#my art wasn't even that bad 8 months ago I think this was just an off drawing

[sp00ky-scary]

yay random 8 month improvement using the same sketch that I will never finish because the sketch itself is fucked

#my art wasn't even that bad 8 months ago I think this was just an off drawing #im hoping you can tell which is 8 months ago and which is 15 minutes ago #digital art #fanart #monster high #great scarrier reef #lagoona blue #mermaid #my art

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

You Call It Madness But I Call It Love

Chapter 1: You Shouldn't Have Answered The Door

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV

Summary: When the reader left Payback 40 years ago after a falling out with her childhood best friend she never looked back, but when two men show up to her apartment and start asking her questions about the past, the reader begins to think those things can’t stay hidden and starts to question what’s real and what’s fantasy.  This is a re-telling of The Boys Season 3, where the reader is a supe who's known Soldier Boy since 1927. The chapters will fluctuate between past and present. This is chapter one of my "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love" series. (I'm so bad at summaries please forgive me!)

Word Count: 3.6K

Warnings: References to sex, Cursing (once or twice), Soldier Boy might be, is, really, absolutely, a little OOC,

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal Monologue is in first person and is in italics

Masterlist

Chapter 2

******************************************

Present Day

Your head rests against your forearms on your desk, jerking upwards as a loud rhythmic knocking assaults the front door of your apartment.

What?

You think to yourself, rubbing your face with your hands. Your sketchpad was laid open on your desk beneath your head, the rough sketch of an egret bowing its head along the bank of a small pond splayed over the page in shades of gray. It would be the first in your new series of nature paintings that you would be unveiling in a month.

At least I didn't poke my eye out with the pencil. You think eyeing the sharpened point of the pencil that was dangerously close to your face a few seconds ago.

You turn your wrist to glance at your watch and note the time. It was an antique, square faced and strung on a simple black band, a reminder of a past life that you couldn't bear to part with.

Who would come see me at 8:00 am on a Monday?

For a minute you try to remember if you'd received a call from the curator of the gallery downtown, or if there had been a meeting or a lunch with your agent to discuss your next installment of work, but nothing comes to mind.

When you officially retired from being a hero you decided to become a full time artist, a hobby you had since you were a child. You hadn't expected it explode. You had enough money from your heroing career to live several lifetimes, not unwelcome given the fact that you couldn't die, not in the traditional sense at least, so art was supposed to just be a way for you to off steam. But you were happy with your life now, a lot happier than you had been when you were a hero on Payback. The thought of your previous employment with Vought sours in your mouth followed by the unavoidable thought of Ben that you push down with a well practiced sigh.

You didn't feel like reliving all that over again right now, though you knew it would probably happen later. It came in waves, especially at night when you found it difficult to sleep, the melatonin wasn't working, and all you really wanted was a hard drink.

Sobriety sucked.

The knocking persists, rattling around in your head like a bee trying to get out of a plastic cup.

"Fine. I'm coming." You shout standing up from your desk and making your way from the wall that serves as your studio towards the front door of your apartment, while trying to rub away the line the page made on your cheek.

Your apartment was the one extravagance you allowed yourself. Despite the amount of money you had, flashing it had never been a priority even in your hero days. The apartment was open concept with exposed brick walls, tall North facing windows that angled away from the inside and jutted outward over a raised wooden floored area that served as your studio. A large modern kitchen sat just to the right of the front door with stainless steel appliances, on another wall a tv hung above a leather couch and held a dark hallway that lead to your bedroom and the guest bedroom, the other walls were covered in your work, and the final wall held several bookshelves with art supplies and your vinyl record collection. A collection you started forever ago and that continued to grow with each passing year.

Need to get another bookshelf. You note looking at the limited space that remained.

You look through the peep hole in the solid metal apartment door. A tall dark haired man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a black duster and a thin younger guy with brown curly hair stare back at you.

"I don't want to buy any girl scout cookies." You shout through the heavy metal of the door.

The younger guy snorts.

"y/f/n y/l/n?" The dark haired man asks an accent tilting the ends of his words.

"Who's asking?"

He pulls out a badge, holding it up to the peep hole. "I'm Agent Butcher, this is Agent Campbell. We’re from the CIA, here to ask you a couple of questions about Soldier Boy."

At the mention of Ben's hero name you pause. You had avoided thinking about your former best friend as much as possible over the past forty years. Your relationship with Ben was complicated, the final few days you spent together even more complicated than the early years.

It hurt to compare what your life with him was like before you both became supes to the life you had together after. You had grown up together, forced into close proximity because your parents were friends and then became best friends yourselves. You stayed friends, before you both got injected with Compound V and a few years later moved on to Payback together. You were the only person able to keep Ben in check and as violent as his temper was, he didn't like to cross you. You were the only person who knew the real him, had been with him longer than anyone else. Not that he ever admitted that to you or admitted that he cared about you, but you thought somewhere deep down that he had to, felt at least something for you.

That was the problem. You were in love with him, cared deeply about him, cared more about him than anyone else you'd ever had in your life. On the night you finally slept together you were happy, you thought he felt the same way, and then the next day at his premiere you found him in the bathroom with Countess bent over a sink. The fight that followed had been your resignation from Payback and also the reason why you weren't there when Ben died.

Your jaw clenches together at the memory, followed by guilt. You were always there for him, you had his back just as he had yours, but the one time you hadn't been there-

You open the door to look at them. "The singer?"

"What?" Agent Butcher looks confused.

"The artist? Soulja Boy-" You arch a brow feigning confusion. "Because honestly I don't understand why the CIA would be asking me about that."

“No.” Agent Butcher holds up a photo.

You keep your face impassive. It’s a photo of Ben and you at a movie premiere the week before he left to go to Nicaragua. Both of you were standing in your supe suits, your own was a sleeveless black one piece suit with purple embellishments that traced from the sides of your ankles and stretched up under your armpits, while a dark hood covered your head and a black mask hid the bottom of your face. You always thought you looked more like a supervillain in it, but you were thankful that it hid your identity. It was so long ago, but you still remember that night clearly. The ridiculous movie, the afterparty where everyone was so tipsy and the smell of alcohol burned against your nose, and finally when you went to the bathroom and found Ben and Countess together, the immeasurable rage followed by heartbreak that you felt when you saw them.  Not to mention the fight that followed when Ben trampled all over your heart and stated that you meant nothing to him.

“You’re here to talk to me about my mom?” You flit your eyes back to the two men standing in the doorway, easily slipping into the lie that you and Legend invented.

“Your mom?” Agent Campbell looks confused.

“Yeah. Indigo? I mean y’all can come in if you want-“ You open the door wider, understanding that they won't leave, before you begin to move towards the kitchen. “I apologize in advance. I’m not quite myself, I was up late working.” You pause halfway into the kitchen. “I’m going to make some coffee, you guys want some?” You eye the man in the black coat. "Or tea?"

“Coffee is fine."

You find the coffee filters and shuffle through the cupboards to find a bag of coffee, still trying to wake up. Staying up late wasn't unusual for you. You tended to find the urge to create in the wee hours of the morning, not to mention everything that happened in the past kept you up.

You open the bag of coffee to smell the grounds, thinking that it will wake you up, but as soon as you do the smell of Agent Butcher and Agent Campbell washes over you.

You could smell the compound V in their veins pumping through their bodies with every beat of their hearts.

So, they're supes. You think to yourself, pouring the grounds into the coffeemaker. Which means they probably aren't from the CIA.

Despite the realization, you weren't worried. Your particular ability was a well-kept secret, a secret that only Ben knew despite you being on Payback. Stan Edgar and the others had believed that "Indigo," the hero name assigned to you, had enhanced strength and senses, but it was more than that. You had an ability that, if brought to the public, would probably land you in a government facility. Laying low had it's perks, your freedom was one of them.

You watch them begin to walk around your living room examining the artifacts of your new life, the one you crafted when everything fell apart. There wasn't anything in the living room to arouse suspicion that you were the original Indigo. The only remnants of your past life that remained were in a wooden trunk at the back of your walk in closet, hidden behind a collection of paint splattered overalls almost identical to the pair you were wearing right now.

"You've got a nice place." The younger guy says looking around.

"Thanks. It's rent controlled. I got lucky-" You fiddle with the coffeemaker to buy yourself some time.

Why were they here to ask me about Ben? It had been 40 years, hardly seems relevant now. And why were they pretending to be CIA?

"You're an artist?" Agent Butcher asks, staring at the canvas sitting on an easel by your desk. It was a collection of multicolored dark greens that swirled together, flecked with pieces of gold that shone in the brilliant sunlight from the wall of windows where your studio was.

"Yeah. And I tend to paint my best at night. Hence the coffee" You turn, placing your hands on the island to face the two men.

“You’re really good.” Agent Campbell says examining some of the canvases on the wall.

“Thanks.”

“So your mum eh?” Agent Butcher turns to look at you. You note the smirk on his face and incredulous raising of his brow.

He doesn't believe me. Hard not to. I don't age.

“Yes?” You raise an eyebrow to challenge him

“You look a lot like her.”

“Thanks. I think there’s a compliment in there somewhere.” You look from Butcher to the younger guy who has moved on to look at your vinyl collection. "And I'm pretty sure that most kids look like their parents. But I'm not a geneticist."

"NO WAY! You have a signed copy of Billy Joel's Glass House!" Agent Campbell shouts holding up the vinyl cover in awe.

"Yeah." You can't help but smile at his enthusiasm.

"How did you-“

"Hughie." Agent Butcher sighs.

The younger guy now identified as Hughie puts the record back with a frown, before turning back to the collection.

“But you have the same name.” Agent Butcher's eyes flit to yours.

“She named me after herself. I’m sure the CIA can locate my birth certificate."

“Right.” Agent Butcher smiles, but it’s tight lipped.

You stand there for another minute looking from Agent Butcher to Hughie, trying to think of why they're here. "So what do you want to know?”

“Well is your mum around-“

You allow your shoulders to droop and take in a shaky breath. "She died about a year ago. Cancer."

They weren't the first to come here and accuse you of being Indigo. Legend and you had come up with the farce to protect you, help you start over, but you hadn't wanted to part with your name. So other precautions were put in place: a funeral plot was purchased and a death certificate was issued as was a fake passport, I.D, and birth certificate that made you thirty two rather than over one hundred.

“Really? I thought Indigo-“ It’s enough to make Hughie turn around and look at you.

“Don’t read everything Vought says." You interrupt. "That experimental shit they put in her veins may have made her powerful, but it couldn’t protect her from that.” You sigh again to sell the lie, before turning to the coffee maker, to pour them and yourself a cup. "There should be some milk in there, sugar's in the bowl." You gesture to the refrigerator and the small blown glass sugar bowl on the counter next to the coffee maker.

Hughie moves into the kitchen to pour himself a cup, but Agent Butcher continues to eye you suspiciously.

“It wasn’t in the news.” He grunts.

“They covered it up pretty well. I mean do you blame them? One of the first supes gets killed by something like cancer. Can’t be good for Vought given they pride themselves on showcasing unstoppable heroes. I mean can you imagine if Homelander or Queen Maeve died of something like cancer? Doesn’t look good.” You shrug your shoulders and take a sip from the coffee in your hands. “What did you want to talk to her about?”

“Soldier Boy.” Butcher moves to the coffeemaker and it takes a strong amount of willpower to stop the urge to turn towards him, but you know that you need to act indifferent.

“Did she talk to you at all about him?” Hughie moves to one of the bar stools on the opposite side of the island with his coffee in front of him.

“Yeah.” You look down at the mug with a sigh, rolling the warm glass between your hands. “He really did a number on her. Plus towards the end she started seeing him everywhere."

The emotion that you summon is not fake. You allow a small amount to trickle over the dam you built to protect yourself from falling back into the pit you fell into when Ben broke your heart and then died. When you broke every piece of glass in your apartment and threw your couch through the wall.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” Hughie looks sincere when he says it.

Why is someone like him hanging out with this guy? You think to yourself eyeing Agent Butcher again.

“It’s been hard. But I took care of her, sometimes it was only me. It’s kind of hard to restrain an 103 year old with super strength.” You smile to yourself at the joke.

“So you’re a supe?” Hughie takes a sip from his coffee mug.

“No I was just able to talk her down. Guess that first batch of Compound V doesn’t work the same way. Never transferred. Plus my dad wasn’t a supe so maybe it just diluted.” You shrug, the lies weaving easily through the air. 

“But she did talk to you about him?” Agent Butcher presses. He's leaning against the counter to your left.

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“I mean what do you want to hear? There’s a lot.” The mug sends a pleasant warmth through your hands as you hold it, but does little to stop the chill of the past from creeping up your spine.

“Start at the beginning.”

“Well.” You take another sip of coffee. “I don’t know details-details but- I just know that she grew up with him, they were from the same neighborhood in Philadelphia.  All that shit they made up about Soldier Boy being from a poor family was just propaganda. His dad owned half the steel mills in the state of Pennsylvania. Used to invest in property with my grandfather. Soldier Boy and my mom were friends. When he got the Compound V shot, she did too. They were looking for female and male volunteers. I think he asked her to? Or-“ You shrug your shoulders to push away the memory of the day Ben told you about the experiments. When he told you he was finally going to make something of himself and convinced you to go with him.

“They were dating?” Agent Butcher asks.

The question makes you pause. It was difficult to think about that, difficult to relive the memories of Ben continuing to push you away and his final refusal to admit he loved you. Ben never did say that to you. You had been through so much together, so many years as friends and then after the night you finally were together he threw you away like you meant nothing.

“No, but he really hurt her-“ You avoid their gaze.

“What did he do?” Hughie asks leaning forward on the counter.

“They had been through a lot together and I think when their friendship began to transfer to relationship he pushed her away. My mother said something about him refusing to admit he loved her. I think the last straw when she caught him with Countess.”

“Do you know anything about how he died?”

The memory of the phone call strikes you in the chest, when Stan Edgar himself called to tell you Ben was dead. When the darkness swallowed you whole and all you felt was guilt and heart break over the fight you had and how you left him alone when he needed you most.

“It hurt my mother a lot. Broke her. She never really got over him, no one was good enough, not even my dad. She drove him away too and then it was just us.”

“Was she there when Soldier Boy died?” Hughie spins the coffee mug in his hands.

“No. She left Payback  before that mission. It was right after she caught Countess and him together.” You force a shrug. “I think she regretted not being there. She was almost as indestructible as him, but I think she felt worse because they had a big fight right before.”

“So she didn’t know about Nicaragua or the thing that killed him?” Agent Butcher raises an eyebrow.

You cock your head to the side feigning confusion. “What are you talking about? Soldier Boy got vaporized in a nuclear explosion.”

“Well I think we’ve wasted enough of your time.”

They get up to leave.

“Wait-“

 Agent Butcher turns to look at you. 

“Why are you asking me about him? It's been what? Forty years since he died-"

"That's classified love. Thank you for your time."

You watch them leave, but listen to them as they walk down the hallway.

“So do you believe her?” Hughie’s voice echoes in your ears.

“Not a bit. Maybe we trail her for a day. See if she really is an artist." Agent Butcher grunts. "At least until we go to Russia."

Russia? Why would they go to Russia?

You stand there for a second, holding the coffee mug in your hands. As you do the memories of the past 90 years wash across your mind, breaking through the damn that you built to protect yourself.

You were friends for years. You loved him since the moment you met. There were good times before the serum and then the bad, when he got famous and you were there to keep him in check. Sure you may have annoyed him, but he liked that about you, that you were able to bring him back from the edge. The day you finally had sex you remembered it, it was special, or you thought it was. You were excited that finally he loved you as much as you loved him. But then it all fell apart. That fight hadn’t been pretty. When you left him you felt yourself begin to slip, you didn’t eat or drink for days and when you finally got the phone call you thought it was him trying to apologize, but it was Stan.

You think again about Russia and finally your mind drifts to Countess.

She was the one that said that the Russians killed Ben, she saw it happen, saw his body get taken away-

Your jaw clenches together in anger and frustration as you remember the last time you saw her, when she taunted you and you almost ripped off her head. You never heard it directly from her that Ben was dead, only heard it from Stan. Of course the ridiculous funeral for Ben that you were expected to go to would mean that you saw her, but you hadn't gone, didn't want to keep up the charade. Instead you went to Philadelphia and walked the streets aimlessly with a bottle of whiskey in your hand, remembering what it was like when you were kids. Sometimes you think it all would have been different if you never got the injection, if you said no when he showed up in your bedroom and asked you to come with him. He was your oldest friend. The only real person you'd ever loved or cared about. The memory of the fight rings in your ears but you push it down.

You think again about Countess.  She was the reason why Ben and you had the fight. The reason you weren't there in Nicaragua. Regret spikes in your chest. You should have been there that day, should have tried to save him. You always had each others backs and the one time you weren't there he died.

Maybe it was time to pay her a visit.

**********************************************

Thank you for reading! If you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series let me know :)

Taglist: @roseblue373

#jensen ackles soldier boy #soldier boy x reader #soldier boy x you #soldier boy x female reader #the boys #the boys fanfic #soldier boy #the boys amazon #jensen #soldier boy/ben #soldier boy fic #soldier boy fanfiction #jensen ackles #the boys series #the boys season 3

[hello-kitty101]

The Art of Being Mysterious

 Understand People's Intentions Better.

When I talk less and observe more, I've noticed that I can indicate red flags better; I can without this, too, but it's easy for people to slip, indicating red flags.

