#she shows signs of being white™

[avatarmerida]

My hobby is imagining that the huntlow interactions we got in For the Future are parallels to moments we would’ve gotten of them in a full season of human realm stuff.

Like the pinky hold™ is just so specific that I feel like it was Willow’s subtle way of reassuring him when tensions got high during countless failed portal attempts or when they’d be walking around town and didn’t want to get separated when he was still getting used to physical touch. And him pressing back has an even deeper meaning and it make me feral.

But also like the iconic catch I feel could be such a cute parallel because I imagine Willow in her attempt to be the strong, dependable one is extra confident around Hunter because that’s just one way of her concealing her developing feelings for him. Like nothing bothers her, nothing gets to her especially not this silly, bubbly feeling she gets around him. Like she flirts with him, of course, but she never lets herself get flustered, ya know? She is always in total control.

Until she’s not.

So one day they’re outside hanging lights or something to plan a surprise for Camila and Willow is standing on the ladder trying to make everything even. Amity has paired them up for nearly everything (part of her attempt to show Willow her support and that she’s a supportive friend) and Willow has been having a blast making him blush at every turn. She’s complimenting his hand made decorations, his organization, just every little thing. And this loser doesn’t know what to make of it. He just know he likes impressing Willow and he’s spending the whole day trying to find a non loser way to communicate that.

But our girl is unstoppable, she’s adding vines to the string of lights, flowers here and there to make it extra stunning and Hunter’s holding the ladder below her in total awe. She’s completely aware of his eyes on her and so maaaybe she overdoes it a bit showing off and twists her ankle and falls off the ladder. Hunter quickly leaps to her rescue and catches her like it’s nothing.

But she’s not hurt. She’s not embarrassed. She’s not worried. She’s entranced.

Hunter is asking her a million questions but it’s like she can’t hear anything over how much she’s just focused on him. On the way he’s figured out how to style his hair so you could see his face better. The way his eyes looked brighter in this light. The way his nose and jaw were just so sharp and defined and demanded to be seen. It’s like all the times she didn’t let herself think too long about how cute he was were adding up now. Her brain is pure white noise and she just knows her face is bright red.

But Hunter is to concerned to follow suit as he would normally being so close and he thinks he red face is a sign that she’s hurt. And then she’s not responding? Never mind that this is definitely not the highest height Willow has fallen from nor is it one that could do much damage, Hunter is in full protector mode. So he rushes off inside to Camila and when he runs his hair blows back gently in the wind and he scrunches his face all determined and she’s like woah, okay. He tells her to hold on and she gladly tightens her hold around his neck like you don’t have to tell me twice.

She’s speechless and he’s not even trying. He’s just thinking about her and being so gentle and sweet and… handsome.

And then they get inside and he’s telling Camila what happened and Willow is not helpful because she’s in full loser mode. Camila is trying not to laugh at the contrasting expressions because she herself was once a loser and knows the signs. But then her mom/doctor mode activates and she asks Willow if she’s hurt and Willow’s response?

“Who’s Willow?”

Not a panicked inquiry like her disaster friend Amity, but dreamy and light as though she’s having an out of body experience. She’s hypnotized, she’s delirious, she’s delusional. Hunter panics, thinking she’s somehow concussed.

But Camila assures him she’s not, not explaining how she knows as she examines her ankle. Camila touches it just enough to break Willow’s trance and she lets out a small wince of pain. It’s not broken, just sprained but she shouldn’t walk on it for a few days.

Hunter says without hesitation that he’ll happily carry her should she need to go anywhere and Willow definitely does not hate the sound of that. Camila says it’s not necessary and Willow nearly tells her to shut up, but she would never talk to her that way. She says she has some crutches in the basement somewhere and Hunter makes it his mission to find them. He carries her down to the basement and places her gently on the couch as he looks through all the old things.

Willow just watches him, trying to catch her breath. She didn’t realize that by trying to moderate her feelings that they would burst to the surface with such force eventually. She thought she had a handle on them but every so often Hunter did something that was just so Hunter that she just stopped working. Usually she could excuse herself to another room to sort through them and compose herself when she was locked safety in his arms and she forgot the ground even existed. And now he was playing nurse, telling her all the thing he could help her with so she would heal as soon as possible. He wasn’t even trying to be charming, she can’t imagine how she would function if he was aware of what he was doing.

He brings out the crutches and adjusts them to her height without her even having to say anything. He tells her how they can add something to the bottom so they won’t get stuck in the mud when she gardens and how he was sure Camila wouldn’t mind Clover flying her up the stairs in the meantime and if not he could carry her upstairs no problem.

He talks so much when he worries, she thinks. His mind moves so quickly when he needs to plan something, when he’s certain about what to do. When he cares.

