain mask. One eye was glowing while the cracked side showed darkness. He held his arms out as the song continued to play toward WAN SHI TONG.

LUCIAN (cont’d)

Wan Shi Tong, one of the last great Knowledge Dwellers of the Pantheon of Wisdom. You haven’t aged a day, old man. But anyway, let’s get on with what I’m after, I know that they’re here.

He snaps his fingers and the music stops.

WAN SHI TONG

You shouldn’t be here. Let me rephrase that. You should’ve been destroyed, your existence is a rule broken by the laws of Him.

LUCIAN

Aw. That hurts my heart you know.

He says sarcastically.

WAN SHI TONG

Your heart’s nothing but dust and sand.

LUCIAN laughs.

LUCIAN

Where are they? I just want them to join me on my crusade of creating a better world between us and them. If not, I can still take away their immortal lives and extend mines for another 300 hundred years. Like I did the last two… thousand? I usually forget that.  

WAN SHI TONG

Even if I knew you know I wouldn’t say a word.

LUCIAN

Oh, old man, that wouldn’t be any fun. Although a little blood and death didn’t hurt anybody.

WAN SHI TONG is silent.

LUCIAN/NARRATOR (V.O)

The great wise man was effortlessly fierce in protecting the newborns. Yet it was impending that I knew where they were. As they weren’t ready for the grand acts of heroism just yet. That was a finesse, that dear old Acheron didn’t bother to teach them!

WAN SHI TONG

Who are you talking to?!

LUCIAN

As of right now… a bunch of college students trying their best to voice the characters of this act. A professor who thinks how horrible this shit show is. And the one student who created this story, who has no idea what he’s writing at this point.

WAN SHI TONG

You still think you control this story, don’t you?

LUCIAN Haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary old friend.

He points to the door where FINN, TAVEN,& ATHENA were hiding behind

LUCIAN (cont’d)

Now, if you will excuse me I have to meet the newborns.

He walks toward the room. WAN SHI TONG now intensely worried, he transforms into a giant owl and dragonish hybrid. He creates this windstorm sending LUCIAN and his two hench-creatures away. He transforms back into his human form and rushes toward the door. He opens it, finding them behind the door instantly.

WAN SHI TONG

You have to go. All of you. He’ll kill you. There’s a mirror portal in the room that will take you back to the mortal world. Now there’s no time for arguing. Go!

ATHENA, FINN, & TAVEN run back into the room and find the mirror. TAVEN goes first, touching the mirror and instantly is grabbed and thrown in. FINN hold ATHENA’S hand and both jump through. They both land on the ground outside of the entrance to Fortune Valley next to TAVEN. They all groan in pain from the fall. FINN gets up first and picks up ATHENA then TAVEN.

FINN

Who the hell was that?!

ATHENA

Acheron never mentioned him.

ERIN switches in.

ERIN

Yeah, no shit Athena!

ACHERON appears before them, which then ERIN proceeds to grab him by his coat collar.

ERIN

WHAT THE HELL?! We almost died when you left!

ACHERON

I’m aware…

ERIN raises a fist quickly but TAVEN & ATHENA try to hold him back as best as they could.

TAVEN

Erin stop!

ACHERON grabs all of them and they disappear in a puff of smoke. Reappear on the hill with the benches,

ACHERON

It was him, wasn’t it?

TAVEN

(intensely worried)

You said there can only be three immortals on Earth. Why does he exist then?!

ACHERON

He was the first immortal. Guardian of peace between the two worlds. Years of endless living drove him insane.

ATHENA

Wan Shi Tong mentioned he started wars?

ACHERON

The Chronicle Wars, old and long forgotten wars between humans and mystics.

ERIN

Then why us?! Three kids who had no goddamn reason to do with any of this!

He screams at ACHERON.

ACHERON

Other immortals tried to stop him. He’s killed many and taken there lives and immortality. Only three were left, they stopped him. Imprisoned him, by suspending him in time.

ATHENA

Who were the last three?

ACHERON

(He is silent for a bit)

Life, Time, and Death.

ERIN

Which one are you?

ACHERON is silent.

ACHERON

Do you all really want to know that?

They are silent.

ACHERON (cont’d)

This is what I am called. I am called Azrael, Thanatos, Mors, and Four. I am La Calavera. I am also called Samael, and Shinigami. I am Keres and The Dullahan. I am Grim Reaper, Dark Angel, Pale Horsemen. I have as many names as there are winds. As many titles as there are ways to die. My parents are Erebus and Nyx, Darkness and Night! My siblings are Dream and Vengeance! My horse is the ashen! I am Death!

As his words were spoken, it was menacing, having echoed as he stood before them. The surroundings roared with screams and thunder. Causing the three immortals to look at him in such grand fear. A black smoke surrounds him like a cloak and his face had shown parts of a skull.

The awkward of silence fills the air.

ACHERON

Can we move on, please?

FINN switches in and nods with ATHENA & TAVEN in agreement.

ACHERON (cont’d)

Back to the matter at hand. Lucian… I never the return of the madness. But some things are inevitable. Has he seen any of your faces?

They all answer with a nod.

ACHERON (cont’d)

Good. You guys have time. I’ll work my way on covering your tracks. Just go back to your normal lives. This time I turned your protection charms on and keep them close, I’ll find you again.

He snaps his fingers and the three of them disappear in clouds of smoke. FINN is outside of his home and sneaks back into his room. He sits on his bed and contemplates his entire situation.

FINN

(Intensely Worried)

Erin? What do we do?

ERIN (V.O)

(Intensely Worried)

I have no fuckin clue.

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