In the past two months, I've definitely gotten better at reading people, improving intuition and observing red flags. I can sense when there's something off about someone right away now and cannot really explain why but just a lot of videos on "dark psychology" and reading people in general.

I definitely recommend.

2. Always Stay Calm and Be Less Reactive -- but Not a Pushover

This is just self-explanatory; it also always makes you the stronger person in each case.

3. Use correct body language

First impressions are crucial so always use appropriate, confident, and approachable body language.

4. Don't always be available

Don’t be available all the time; focus on you. If you are constantly answering your phone, checking your phone -- it shows desperation and insecurity.

With me, I am barely on my phone... I only really go on it for my daily deep breathing exercises and for unlocking my email since it's protected beyond belief.

5. Not being a Try-Hard

It's not cute, and you just look extremely desperate -- huge turn off.

6. Revealing Small Details

This person doesn't need to know EVERYTHING about you. I've known my best friend for almost 4 years now, and she still doesn't know everything about me, so why should a guy you met an hour ago, 2 days ago, a week ago, or even a month ago?

Be like a book, reveal small pieces of information that will keep them wanting more but not too much.

7. Be Hard to Get

Don't sell yourself short for anyone.

8. Quantity Over Quality

You don't need one million friends to be happy; having just one authentic friend is all you really need over 100 fake friends.

9. Stay Off Social Media/Be Careful with Who you give your no. to

Give it time before you give someone your social media and phone number, especially phone no. if they turn out to be a total creep. I don't have social media anymore, totally gone, but when I did, I had no posts... None... with a blank profile picture, and I also didn't follow any topics or celebrities I was interested in in case people decided to dig around my account and get too much information about me. Not that the stuff I was into was bad, but it gave more information about me that I wanted to share when I was ready like my taste in music, favorite shows, hobbies, etc... I also think it added into the people pleasing aspect when I did post on my story occasionally, wishing people would just message me and say how cute I looked or how fun it looked which was not helping my mental health at all. Not to mention, I wasn't really close to anyone on there except 2 people out of 143 people.

#law of assumption #affirmations #neville goddard #manifest #law of attraction #love #self confidence #self improvement #self care #self concept #self help

[silkbox]

I have a question, hope you don’t mind and if you do please feel to delete it and also have a good day! (I mean have a good day either way but you understand what I meant?) So I have a friend who I have known for about 6 years. We’re very similar people and we’re very close, and I’m also good friends with her husband and their kids. About 5 months ago she told me that they’re poly, and that they were looking for a girlfriend for the husband. This got us talking about what she’d want and what that means for her (she’s bi-romantic but heterosexual) and said she would be comfortable dating a girl but not having sex with one, I agreed that I could possibly date a girl if I met the right one now. I’ll get to the question now; ever since we had this conversation I can’t stop thinking about dating her and her husband?? We’re kind of flirty as a group and I can’t tell if they are interested in me or if it’s just banter (I’m also not 100% sure what I’d do if it was real flirting as I’ve been single for 8 years and also I struggle to tell when people are interested in me). Do you have any resources for potentially poly people? Is it worth asking what they mean (part of me wonders if I said something whether they’d be disgusted with me for asking - even though I know deep down they wouldnt), when it could ruin a friendship? I’m really stuck and would appreciate anything you can offer. Thanks for reading this, even if you don’t answer. Have a beautiful day and also I love your art and your writing!

Anon, my friend.

If she chose to talk to you about this, and chose to divulge that information, there is a very good chance she WANTS you to ask.

Of course, it's not guaranteed. It may be that she was merely sharing. But even in the event that this wasn't an air-traffic-control level of signaling interest, you would not be a bad person for asking.

At the very least ask some leading questions. Things like 'so, have you found anyone yet? What type of person are you looking for anyway?' are neutral enough to not be considered come-ons but can lead into a potential discussion.

Anyway, here's a quick source I found, though perhaps someone with a better one will be kind enough to comment if they've got it!

#silk answers #polyamory #advice #poly

[vriendenboekjes]

I was tagged by @quimerical to answer 15 questions and tag 15 people to do this as well. thanks so much!!! <3

1) named after anyone? my second name is after my maternal grandma :) my brother's second name is my paternal grandpa's so we're even. I think his was for a hope of better family relations on that side but unforch that didnt really happen but MY grandma RULED

2) last time you cried? uuuuhm i had just gotten feedback on my thesis chapter and it was a bit too much to handle

3) do you have any kids? i do not

4) do you use sarcasm a lot? not really i think? Sometimes for humorous effect but lately i think ive gravitated more towards dry statements.

5) what’s the first thing you notice about people? walk walk fashion baby. no but i think hair? i love looking at hair and hairstyles so that's why i think i pay attention to it. Also what colours they're wearing.

6) color of your eyes? greenish. i guess in english you would call it hazel but in dutch there isnt really a word for it as far as im aware

7) scary movies or happy endings? dependsssss. on my mood. I think a lot can be said for either.

8) any special talents? not really.

9) where were you born? the hospital in a city.....

10) hobbies? i play lute and guitar :) taking care of my plants, going for walks, and i love to sing but im not good at it, im also learning mandarin online and it's really fun!!! but also slow going. And hypothetically i love to read even though i haven't really had the time for it lately. I also really want to get back into writing and other forms of art, but i need to build up my confidence/rhythm again. Also sudokus and other puzzle books and lately ive been really into i think it's called code breaker? You get 3 letters that are assigned a number and then you have to figure out the other words on the page and which letters correspond to which numbers etc. Also in the colder months i love textile/fiber stuff like knitting and needle felting but NOT when it's warm out.

11) any pets? my parents have a dog :)

12) what sports do you/have you played? nothing these days but i used to swim, do ballet, jazzdance and contemporary. I tried tennis and hockey (sooo bad at it) and kickboxing for about half a year but decided that wasn't for me. Also I had a gym card for a while and that was pretty fun!

13) how tall are you? about 1,73

14) favorite subject in school? im assuming school means high school here? i loooved english class but i'll be honest a big part of it was that i had SUCH nice teachers. Harder to say in uni. I think most of my major-specific courses were quite nice. But the best time in my life was when i just had an internship and i had soooo much time on the side to do other fun things. The country was kind of going in and out of lockdowns during that time so there wasn't THAT much to do but at least i had lots of time to read.

15) dream job? i don't dream of work but uhm maybe this isn't really the point of the question but talking semi-realistically I think programming for a festival could be really nice. I think it's such a nice puzzle of overarching theme, then how does the performance/installation fit with that, then maybe a talk on the side. A few years ago for above-mentioned internship I had to put together a fictitious program and it was so much fun to think of all the possibilities and how to engage the audience the best way.

tagging: @xiaoguiwang @pussykech @brigittefitzgerald @stardewvgf @wulfhall @farhanqureshi @pinkloving @lynchiangf @engulfes @morqwen @soulmvtes @pumpkinspicedlesbian and 3 other people i cant think of right now...... no pressure to do this of course and if i havent tagged you but you want to do this please tag me!!!!

#tag game #🌬️

[nolossforwords]

a list of all the things i have done as "part of my writing process."

ran down the hall in my silk robe, just to remind myself of how it billows behind me

copiously reapplied lip gloss

cleaned out my email

rewatched this video for the 19858th time (don't ask me why, I'm just obsessed with it)

sat alone in my room, staring at my computer, an incomplete poem staring back at me

sat in the kitchen while my parents make dinner, staring at my computer, an incomplete poem staring back at me

drawn instead of writing

added items to my urban outfitters shopping bag knowing I'll never buy them and eventually closed the tab in a hurried browser cleanse

grown disgusted with myself over how many tabs I have open on my computer and initiated aforementioned hurried browser cleanse

spent wayyy too much time on thesaurus.com (I wanted to be cheeky and add a link to synonyms for "overthink" or "rabbit hole," but interestingly enough, there are none...)

listened to Christmas music at 4 am (credit to creator of playlist! I love it very much)

made a smoothie

stalked old friends on insta and hurt my own feelings comparing myself to them

revisited evermore because it is my ultimate comfort album

eaten pretzels dipped in almond butter and topped with dark chocolate chips

browsed real estate websites for properties in the Hamptons, pretending I could actually afford such a thing and wondering if 14 bedrooms is too showy but 8 seems cutting it close

sang out loud and thought I sounded really bad

sang out loud and thought I sounded really good

read

gone grocery shopping

written 80 pages of manuscript in 2 days and 2 hours

written 1 page of poetry in 9 months, 5 days, and 2 minutes

written a fraction of a poem 2 years ago and left it unfinished

written this list, because writing SOMETHING is better than writing nothing

Toni Morrison "disavows" the idea of writer's block (as I learned in this superb article). To paraphrase, she believes that thinking about your work and processing your ideas in your head while doing other things counts as writing - and I agree! I think about all the times I've felt stuck and what I did to fill that time. I still ended up writing in the end, even if it wasn't exactly in the way I imagined. Obviously, the activities I thought to be fluffy time wasters did something for me.

In short, give yourself permission to ruminate. Everything we experience influences our art. Have faith that what your brain and your heart tell you to do in the moment you want to be writing, but can't seem to get the words down, will ultimately benefit your work in the end.

I've decided to be more active and more free-spirited on Tumblr: to treat my page like the thoughtful yet conversational blog it's meant to be. This seemed like a good note to start on.

@nolossforwords,

Katie

#writing #writers on tumblr #writing community #writeblr #writer #writer problems #writers #writerslife #writing humor #writblr #female writers #writers and poets #writerscorner #writingcommunity #creative writing #writers of tumblr #writerscommunity #writer things #writers life #women writers #writers block #writers community #poetry #poem #prose #poetry and prose #poetic #words words words #write #writing life

[siyuri]

Wanted to write some stuff so why not here. It appears it is kinda fun to forget about some social media and then like 10 years later pick it up and read stuff your past self wrote. So for the future me.

Hi! Like...you know how everyone always have this habit at the end of every year to be angry at it, feel this bad summury of the feeling for everything that happened and forget any good things? So...fuck this, I had an amazing year. After covid, after mother's cancer, after her death, after my long four years of existing fuck knows how inside all that I had an amazing year. And just wanted to apreciate it and not look for bad things, but celebrate great ones.

This year started with me living in an amazing faetales world - I kinda have this problem... Myself from April to October is hyperactive person. I need to be outside ALL THE FUCKING TIME. I will camp, I will cycle, I will run, walk, crowl but everything should be outside. And my creative part of the brain is silent for half of the year. And then I have Myself - November until April. My creativity just wants to do EVERYTHING. Draw, lern some musical instruments, readreadread, paint glass, do toys, make ANYTHING. But for the love of gods don't look outside (I hope future me knows how to balance them). So, when I have a more than million words fic to let myself live into, I will do it. And when I can't think about anything but it, it is the best thing that can happen to me in this period. So, after like month of pure drugs, I watched some bad play in my city theater, and it was the last straw needed to me FINALLY go to Saint-Petersburg for an amazing theater they have there. Last time I was there, it was with mom, so it was hard to start. But. Then...oooooh! How many amazing things I saw! One of them - I was on 8hours long play "And Quiet Flows the Don" Sholokhov. And it was so epic - couldn't process it like for a day, just didn't talk and was in this happy drug creativity mode again. Then comes March! I had this dream...kinda long time ago, 8-9 years, when life was... good I guess. I wanted to do Cami de Cavalls track around Menorca...but life. And finally, this year!!! I have a wonderful job, I have stable income, I have powers and I can do it. So, comes April and i am walking 250km around Menorca on foot, and one and only dream I had is fullfiled. So... Then I am back and it is the hardest drop I had in a while, but who cares, we are here talking about good things. Then SUMMER! I am finally on good foot with my sister again, I have a friend, I have my bicycle again, I have the sun and everything is GOOD. And after 1.5 years of struggling our grave is done and it is the coziest fucking place in the world!! And then it is tents on the beach, sunrises, good food and seaseasea. And then it is Austria and Wachau and me, walking again and blue happiness at the horizen, because I never saw such mountains up close, and 250km on foot up down up down, and this drop wasn't even bad!!! So I am back home and it october and Larian is waiting for me, and this is just AMAZING, because I LOVE when good people do good things and get recognised for it. And then Palmarosa, it is like full circle, because outside me already asleep and the other one READY TO MAKE THINGS! And I make them and I even LIKE THEM!!! And aside of all transition problems and shitty things aside... like... who cares about them when yesterday I had the artist who is inspiration for me reblogged my art with inspiration tag? Like... WORLD JUST FEELS WHOLSOME!!! and I don't want to remember any bad shit from this one.

#me #like sorry if it feels like bragging #but i just need to put it into words #so brain could focus #and remember only this #so #back to drawing things :D

[galactichelium]

Man. This is the least I have drawn in like, at least 10 years. I don't know why I've been lacking in ideas. Though, admittedly, on the 1 or 2 ideas I have been able to come up with, due to not drawing for so long, now I've lost my rhythm with drawing and nothing even comes close to looking right. Augh. I really hope I'm able to get back into drawing eventually. Because I really do love drawing.

Extended ramble below the cut 😭. It wasn't supposed to be so long but it just kept getting longer. Basically, tl;dr: There are SO many fucking factors that have seemingly contributed to this. More than I realised before making this post, even.

I think probably part of this also is my chronic pain, because I think I first got into this art block back in December 2021. Of which being when my chronic pain started getting really bad. Though, back then it wasn't as bad as it has become. Up until around August 2022 I was still for the most part making a drawing a month. But since then, I've only drawn 2 drawings. One in December, and then one in February. And I didn't even post the February one.

Another potential factor is that, well, my art blog url is "officialkarkat". At the time, it did feel like a proper expression of me, as I tied a lot of my sense of identity to this character, but. Around the same time my chronic pain started getting worse weirdly enough, was around the time when I began to realise that while initially doing this did help me figure out a lot about myself, at this point, it felt more like something I was hiding behind. Not being my true self. (Not that I'm not a kinnie anymore, I am, but yeah.) But then I've been stuck on what to do, because I've HAD that url for 2 or 3 years, and I also still can't even think of anything better lmfao.

There's also the fact that I did get a job in October 2022. While I have very little hours, it still does get in the way because I always have work on Fridays. Almost always exclusively. So the rest of the weekdays I get stuck in ADHD "waiting" mode, waiting for work at the end of the week. And the weekends feel like a recovery period.

I also am now using a completely different art program as of December 2022. Because I've been trying to switch computers, but wanted Linux on my newer one, but I couldn't get CSP to work on it despite my numerous attempts at different methods. So while I have completed 2 drawings using my new art program of choice (Krita), and have become more familiar with it by messing around in it every now and again, it still doesn't quite feel like home. Does that make sense.

And last potential factor. My newer computer is a desktop computer instead of something like my Surface Pro was, which, in hindsight, was a kick in the foot. I thought it'd be better because I could get better specs for cheaper with a desktop. And I thought that getting a graphics tablet would be all that I needed to get right back into it. But I didn't realise just how essential being able to pick up a pen at any time and just start drawing was, to my drawing process. Back then this was true, but even more so now with my chronic pain, of which gets worse with inactivity, thus making big drawing sessions impossible. Though when I got this desktop (June 2021), that was yet to be a big factor. I mostly only even got a new computer because well... my surface pro, at the time, was 8 years old. Now it's 10 years old. I got it second-hand 5 and a half years ago from eBay. It could now probably fall apart at any moment. I'm surprised it hasn't already. Though there are a lot of problems with it tbf. However all this being said, having my desktop computer has helped with chronic pain in a different way. Y'know, having more proper posture. But it still comes at a cost with how accessible drawing is.

But honestly, out of all of these. The two biggest factors getting in the way right now I feel like are the fact that I'm very out-of-practice, making it harder to get back into it, and the chronic pain. But. Augh. All of these different things happening all at once 😭

#Iron text

[journalofsorts2]

i didn't really realize this was a thing that had happened to other people, but i just saw a video on tiktok that said "it is what it is (i stopped listening to music)" and i was confused at first but then i figured out that other people had that period in their life where they just like didn't think. where they were floating through life and spent a good amount of time listening to music or other media to drown out the thoughts of anything. at least i think that was the context of the video. but like, a couple years ago i had this phase where just nothing happened. i don't really know how to explain it. but just nothing happened. i spent my time doing one activity exclusively, only taking breaks for eating, sleeping, and school. for a bit of time that activity was playing this one picross game with a specific mother mother playlist in the background. and it was a playlist made by spotify so it got changed one day and it set me off really bad, but i remembered the order of the songs so i just remade it. another time it was playing gta v story mode. not online, not the random side quest, just the story mode. i beat it like 7 times actually, or 8 idk. another time it was watching bob's burgers in on tab and playing tetris in the other. another time it was tracing people's art and coloring it (i never posted or claimed as my own) with those stupid my story animated videos for background noise. the point is, they were these really repetitive activities that i did for hours and hours, and days and weeks and months. and i just didn't think while i did my activity. i don't remember much from those couple years, i had breaks from the activity every once in a while but they lasted at most like a month. except for her. she broke me out of the cycle for a long time. i fell in love with her and when she decided she was done with me, it hurt like hell, but the cycle of activity she put me in would be the last time i got stuck in the cycle so i thank her for that. but i was like barely living during this time. and it's so easy to slip back into that routine of overstimulation to escape living, but i'm more capable of catching it nowadays. and it wasn't even like i was obsessed with what i was doing or something (maybe a bit with gta v but whatever) but like i wasn't overly hyped about playing picross or watching bob's burgers, they just happened to be the activity i got stuck in. i feel like this cycle was my compromise on living. i didn't want to be alive, i didn't want to keep waking up every morning, but i have a little furball that i wasn't about to die on, so i stayed alive but i stopped living. my body kept existing but my thoughts died. i was so empty. and over the years, bit by bit, i've started putting myself back together. but back then i just barely existed. i don't know. this is the kinda shit i want to work through in therapy. why don't i remember a good chunk of my life? why was i so empty? i can't remember the good stuff, but why can't i remember the bad stuff? but instead i'm too much of a coward to tell my therapist the stuff i want to talk about. idk man

#journalofsorts rants #journalofsorts zinnia

[bigmoneypastelhalloween]

[Part 1]

1 hr 1: if he has a bad feeling about something like with this transactional change: "I'll stand my ground"

1 hr 1 min 47: <2nd fanart drops, its really siq folkart>

1 hr 2: sip of coffee; vanilla latte. "Its light, but it still has that little kick. Which is good."