And yes they have the crutches and yes she has Clover and magic and infinite ways to work around her barely present injury but when Hunter insists on carrying her she turns to mush and just doesn’t have it in her to object. And he doesn’t always put her down right away and she doesn’t remind him to. Like they’ll come downstairs for breakfast and he’ll walk around the house before bringing her to the kitchen. It becomes a harmless habit. Gus joins in eventually, jumping on Hunter’s back and Willow is only more enamored. But Hunter sees it another way to help his friends and being helpful makes him focused and when he’s focused Willow’s heart beats like a beehive.

And it’s just a sprain so the need disappears quickly since Willow heals within a week. But it confirms what she had been contemplating for awhile now. She was so gone for this loser.

#huntlow #huntlow fanfiction #willow park #Hunter toh #toh #the owl house

[alan-duarte]

TIMING: A few weeks ago. Before nice™Alan. LOCATION:  A construction project, west of Wicked’s Rest PARTIES: Alan @alan-duarte & Alex @letsbenditlikebennett SUMMARY: Alan and Alex meet in one of the realtor’s construction projects. Barking ensues. CONTENT WARNINGS: Parental death (mentioned) 

Gatlin Fields were not nearly as developed as the rest of the town, and though a lot of people enjoyed this endless expanse of grass and wheat, the rural smell of manure, or driving behind cattle heading back to the barn (Alan included), Wicked’s rest needed to expend, especially with the Serpent’s flat covering now a fifth of it. 

He had bought a large lot of land up there, and the city council had agreed to the construction of over two hundred homes. The local taxes would bring a lot of money to their pockets, Alan, in the meantime, would get even more with each plot he’d sell to buyers. That was, if defenders of the toads (this still irked him to no avail), finally decided to fuck off from the bog and let the servicing of the land happen. 

Parking the Maserati on the side of the road, he had gone to the trunk to trade his italian leather brogues with rubber boots and put on his colorful Cotopaxi rain jacket, a birthday present from his sister that while it clashed with his aesthetic, was too pretty to stay in the closet. 

Walking up to the lot of protestors, who, he had no doubt, would reek of cheap marijuana and alternative bathing methods, the man ignored the booing and crossed his arms over his chest. “Who is in charge?” His stern, no bullshit tone, he hoped would deter them from being sassy. All he wanted was to get back to the car before it started to rain. Those dark clouds couldn’t be announcing anything good. 

As Alex looked over the signs she’d stayed up all night painting with a couple of classmates looked great, but the last minute effort had left her feeling especially drained as she twirled the cold brew coffee in her reusable around before she took a gulp. Some of the other students came to show her their signs and she smiled in kind. “Looks great,” she laughed, “and we have a pretty good turn out.” 

It was about time to gather everyone to pep them up and remind them why they were here, but Alex could hear footsteps approaching that were heavier approaching. The voice that followed caused her features to harden into a glare until she faced the man who sounded ready to lecture her. “That’d be me,” she responded as she crossed her arms over her chest as she looked the older man over, “Let me guess, you’re the connard in charge of building the tacky houses.” 

“Alan Duarte,” he gave the girl a smile, smoothing out his tie against his crisp white shirt before crossing his arms again. The French bit was intriguing. Québec or France? He wouldn’t have been able to tell, but still, he wondered. Either way, he wasn’t really gonna let that impress him at all. Of course, there wasn’t much that impressed him. Alan had worked hard to make sure he’d always been one step ahead, and these people… Certainly he did not have to look so jaded about them, but weren’t they the fucking cliché. What a sorry pathetic bunch of hemp cultists, the businessman thought as he turned his attention back toward her. “This is a private property. You’re all trespassing and I’m going to kindly ask you to leave,” of course, more booing would follow. He felt as though he was talking to toddlers in their no stage (he could thank his siblings for knowing what the hell a no stage was). “This entire area has been purchased by myself and my clients, and you’re delaying a lot of people’s life projects here with your self centered attitude,” he didn’t need to drag them, but it wasn’t like he cared for their feelings, or their opinion. These people would never be owners. 

Everything about the man was polished in a way that had Alex on the defensive. No matter how much she tried to put on the part of a put together young adult at school and dressed according to her bright spring color palette, she still donned almost an entirely thrift store wardrobe. She loved her pale blue button down blouse and dark wash jeans. When she looked in the mirror that morning, she knew she left no crumbs with this look, but people with money always seemed to look at the world with a whole different set of standards. “Alan,” she smiled with a false sweetness that could very easily be read for what it was, “I’m Alex Bennett. Event planner for UMWR’s Conservation Club.” 

The way he carried himself made it more than apparent he couldn’t care less about the ecological impact of misplacing this species of toads from the bog they called home. Alex had spent countless sleepless nights reading up on them in preparation for the protest. They were one of the few species of toads that could eat some of the supernatural bug species in the area. Something about the venom in their saliva and ph that went a little over her head, but she could understand the implication in the big picture of it all. “I don’t think you’ll be building anything here after the next town council meeting,” she retorted, matter of factly, “And people’s ‘life projects’ are hardly more important than protecting local wildlife that has a significant impact on the whole town.” 

Overhead, the sky lit up with a crack of bright white lightning that sent a roll of thunder in its wake. Alex crossed her arms over her chest, seemingly unfazed by the incoming storm. A little rain had never bothered her even if it did leave her smelling vaguely like a wet dog, but something told her Mr. Maserati wasn’t the type of guy who liked ruining his business attire. “You better get back to your car before it starts coming down,” she said condescendingly, “would hate for you to ruin your hair.” As if on cue, a few drops of rain starting falling from the sky and she donned a shit-eating grin that dared him to test her.

Denim and pastels. She was the shining, stunning picture of the mainstream, cradled with the illusion of a better world, where everyone's voice matters. Alan welcomed her sight, and her introduction with a sonorous yawn. “Event planner?” Was that supposed to be a job? He had some doubts about it. “You sure know how to pick a venue,” he ironized, a crooked smile appearing on his face as he glanced around. The bog was quite the stinky, unwelcoming place, but once he dried it up and built over it, it would house one of the loveliest pieces of real estate in the area, all thanks to yours truly. 

“The local wildlife is going to be relocated,” he flatly replied. As for the next town council meeting, Alan wasn’t worried about it. How many of his projects had been approved in the past? How many were rejected? The scales were tipped in his favor. It was near comical that she thought her bunch of pot smokers over there even stood a chance against him. Those frogs brought nothing to the town, other than their loud croaking disturbing the peace of the neighbors. Alan offered to move them someplace else, as a gesture of good faith, and bring in wealthy taxpayers in exchange for those freeloaders. The math was easy, it revulsed him that college level kids couldn’t manage that. 

The sound of thunder brought a frown to his face. Great, he was going to smell like a fucking wet dog, again. Pulling his hood over his head, the realtor put his hands in his pockets, shaking his head at her as she taunted him about the state of his hair. It did look like he put some effort into achieving that look. “It won’t get ruined, I use olaplex,” he explained, with a smile so wide it could have belonged to his lupine half. 

The fact this man had suggested something as simple as rehoming the wildlife, as if it was that easy, only made Alex grow more frustrated. She rolled her eyes and let out a scoff. “Right, because that’s just such a simple thing to do for a species that has very specific habitat needs,” she spat, “And the location is important, so I’d say I did a good job. If you move these toads, you’re gonna have some parasitic insect species overpopulating the area.” It’d serve the man right to end up with eurynomos or eintykara swarming the likely overpriced homes that Alan wanted to build. 

As if to add dramatic effect, a bolt of lightning lit up the cloudy sky before it was followed by a deafening crack of thunder that made her grimace. Despite the fact Alex had wanted supernatural hearing growing up, she wasn’t so fond of it at that moment. Or any moment really, since the enhanced senses had nothing to do with the ranger lineage of her family. The clouds in the sky overhead were a dark, smoky gray and she already dreaded the eventual downpour. It was one thing to smell like a wet dog at work, but she was surrounded by peers and a far too arrogant businessman. “Don’t think olaplex will save you from looking like a drowned rat, princess,” she shot back. 

On cue, the torrential downpour started and Alex knew she was the one out here probably looking like a drowned animal considering she was an animal of sorts, if monsters could be classified as animals biologically. There wasn’t really a place in biological domains and kingdoms for the supernatural though maybe that was a project she could start. The others had already been wearing the ponchos she’d stolen from the Dollar Store for everyone, but she hadn’t been quite as prepared for herself. She could already pick up on the wet canine smell, but there was something else that wasn’t entirely her. Her eyes widened when she realized the other dog-like smell was coming from Mr. Olaplex himself. “Y- you’re,” she rambled nervously, “Like me?” She pointed to her nose, hoping it was enough for him to pick up on. If he made all that money, Alan had to have some common sense, right? 

“If they can only survive in this specific bog, they might not be fit for survival, don’t you think?” It never ceased to make him roll his eyes, people fighting nature. By design, humans were conquerors, aiming for the top of the food chain. Alan knew he didn’t wait for the bite to make that come true. Sure, turning into the big bad wolf helped him a lot, but he got rid of business opponents without it, and he was certain he would have made it without his lupine friend. 

“You’re just delaying the inevitable,” he pointed out. Slipping his hands in his pockets, Alan sighed. What was she even talking about? “What parasitic insects? Mosquitoes?” Those weren’t even parasitic. 

He wouldn’t be the one living here. What would he care? If it was worse than he anticipated, he’d just find a hunter and grease their murderous hand with a stack of money. 

There was an age when he wouldn’t have budged in the face of tonitruant thunder, but those days were gone. His shoulders tensed, and the man cringed in distaste. “I’ve been in Afghanistan, I think I’ll live,” he didn’t seem so convinced about it, but hoped his words would do the job of conveying this idea : don’t fuck with me. 