1 hr 3: time to kill a little time, peruse a little news

1 hr 3 mins 30: a thing about shortwave is some parts of the world have more listeners than elsewhere

1 hr 4: shortwave gets listened to by a variety of people for a variety of reasons; developing countries where people listen out of necessity, dictatorships where folks try to escape censorship, rural/remote is necessity again, alternative programming buffs, technical spec-heads

1 hr 5: what shortwave is, again

1 hr 6: magical coverage area of shortwave

1 hr 8: how voa uses shortwave to flout censorship

1 hr 9: shortwaves heyday ended with the collapse of the soviet union, the fall of the berlin wall etc

1 hr 9 mins 30: internet killed the shortwave radiostar

1 hr 10: shortwave listeners probably still number in the tens or hundreds of millions he figures, highly clustered in key areas

1 hr 10 mins 33: shortwaves key listenerships are in rural south america, especially the amazon, also cuba, areas of africa especially nigeria, west africa...mentions yemen

1 hr 12: why ukraine didnt come up

1 hr 14: there might be 10s of thousands of shortwave listeners in ukraine rn not 100s like some ppl think

1 hr 15: lots of stories come up about shortwave popping off in ukraine if you google it tho

1 hr 16: all that coverage is about the bbc resuming broadcasts to ukraine

1 hr 17: "what if i told you bbc ended broadcasts to ukraine 3 months ago and zero people even noticed"

1 hr 20: projected bbc audience of 5000 for that broadcast that stopped in Sept

1 hr 21: people will believe whatever you tell them about shortwave

1 hr 21 mins 30: Ukrainians probably listen more to am and fm radio

1 hr 22: shortwave in ukraine is a thing of the past

1 hr 23: international broadcasters are ditching their transmissions ro ukraine due to lack of listenership

1 hr 25: some people might be disappointed that there wasn't a big shortwave comeback in ukraine

1 hr 26: there ARE russian listeners

1 hr 28: indie stations targetting russia instead of ukraine are still on the air, "because im sure theyre getting the listener response to justify it". Vatican radio to russia, nhk, still going

1 hr 30: a smalltime station targetting russia went off the air and there were listeners talking about it online, in contrast to the "radio silence" wrt bbcs ukraine brodcast disappearing

1 hr 31: if you want to target that part of the world go for russia

1 hr 33: people actually notice some broadcasts ending eg radio australia

1 hr 34: "lets check the news". Ai art discourse. Johnboys problem is when automation is done "to excess"

1 hr 35: a while ago he brought up automation of long distance trucking and the truckers becoming obsolete; the response at the time "was unanimous against" what he was saying and in favor of automation

1 hr 36: granted being an artist and being a trucker are different but at core his concern applies to both; peoples jobs being taken over by a.i.

1 hr 37: its not just automated trucks freaking him out although they do, its the millions of people dependent on the industry as a source of income

1 hr 39: telling people to switch jobs to overseeing the a.i. is stupid. "Yeah i am being bitter"

1 hr 40: he shares the hostility to a.i. that artists fearing replacement have

1 hr 41: dont need to reject automation and a.i. completely "it can still be a useful force"

1 hr 42: people getting their jobs phased out is the way he see it heading, thats the writing on the wall as he reads it

1 hr 42 mins 30: tries to prioritize non-a.i. fanart but who's to know at a certain point

1 hr 43: w.h.o. director says china's covid spike not due to lifting restrictions

1 hr 44: brings up coverage of people being welded into their apartments, then how everyone was saying we should emulate chinese policy, then about a month ago it flipped to "everyone in the streets is brave for protesting"

1 hr 45: then china drops restrictions and the same outlets are like this is going to be dire, and johns like "what is it then, do you want them to do zero covid or do you not"

1 hr 46: death row last meal requests

1 hr 47: maybe texas doesnt do requests anymore

1 hr 48: in some cases he wonders why this tradition exists

1 hr 49: menu of the guy who ordered a ton and didnt eat it

1 hr 50: the salient point that a lot of executed inmates are possibly not mentally competent even to gauge their own appetite (tho of course it could just be a spite move to reject one's own order)

1 hr 51: one guy requested to watch lotr while he ate

1 hr 52: finishing the broadcast lets open up the email real quick

1 hr 53: movie buff email, john doesnt know how to say zine. Everyone says "zeen" like how its short for magazine. Bo burnham did a zine? And used johnboy on the cover? And wrote about him?

1 hr 54: hasnt seen any a24 movies. Aware of the zine. He provided the cover photo to them.

1 hr 55: quick general thank you email from macarena

1 hr 56: chinese blogger fattygoestoafrica was stabbed to death in nepal while livestreaming--allegedly by a rival influencer

1 hr 57: thats how seriously some people take social media these days

1 hr 57 mins 40: he was 29, "isnt that something"

1 hr 58: there was a guy he watched in 2020-21 who would be loud about his opinions in sanfran

1 hr 59: being loud about your opinions makes you a target

2 hrs: so one night this guy was ranting entertainingly around this city and two guys had an issue with him and stabbed him

2 hr 1: j keeps his distance from people in public in case they try to swing on him like that

2 hr 1 min 50: email about the denver airport conspiracy

2 hr 3: of course there are secret facilities out there

2 hr 4: mt weather?

2 hr 4 mins 38: to have that kind of thing at a place like denver airport? Maybe!

2 hr 5: probably not the smartest to make something in plain sight when theres so much space to use in the u.s., but sometimes "they" do stuff just to fuck with everyone

2 hr 6: he's of the belief that some of the people in high positions arent good people, and would therefore do stuff like gaslight people about the denver airport for fun. However its his opinion that the denver airport is just an airport

2 hr 7: close of show, thanks for listening

#vorw #reviewbrah #Youtube

[book-o-scams]

'Sorry Wrong Ed' Alternate Ending Storyboard Sequence

Check out Al Kang's Ed, Edd n Eddy portfolio!

Al Kang worked on the show during seasons 3-4 and had roles on the storyboard and prop teams apparently. (IMDb says he was credited as Al Choi at the time, but it also says he worked on season 1 episodes, which doesn't line up with the timeline he mentioned.. anyway.)

I discovered his portfolio a few months ago after seeing fandom discussion of the alternate 'Sorry Wrong Ed' ending. I was pleasantly surprised to find a few other treats as well! But yes, I even sorta liked what I learned about 'Sorry Wrong Ed' in the process... (I threw in a little analysis comparing the two endings at the bottom)

I noticed Al seemed to mix up the order on these, so I thought I'd try my best to figure out the right order. This was the most confusing one for me to try and figure out the order of since almost all 8 pages were out of order. I think I finally figured out what's going on in the original ending.

So this alternate ending starts at an unknown point with Eddy flat on the ground, presumably injured, picking himself back up. At this point in the final cut of the episode, Eddy has just been squashed by a tree, but this seems more like a different injury, and he's not even retaining his injuries from the truck scene... The scenes with Jonny and Plank from the final cut of the episode seem to not exist at all here, Jonny and Plank don't appear in this sequence.

Anyway, Eddy picks himself up in the middle of an on-going scene, sees Jimmy drop a coin in a jar for Ed, who has inexplicably turned the cursed phone into a scam on his own. Edd is glaring at the off-screen kids, who have somehow learned about this phone and are excited to kill Eddy with it.

Eddy: "Jimmy! No!"

Jimmy answers the phone: "Hello?"

Ed: "HA HA HA"

Edd: "You people don't seriously believe--"

Then we sync up with gags that did happen in the ending of Sorry Wrong Ed, with context that makes its tone a little more sadistic than random. Jimmy's paid phonecall drops the sandbox on Eddy.

This page has the most skeletal dialogue...

Kev: "Yes." (I think he's meant to be fist pumping because Eddy got hurt, more of a "Yes!")

Jimmy: "BAD LUCK EDDY PHONE." (this dialogue must have been a placeholder)

Edd: "HA HA" (sarcastic ha-ha or did Al mean to write "Ed" for this?)

Jimmy seems to offer the phone to Edd.

We sync up again with Edd's denial from the final cut of this episode, except now it actually makes sense that he's so one-track-minded, because there are people actively arguing with him and keeping him disengaged from the victim.

Edd: "There must be a cargo plane overfilled with playground supplies..."

Sarah interrupts him.

RING RING

Sarah: "Oh, that's for me."

Eddy at this point holds Ed responsible, as he should, and starts running to stop Ed or Sarah. Ed offers no explanation for his betrayal.

Eddy: "Ed! What are you doing!?"

Sarah: "Hello?"

Sarah's paid phonecall summons the hippos, the most random moment in the final cut of the episode. Note how both of these slapstick gags were storyboarded on the same generic background, seems like the lane or an empty lot, but clearly a different location than Eddy's front yard from the aired ending.

And that's all we have to go off of!

I'll put my updated opinions below the cut, but suffice it to say, I like the episode a little better now! Knowing what the ending was going to be and trying to figure out the choices that led to the ending we got, I feel more appreciative that it didn't end up a lost episode or something and less annoyed that it was 11 minutes of one joke.

I know I have a reputation for not finding slapstick funny and disliking this episode, but violence was never my only issue. Lots of episodes have lackluster slapstick that I just let wash over me. My point that never gets as much focus is that this episode never felt FINISHED to begin with. It's just a slapstick vacuum with no ending and no point, and it used to be frustrating to me not knowing for sure if my hunch was right or not that it felt like the episode just wasn't working and they had to cobble it together from the scenes that almost worked.

I am surprised to say I like the episode more now that I know that is pretty close to the truth. Judging from this peek into the episode's development, this episode seems to have reached Danny Antonucci's and/or Wootie's (the episode's lead board artist) limit for being mean-spirited with the characters without a reason. I'll still probably avoid rewatching it, but knowing the episode has no ending specifically because it's been trimmed to bare bones is somehow reassuring.

The most obvious flaw to this original ending is the lack of motivation for Ed's or the kids' actions. The kids presumably still weren't in the rest of the episode, so there's really no reason for them to be here other than reiterating the same idea from 'Your Ed Here' and 'The Good Ole Ed' that the neighborhood kids are always looking for a reason to gang up on Eddy, something that isn't really true of those characters in earlier seasons.

I think I can imagine how, on paper (in the writers' outline), this episode sounded funnier. Trying to imagine this ending as part of the whole episode, I think the script's idea of the final joke is that Ed is not satisfied with ending the tests at the point where they tried to return the phone to Rolf. I think Ed converts the curse-testing process to a scam at that point, building off of how Ed already wasn't processing Eddy's safety in anything so far, and is probably more focused on proving to Edd that curses are real (as Ed was previously in league with Evil Tim). The addition of Ed running his own tests and the kids arguing Eddy's point against Edd's while Eddy's busy, does sound more like a complete manic cartoon boiling point than the way the finished episode just petered out with Edd as the sole antagonist. But unfortunately, in visual execution, suddenly piling in so many aggressive characters and so much random violence at once, would only really result in it petering out at a higher volume.

Meanwhile Edd's characterization is made much more structurally sound in the original ending. He's annoyed FOR Eddy's sake, and the only reason he's not actively helping Eddy is because like 3 other characters were supposed to be arguing with him while this was happening. It seems extremely apparent to me that the cuts made to this ending were for the sake of mitigating Ed's reputation in the fandom, as well as the kids', and I think it's really unfortunate that Edd's characterization was the cost for salvaging everyone else's. I'm glad I already considered his behavior in 'Sorry Wrong Ed' non-canon, because now it feels like the reason the aired ending is so out-of-character is just because Edd is basically arguing with the ghost of the original scene. I formally forgive 'Sorry Wrong Ed'. Production turnarounds are tough and AKA did their best to not turn this into another forgotten 'Special Ed' episode that simply wasn't working.

I think ditching the original ending was ultimately the right call. It was not an exemplary episode, but I can admit it's less out of place to have a pure "vacuum of violence" story than it would've been to essentially give the kids a supernatural revenge plot like this. That would've been really weird to have to accept-- Eddy definitely wouldn't want to be friends with anyone at the end of the movie if THIS was their past. Changing it to an unaware Jonny and a questionably aware Plank being responsible, indeed, was a vibe that landed much more like standard EEnE fare. It was weird enough that the kids all saw Santa in JJJ, can you imagine if they all knew curses were real AND participated in attacking a neighbor with one??

If there was a silver lining for me the first time I saw this episode, it was that none of the kids were directly involved in Eddy's suffering. It made the questionable reality of the cursed device slightly more acceptable that only the Eds and Rolf know about the curse. If this ending had happened, I would've reacted the same, but I would've rejected its continuity even more than I do now, because it would just feel like they animated one of the DC Comics (where the kids can blow the Eds up with fireworks at the end or the Eds can randomly be crushed under an avalanche of anvils)-- the art could end up gorgeous but the characterizations don't exactly land as real human beings, the balance this show strives for typically.

And I think that's all I wanted to say! In the end, I found myself liking 'Sorry Wrong Ed' slightly more than I used to, all thanks to this glimpse into how the animation production system morphs the outcome of a cartoon. Thanks so much to Al Kang, for sharing your art and this insight into the industry! I don't know whether he did both the gesture drawings and the revised art, but judging from his other boards I think the cleaned up art is his, and I liked seeing the poses that almost were!

#ed edd n eddy #sorry wrong ed #al kang #storyboard #concept art #alternate ending #deleted ending #alternate sequence #analysis

[joons]

mooncactus I felt the same way (especially for LOL of all things.... ugh) but my favorite piece of information is the fans figured out vi and jinx were sisters like, 8+ years ago, but riot for some reason absolutely refused to confirm it (even tho they had already planned out this story/show!!) a dev called them sisters and they made him RETRACT THE STATEMENT, a few months before the show aired the official LOL Twitter wished them a happy siblings day and then DELETED THE TWEET LOL. I guess in their minds it was going to be a big huge reveal but it’s so funny that a lot the internal team were just assuming it’s common knowledge!

That is so funny. My brother and I were looking at their bios on the game site, and I saw Jinx wasn't mentioned at all in Vi's bio, and I was like "Wait, are they even sisters in this?" lol.

But without knowing their plans for the show, I think they could easily make it a "this is all prequel to the game's status quo" OR give us a more grounded take on the league of legends format and move beyond the battle royale to a proper conclusion. The game would then just be "this is what's going on in the middle of Arcane." I do wish every property I loved had a million bucks from fighting games to spend on amazing stories like this.

mooncactus “ITS GIVING VALDUG”!!! I agree with this and while I like them just as they are in the show/haven’t been able to get my head around the sexy takes of them LOL I do enjoy seeing the different art and interpretations! but god you right with valdug, seeing this ship get popular gave me faith that even with this puritanical fandom world we live in valdug has a chance of being beloved if/when it’s adapted lmao I also LOVE EKKO/JINX, that hits so many of my buttons!

I did not know Ekko/Jinx was a ship until I finished the show and got online. But I see it a lot in the Enemy MV, which I watched, and their amazing fight scene on the bridge. They also have a ton of parallels with being mechanical geniuses and going in opposite directions after trauma. And they're the same age, lol! They're both adorable and there's plenty of angst and drama there as well. I love so much that they equal Piltover's greatest minds just by sheer stubbornness and need.

But yeah, Valdug in the sense that he watched her grow up, so it makes sense that that might be a line they never cross or consider crossing, but everything else is telegraphing SOULMATES FATED TO WIELD THE SAME POWERS BOTH AGAINST AND FOR EACH OTHER, so you can kind of pick anywhere on the scale where you're comfortable, or skip ahead a few years into an au and see what happens. How they're depicted in the show is perfect, though, because it brings up so many themes about legacies and how silco thinks he's doing the right thing and helping her GROW, as a parent should, when actually they are both stagnant and nursing the wrong wounds. he can't show her how to heal from trauma because he never has and identifies it as his source of strength. he's just like "if you have intrusive thoughts, just kill something and it kills the bad thoughts metaphorically lol." ALSO valduggery has the same "you've never done anything wrong ever" and they've killed thousands. they just dgaf about anyone else's labels but their own. :) :) :)

#mooncactus #conversations #arcane spoilers

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

About Me

Thanks @roguelioness and @best-of-the-vein for the tags!

1: Why did you choose your url?

Dunno honestly lmao it was a spur of the moment kind of thing. I had no idea for a fancy name (I am. very bad at naming things) so I was just like. "dnd is cool. Dragon Age is a dnd based. let's go with that." and that's all there is to it

2: Any side blogs? If you have them, name them and why you have them.