He wiped the first drops of water from his cheek, but that damn smell would be there soon. It came from her before it did him. Fuck. Alan’s eyes darted from the dark menacing clouds back to her. He hadn’t met another wolf in a few years. Though he had put a few hunters in their grave in that span of time, the wolf population had dropped enough it made meeting new folks complicated. “Oh God,” had to be a fucking hippie. Shit. And he could already feel his heart shifting, disdain being replaced with the sort of affection that came with a sense of belonging. “I… Who…” He had been a lot more eloquent before. “Really?” 

The man was not budging and the willful obtuse manner in which he spoke about simply rehoming wildlife still ground her gears more than Alex cared to admit. Her purpose had been all but swept from underneath her feet the night she was bitten. She’d never be able to protect the world by fighting monsters. Even with how much time she spent in the gym, her strength would never match Andy’s or Kaden’s. But protecting the environment and the planet? That was something she could still do, though the way Alan continued to shoot down her efforts made her doubt she could even do that. 

“If you say so,” Alex relented, not really wanting to ask why he was in Afghanistan when she was pretty sure she could deduce as much. Her mind was more wrapped around the fact he was a werewolf like her and what that could mean. A wave of anxiety ran through her. Despite spending most of her life as a werewolf, it was still hard to forget everything her parents had drilled into her brain from the time she could understand words. That didn’t go away overnight, not that she was sure it went away at all. She struggled living with what she was most days and she hadn’t actually gotten to know another werewolf. 

“Really,” Alex answered as she swallowed back the lump in her throat. There was a swirl of different emotions that she couldn’t bring herself to parse, but she found herself not backing away as she normally would. Most of the others had cleared out with the last bolt of lightning, but she found she was stuck in place, unsure of what to do or say. The man was still irritating but there was a certain pull there too. One that made her more inclined to crack a joke despite the fact they’d been arguing only moments before. “Didn’t exactly pick out wet dog as my choice of perfume,” she attempted, but it fell flat, because of course now that they shared something in common, she was practically desperate for approval. 

By this point, Alex was soaked to the bone and the lightning was getting dangerously close. She knew as much, had to clear people out of the park far before this point, but she couldn’t leave. “How long,” she asked.

“Well shit,” Alan wasn’t a skilled liar. He could argue his way through most things, but lying was never his forte. He would have made quite the shitty actor, this was for certain. “Fuck,” it had been a bit since he last saw another werewolf : those he had met were either dead or out of town for good. It wasn’t a good thought, not when faced with such a juvenile face. His gaze dropped to the floor, shielding his head from the rain, and himself from her inquiring eyes. Her joke did make him crack a small, sad smile, but one only he would be aware of. 

Wiping his nose dry for just a second or two, he glanced back toward the young wolf.

“It’ll be eleven years on the 14th of July,” the thunder hit his ears once again, more forceful than before. The storm was getting closer. “Look Alex,” under other circumstances, Alan would have called her the wrong name, and he certainly wouldn’t have said that : “we need to get out of here,” the lightning lit up the dark sky again, as if to punctuate his words with one final definite period. If he was right about what he perceived from her, then she was as eager as he was to keep the conversation going, which certainly was just fucking ironic, considering how little he wanted to speak with her just moments ago. “You could come with me, tell them to go home, say that we’re gonna have a chat, you and I.” Which wasn’t to say that he was going to give up on his plans for this place, but this had bought her a whole new level of credibility. 

“Eleven years,” Alex repeated, thinking back to how long it had been for her, “13 years for me.” Her voice quieted, trying to push out images of the night and the blood that splattered their campsite. Her hand instinctively went to the place the scar on her left hip was, the one that forever marred her and brought up a concerned furrow of brows of every girl who had ever seen it. It almost seemed to have a dull ache as she pushed the memory away, but she was certain that it was her imagination. That wound, at least the physical aspect of it, had long since healed.

Alex looked over to the staggering students who had covered up under ponchos and nodded. She approached them quickly, wanting to be sure they made it somewhere safe as quickly as possible. “Everyone, get out of here. The lightning is getting close and it’s not safe. I’m gonna take to the Big Wig and keep y’all posted,” she explained. There were a few reluctant nods, but most seemed glad to get somewhere warm and dry. 

There was a pounding in her chest as she approached Alan again. In all this time, Alex had avoided getting to know another werewolf. She was taught to hate them, afterall. If she couldn’t shed that hatred when looking in the mirror, how was she supposed to approach another werewolf with understanding? But the complicated web her logic had woven was getting more tangled together. Everything her parents had taught her was challenged daily by the fact Alex herself had never killed anyone. Then she spoke to Teagan, who had kindly released her from a bind without prompting. And Alan, well aside from being a rich jackass, didn’t look like a monster and his gaze had softened to a degree that made it even more difficult to make that correlation despite the fact they now both reeked of wet dog. 

“Where to,” Alex asked, still reluctant as she looked at the overpriced vehicle. There was a whole whirlwind of questions in her mind, but Alan was older and had been a werewolf nearly as long as she had. Maybe he had a trick or two up his sleeve… and maybe there was something in his age that made her yearn for the approval her father never showed her, but that was neither here nor there. “Guessing you have some fancy pants office or something?” 

“Thirteen years?” That made her both the youngest and oldest werewolf Alan knew at the moment. She must have been terribly young when she got bitten, and the mental image of a child being attacked by the sort of enormous beast they now turned into, that image made his stomach churn. How did she survive that? 

Her court of poncho clad hippies took their leave, and Alan couldn’t help but find irony in a good shower being the downfall of these folks. Stereotypes sure had a long time ahead of them before they’d ever disappear. But, as funny as that thought was, the thunder was a dreadful reminder of his condition. Fucksake. 

At least they’d be leaving this goddamn place now. He certainly wouldn’t be mad to see it disappear underneath concrete or to never see it again. 

 “My den in the middle of woods of course,” he smiled to himself, if only to appear like someone who had his shit together. Where to… He had his office, he had his house. The latter had towels and dry clothes, because he didn’t feel like showing up and letting his employees get the idea that he smelled exactly like a wet dog. The way they’d been standing in the pouring rain, it would take days to let the stench leave his car, which was already bad enough to him. “I’m taking you to my house. I’m not going back to work with that stench on me,” and her. “It’ll be a much better place to talk,” opening the car for them both, the wolf hurriedly rid himself of his raincoat, tossing it in the trunk before going to sit behind the wheel. He didn’t move for a second, contemplating what meeting her could possibly mean. Even if they belonged to different generations, different social classes and had different beliefs, perhaps they could make it work, stay alive, together. Lightning struck in the distance. Alan remained quiet, reaching for his phone to send a message of reassurance to a friend he knew wouldn’t be having a good time in this weather. “Coffee and a chat sounds good to you too?” 

The look of sad perplexion that the older wolf tried to mask was one Alex was familiar with. There was a reason the young werewolf didn’t go around offering up information about herself without thinking it through. She was young, she knew the picture that came to mind when she said thirteen years was one of a small child being attacked by a monster. It would pull at anyone’s heart strings and the big shot realtor was no exception. But would that same soft spot still be intact if Alan knew why she’d been in the situation in the first place? That she was supposed to be trained to kill monsters like the both of them? It left a spinning feeling in her stomach so she simply nodded in response. 

But then something hit her. Something akin to… kinship? Alex wondered if there was some universal appeal of the woods to werewolves, some sort of comfort in the quiet oasis it provided to they’re overactive myriad of senses. Maybe there was some sort of supernatural biological programming there though she wasn’t sure how much the principles of science really came into play with supernatural beings. It stood to reason that even supernatural creatures had instincts and roles in the local ecosystem just as any other species. She smiled softly once the group cleared out. “I’d expect nothing less,” she responded, “Mine is too… Well, more a really run-down rental cabin, but the rent is stupid cheap. Pretty sure the owner is a vampire and is just really out of touch with the current rental market.” 

Her words were intended to lighten the moment a bit and maybe there was some small hope that they’d help with bridging the gap created by the very wrong foot they’d gotten off on. Alex had a whirlwind of complex feelings about what she was, but something in her still craved the older werewolf’s approval, and if she was being honest with herself, maybe even his guidance. For so long, she’d put off connecting with anyone like her because well… how could she reason with herself that she was a monster, but stay open to the idea that other werewolves weren’t monsters? Maybe she was tired of never feeling good enough, tired of trying to live up to the idea of being someone her parents would love if they could see her today. Another crackle of thunder rumbled the ground below them and she readily agreed to go with him to his house, a show of trust uncharacteristic of the young wolf.

“Coffee and a chat at your place it is,” Alex agreed more eagerly than she had meant to, despite the air of nonchalance she desperately wanted to portray. Her own father had always faulted showing signs of emotion. Something about giving your opponent an advantage and she had already decided Alan wasn’t an enemy, but how put together he was reminded her of her own father in a way, which made the show of excitement feel like a sign of weakness– a reason for him to write her off the same way her father had seemed to. “Spare you coworkers the stink. They’re already working weekends,” she joked, as if it brought back that air of cool she wanted to wrap herself in, “Hope you’ve got oat milk.” 

#letsbenditlikebennett #alex threads #under blue moon threads #wickedswriting

[ly-von-karma]

D'ya have any Manfred von Karma headcanons?

Mmmmmm...

I think maybe his birthday is either in January or August, don't ask why, I just feel the vibes coming.

No way in hell he's straight. You seen him? At most he's still in denial/closeted.

Man's got married on New Year's Eve and then after signing the papers he went back to work like it was nothing.

No, he didn't invite people to his wedding.

That means he didn't invite Gant or Blaise, God be damned if they somehow show up.

Would absolutely die for his wife. Like, yeah, he a bitch but the wife!!!

They've a fun dynamic. "oh yes darling dearest the love of my life, the center of my universe" kinda thing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, he plays favourites with his children and nothing will convince me of the opposite.

A wine guy but I'm not super knowledgable in wines so maybe he likes Riesling or Cabernet Sauvignon.