This is my side blog haha. Decided to make it cos I was (and still am) very deep in Dragon Age Hell and didn't want to spam my main blog with my shouting about it and rambling about my DA OCs 24/7

My main blog (which is @layalu) I started getting more active on because I was getting really fed up with deviantArt (they overhauled the site about a year ago and it's even more of a mess than it was before), and while I'm still on there too it's mostly just for one single ARPG, and even that is slowly transitioning to discord/their own website so who knows. I mean knowing me chances are I'll stay there anyway lol because yknow, sentimental attachment, but I think the switch to tumblr is gonna be more or less permanent. For now, at least

3: How long have you been on tumblr?

I joined in October 2017 but wasn't really active until April this year. Made this blog around the same time too. Tbh didn't expect that I'd stay active for more than like a month or so lmao

4: Do you have a queue tag?

Nope, still haven't gotten the hang of queues lol. I did try a few times but it's still really weird to me?? Sometimes I'll draft a thing I wanna reblog later and sometimes I make a mental note to reblog a thing which I forget 60% of the time, but mostly I'll just reblog things then and there when I'm online

5: Why did you start your blog in the first place?

Again, so I can have an outlet for (one of) my current obsession aka DA lmao. Didn't expect that I'd be this active, but the community is really kind and fun and that's what's been keeping me here. It's the first time that I've ever like. actually interacted with a fandom (usually I just stay in my own little corner and am very cautious about getting involved in fandom) but so far it's been pretty cool~

6: Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

I was really proud of that drawing and because I believe in Pink Flower Crown Bull supremacy

7: Why did you choose your header?

Originally screenshotted that loading screen in case I needed it for reference/lore theory notes later on and just thought it looked cool. Also the colours fit

8: What’s your post with the most notes?

https://dungeons-and-dragon-age.tumblr.com/post/651126014406197248/leliana-please-its-3am-people-are-trying-to this one (just barely beats the Bull one)! It blew up MUCH more than I expected, and I'm unironically glad that shitposts are are popular as ever lmao

9: How many mutuals do you have?

18 (about 12 are for this blog I think)~ I don't talk/interact with everyone yet, but yall are very cool! owo

10: How many followers do you have?

Almost 400 now, somehow??? Which is absolutely insane. I don't know how that happened and it's a bit scary because that is a lot of people (for me it is anyways), but I'm really grateful and flattered too!! <3

11: How many people do you follow?

61 :') I'm kinda picky about who I follow because I'm always very wary about how far I want to extend out into the reaches of the internet, especially in fandoms, and I'd rather have my small circle of people who I'm comfortable with. Much easier to stay out of drama and nasty places that way

12: Have you ever made a shitpost?

Pff yea. I'm more likely to reblog shitposts than make them myself though because I'm not the best shitposter lol, but you better bet I love me some good shitposts

13: How often do you use tumblr each day?

Depends? Probably comes down to like 1-2 hours most days, more when there's a lot of stuff to read or art to admire on my dash or I'm answering asks etc.. Usually I'll just check my notes every now and then in between doing things and maybe scroll through my dash, so I'm rarely on for long at a time.

14: Did you ever have a fight/argument with another blog once? Who won?

Nah. I don't have enough reach/contact for others to come and start arguments with me luckily, and I try to stay away from drama and fights myself. I'm not conflict avoidant and will debate/defend myself within reason if need be but I'd still rather the need for that doesn't arise at all. I'm just here to vibe, not to fight. Also like. not getting into fights really isn't that hard lol. Plus, everyone's been super nice so far so I don't think I'm gonna have beef with anyone any time soon.

15: How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

If you tell me "I need to reblog" I will not reblog on principle.

16: Do you like tag games?

Yea, they're fun! I'm always a bit insecure about tagging people myself (if I ever tag you and you'd rather not get tagged, please tell me!), but I always get excited when I get tagged haha

17: Do you like ask games?

Hell yeah! I'm not exactly a writer and I suck at explaining lol but I do still love an excuse to ramble! Huge shoutout to my mutuals who always send asks btw, you're awesome <33

18.Do you have a crush on a mutual?

Bruh I don't even get crushes on irl people lmao. I do really appreciate and admire my mutuals (and a whole bunch of people who aren't mutuals) though!! There are some I-think-you-are-very-cool-and-I-would-love-to-be-friends-but-you-feel-way-out-of-my-league kind of people though, if that counts haha

tagging @dumbassentity, @a-drama-addict, @nomouthtospeakof and @exotic-inquiry (again no pressure ofc!)

#about me #tag game #misc

[popculturebuffet]

Scotrospective: Scott Pilgrim Vs the World (The Comic)

Hello, Hello, Hello scottaholics! And what a beautiful day it is: After decades lost in the lost woods, at least it had that catchy tune to keep it company, Scott Pilgrim Vs the World: The Game is FINALLY back and performing for you on all platforms!

Even Stadia, the platform most likely to disappear like this game did for a while! Cheap shots at the stadia aside as a huge fan of the franchise as a whole and of this game who played it back on the 360, and had since sold said 360 so I had no way to get it back or ever play the dlc packs. Seriously who didn’t want to play wallace but never got to? Everyone, everyone is the answer. But with those the entirety of what I consider to be the main cast is playable, it has online so you can beat up hipsters, guys in costumes and robots with your friends, it’s a good damn feeling.  And since i’m in a celebratory mood, naturally i’m also feeling like a review. And since it just so happens the next volume up in my look at the comics is Vs the World, seriously I planned this review for this month without thinking to have it come out on the same day as the game until a week or two in, I felt there was no better way to celebrate the biggest day for Scott Pilgrim fans in some time.. and for Brian Lee O Malley as he’ll stop getting twitter asks about it. So with all the exposition taken care of LAST TIME, and the link right there if your curious, we can jump right in. On with the show!

After our opening titles, and yes this comic has opening titles, with Ramona sitting solmely in the rain. 

And Scott caught in the title. The rain shot is real pretty by the way. But yeah once we get past those we’re taken back 7 years ago. Finn found out his father was an asshole, and voiced by Stephen Root so hey you take the good with the bad, Steven just learned the horrifying truth about Gem Monsters, Guardians of the Galaxy saved the MCU and I was trying to find work after college.. wait... sorry sorry that was 7 years ago from THIS year. The comic came out in 2005, though the comic takes place on a sliding timescale where only like 2 years pass so I dunno when this is. Let’s just say 98.  Okay so 1998: Bill Cllinton’s sex scandal breaks, and puts way too much of hte blame on the young intern whose life came to be defined by one stupid mistake she made with a man who was way older and should’ve known better, the tide of the Monday Night War turned in favor of the WWF as Stone Cold Steve Austin became a household name, and it was an utterly standup year for video game relaases with Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie, Crash Bandicoot: Warped, StarCraft, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, WWF: War Zone, Pokemon Stadium, Spyro The Dragon, Pokemon Yellow, WarioLand 2, Oddworld: Abe’s Exodus, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Pokemon: Trading Card Game and Sonic Adventure. It’s like someone took a good chunk of my childhood and squeezed it into one year holy shit, I did not expect this when looking up what came out in 98. 

And while the movie pool wasn't’ quite this amazing, we still had The Wedding Singer, The Big Lebowski, the dude abides, Batman and Mr Freeze: SubZero, The Truman Show, Mulan, the good one not the one made near concetration camps that makes her into a demigod, Saving Private Ryan, Blade, Simon Birch, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, Rushmore, Bride of Chucky, HalloweenTown, Plesantville, and the Prince of Egypt. And in music Weird Al changed from his first signature look to his second, getting Lasik and growing out his hair. Seirously had no idea that was this year. Good to know. Also Elton John got his knighthood. Super shooters. I could go on with 1998 triva for days but I cannot go on for 8 weeks so let’s get to the point here.. during alllla this  Scott Pilgrim, age 16, was starting St. John’s Catholic School and a couple of guys who were up to no good started making trouble. . by threatning to beat him up for no real reason. A fight insues and we cut to the principal’s office as Scott’s still a minor and not allowed to get into death fights just yet under the people’s freedom of choices and voices act. 

It’s here he meets Lisa Miler, a peppy and sarcastic blonde, who’s intrigued by the fact Scott somehow got beat up after being here just 15 minutes and wants to be friends. Naturally for scott next we see him he’s busy playing video games, and annoyed someone else is around and wondering who this person whose now in his basement is. God no wonder teenage me related to him. So for the next few pages we see their friendship in time lapse: Lisa joins him at lunch, then geninely wonders since Scott’s Untentionally a dick if he hates her.. it’s part of why I think Scott has some form of autisim. And not just because I tend to belivie a character is on the spectrum all the damn time, it’s because of the way he acts: while he is nice and charming at times.. he also clearly has trouble relating to people or realizing how his actions effect them and as seen here in a younger form can often be compeltely distanced from normal social queues, not getting how his actions might be seen until Lisa outright talks to him about it. I mean.. it’s not a huge stretch, and it dosen’t mean he’s nto responsible for his own actions, but it does EXPLAIN a lot of them better: why he just sorta forgets about Knives post-ramona but at the same time still cares enough he dosen’t want to hurt her despite you know, that ship sailing just by having moved on. 

But now the two are friends and his parents, who we meet for the first time and sister inquire about her being his girlfirned.. and by next jumpcut his parents apparently don’t want him hanging out with girls? What exactly the fuck? Also they mention Laurence, Scott’s brother whose missing for most of the books and has no real payoff for not being around. Next cut we get KIM!

Thank you Prissy. And she’s.. not all that different, assuming, correctly that their partner project, how she meets scott will just result in her doing all the work.. which not only is how these things usually went when I was in high school a decade later, but reminds me of the time me and my friends curtis and justin were put on a project and when asked who the alied powers were, guessed “Germany?”.... you can understand my fear. And also Curtis punching him for getting nothing done.. and not hard or brutally mind you just once quick in the gut and with full warning. Ah... the adaquate old days. 

So back to Lisa as, since Scott’s Mom has a guitar.. a fact I.. never honestly thought about. Seriously I never realized her children, since the Bass Scott has for most of the books is Laurence’s, getting into music was probably due to her. Also Lisa makes her case for WHY be a band: the school has a regular event called Lunchapalooza, where everyone goes to and since by teen logic, just being in a band is automiacally cool, she figures they can jump from not QUITE being in any cliques to being super cool. Which honestly yeah... while I didn’t know any bands in high school, the fact one of my friends, ironically named Scott, was a DJ automatically made him pretty damn cool once he got past his awkard phase. I never got past mine but somehow was loved by all except that one douchey kid in our group who mocked me for naming my Luxray kim, assuming it was based on Kim possible and not Kim Pine... though frankly how that’s an insult when Kim Possible was a fucking awesome show and character is beyond me but he was just 17 and also a douchebag, it didn’t have to make since it just had to piss off the easily pissed off kid with aspergers. So Scott poses how they can be a band with just their guitars and Lisa concedes drums WOULD help.. I mean it’s what MADE Shallow Gravy. 

So while Kim wonders if Scott is dating Lisa, because teenagers don’t really get girls and boys can be friends without wanting to be together, though not often as teenage boy brains can be rather stupid and horny... can confrim from personal experince. So it becomes clear Scott has a thing for Kim, and when Scott tries broaching it with Lisa she dosen’t take it well and he backpedals to asking her to be her drummer and plans to monday, proving Scott has somehow not gotten better at reading women, or anyone after 7 years. Can relate. 

So yeah he decides to ask Monday, same day as their presentation.. and thankfully missed the bus as he arrives to find the Benvy Tech boys came in, took everyone out and abducted Kim. Because yeah, just in case you were wondering Scott’s life was always like this.. or was it? Questions for later. So one Canadian Version of River City Ransom later, Scott’s made his way to simon... who, since most of you have probably seen the movie or art of the movie.. looks an AWFUL lot like Gideon. Hrmmm. Simon is naturally the final boss here and wonders if this is the best St. Joels can muster. Scott quips back as only Scott can. 

So cue an unsuprisingly awesome actoin sequence. IT’s part of why I love these color editions: While they already LOOKED thoroughly fantastic the added colors really help the series shonen manga meets old school video game vibe REALLY fucking pop. So Simon pleads mercy which like Scott delivering a good quip.. should’ve really been a red flag to younger me and is foreshadowing for later in case I was too subtle. He then does what any noble hero would do.. kicks simon into the sunset, tells Kim how he feels and asks her to play drums. They then make out. Awwww. 

Lisa suprisingly takes it well as the next montage shows.. granted we’ll learn in Feburary she wasn’t QUITE as over scott as it seemed, but the three, along with a friend of Lisa’s whose name I forgot and who DOSEN’T come back so I’m not going to bother learning, form their own friend group, Scott and Kim get an A, and Scott, Kim and Lisa’s band is dubbed sonic and knuckles, which is an objectively awesome band name. Something the series really does great: Video Game Based Band Names. Crash and the Boys, Sex Bomb-Omb, Clash at the Demonhead... we need more bands like this in the real world dammit. So then they play their big game, the two loose their vrigniity.. and then Kim asks scott “your moving to tornoto?” And.. for now.. that’s that. 

While the framing of that will be VERY important in the last volume, as notice how KIM’S the one who brings it up and it’s not explicitly stated scott actually told her, this flasback is great. While it does contribute to the volume’s drifty pacing, more  on that as we go, it brilliantly sets up a LOT of stuff for later, paticuarlly Lisa who I assumed wouldn’t be back and younger me’s jaw fucking DROPPED when she popped up in Volume 4. Granted i’m spoiling that suprise for you now but odds are most of you reading this have either alreaddy read these or were probably wondering if the girl from the animated short ever had any actual relevance in the books. So yes, yes she does. She’s also the pink haired girl you see pop up in the game in the background, as a nod to O’Malley’s comic strip style which had her and Kim as the leads.  Also yeah for fans of the game or movie or even the comics who were unaware.. this prologue got an animated adaption on adult swim to promote the movie. Naturally Micheal Cera and Allison Pill reprised their roles as Scott and Kim, with Mae Whitman voicing lisa.. and honestly being perfect for the roll, and Jason Schrwartzman voicing Simon naturally. While the animation is slightly limited, it still looks decent and expertly translates O’Malley’s art, while sliming things down slightly where needed to fit a short, and the anmation takes a huge bump for the fight scene which like the comic is short but awesome. While it has no real bearing on the film as Kim’s former relationship with Scott never really comes up or has any impact, as the Film while good was based primarily on volumes 1-3 with small pieces of 4 (paticuarlly the iconic “Lesbians gag”), with Wright working off outlines and drafts of 5 and 6, so the last half hour or so is mostly Wright’s invention. 

Not a bad thing as it’s still awesome and not o’malley’s fault but it means kim dosen’t get to do much, and is a big reason why I want an adaptation on netflix or hbo max. While i’d still want changes both because there’s no sense doing an adaptation if your not going to make some tweaks of your own and because it’d be intresting to update the series to modern day, both in societal conventions and so everyone stops saying the r word. Seirously the most telling sign of the series age is that word showing up quite a bit during the first half of the series. Point is there is merit in doing another remix of the story and doing a longer form one so we can get more of the characters, as well as flesh out ones like Steven, Neil (Who was done WAY better in the movie adaptation thanks to the wonderful Johnny Simmons), and Stacey who got the shaft in the books. Again, not slagging off the movie, it’s really great. Just saying there’s always room for more Scott Pilgrim content and we all know it. 

We’ll get back to the comic proper, and the present day of 2005, after the cut. 

So the story proper opens with Scott dreaming of playing video games... because of course he is with Ramona walking in. and finding it charmingly pathetic but wanting her boyfriend to you know, get out of bed. It’s 11:30.  So with Scott’s ass out of bed, we find Scott, Age 23 idiot with a heart of gold and Wallace, 25 king of all gays, on the bus as they talk it getting warmer and Lucas Lee, movie star and jason lee stand in coming to town to film a movie.. and Scott being Scott gets him confused for Luke WIlson. He’s also seen Bottle Rocket which.. good on him. Seriously while not wes anderson’s best film, those were made long afte this comic was published, it’s still a damn good one.. where was his career at this point... looking it up life aquatic was his most recent films and is still one of my favorites. So yeah he was in a good place career wise. 

Scott proudly talks about having Ramona over in a couple days so she can see his place and meet Wallace. But as explained by Wallace for those of us just tuning in, he already met her last volume. You know during that time Stacey thought she could magically make her date not be attracted to someone else.. and yes even almost a month later not letting that one go. Stacey should know better. Not saying i’ts right Wallace keeps poaching her boyfriends, but she still shoudlnt’ try and force a relationship with a guy or even finish a date with one who makes out with someone else, regardless of gender, mid date. She deserves better. In general not just in this one scenario but we’ll get to that. 

Point is while Scott, as usual, is a bit pissy about this Wallace.. has no time for that and issues an ultimatium

And he’s not bluffing, as he fully intends to tell Ramona the minute she walks in the door if he dosen’t break up with Knives. It really shows Wallace off at his best and why he’s Scott’s closest friend: Kim and Stephen do care about him but Kim both has a LOT of unresolved issues and sexual tension with him and keeps eveyrbody including Scott at arm’s length. And Stephen.. while he will OCASIONALLY call Scott out mostly just enables him, either ignoring his college buddy’s shittier behavior or playing along with it and backing him up when Kim rightfully calls him on being a dickhead. While both love their friend they just aren’t the best at dealing with his shit or getting why he does the things he does good and bad.  Wallace on the other hand geninely likes Scott. He’ll lock him out of the house and tell him to sleep elsewhere so he can bang one out, he’ll not wear pants if he dosen’t have to and he’ll certainly hit on Scott just to get a rise out of him, phrasing.. but he also genuinely cares for the guy’s well being. He lets him sleep in their house basically rent free since scott has no money, buys most of their stuff, and is, as we’ll see in this one, the ONLY one of his friends to take an active part in the fight against the exes, training Scott and researching his opponents when he can get info. He won’t baby Scott as seen here, but he will help him, and he will be the harsh voice of reason his friend needs.  And he did TRY doing a softer approach last time, simply telling scott to break up with his fake high school girlfriend. Scott had every chance to dump Knives during the last third of the first book.. it’s just a combination of both Knives and Ramona being in the same place and Scott getting panicky meant he balked. He NEEDS to be pushed into leaving Knives or he’s not gonna. And he also gets it’s not just Scott being a shifty coward: Scott DOES like Knives.. he just found someone who actually challenges him, intrests him and connects with him on his level, versus someone who worships and adores him like a puppy who just happens to be skilled with knives. The relationship with Knives. was an ego boost, an unequal paring that gave Scott the illusion of moving on from Envy. Ramona is him ACTUALLY moving on and given how badly Envy fucked him up, which comes into play in this book and the next, Wallace recognizes that Scott does need her... but this relationship can’t go anywhere if Scott is seeing someone else, and they both know it. Wallace is just the one who’s willing to do something about it to force scott to do something about it. He’s doing this for Knives too: it’s very clear he cares about the girl, was against this from the start, and knew this was going to end in pain and the faster Scott rips off the Band-Aid the faster she can move on to someone closer to her age and far more equal to her. Scott.. takes this about how you’d expect, even calling Double Standard, as Wallace does sleep around.. and while Wallace will be a homewrecker to Stacey.. otherwise it’s not remotley the same. Wallace does his sleeping around either casually or when he does get a partner, with their consent from what we can tell. He never cheats or anything, he just likes to bone. So yeah Scott doesn’t have a leg to stand on and acts accordingly. 

One of my faviorite gags in the series and one that’s etched in my head for keeps. So with a justified Ultimatium over his head Scott calls knives to hang out. Knives.. shows off that as adorable and trusting as she is.. she’s also kind of creepy and shows up just outside the phone booth he’s calling her from.  So the two go to a record store and Knives tries to get Scott into Clash at the Demonhead, her faviorite band. But since i’ts you know, headlined by Scott’s ex as we’ll find out, he’s not into it. But before that can get awkward.. it gets awkward in another way as Knives invites Scott to dinner at her parents place. Which is an objectively bad idea even before you get into the fact Scott wants a way out and as Volume 4 will show us her dad is both not happy with the idea of her dating a white guy and willing to use a katana to prevent it so he dodged a bullet there. Scott TRIES weasling out of it, but his “I’m too old for you” thing falsls on deaf ears.. and actually explains why she thinks this is normal: her parents are 9 years apart. of course obviously two consenting adults with a decade between them is a mite bit diffrent than 5 years between a teenager whose taking this way too seriously and a grown man whose taking this not seroiusly at all and dosen’t get how effed up this is. But Knives is too naive to get that, and papers over any possible concerns about her parents not wanting her to date a white guy with i’m in love.  Seeing that he has no EASY way out of this, as he shouldn’t, Scott just rips off the band aid and bluntly breaks up with her, saying it’s not going to work out. Knives.. is clealry devistatd. To her this was a serious relationship.. and Scott realized that too late.. and thankfully while he didn’t break up with her in the best way, at all, simply syaing i’ts not going to work out and confirming to her he means it, it’s clear from his face this hurts to do and he knows he’s REALLY hurting her and REALLY shoudlnt’ of dated her to begin with. IT’s why Scott dating a teenager dosen’t make him a morally rephrenisvie monster: because he was genuinely intrested, didn’t use her sexually, and there are tangible consequences for his actions. Knives just dosen’t disappear neatly into the sunset so he can be with ramona. The rest of the series covers her emotoinal recovery from being with Scott, and how she very horribly handles it and that’s why this plotline works at all: she’s not some act one contrivance to be thrown away, sh’es a human being, and more than that a young woman who got hurt REALLY bad and got way too in over her head with someone who just..wasn’t the one fo rher no matter how much she can’t admit that. 

We also get one of my faviorite sets of pages as Scott relfects on things and the sheer devistation on Knives face, which credit to a series that even at this early point loves it’s big bold facial expressions.. her’s being more subded just makes it sting MORE. 

This bit to me is vital to keeping Scott sympathetic and to his character. We see he really does regret what happened, dosen’t know how to process it and genuinely feels awful. As I said instead of some exgerated face that would still hurt him.. her face is quiet, clearly unable to process this and clealry lost and hurt.. and that hurts more than any fuck your or sobs he was probably expecting. Just her clearly not getting WHY he’s doing this or why he hurt her, and he KNOWS why he just knows telling her the truth would hurt her even more. But.. as he thinks.. his thoughts move to something else.. and the WHY of why he did this. 

He did it for Ramona. Wallace was as harsh as he was right: he needed a clean slate to actually give this relationship a shot and the smile comes off less as him being a calous dick whose just happy to move on, I mean he is a little, but more jus tsomeone READY to finally move on. He found the right person, he let the wrong one go if clumsily.. he has a future to look forward to and he can smile about that. 

Granted he’s still his usual unteitonally callous self and his way of telling his friends he and knives broke up is to casually say so and say “dont’ worry you’ll meet my new girlfriend soon.” Their reaction.. is my own. 

Look just because Scott is a nuanced douchebag dosne’t stop him from being a Douchebag. It just means he isn’t intolerable to watch and you actually care about him growing as a human being is all. 

So with that out of the way, it’s date night and Ramona is coming over.. also Scott is considering calling her Ramy which no. I'm genuinely in favor of a pet name that’s just a variant on someone’s name but a bit cute, as it’s just the right level of obnoxious, but no, just no Scott. No.  Ramona enters, meets Wallace again and sits down while Scott tries to shoo him out.. because turnabout is fair play bitch. They also see Ramona’s new hair as she dyes it something new for the first time, in this case a very lovely two tone, the purple from last volume but with a darker purple bellow it. I honestly wish she went for multiple colors in her hair again, but likely didn’t since the book was originally in black and white... which still dosent’ make sense as it would’ve been EASIER that way. Regardless Wallace makes himself scarce proving that he’s more than willing to be equal in terms of one of them spending the ngiht elsewhere. What a guy. 

Ramona finds out a few things about Scott: That his apartment is VERY small, just one room with a bed, a cabinet, a small kitchen and a bathroom, which despite what scott says I REALLY dont’ count as another room. Just common sense. She also learns that he can COOK. Yeah while you’d expect Scott to just get a wad of “I did the ultimatum thing okay now gimme” money and buy dinner but no.. he made the whole thing himself from his own recipe.  And once we cut to them eating on the floor.. turns out yeah he not only can cook but is REALLY good at it. She wishes there was a table which, small as the place is.. fair point. I mean at least get some tv trays. You have chairs. Or at least the easy chair. You can get nice padded folding chairs so you have a second chair guys. I know your poor but come on. Also Scott leanrs bread makes you fat. Good stuff. Also Scott freaks out when , while making out with Ramona in bed later, she mentions his hair’s getting kinda long and could use a cut... which turns out to be a thing for him. He isn’t an ass about it he just panics a bit because he’s partially convinced his last relationship’s nightmarish breakup was because of a bad haircut he got. As we’ll see next week, that’s a no but as someone whose a touch neroutic myself I get blaming a larger issue on something trivial. 

So we then get to the next chapter where it’s KIM’S turn to have a dream.. and the only time we see someone else's dreams. Honestly.. I really would’ve liked if it was a recurring device, even have Ramona pop into other people’s Not used ALL the time but I could easily see it being used with Knives to convey her obsession with Scott and her pain or kim again to help move her plots along or Wallace because I want to know what’s going on in his head. It must be a maze of male gentalia and fine liquor the likes of which has never been seen. It’s scotts funeral as Simon killed him and Scott’s corpse wonders if she dreams about this a lot. 

So we see her get ready and wake up her roomate Sarah whose a bitch. And as we’ll see in one of the backups, so’s the rest of her roommates. So drifting into work. Hollie is a character I really liked... the past tense will be explained later. And the first scene is probably why as her and Kim banter effortlessly, with Kim suggesting maybe she was a happy kid... only to admit quickly no she wasn’t, she was pretty withdrawn and then pretty angsty over someasshole who will be named Scott. “Your a holy terror kim, and i’m glad your on your side”> It’s a short scene but the kind this series excells at: just realistic, fun little exchanges bursting with character. I also GENUINELY wish we got more of this kind of thing, as only Knives really gets these kind of scenes to herself for the most part. There ARE scenes without Scott, but not enough like this that just give us as look into what his friends lives are like during the moments they aren’t putting up with his dumbassery or watching him engage in mortal combat. It’s why i’ve been hoping a spinoff will happen even though it likely won’t SOON. I’m sure O’Malley will return to this world some day, but between Snotgirl and Wicked World, which will come out when it’s ready but should be good.. he’s just really busy. But i’d love to see more of Kim.. or Wallace or Knives. The latter two are a no brainer: Knives is the tritagonist of the books, and it’d be intresting to see what she’d be like 5 years at the book, at the same age and stage in life as Scott. And with Wallace it’s because we really DON’T see his friend circle, life or what goes on with him. We hear him talk about a new boyfriend, who we don’t meet until near the end of the series, though you can see him in stage 3 of hte game if your curious, we see him with some random friends in volume 4, but we really don’t KNOW what hyjinks and lojinks wallace gets up to. He’s pretty isoalted from the rest of the main cast, something I hope an adaptation could fix as while realistic i’td be curious to see what his relationship with Kim or Steven would be like. Just food for thought. 

Point is this was a good scene. But as is typical for Kim’s life just when she has some serenity her ex crashes back in. In this case Scott needs to rent some movies, kim works at a rental store and god teenage me really wanted a clerks style spinoff.. but enough spinoff talk. Scott asks kim to bororw them, of course and explains he’s training for his fight with Lucas.. which Kim reacts to finding out her second best friend is in a series of death matches. 

She has understandable questions such as how the hell doe she know that and is he stalking Lucas and just hoping he’s an ex.. which let’s face it would be a very scott move. But nope Wallace told him, likely learning in an interview he dated Ramona or is coming for scott because he knows everything. We also get one of my faviorite exchanges when Kim wonders why Wallace and Scott are roomates.. a valid question he deflects by saying i’ts a long story. 

Also yeah, as much as casting Micheal Cera backfired for the movie.. that panel there proves there wasn’t another choice at the time. When you want a loveable, somewhat douchey, but also somewhat innocent and oblivious slacker.. who you gonna call. Also before we move on.. Kim.. how are you this suprised. You were there for the fight with Matthew. And Ramona giving out the exposition on why he’s there.. and you even did that whole weird space channel 5 thing no one ever did agian and to this day I will never understand what O’Malley was going for and only know the refrence by hearing that’s what it was. Point is you shouldn’t be this suprised.  Anyways we next cut to Ramona and Stacey, as Ramona enters her workplace, second cup, and they talk and Scott’s spider sense goes off... 

I mean it’s just a bad feeling but still.. weird. WE’ll get back to that later. Scott is in the middle of his training.. and I love the mentor side of Wallace and feel it didn’t get used enough as the series went on. As said before he cares about Scott, so he serves as his Shounen Mentor and a great one: he’s stern and makes Scott work, but he also gets his student and what Scott needs to work. I just wish he’d taught Scott some actual combat, but as we see Wallace’s combat skills boil down to yelling useless info from the sidelines.. I mean he can be useful, we’ll see that next week, it’s just he’s not an action guy. But spirtually he’s the guy scott needs to kick his ass into shape. That being said his “training” consists of watching Lucas’ movies, playing tony hawk and when Scott wants to play more Tony Hawk, having Scott do pushups while Wallace plays Tony Hawk.  Before we turn... there is an elephant in the room I just gotta shoo out: Lucas.. is easily the worst setup of the 6 exes. Patel SEEMINGLY comes out of nowhere but his letter and email hint SOMETHING is coming up, and his flashy dynamic entry intro is damn cool and is what turns the series on it’s head, from an indie comic about a guy getting it together.. to that but with huge shonen dustups with epic visuals. Todd is introduced masterfully here, and is a presence from the start of volume 3 as a result, Roxie gets a slight tease in the free comic book day issue, and her not attacking for two months not only sets up tension but allowed for a red herring.. im’ not only hiding that the fourth ex is a she because anyone whose seen the movie or played the game knows the fourth ex is a woman. The cat’s out of the bag, no sense hiding it. The Kentangis show up pretty early on and Gideon is hinted at and built up, as this towering, mysterious figure, his relationship with Ramona, who he is, why he set up the league, and just how fucking strong he is is all obscured, with his only four apperances simply teasing the big final showdown and giving him that much more mysitque. 

Lucas.. is just sorta intorduced like “Hey I gotta fight this guy”. There’s just.. nothing. Scott’s just gotta fight him because he’s next up and Wallace knows that because plot convience. It’s VERY lackluster given what comes before.. and frankly while I like Lucas, he’s the weakest plot and character wise. HE’s not even really EVIL, just a sellout and is more doing this because he has to I guess, and likely because of stuff we find out in Book 6 but sssssshhhhh. We’ll get more into that when the fight happens but it’s one of the books weakest points. The evil ex.. just feels like an afterthrought again despite there being no reason to. Thankfully this would never happen again as I said, but it dosen’t make this any less frustrating. 

So we cut to Sex Bomb-Omb practice, and after that we get more tease for Clash at Demonhead. And Stephen.. is cool with them and entirely happy one of them made it, while Scott is understandably pisssed off about it and not happy one of his best friends is you know, promoting the band of his ex who broke his heart and as we’ll get more into next time, said rising career is what tore them apart. So yeah Stephen’s a dickhead, and I was wrong last time that he got better. He really.. dosen’t. He gets less CREEPY.. but out of the main 6 characters he’s the weakest: he dosen’t have much of an arc, does some very questionable shit in the second half, and his being around means we have to suffer through Julie. I’ll tear into him more on a case by case basis but for once Scott’s not overreacting. While Kim does nothing she also has no idea just HOW bad things were and Scott won’t tell her. Stephen was there the whole fucking time. He just saw Scott’s rebound with a teenager. He knows he was kind of messed up after this. Dosen’t justfiy knives but still he looses the moral high ground he tries to have at times. 

So while Scott shops a song for Ramona to her, Knives calls Scott’s place clearly setting up another suprise apperance. Wallace.. figures out what sh’es doing quick and simply gives her a stern “You have to go” And to me it’s not him being a dick.. he’s both trying to save her from seeing Scott with Ramona and fucking her up worse... and is looking out for her. She needs to move on and moving up to stalking Scott’s not going to help that. Scott dosen’t WANT her anymore, and while he handled it bad, Wallace gets she needs to see that. Granted he could’ve you know explained it to her and tried talking, but as i’ve said he’s not a perfect person and he was also on a time table to get her out of there in case Scott you know, showed up with his new girlfriend and made things a billion times worse. And the two are indeed headed to his place to watch one of Lucas’ movies, and part of that weak setup is that Ramona.. just has no connection with him. It was high school. Scott also pretends he dosent’ remember his. You are a lying liar sir stop that.  So they watch the film together hanging out, and it’s.. really bad. The good one was rented out. I miss rental stores.. a magical time. I mean i’ts better now, streaming means 80% of movies are avaliable if you have a bunch of services and even if you just have netflix or hulu or hbo max, you still get a pretty decent selection each month. Plus digital rentals are super easy. Do miss redbox though. I mean it’s still there I’m just warry of something that relies so heavily on touching things in a state with a lot of trump morons. You CAN get Covid twice and I don’t wanna. Also we get some dated Dialouge as Scott commenting on Lucas being hot, he is good taste Scott, is given a “good job convincing me your not gay”. He and ramona end up having sex though so .. yay? I dunno. The series has a really weird thing about not getting bisexuals exist and as someone whose bi, and really against bi errasure it bothers me, it bothers me a lot. Though given O’Malley apparently has not only far more queer rep in snotgirl but a bisexual lead, he’s clearly learned so i’m not going to drag him too hard on this. It was the early 2000′s. People were pretty damn stupid about this. Creators have gottten MUCH more important issues much worse. 

So the next morning, Scott gets a call from his well meaning but ditzy mom, and reacts like you’d expect. His parents are in Europe to keep them out of the action and what not. Though apparently according to the last book his mom did read volume 3 at least. Or Wallace told her about the relevant bit. You make the call. 

So i’ts Ramona’s turn to meet Sex Bomb-Omb. The group hang out and discuss Gordon Downie. 

Look I don’t know indie bands. I have no idea who the tragically hip are I just know the name is really hipstery. We also get the recipe for Vegan Shepards Pie. None of them are vegan they just wanted to try it and I.. really want to make this some time. Just to see if it’s any good. But yeah it’s in general a fun casual scene, as Kim reveals she and Scott dated, just to break the tension, and Scott tries out Rammy but quickly backpedals. Just fun slice of life stuff. Oh and Knives is watching them from the window and takes Scott dating someone else as well as you’d expect. 