C'mon, he's a white man so his spice tolerance is probably shit. The max he can handle is pepper. Would evaporate if given a taki. /hj.

"Health is wealth" sir have you looked at yourself in mirror.

^- has the worst coping mechanism: workaholism.

I want to say he smokes but maybe it's as rare, like once-in-a-blue-moon kind of rare.

Either a fancy smoking pipe or cigarettes.

He has... a sense of fashion.

^- whatever the hell he wears in court.

Has a pretty nice and comfy arm chair somewhere that he uses but not often.

Falls asleep on the couch, it's dad behavior.

This bitch is weak to shellfish, see what happens when he eats a shrimp. Ends up looking like a balloon.

He got lead poisoning™ from being shot.

That's also why Turnabout Goodbyes happened.

Anyways, he likes tea over coffee.

But if he DOES have coffee I think he'd add like a teaspoon of sugar or maybe one and a half.

Has over twenty different earrings but the ones he wears are extra special (maybe Mrs. von Karma picked them out for him?)

Speaking of earnings, the ones Franziska currently has were his but she stole them and he allowed her to keep them.

He has pancakes as a treat/dessert, maybe when he feels especially accomplished.

They're made by scratch, get that boxed shit outta here.

I want to say he enjoys ice cream, maybe his favorite flavor is vanilla with chocolate chips.

#manfred von karma #ace attorney headcanons #ace attorney #ace attorney: phoenix wright #lililisyyyyyy #ly writes #ly answers

[j-ellyfish]

I also hate the lesbians are eye candy for the male audience (obviously you reblogged from me lol) so I’m gonna tell you about Hen and Karen from 9-1-1.

They’re not sexually objectified and have interesting storylines and while they are attractive they are also not the stereotypical skinny white lesbians (not saying real skinny white lesbians are bad cause they’re real and if you’re real you can’t be a stereotype).

Karen is more of a side character but Hen is a main character and she’s written like a real person with real wants and drives and opinions. She’s an animal lover and has a son she loves sm and really loves her job as a firefighter/paramedic. She’s one of my favs <3

That's very cool!!

I don't really follow any show but I really appreciate it when I come across stuff that like, treats any relationship as normal and doesn't make any persistent deal out of the fact that they're two women or two men. Representation should feel real, and real people don't have a neon sign over their head mentioning their sexuality at all times and making it their main/only trait in life.

Though I understand [//sarcasm] that for the average mainstream writer that already struggles to make a m/f relationship feel real instead of having one of the partners being nothing more than The Love Interest™ or base their relationship in zero chemistry and just on the fact that they're male and female and thus "meant to be by default", writing other sexualities in a way that doesn't feel like a joke must be a true challenge lol

I think I came across some 9-1-1 episode on TV and I noticed that character! Like I remember figuring by context that the character was in a relationship with another woman and I really appreciated how natural they made it flow.

Normalization should be the opposite of constantly reminding the viewer that this character is not straight. Straight characters, minus the perverted hypersexual archetype, don't go around reminding everyone that they're straight in every episode 💀And when they do despite not being part of the aforementioned archetype, it's just poor and pathetic writing anyway lol

#ask

[twoheartsoneclara]

okay so here are my long rambling thoughts on the sparrows (minus sloane and ben as they are the final girls, with thots on them to come later)

- as a whole?  it just kind of felt like.  [one of the sparrows dies] okayyyy lol. we hardly knew ye.

- marcus was honestly SO underused.  he and luther could have easily been foils - he is the leader of the sparrow academy, not reginald.  even when luther was number one, he was still so clearly under reginald’s thumb, the same as the rest of them.  plus, it felt lazy for him to have luther’s exact powers, too, especially if they weren’t going to examine their respective experiences with that strength.  luther feeling monstrous and having been nothing but a tool to reginald, whereas marcus was the leader of the sparrows and used reginald as a tool.  come ON guys.  it was RIGHT THERE.  and to have him be malleable and willing to work with viktor and being seemingly so reasonable and levelheaded as a leader was such a missed opportunity.  (also as a side note the way that i was absolutely convinced that his powers were dance powers during the footloose sequence until finally a realized it was a dream sequence...so sad it wasn’t dance powers tbh.  but that’s neither here nor there lmfao).  also the fact that the first person that the writers killed off this season was a Black man...really not a great look for them.  they have consistently done their Black characters dirty on this show, underutilizing them and using them to prop up white characters, and while they took steps this season to do better wrt Allison’s pain and trauma and actually addressing it and centering her in the narrative, it’s still very clear that they have a LOT of work to do still.

- fei didn’t.  really have all that much of a personality?  beyond being “snarky and mean”.  i have no idea what was driving her at all.  she seemed to at least have?  maybe a sense of humor wrt sloane and her relationship with luther?  they legit hyped up the bird imagery only to do absolutely fuckall with the character who had all of the birds.  it truly hurts me.