So she gets some hair bleach to do some highlights and calls her friend Tamara over. We met her last volume as she dragged her along to the show, but it’s here we really get to know what she’s like.. i.e. the sane one in the duo, rightfully pointing out Scott’s not that great. Also Knive’s points out ramona’s “fat”, which is thankfully portrayed as petty sniping as while Ramona does have some curves it’s you know.. not remotely a bad thing and the kind of thing a teenage girl would harp on. Still she’s just in STEPS from this happening. 

But yeah.. it’s clear here Knives has some underlying issues to address and really needs therapy  not to go after her ex’s current girlfriend with knives. I mean it’s in the name but still. Then again volume 4 has her dad going around with a katana or something like it wanting to murder her daughter’s older ex boyfriend he dosen’t realize is ex so it’s clear her whole FAMILY needs some therapy. But this does round her out and show there’s more to her.. a pretty violent and obessive side sure, but it shows she wasn’t just some one dimensional ego boost for scott but a person. One whose just as flawed as the rest of the cast.. but more sympatheic because they’ve all got about 6 or 7 years on her and at this age that’s a lifetime. And while Scott DID set this off by dating her which was objecitvely a bad idea... the rest of this isn’t remotely on him. He handled things BAD.... but all he wanted was for both of them to move on. Knives.. simply can’t admit Scott is not a nice person, was probably two timing her as Tamara points out, which as we know he 100% was, and is not some perfect guy she can’t replace: like Knives.. he’s just a person with faults and she’s too blind to see that. 

So before we can get to the crazy stalker ninja fight, let’s instead get to Scott and Ramona hanging out where we meet Gideon, Ramona’s Cat who i’ll call Cat Gideon, both because I love steven unvierse and because it’s less confusing. This is a pretty slight scene as Ramona admits not a lot happened with Lucas and Scott’s apartment is a hole.. which yeah, yeah it is. Also she DEFINTLY dind’t cheat on him with any cocky pretty boys. Which would come off worse if it wasn’t for the pact Ramona was clearly doing it out of regret and Scott just liked like 50 pages ago about rembering his exes when one of them is his second best friend.. which neither would admit but you know it’s true. Stephen is third where he belongs. 

So next morning it’s fight time, and Scott is glad wallace is going with him. It’s awkard going to fights alone. Which leaves me to wonder if before this comic Scott just.. fought random guys letterkenny style. Like they’d call up, schedule it and then he and one or more of his friends would go beat up a guy. It’s just.. hilarious knowing that this kind of thing is common in canda minus the ki attacks , flash effects, wizards, vegan psycics, ninjas, and roboticists. But damn I now want a scott pilgrimized letterkenny now more than ever. You know you do too don’t deny it. I”d love to see the hard right jay fight but iwth a loud “KO!” when he gets his ass knocked out. Also Casa Loma is a very real, very cool Toronto location, as I never realized as a kid, to the point that the lucas fight was filmed there for the movie. 

So Scott approaches Lucas a bit star struck and upon finding out scott is.. punches him out as seen in the header image and throws him into a tower. When Scott regains conciousness, Kim and Neil have arrived and Lucas calls a time out. And it’s here we get to, while being the weakest of the 7, why I like Lucas.. he’s actually a pretty nice guy. At WORST he sold out. But the two have a pretty nice conversation over ritz and baby carrots, with it turning out, unsuprisingly Ramona did cheat on him with a cocky pretty boy, and while like Ramona he’s clearly moved on, it still hurts a bit and understandably so. He also warns scott while she might seem nice i’ts an act. 

I mean it isn’t ALL an act, but she does have a tedency to put up walls and act pretty badly as we’re slowly finding out.. though given Scott does the exact same it only means.. she’s human. She’s not MUCH higher above him in terms of morality and this is where we get our first peaks into the fact the series isn’t just about Scott’s development but hers. But it’s understandably absent from volumes 1 and 2 since we need to know her first, and this volume is about getting to know her a bit and get a feel for who she is, something I ddin’t really get a grip on as a teen, but do now. We see more of who she is good and bad as the walls go down. She’s more SURFACE LEVEL functional than scott, but beneath it has a lot of the same exact issues.  Lucas and Scott continue to GENUINELY bond, as Scott genuinely thinks the guy is talented and Lucas want’s an Oscar this year.. maybe not for the current film which is a romantic comedy with a teen star but hey, stars have done far worse in their Oscar years. I mean at least he’s not making a comedy about himself in a fat suit domestically abusing himself in a wig while he also plays an asian sterotype. He explains he almost didn’t get into the league but felt too important to ramona’s past.. plus he looks cool. Plus they let Patel in despite barely being in a relationship with her and being kind of a tool so they kinda had to let the handsome affiable movie star in. Scott wonders “wait league” and Lucas is understandably frustrated to find out Patel just sent a letter Scott didn’t read.. and at Matthew let’s be clear. I mean.. Gideon has to have known Scott wouldn’t read that since he’s been in his head. We’ll get to that in part 6. Point is they formed a league, hence why their organized enough to come after him like this and Scott understandably glares at Wallace for you know, having him play tony hawk and watch movies yet missing the fucking obvious clue they were all working together and they were only coming at him one at a time by choice. 

Lucas offers to just.. take a bribe and SAY Scott beat him, Scott calls him a sellout jokingly and Lucas proves that while not AS bad as the rest of the League, he’s still a dick by telling him to kiss ramona’s sweet ass goodbye pilgrim. Okay either he’s seen her since high school or he’s fondly remembering a high schooler’s ass. Neither one is nice to think about. But Scott gets out of his ass beating by pointing out a ramp, real thing too used for the movie, and asking him to skate down it. Lucas says i’ts impossible, and Scott just whistles. So Lucas tries skating the impossible and dies via velocity. Yes really. Scott collects his change and gets a gift, a mytryil skateboard he.. can’t use because he dosen’t have a proficency for it and bemoans not picking it up in 5th grade. Also he didn’t get his autograph. He does get some coins though so neat.   Yeah I mentioend Lucas was the least of the exes and I stand by it: He’s an intresting character, not a GREAT person but clearly a charming and nice enough guy who likely offered the bribe not because he’sd a sell out but because he genuinely liked scott, and is easily the best adjusted of the exes. But obviously a near non existant setup and a really hilarious and unsastifying finish just.. don’t really feel sastsifying. I mean i’t slampshaded, but after all the build up of her having 7 evil exes, the next one is just..filler. Not BAD, but not really anything special and giving Scott a an early pokemon victory, but unlike ash having done nothing to really DESERVE it.  Thankfully both adaptations so far VASTLY improved on this. While Lucas is still affiable in the movie he’s also smarmy, if on better terms with Ramona, saying “he seems nice” after the tower throw and throwing in some stunt doubles. His fight goes from one of the least satisfying and weakst of the series, to easily one of the best of the movie. We’ll talk about that more there but obvious Chris Evans version is far superior, keeping the good traits while giving us an intresting fight.. and still keeping the skateboard death because it’s fucking hilarious and the movie improves on THAT too by having scott give flat wows as he slowly dies. The game likewise keeps teh skateboard death, if shortening it, and the skateboard, and while not changing his apperance does make him a hell of a tough boss. Took three tries and some online grinding to take him out. Still a hell of a fight. Point is while I genuinely like Lucas story wise.. this just dosen’t work for me and is pretty damn weak, even if it gives us some godo character insight we could’ve got that, and a fight and still had the finish we did. 

That being said.. we DO get a fight instead, likely why the Lucas fight was so truncated. Next chapter and that evening or the next day or whatever, we pan over the real life tornto refrence library. It is a VERY nice touch thatt the comic and it’s adpations use either real places in toronto or reasonable subsittues. While not canadian myself I love the place and hope to visit Tornoto some day when the world isn’t a living nightmare and it’s really nice that like New York for Marvel, Brian Lee O malley really makes the city feel integral to the comic, like it’s own character. But Knives is ominously perched above.  At second cup Scott is horrified to find Julie. Seconded. Julie takes the moment to give out to scott about him dating Ramona despite telling him no. Okay... 

Yeah as you can probably guess I don’t like Julie. She’s not a good character. The movie did her better, with the bleeping gag and aubrey plaza’s performance, but in the comic.. she’s just the worst. She sucks bad. If she were an ice cream flavor she’d be pralines and dick. While she’s fine on OCCASION, and actually works in the next volume, outside of that she just gets more unplesant, more unlikeable, more bitchy, more unfathomabbly assholish every. damn. volume. I”ll give out about that a bit then too but I have to put up with her for the entire damn comic. Now her being bitchy to Scott is fair to a point: Scott is a mess, and she’s loyal to Envy in the breakup, and Scott’s own friends drag him on a daily basis.  The problems are that she’s like that to EVERYONE, even Knives who isn’t about to stab her much as i’d like that. She’s unberable to Stephen whose tolerance for her is unfathomable, though the ending bits of volume 6 show maybe he just has terrble taste. She’s just a throughly unplesant, social climbing bitch who thinks she’s better than everyone. And it sticks out badly against the main cast; Scott is very bad with women and relating to people, but is also nice, charming and most of the damage he does is not intetional. Ramona puts up walls to keep others out but is also a responsible adult and often cuts through Scott, and at times others, internal bullshit. Wallace is an alcholic, but still a very responsible, very loveable guy who clearly cares about scott and supports him finacially and emotionally. Kim is VERY emotionally distant, very misntrhopic.. but also a good person who as we see as the series goes, has an inner light to her and often drags on Scott because she’s been putting up with his shit the longest and WANTS him to be better. Knives is an obessive and violent stalker.. who was also deeply hurt by an older man, dosen’t GET that her realtionship with scott was wrong and uneven, and is clearly not emtoinallyr eady for the deep feelings she’s having. And Stephen.. well he’s a talented guitarist but also enables scott and julie. Especially him enabling Julie. 

Point is their all pretty well rounded, llikeable characters with flaws. Julie.. is just an ass. And this scene demonstrates that with flying colors. While Scott does ignore her because he’s too worried about his sister and girlfriend becoming friends, understandably given Stacey knows all his dark secrets, Julie spends two pages giving out and treating scott like some bad guy for persuing Ramona against her orders. And i’m going to break down why.. this dosen’t work.. on any level for her.  1) Ramona is not Julie’s property. She’s a big girl with her own free will. They aren’t even remotely close: Julie met her only barely before Scott, and given the dream thing probably not even that. And you could say Julie is just looking out for her... she dosen’t know Ramona well enough to KNOW if Ramona is still smarting over Gideon. She probably was.. but she readily, once the awkwardness passed, went out with scott and dove right into the relationship. While there’s still some scars as we’ll see.. she CHOOSE to move on and that’s her choice. If she wasn’t ready, she woudl’ve turned him down or broke it off by now realizing it was a mistake.  2) Scott has no reason to listen to her. She hates his ass, somewhat justifably but still, she hates him and has been against him since fucking colllege. She took his exes side in the breakup despite Envy still being partly in the wrong but paints him as some abusive dickhead and not just an insesntive dickhead. To him he’s just some villian she needs to reign in for her cool friend who wants nothing to do with her and grows to justifably hate her over time. Scott and Julie TOLERATE each other. They are not friend,s they do not like each other and never will. They are around each other because of Stephen. That is it. If Kim , Wallace or Stephen had asked, or at least made him wait for kinves. he probablyw ould’ve or at least considered it since while they take the piss out of him, they genuinely care about him and actually have shown they care about something other than themselves! Speaking of which the cou de gras 3) She’s a selifsh bitch: She is NEVER not  in any volume seen as out for anyone but herself, and thus scott has no reason to trust her judgement. She berates Stephen, him and anyone who will listen, is only so loyal to envy because she’s famous, and as I said treats EVERYONE like dogshit.  And given Scott is still a very flawed guy.. it takes a LOT for him to be so right and he runs out screaming when Julie mentions her.

So back at the library, Ramona brought Stacey along because the place is a maze. Scott calls Stephen and calls julie evil.. which given the last two paragrahs. Yeah. She is. She really is. But that goes nowhere as he dosen’t have Stacey’s number. He also thinks Julie was responsible for this which while she’s very much not.. would it REALLY be that suprising that if Julie were there she would’ve introdcued the two and set up their little hangout just to piss scott off? God I’m  so sick of talking about her. 

So the two after dropping off Ramona’s package decide to hang out a bit.. not long as Ramona’s got shit to do, but hey I agree with her logic i’m curious about this palce too. But before they can go up an elevator Ramona spots incoming.. and thus we get the fight of the volume. Though given the next one has two climatctic fights and one or two before that, they easily could’ve had both.. this is still the highlight of the volume.  So Ramona snaps off a railing and before Stacey can give out about that she finds out WHY as Knives attacks with a pair of sais. And O’Malley did his homework as while you’d THINK it was just another dumb white person mistake.. O’Malley is asian, thoughw ether he’s candaian korean or canadian chineses, as his last name is korean but he has a large chinese cast in this very comic that might come from experince, I do not know and if you do know tell me. I’d like to refer to him properly as I don’t LIKE lumping all asian cultures into one basket. But not only that he did his home work, as Sai’s, while popularized in Okinawa Japan, were also used in other countries. I bring this up since I assumed it was just a simple mistake even knowing Brian was mixed-race, and was plesantly suprised to fine that know, I was the moron. And i’m fine with admitting that. 

So we get a damn good fight.. and Knives figures out Scott WAS cheating on her. Granted she assumes so due to seeing Ramona at the refrence Library, before he actually cheated and clearly blames Ramona for it, but still, it fucking hurts. Plus while her attacking Ramona, who initally assumes she’s gideon’s doing, which.. yeah sending a teenage assasian just to mess with her head does sound like him. So while Stacey does complain “ramona you can’t just tear out art objects” to which I say... yeah high, Stacey? NOT THE POINT RIGHT NOW SCOTT’S EX IS TRYING TO KILL HER. SHE’S DEFENDING HERSELF.  So we get one hell of a fight. It not only shows off that Ramona is one hell of a fighter herself, as is knives, but just how immature knives is, resorting to constnat fat jokes and taunts showing just how immature she is.. and unlike volume one where it was endearing and we just saw how sweet she was here it just comes off as mean, bitter, and uncomfortable. But again part of the series biggest charm is the main cast are all well fleshed out and throughly human. She’s doint this because she dosen’t know better and was raised in a house where, again as volume 4 will bear out, finding out her dad is going after scott with a samurai sword just warrants a “dad’s are so weird aren’t they” my point is her frame of refrence is a mite skewed. Plus this is a world where everyone but Stacey just calmly accepts big shonen fights break out, so it’s not that unsuaul to want to settle things with a fight and while i’ve joked about her killing Ramona we genuinely don’t know that was the goal> Could’ve been, easily given murder is peachy in this setting and just leads to a respawn according to O’Malley and would’ve just sent ramona back to her apartment. But I genuinely don’t think she has it in her to do it and while she could’ve planend to, she never would’ve. Plus Ramona easily leads the fight as while Knives uses hit and run tactics and tries make her follow.. Ramona is more annoyed than anything as she has shit to do. Knives only gets one hit in and while i’ts a pretty nasty scratch on the cheek, if thankfully not scarring.. Ramona shrugs it off when she brags about it and easily takes knives down with a potted tree. Knives runs and while she tells herself it’s to fight another day.. its really because her opponent was WAY stronger and way more ready for something like this than she probably planned on. She did defintely want a fight, she just wasn’t prepared to be outmatched so handily. It’s also a nice  parallel to last book’s fight: Like with Scott and Matthew,  while the fight SEEMS pretty even, in reality our hero/heroine was alwasy teh one in control and easily took care of the less experinced and less ready upstart, who likely wasn’t expecting a fair fight much less to loose. 

So Ramona and Stacey wisely get out while Stacey explains Knives is indeed Scott’s ex, though is unaware of the cheating thing. Speaking of Scott he’s playing sonic and knuckles, and in fact kept wallace on the line before just to get advice because of course he did hence why stacey didn’t get through to him, but gets a call... from Envy. 

This is easily the second best sequence in the boook, which was lovingly and wonderfully adapted to film and as a result I cannot read it without hearing Brie Larson’s voice for Envy , a nice mixture of seduction and condescension. It’s CLEARLY painful fo rhim, and we do get some things established as Envy toys with him, that it’s been about a year and that she left him for a cocky pretty boy, familiar.. and while Scott claims to not know what he looks like.. given Todd is clearly on her band cover... it’s not exactly hard to put two and two together. So after some awkard catchup and Scott telling her about ramona against his will, we get to the reason she’s here with Scott understanndbly being supscious and calling her a user.. which while Envy denys.. she ends up admitting to. She’s coming to town as estalbished and her opening act backed out, and since Scott has a band, and one that 2/3 of which she knows, she wants them to open for her.  Scott naturally isn’t too intrested and thinks it’s just pity. The sequence. is masterful, using a watchmen style 9 by 9 panel layout and intercutting scott’s pained reactions and clear lack of comfort with flashes of envy on her side.. never showing her proper, but showing his memories or what he’s seen in magazines. It’s really striking and really sells the sheer discomfort Scott’s going through.  So soon after Wallace gets home.. and finds Scott, drained and miserable on the floor, not even responsive. And this really is the scene that shows me that Wallace cares for the guy and cements that asshole he may be, he loves his buddy. He goes through possible scenarios that fit scott: Food poisoning, finding out Wallace saved over his final fantasy save (though he rules it out as last time that happened he was crying), that ramona dumped him.. before Scott let’s out a pathetic and miserable “Ennnnnvvv”. Wallace , who was at ground zero for that relationship as we’ll find out, realizes this and lets out a little shit, unsure how to help and pissed off at that bitch for once again hurting him like this. As I said it shows how Wallace knows scott in and out and loves him dearly.. and how he knwos about this paticuarly heartbreak better than anyone but Scott and Envy themselves. IT’s just a really tearjerking scene, as we get a sense of WHY scott spiraled into an ego boost of a relationship: His last one REALLY tore him in half, and he’s still not completely healed from the emtional bisection. 

So Scott gets more bad news next chapter as Stacey tells him about the fight and he’s worried he’s going to loose ramona on top of this. I mean he desrves it.. .but it’s clear she’s the best thing to happen to him after a really rough year of denial and poor decisionss and loosing her will likely only make him WORSE. He also breaks the bad news, to him at least to the band about the gig. Stephen, being kind of a dick who while understandbly excited about a big gig fails to see his friend REALLY isn’t happy about this nor remembers you know, that the person offering this tore his heart out indiana jones style and while they should take the gig despite the risks, it’s too big an opportunity not to, he should be fucking senstive about this. Kim however... has a suprising and heartbreaking reactoin to this. Which is spread over a few panels but i’m gonna string into one image for convince sake. 

Just.. DAMN. I honeslty missed this both as a teenager and as an adult when I read through the books last time but holy shit is this a heartbreaking little moment, even more with the development she gets in later books. Keep in mind, over two books so far, Kim.. really hasn’t shown a lot of emtion. The most upset she’s gotten was getting a bit pissed about another a girl drummer. The only other time we’ve seen her sad was at 17 when Scott left. Her only emotions that we could see were angry and surly. But here? She’s genuinely upset and we see her walls break down for the very first time.. and it’s with the clear indication she NEVER really got over Scott. She never got proper closure and while she hasn’t let it so.. it’s been VERY clear she's been grossly uncomfortable with how he just likes to brush off their history, something that very clearly still bothers her and understandably so: 6 years , while a lot of time, still really isn’t long enough to just .. FORGET your first boyfriend , how he made you feel or the fact he took your virginity and you took his. Stuff like that sticks with you.. I’m ony assuming on the virginity thing but my point remains: To Scott it’s SEEMINGLY nothing, when really he’s probably just trying to brush it off because he dosen’t like dealing with things and given how Kim is wrongly assumed she can’t feel pain. I mean to anyone else i’d be a fair assumption and even i’m not convinced if she touched a hot stove she’d burn, but that’s phsysical this is emotional. DIffrent playing fields. Point is Scott’s kind of a dick and not having ANY closure for anything, Kim is still smarting from him leaving as much as Scott is smarting from Envy dumping him.  And it somehow gets MORE painful.... which should’ve been the tagline for Bojack Horseman now I think about it but yeah: her line is what cuts me up the most “I saw her on the cover of Now. She’s pretty”. It’s a little line, it’s easy to see why I missed it .. but the subtext really stings. It’s that despite being VERY pretty, I had a crush on her as a kid and I still do now.. Kim just can’t help but compare herself to someone whose now a glamrous rock star.  Their equally attractive but all Kim can see is ANOTHER person who Scott cared about more than her. Which seems petty but again he just.. abnadoned her. His moving wasn’t his choice but his not telling her as was framed earlier sure as hell was. And then just.. look at the next people he dates: A glamorous rock star (She wasn’t at the time but that’s for next week), a much younger girl who can’t possible challenge him, and an ultra cool american. To her.. it must feel like he just looks right through her to every other person intersted in him and never even consdered her as a person anymore. I mean.. jesus christ that hurts.. and makes me hate Stephen more since you know he dosen’t notice any of this.. though at least unlike with Scott it’s a bit more understandable because Kim’s so unflappable and he’s already ignoring very obvious and transparent emotional pain why shouldn’t this be any diffrent.  So yeah no one’s happy about this, and that ends up including Stephen as he’s so insecure about his band’s talent he’s pretty sure they suck when their probably at least adaquate. 

So while Scott dosen’t say anything, it’s clear he’s at least consdiering the offer as when we next see him he and ramona are heading to Envy’s show. And honestly it’s just a really sweet scene as Ramona asks about envy and the two banter and hold hands. A really nice palletee clensar since hte last few pages were like I was the one lucas socked in the gut. Also she assures him she dosen’t hate him, and asks about how the breakup happened, turning down any offers to hear the good times.  It was new years eve one year ago, and he mentions it was over her leaving to meet some guy named Todd.. and Ramona finds the story familiar but brushes off Scott wondering if her todd and Envy’s todd wer ethe same guy as a douchey joke. When prying about what happened otherwise, Scott admits it was all a blur.. Ramona isn’t ahppy with the answer.. but it’s nto like it’s that unresonable: he was in deep with Envy, and the breakup was damn bad to the point it took a year for him to recover and end up in the relationship he is now and the one before this was clearly a cry for help. It also helps reinfroce just how much Wallace was there for him and probably WHY Wallace hates Envy so much. They probably live together simply because Scott needed a place after college, was in zero condition to get a job or do anything given his zombie like state.. and Wallace just had him move into his bed, platonically and into his place. It’s probably why while Wallace will complain ocasoinally he isn’t that on scott to find a job. He dosen’t need a paying roomate, they do fine just on his sallary and he has a steady, secure job in some sort of calling office, probably working in medical stuff like my mom. He needs his friend to be safe and happy, then he can get on his ass about being functional, as he is in present day. If nothing else this volume made me realize just how good a person Wallace is.  The one thing he CAN remember, to Ramona’s disbelif is a restraunt opening up, the job story he hinted at last volume: basically it was a fancy tex mex place called, and this is one of the best restraunt naems in the history of fiction brace yourself: The Gilded Palace of Flying Burritos. Naturally, as would I as I love tex mex and that name, Scott loved the place, ate there most of the week and like me with some places I liked waited impatietly to get a job. He did and they were even super generous as the food was FREE.  Which is a euphoric feeling I relate to, though I also liked any discounts I got. seriously when I worked at Bagel and Bagel a good chunk of my paycheck was eating there for dirt cheap every shift. I miss that place so much. Like even after I left there I still like a good bagel sandwitch. And it wasn’t covid or anything it was just low staffed and slowly coming apart due to a lack of a solid manager after Crystal, the manager who hired me, transfered to a store closer to her home, which I do not blame her for. 

Point is I get it even if Ramona thinks this is all made up. Anyways at Lee’s Place, based on the real life Leo’s place, everyone’s gussied up: Steven got an awful haircut and Kim... 

But no time to dwell on how great kim’s..everything is.. who DID  Neil bring to the concert? 

While Kim is VERY much enjoying this, everyone else is a bit freaked with Ramona getting assurance her and Scott dated breifly, with Kim quipping her and neil will probably date even breiflyer, and Stephen.. freaking out, wondering if she seduced him, and asking if they should take him out back and kick his ass.. 

Just..... that’s a lot of douche to unpack and this review has been VERY long and suprisingly hard already.. but fuck it, we don’t have much left to go let’s do this. Okay one did she seduce him.. I mean I GUESS, but really let’s be clear here: Neil is a horny, lonely, monosolobic 19 year old who lives with his sister’s college friend and whose life revovles around said guys band. Knives is adorable. She likely barely had to flirt with him to get him to say yes .As someone who was a lonely 19 year old doofus, I guarantee no matter the red flags I probably woudl’ve said yes provided she was 18 instead of 17, despite the abudant red flags such as neil vaugely looking like scott, neil being the one single man within scott’s circle to get her way back in, as Knives hasn’t realized she’s bi yet or given how much she looked up to Kim, she probably WOULD’VE gone for it. As would any sane person, which neither knives nor I entirley are. So she didnt’ so much seduce him as offer him a girlfriend he didn’t have and him being too intrested in having a sweet, caring girl on his arm to see the giant army of adrestian soldiers needed to carry all the red flags this presents. 

And as for “do we need to kick his ass. “ Stephen.. did you kick SCOTT’S ass? No, you fucking abetted him and only stepped in for the good girl thing. You did NOTHING to stop his relationship with knives or tell him he was screwing up or look out for that girl’s well being. This will bite him in the ass even harder in volume 5, but even now it just makes him look REALLY fucking bad that, even if he probably dosen’t mean it, that’s at all on the table. Also.. Neil, unlike scott is doing slightly less wrong. While he is 20 to her 17, three years.. it’s HALF of what Scott and her’s age diffrence is, and far more equal in power structure. It’s still not.. GREAT, but my point is you did NOTHING when Scott did this, for far flimiser and less forgiavble reasons.. but when NEIL, whose been nothing but weirdly loyal to you dates her, you want to kick someone’s ass. I mean yes he’s being stupid: in a clear role reversal of the Scott and Knives situation, it’s obvious just from her expression that KNVIES is the one in control here, and the one using someone to ease her own pain. Granted it’s wrong, if not as wrong as Scott should techincally know better and Knives very clearly dosen’t, as well as get into a show of her faviorite band. Is what she’s doing wrong.. yeah... while she can’t see it again it’s what Scott did just not QUITE as fucked up due to not being AS embalanced. Should neil probably be dating her after scott did ? No. But should you be threatning him and not scott for you know, setting all this in motion? No. Jesus christ you suck Steven. 

Thankfully while Scott presumibly calms Stephen down, Kim spots Hollie and her roomate Joseph, who will be suprisingly important. He’s very gay, very quite, very bearded and is only hear because the bass player is hot and when prodded on it....

Well said. Also I read that with John Heder’s voice fo rsome reason.. don’t know why, his career ended as quickly as it began because he REALLY did not pick his films well. He saw that he was going to be in a film with David Spade and Rob Schinder and didn’t fire his agent for suggesting it. Meanwhile Scott and Ramona run into Sandra and Monique, Scott’s old classmates who just sorta.. show up every so oftne, often backing up Julie because every Alpha Bitch needs a posse. As Boscha has proven once you loose your posse you loose your bitchy powers. They also ask if Scott and Ramona are an item which leads to a fantagious visual gag. 

Also Stephen awkardly talks to the new couple, about how much Knives loves the band, and because why start reading the room now just sorta.. CASUALLY slips in the fact he knows her is because she and scott dated. 

Granted Knives action this book really EARNED her that curveball.. but still, it’s transparently clear she’s both not over Scott and Neil’s a placebo, and that she loves the band... how the fuck did you get through college, much less get two loyalish friends Steve. 

Kim tries to hide when she runs into Sarah whose with.. someon O Malley does not know, literally captioning it “I don’t know htis girl”. Fucking love that gag even if SOMEHOW kim is the roomate they all hate. Despite hte fact as the side story will bare out, her roommates are all pretty obnoxious, so i’ts probably because she’s the only sane person in that group and their VERY lucky kim just dind’t set the place on fire on her way out and let god do what he should’ve a long time ago. Also we meet Lynette, the band’s drummer who smokes “She must be evil” “Still hot though”... both accurate. Also Luke wilson is there.. no really. Just holy shit that’s awesome.  Okay so with all of that out of the way, it’s time for the show. So after a full volume’s build up , and a really cool build up in the page before we finally properly meet clash at the demonhead, and miss envy adams. 

Heck of  a reveal and not the only one as ramona realized what the audience probably already guessed....

Dun dun dun! And since I don’t like leaving a cliffhanger dangling lest I have to... we’ll be getting to this next week.. what you thought i’d say right now or tommorow? This was a lot. But no i’m not leaving you too long. Next week, Evil Ex Crossover! Ramona and Wallace become BFF’s! We learn what the deal with Scott and Envy is! Scott faces the Ken to his Ryu! And Wallace gets a boyfriend. All this and more next week. for now...

Final Thoughts: This one.. was a VERY rough one to review and it ties back to this volume’s biggest problem: it is not paced very well. Like the series as a whole it has a pretty easy going, slice of life pace. The only ones without this kind of easy pacing are 3 and 6, and even 3 has some slice of life bits, their just both more focused due to the events going on. This one... well....

Pretty much. While this one has very important stuff going on, Scott and ramona getting closer, ramona getting more fleshed out, Wallace showing how deep his character is, Kim also getting fleshed out quite a bit, Knives showing off her crazy side, setting up the next volume, the second ex fight.. it’s all just kinda.. jumbled together. It’s not really until the knives fight onward the book takes on some really solid pacing and really gets going.It’s not a BAD book: ther’es some REALLY good character stuff as I dug into.. but the pacing is just really loose and without the Evil Ex fight as an anchor and with ramona and scott just sorta.. getting to know one another, in both biblical and non biblical senses, it dosen’t have either of the series main narrative thrusts. Even the knvies subplot really amoutns to nothing for now, as Ramona dosen’t find out Scott’s a cheater, and only distrusts knives now. That’s about it. It does improve on book one in characterization, with eveyrone being MUCH cleearer in terms of who they are and settling into their iconic selves nicely. Wallace’s more selfless and protective side pops up, Ramona starts to show mroe of her personality good and bad, Scott’s better traits are mixed a bit mor eeven with the douche ones,  Knive’s far more unstable and violet stalker side emerges, and Stephen.. well fuck him, point is things are coming together.. but O’Malley still isn’t quite at peak power yet. Not bad and still worth a read like last time, just a bit uneeven is all. That being said... if you want O’Malley at his peak.. well then come back next week. Until then i’ll be doing my usual buisness of reviewing birds, refrencing simpsons and letterkenny, and putting my eyes back in after kim’s look up there. For now the sun’s setting and i’m out of here. 

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim vs the world #ramona flowers #kim pine #stephen stiles #wallace wells #envy adams #lucas lee #oni press #Brian Lee O'malley #knives chau #neil nordgraf

[hms-no-fun]

What has been your favorite chapter(s) to work on so far in Godfeels?

this is a tough one! chapter 8 has been such a hectic, stressful process, and the whole series has been a struggle in various ways. my first thought is [S] saturday? everything from 8.2 on was SO tough, because i was inventing a metaphysics and cosmology out of whole cloth in real time. there were so many little details i'd planned for but hadn't initially intended to come into play yet, so getting everything to fit together up to the circus egotistica was like this gargantuan math problem that i just had to stew on for hours and days and weeks.

by contrast, i've had the vast majority of the action for [S] saturday pretty well mapped out in my head since july 2020, and a whole lot of it goes back as far as january. this entire time, i've had this big messy dramatic fight looming on the horizon as The End Of Godfeels 3 Part 1. it might even be the thing that kept me from giving up on writing godfeels when things really felt bad a year ago, because it was just so CLEAR in my imagination and i honestly just wanted to see if i could pull it off! so finally getting to it after chapter 8 ballooned so fucking exponentially with the ideaspace side of things, turning what i expected to be a couple-weeks-long commitment into a three-month full-time job, was unbelievably cathartic.

writing [S] saturday wasn't always smooth, but it was so much fun. i'd wondered for a long time how i was gonna depict it, because i knew the moment required multiple layers of interiority. i thought about having the whole thing narrated and guided in and out of different perspectives (which does happen towards the end of the chapter, For Some Reason), but then i remember that back when i wrote fiction more frequently i liked using numbers as subchapter markers! so i wound up adapting a technique that i forgot i had in my toolbox, and it worked so well i'm almost certainly gonna use it more in the future.

once that structure landed, god, it was like butter. i wrote the first i think ten or fifteen subchapters in one go. the energy of it, the fact that it was exclusively stuff happening rather than this endless parade of torturous psychodrama, i honestly surprised myself with how successfully it managed to embody the spirit of the [S] while still remaining very firmly a legible work of prose. i loved coming up with gags like risk's horns, or jake dodging the sword, they were things that just emerged as i was writing it. as i went on though, the simultaneity of events got so complicated that i just had to write each layer of the scene as a whole and then splice them together after the fact. but even with these, it was such a joy to find ways to make each moment resonant, to give everyone stuff to do. like kanaya's fight with terezi? my god. completely changed how i think about kanaya lmao

otherwise though, i’m not really sure how to even quantify which chapters i enjoyed more? 3.1 has always been so deeply mired in trauma, it’s never really been pleasant to write. generally i think like, i loved writing the party scene at the end of 2.3 (that felt like such a victory lap for me, i cried a lot writing it), i loved collaborating with zoe on 3.1 ch7 and figuring out how to incorporate the art she made. that was the first real indication i had that actively collaborating with others might be the natural future course of this story, and the most fun i’ve had in the entire project has honestly just been spitballing ideas with my friends and building out the lore of this universe with folks who don’t think i’m wasting my time.

maybe i’ll be better able to consider this once the ch8 epilogue is out and we’ve properly begun A Pause For All Seasons

#godfeels #homestuck #sarahposts

[talesofsonicasura]

Origami Dreams

Another experimental fic involving Jujustu Kaisen but with Yuji this time.

Origami, the craft of folding paper to create extraordinary creations. An art very treasured in the far East especially one specific legend. It was said if one were to fold a 1,000 paper cranes, then the gods will grant that person a single wish for their dexterous hard work. Something a lot of people gave up on from how difficult or monotonous the task was.

To one little boy named Yuji Itadori, it was a pastime he spent alongside his grandfather. For it all started when a classmate had given him a book on origami. He couldn't remember her name but he never forgot the image of fire and lightning upon the memory.

Not even the next day, his classmate had perished in a vicious car accident. To keep her last gift from becoming forgotten, little Yuji began to learn the craft of origami. First it started small like flowers or a snake, then in three months he crafted fantastic dragons, phoenixes and even an origami castle from scratch with masterful talent.

His favorite pieces of origami were simpler than all of his creations. It was a pair of sibling rulers, a king and his younger sister. They sat happily together on two thrones belonging to his origami castle, although he needed his grandfather's help to put them there properly.