- alphonoso, jayme, christopher were all just.  nothing.  we didn’t even ever get translations for christopher so NONE of us even have a sense of their personality - granted he’s a fucking cube so like??????  but it’s also super unclear what his powers even are.  he seems to have this kind of?  higher authority in terms of him being the person that reginald gives a full report to.  and at least alphonso had a personality.  the actor’s charm went a LONG way to making him standout as a character this season.

- jayme in particular had incredible potential in relation to her powers.  like she spits hallucinogenic venom.  that’s fucking awesome.  but it’s never clear what exactly what its purpose is/what its potential is (and it literally only gets used in episode one :| ).  the thing that’s interesting about it is that it seems to only cause positive hallucinations.  we get the footloose sequence (which almost saves every bad part of s3 by itself) and five’s hallucination of delores, and a delores made human at that.  like is that what he really perceives her as?  in the apocalypse is that what he saw?  but also the fact that they speak to each other in italian is such an incredibly moving detail.  ANYWAYS BACK TO JAYME.  she kind of fell into the same trap of fei’s writing, which was just.  like her one mode was Mean™ and she had no other discernible personality traits.  although to be fair, a lot of characters suffered from that this season - and all the biting sarcasm gives other actors not a lot to work off of from an acting standpoint, so a lot of conversations this season felt like a bunch of brick walls talking to each other.  like a bunch of really mean brick walls.

- all of this to say, jayme is a sign of the bigger problem with the sparrows - we don’t even know what makes them tick.  we get barely any idea of what their backstory is - and as much as we can assume it was similar overall to the umbrellas, the fact is that they’re not the same people.  and it could have been so interesting to explore that - granted, they are still not the main characters and logically it still makes sense to focus on the umbrellas as they are the main characters, but like.  ugh.  give us something to work with here.

- the thing with reginald was so fascinating to think about but it wasn’t examined as fully as it could have been.  to have a team that was largely independent of him?  that actually worked as a team?  that were still dysfunctional and had clashes and a dark past but by and large for the most part stuck together??  that had taken control back?  but that was just kind of.  i don’t know.  not quite dropped but it felt like the writers managed to contrive it for the plot and then just didn’t really want to address the ramifications of that plotline.  but i’ll talk more about that later in another post lmfao this is long enough already jsdfjklsdjf.

- overall, the sparrows were a part of a much bigger problem of the season.  they got so much hype and buildup as part of the marketing and indeed even just from the end of season 2 that to then turn around and have so many of them have the personality of brittle cardboard really just added to the overcrowded storylines this season while not really adding anything new or interesting and so bogged down the other storylines, and it made it harder for us as an audience to really engage with them as characters or care about what happened to them.  the sparrows were largely plot devices meant to move the story along, which is a shame because the actors have so much talent and potential.  not only that, but the STORY had so much potential as well.  there could have been so many ways to mix and match with the sparrows and the umbrellas to juxtapose their personalities and their virtues/vices and to give all of them more character development.  [fantine from les mis voice] but there are dreams that cannot be, it would seem.

#claire.txt #claire's tua thoughts #tua spoilers #the sparrow academy #tua

[dynamoe]

Boy Genius on AO3 | Prologue | Ch 1 | Ch 2 ←You Are Here | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5

Billy muttered, “You’ve had that corporate day job too long.” (This entire chapter is a PowerPoint presentation)

more words from an episode of a Billy & White prequel. It's easier on your eyes to read on A03, but share, comment and post anywhere that suits you.

↓ Chapter 2 is below the fold ↓

Assume trigger warnings comparable to source material — adult language, nihilism, cruel jokes at the expense of an innocent, body horror, bad parenting, etc.

The sound of the generator clicking on and the porchlight shining through the slats of the bathroom window jarred Billy awake. He was on the floor, stagger-step from the toilet, as his brain fog slowly receded allowing him to piece together the last few hours.

He definitely threw up– he remembered (and still tasted) that – a firehose spurt of almost purely Zima clearmalt alternative beverage. Maybe could resell his output as Crystal Vomit™. Quaking with panic-sweats, he crawled onto a pile of towels on the floor and dropped off into dead-to-the-world sleep for three– maybe four hours. Very dignified.

He had really weird dreams. He dimly remembered his mother strapping him head-first into some contraption that was halfway between a supermarket shopping card and a wire Orgone meditation pyramid. Then she chased him around that apartment they lived in back then, screaming at him... did that really happen or was it an overloaded Jungian symbolic salad his subconscious just threw together? He had a headache.

The least he could do is brush his teeth, so he did. Catching his reflection in the medicine cabinet, he looked like death warmed over. But now his mouth tasted better.

A sheet of 8.5 x 11 slipped under the bathroom door. Under an embossed, glitter-flake Conjectural Technologies letterhead (White, you idiot. How much did this cost us?), the following memo:

ATTN: All senior staff Conjectural Technologies, LLC.

Please convene in the executive boardroom (aka breakfast nook) at the at 4:00 PM (aka now) for an essential status meeting and presentation regarding next quarter’s new initiative.