Something that always brought him joy was looking at his masterpiece alongside his grandfather. You can only imagine the look of 7 year old Yuji on a day that could be described as a nightmare. A small boy with chocolate brown eyes, salmon hair sitting over almost black thin locks, and barely 3 ft tall watch his grandfather get carted into an ambulance.

The man had suffered a severe stroke which had put his only guardian into a deep coma. A tragedy that left a child returning to an empty house all alone. For a few days, Yuji barely ate anything and avoided his room where his castle lied. One day, he had found or to be precise tripped over the origami book given to him by his fallen classmate.

The book opened onto the legend of the 1,000 paper cranes. Something that gave the boy's soul fire once more. He returned to his room and began his quest to fold the finest paper cranes he could make. Searched every room for spare paper, if he ran out then he took any he could such as pages and color sheets.

Over the span of months, the little boy crafted paper crane after paper crane. Even if he missed up multiple times or lost a few cranes, Yuji never gave up. Finally on the night before his birthday, the child was crafting the last two paper cranes. Cranes crafted from various paper circles around the near 8 year old at his desk.

Slightly pudgy hands tiredly work to fold the wings of a red paper crane with the light of his desk lamp. Above his highest shelf sat a large green checkered origami castle and between its walls were two thrones which sat two origami people. They were sibling rulers for the folded crowns that sat on their sun blond hair heads.

"I'm... almost finished." Said the little boy, drowsiness slowly taking over his senses. He shakily picked up the last piece of blue construction paper and began to fold. Yuji's eyes felt heavy as fog filled his thoughts. First was the body, then came the head, and the wings were to follow.

"Only...a few…*yawn* more folds…" His head turned slightly to the castle of origami's sitting rulers. Their smiling eyes looking back at him as he was on the last two folds. Yuji needed to make a wish before folding the last crane.

It was getting harder to stay awake but he wouldn't sleep until he finished this. The salmon haired child looked at the incomplete paper bird in his hands. Vision growing fuzzy from tiredness, Yuji made the last fold and with his last bit of consciousness made a wish.

"I wish I wasn't alone…" And the boy's mind went black followed by a soft thud. Unbeknownst to the child, his wish would come true as the clock struck twelve. It wouldn't be how he expected though.

Something dull and pointy began to poke the boy's pudgy cheek. Crumbled words reaching the child's ears as his brain slowly came to life. "Hey brother! Our not paper creator is waking up! His rosy cheeks feel like pillows!" A childish young girl's bursting with excitement spoke as Yuji tiredly realized he wasn't alone.

Sleepy brown eyes slowly open to two very familiar pieces of origami overlooking him. Two people with one female and the other male. The female had blond hair with two large curls folded at the back, a folded dress robe made from yellow construction paper, peach paper forming the head with two small black strips to make little eyes, two point folded paper crown that adorn her head, white point fold arms and dark brown point fold legs.

Her male companion had pale blonde hair folded into a large curl that cover the left side of his face, a royal robe made from dark violet construction paper, a gold three pointed paper crown sat on his head with narrow black pieces paper to form eyes that were in a deadpan expression at the moment, purple point fold arms and white point fold legs.

Yuji knew who these surprisingly 1 ft and half tall origami were, they were the two siblings of his Origami Castle: Olly and his little sister Olivia. His two prized creations were floating before, completely alive almost if by magic. The 1,000 Paper Cranes magic. In seconds, the sleepiness faded away as the salmon hair boy sat up in relative shock.

"No doubt the young child is having an existential moment. He may have crafted the 1,000 paper cranes but he wasn't aware of the power that origami can possess. Particularly to those dedicated to the art." Spoke Olly who floated around the room to observe the child's work.

Olivia merely sat herself on the boy's desk to look at the various cranes that sat there. "Creator, take a few deep breaths. It should help calm you down a bit." Without even questioning her instructions, the little boy took a few deep breaths. His nerves and shell shock dissipating in little time.

"You're saying that all my hardwork brought you both to life? Does it mean that something happened to Grandpa too?" Olly flew over to Yuji upon the spoken question. "If you are talking about 'Wasuke Itadori', the hospital had made a call a few hours ago. His pulse has returned to normal and should be waking up soon. He is in extensive care, sadly. It means he can't leave without further risk to his health."

Even though his grandfather was stuck in the hospital, knowing his only family is going to be okay made the little boy happy. The 1,000 Paper Cranes had fulfilled his wish although with two extra attachments. Olly and Olivia had been brought to life. Speaking of which…

"You guys don't have to call me Creator all the time. Just call me Yuji." Yuji smiled brightly at the origami siblings. Olivia giggled before playfully patting the child's cheek. "Sure! Olly, Olivia and Yuji! That sounds like the beginning of a fairytale." The paper princess wasn't wrong on that assumption.

After that day, the little boy now lived in the once empty house with the two living origami. Something that had a lot of obstacles to face but nothing too harsh. First was money for necessary essentials, such as food and water but learning material too.

Selling origami was actually a good source of income with the presence of the two paper siblings. Olly and Olivia had magic which they used for various things but at the moment was to keep any origami Yuji sold to be immune to both damage and age. Some of his creations went from 200 yen to even 5,000 yen per piece depending on how advanced it was.

The two siblings would have to keep out of sight since any normal person would hunt them down for bad purposes. Luckily, Olly and Olivia could fold themselves to pocket size pieces that Yuji could carry with no trouble but they couldn't come to school.

Cooking wasn't much of an issue to learn although there were quite a few accidents with cookbooks and a blender that should never be told. However it appeared that there was much more to his life than magical Origami. For two years later, Yuji learned Olly and Olivia weren't the only ones who changed. He did too.

A 10 year old Yuji Itadori had found himself in a very bad situation. Sometimes selling origami creations would be difficult at some point during each year. This often led the young boy scavenging through abandoned places to look for anything valuable to sell.

He had found an old empty shack that wasn't too far from his house. It had enough scrap metal and loose change that could make up around 9,000 yen in cash alone. Problem was that there was... something living in the shack. And it wasn't friendly.

Yuji was running for his life with Olivia and Olly in his pockets. Behind the child was a blobfish-like abomination with multiple bulging yellow eyes across a gross green body, 15 deformed hands bent in unnatural ways that serve as legs and a large mouth filled with monstrous teeth along a long slimy tongue.

"What is that thing?! It looks so gross!" Olivia screamed within his shirt pocket. The monster had taken them by surprise when they were searching for more scraps. Too fast to prepare anything except to run. "I think it might be a Curse. Something about this world felt off so I did a personal investigation." Chimed Olly from Yuji's jacket pocket.

Both kept their little tirade about breaking the house rule quiet to hear what vital information that could save their life. "Curses are creatures invisible and invulnerable to those without Cursed Energy. I did come across an interesting fact, our Origami Magic can be used to successfully fight them!" Eyes widened upon Olly's explanation.

Too bad Yuji's foot got caught on a tree root which sent the child to the ground hard. "Yuji!" Olivia shot out of his pocket quickly unfolding herself to full size so she could help the boy up. None of them could prepare when the hideous Curse leapt at the two. Life flashing before his eyes, a single thought went through the salmon haired boy's head.

I want to live!

In seconds, the sound of rippling paper and a distorted gasp tore the silence to pieces. Opening eyes he didn't realize that he even closed, Yuji was greeted by an incredible sight. The vicious curse had been snared in large peach ropes of folded Origami that led to a dark blue fold. The very paper itself was the child's own arms, flesh and cloth turned into powerful origami of 1,000 folds.

Without hesitation, Yuji held the monster tighter in his grips as he raised his long origami arms into the air. "Leave us alone!!!" And the child slammed the monster brutally into the ground. It splatted but not into blood or gore. No, the creature exploded into paper confetti of its original green color.

Olly slipped out of Yuji's pocket to stare at the scene in utter shock before turning to his sister. A glowing orange symbol of a hand was on the right side of her chest which vanished upon Yuji's hands turning back to normal. "That was the 1,000-Fold Arms Technique you just did! And the...Curse turned into confetti." Olivia gawked in absolute shock.

It made no sense. Only paper or origami could use the technique and only origami would become confetti upon defeat. Not the hands of a child or a defeated monster. There was only one explanation. "Our magical presence has affected Yuji. He can use origami magic." That very sentence from male origami ruler was enough to picture how things had drastically changed.

After that day, the boy and his two paper companions learned to understand the powers little Yuji now had. It was a hard task for experimentations were needed thus led to occasional battles against Curses. Over the span of 5 years, the child had grown into a young man skilled in the art of origami magic.

There were still some spells he couldn't do without assistance from either Olly or Olivia but Yuji could defend himself against moderate strength Curses now. Although, nothing could compare for the third thing to come into his life. The Cursed Finger of Ryomen Sukuna.

It had occurred two weeks before afternoon clubs would begin at his local high school. The once small child now was a teenager standing around 5'8 in height and most of his baby fat was replaced with lean powerful bulk. Even though Olly and Olivia couldn't really grow like he could, the two happily took advantage of his new height to hang onto his shoulders instead.

Wearing a long coat or cloak on his back along with this 'koala cuddle' meant they didn't have to hide in his pockets if the weather was nice. Anyway, he had a huge cram session to deal with since there would be a big test in a few days. This meant that sometimes he couldn't cook and had instant ramen substitute for dinner.

What he didn't know was in the extra large cup of beef and pork ramen, something had accidentally got inside the package. Olly was sitting across the table looking through the stack of books Yuji had brought home. The origami prince had taken up reading and writing as a personal hobby so the teen often picked up books or writing material.

Olivia was sitting on the couch watching a cartoon on the TV. She usually spent her time drawing comics or acting out scenes from her favorite shows. In fact, Yuji made an account on the computer where the origami princess could post her comics whenever she wanted. Something that exploded across the internet as they end up getting emails to publish them on real paperback.

"Hey Olly, that stapler you wanted to buy should be in stores a few days from now. You want me to grab it for you?" Yuji questioned while slurping some noodles. "Table manners Yuji. And yes, I would like that. It's been so long since I've seen my beloved pet." The origami prince replied while flipping to the next page of his book.

The salmon haired young man pulled up something wrapped up in his ramen noodles. It was too tightly wound to take a better look but the teen could see it was dark meat of some type. Shrugging his shoulders, Yuji put the clump of noodles and meat in his mouth.

Olivia who was about to ask her brother something instantly paled at what was about to go down her creator's throat. It looked like a decrepit old rotten finger with a large claw, so old that it was dark purple and clearly toxic. "That's a crusty finger not beef!" And the finger went down the boy's throat before anyone could move.

Olly quickly flew over to the couch as the kitchen table exploded into splinters. The cause being their salmon hair roommate whose arm was held up in a swipe manner, an arm covered in intricate black tattoos and had large violet claws. Both watched as two slits that emerged under Yuji's eyes alongside black tattoos opened to reveal smaller red eyes.

Or the fact their friend laughed in a deeper more manic voice reminiscent of a psychopath. "Ahahahaha! It feels good to be alive again! Wonder what massacres I can unleash upon this age! The women and children crawling around like lambs to the slaughter!" The possessed Yuji then rips off his shirt apart to reveal even more intricate tattoos going down his slightly more powerful looking body.

"Our big brother got possessed by a psycho devil stripper!!" Olly could only freeze upon his sister's cry as four blood red orbs had now spotted them. Not Yuji stared at the two origami people behind the large plush furniture. Surprise and confusion crossing his four eyed face before he let out a manic chuckle.

"Hahaha! It seems this body belongs to a Jujutsu Sorcerer who knew how to craft living origami. Quite an interesting Cursed Technique… I wonder what I can learn from tearing you apart!" Both siblings were ready to fly away when Not Yuji suddenly froze. A familiar hand symbol emerged on Olivia's chest as Not Yuji's hands morphed into long appendages made of folded origami.

The Thousand Fold Arms wrapping itself around the possessed teen like a straitjacket much to their anger. "What?!" He shouted only for a mouth to pop up on his right cheek and the right eye's iris turning brown in color.

"Good to know origami magic can counter possession to an extent. Alright asshole, who are you? You already pissed me off since you tried to hurt my family and now ruined my study session!" Yuji threatened from the sudden transmutation. Not Yuji growled at the threat in irritation realizing he couldn't move or even retreat into the teen's soul.

This boy had somehow purposely locked him out from both the inside and outside. "No matter what age, you Jujutsu Sorcerers are still a pain in the ass! I am Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses! Show some respect you damn brat!" Howled the possessor as he struggled to break the teen's powerful hold over this body.

"Jujutsu Sorcerers??? What the heck is even that? And Curses have a king??? Then again, your crusty finger ended up in Yuji's ramen so maybe you're a gag?" Sukuna decided that he was going to tear the yellow origami girl apart first for the blatant disrespect. If he got out of this boy's grip. Her questions however raised one of his own.

"You telling me that not only do you fools don't know about me but also Jujutsu Sorcerers? Are you a bunch of dumbasses or completely ignorant?!" The King of Curses would've said more if a large blade didn't pop appear by his neck.

This blade or to be precise, blades, belonged to an inhumanly large pair of cutting scissors that were the size of a van. His three crimson eyes burned holes at Olly's own whose paper left arm was enveloped in a wild green circle depicting the tool ready to chop off his head. The prince's face burned red with rage.

"You're lucky I care about Yuji or I would cut your head off for disrespecting my family. We don't know about you or these Jujutsu Sorcerers and frankly don't care. Get out of our older brother's body now so he can study for his exam." Olly threatened, his tone similar to a lion ready to cut down intruders targeting its pride.

"Well too bad! I can't leave your little master's body even if I wanted too! He only ate one of my 20 fingers and even if he did eat them all, the boy's body will become mine! Unless you can fully pull my soul out then I'm stuck with you brats." Sukuna's words dripping with foul venom.

The information painted a very bad picture for the makeshift family of three. A psychotic demon was trapped in the eldest body and soul split into 20 pieces. Even if they could find all the fingers, it didn't mean the King of Curses would leave Yuji's body willingly.

"Then let's find those fingers." Yuji's second mouth grabbed everyone's attention. "You might be stuck in my body but that doesn't mean I can get you out somehow or someway. At best, I can make a origami body that you can possess temporarily so you won't be cooped up in my soul. And once we find all the fingers, I can get you out of my body with the 1,000 Paper Cranes."

A look of realization passing over Olivia's face. "That's right! The 1,000 Paper Cranes ritual can grant a free wish if you can make all the cranes faster than you did the first time! We can use that wish to get Sukuna out of your body! Nice thinking Yuji!" The King of Curses' couldn't help the shellshock.

These three were willing to collect every piece of his soul and use some wish making technique to make him whole again? None of them had any idea what they were getting themselves into by him or those who still seek to destroy the demon. If he played his cards right, then he will finally live once more.

"Alright you cocky little shits. I can help you locate my fingers since they're a part of my soul. Don't think we'll be buddy buddy because once I get out of that brat's body, I will rip you to shreds! Hear me?!" The pair of scissors by the two faced being's neck shrunk back to normal size before hitting the floor.

"We'll fight back when that time comes. For now, you better behave yourself. Come Olivia, let's see what paper we can use for Sukuna's origami vessel." With that said, Olly dragged his sister out of the room. Yuji's arms returned to normal once the magic connection was cut then ripped Sukuna's control over his body.

The tattoos vanished and one of the slits closed except for the right he forced open which took its original red hue. "Why haven't you fully blocked me out yet? You clearly have enough control to fully suppress me. Are you pitying me, dumb brat?!" Yuji merely ignored Sukuna's threat to grab a piece of paper and a pencil.

"What do you want your origami body to look like? It'll have a form similar to Olly and Olivia but you can choose the customization. Even give it four arms if you have the normal amount of fingers per hand like a human does." Yuji questioned, the mouth on his cheek going silent for a moment.

A few seconds later Sukuna spoke up once Yuji finished the body's outline. "Give it four arms and four crimson eyes. The clothing should be a kimono but I want different color sleeves." The salmon haired teen smiled as he got to work on the concept with the demon's instructions.

Maybe things wouldn't be so bad despite having to search for 20 fingers of a literal demon that had entered his life.

And that's it. Today's story was mixed with the newest Paper Mario game: The Origami King. Without spoiling the game to those who wish to play, it's a very fun game but the ending is very bittersweet.

I also wanted to experiment a bit with Yuji as a kid. How different this Yuji could turn out than his canon incarnation since there is new factors to his life.

Olly and Olivia will be serving sibling roles to Itadori but also taught him how to use Origami based magic or Cursed Technique. I'm taking the Smash Brothers' approach to bypass the requirement of Cursed Energy since in Smash Bros, rules are changed to allow each fighter to be on equal terms.

The game mechanics such as 1,000-Fold Arms, enemies, bosses and different locations will be incorporated into Yuji's moveset. This Yuji is also smarter due to Olly and Olivia's presence, perfect motivation to learn.

Spoilers?: Sukuna is going to get attached to the three.

I hope you guys enjoy the story! Until next time folks! Oh and have this Origami Ryomen Sukuna design! Chou!

Edit: Fixed a few spelling mistakes and grammar. Apparently me misspelling Jujutsu is pretty common in early works with this franchise. 😅

#crossover #jujutsu kaisen #yuji itadori #jjk yuji #paper mario #paper mario the origami king #olly paper mario #olivia paper mario #jujustu kaisen sukuna #ryomen sukuna #sukuna #au #tales of sonicasura #fanfic #sonicasura #jujutsu sorcerer #jujustu kaisen yuji