Promptness is appreciated.

Regards, K. Peter White, Jr. CEO Conjectural Technologies, LLC

“Now that our esteemed CTO has arrived, let’s start call this meeting to order,” CEO K. Peter White, Jr., (the “K.” and the suffix being a new affectation he was beta-testing) said judgmentally and Billy crawled into the booth across from him.

“Where the hell did you get all this?”

A projector tethered to a mile of cable plugged into an IBM ThinkPad 300-something, a suitcase-sized plastic brick of a laptop, sat on the built-in table. The room smelled like ozone and melted plastic, usually a bad sign.

“Lifted it from work,” Pete smirked, fiddling with the folding screen he had set up in the kitchen. He leaned back to the laptop computer and clicked enter on Microsoft PowerPoint 3.0.

A blue gradient appeared with bold yellow Helvetica title: “SO YOU WANT TO PASS AS SOMETHING YOU’RE NOT.”

Pete stood next to the screen to redundantly read aloud, “So you want to pass as something you’re not. A detailed expert guide from a professional who’s been there.” He pointed at himself and flashed his shit-eating game show grin.

Billy muttered, “You’ve had that corporate day job too long.”

“Tell me about it,” White agreed, “I would have fired me by now,”

Pete White was a master at nailing job interviews (performed in full “melanin-drag,” naturally), but a nightmare of an employee (he gave up the make up soon after being hired, claiming ‘I’ve been sick.’). He was pushing new boundaries in the 2-3 hour lunch hour, making long distance calls on the company dime and hiding in the employee bathroom playing GameBoy (he’d easily logged 10,000 hours on Adventure Island II alone). Despite this, White somehow made twice as much as Billy did, as if height, stupid confidence and a college degree were all that mattered.

“If you’re passing, you’re filling a role,” he lectured, “You meet the viewers’ expectations enough and their brain blocks out contradictory evidence. “

He walked back to the laptop. He pressed enter. A wipe cleared the old slide in a flurry of chunky pixels as a new slide appeared:

“OBJECTIVE: POSING AS A BOY GENIUS AFTER THE AGE OF MAJORITY” was flanked by unnecessary Jr. High Sex Ed textbook diagrams.

White scrambled back to stand next to the screen, regretting he forgot to steal a remote.

“FACT: for the future success of our scientific think tank and independent research facility— Conjectural Technologies, LLC— we need to attend the World SuperScience Conference being held in Seattle.”

A bullet point faded onto the slide as he narrated, followed by text repeating everything he just said aloud. A second one appeared as he continued.

“FACT: For the future health of Super Science as a whole, we need to attend as the voice of the alternative, independent, unconnected, underrepresented—

“—Underpantsed—”

“— Super Scientist. So our act of minor dishonesty is an acceptable sacrifice for the health of our industry.”

On the screen, clip art of a white-haired elderly businessman pointed at a disproportionately huge clip art scales-of-justice.

“Is that guy supposed to be you?” Billy said, bored, his finger up his nose.

“Ehhh, sort of. The image gallery doesn’t have a lot to choose from.”

“And I’m … some kind of a squirrel holding a nut?” Billy asked, pointed at a second clipart figure next to the businessman

“It was either that or a map of Delaware. The squirrel was a better color match,” White shrugged, “We’re getting off topic. We need to outline a plan to get you to convincingly pass as a boy genius for the duration of the event… and possibly for the rest of your life.

A hand-shaped dog silhouette appeared on the screen, open and closing its finger-mouth.

“Mnam mnam nammmm… I’m eating your clip art.”

“Don’t be childish, Billy. I’m trying to explain how you’re gonna pass as a child.”

“I know all this stuff already, White. We talked about it. This whole ‘presentation’ is pointless. I say I’m a child. Get the discount admission. Go to the conference. Done.”

“The conference is full of observant, professional, intelligent scientists– they’re gonna notice. You think you can slide in on a skateboard, wearing a backwards ballcap and say ‘Don’t mind the crow’s feet and my passion for NPR, I’m totally underage! Cowabunga!’”

“Pretty much. Minus the cap. Not much of a ‘hat guy.’”

“We’re not gatecrashing, we’re attending. We need to keep this con believable for three straight days. If we’re ejected as soon as we get there, we won’t be able to network and show off our research, whatever it is.”

Billy sulked. He hated being lectured. Billy hated more when White knew more than him about something (which happened extremely rarely).

A new slide dissolved in. Same gradient, new text “BE THOROUGH!”

“This is the first step in a long-con, so attention to detail is KEY. You can’t be out of character from the minute we get on the plane. No drinking. No smoking. No picking up girls.”

“Ha. Like that was even gonna happen,” Billy muttered sarcastically while rolling another American Spirit.

“I mean it, Billy. No cracks in the armor.”

“If I can pick up girls because I’m supposed to be, like, eight or whatever, what’s gonna be your excuse when you can’t even score with Super Science skanks at an open bar?”

“You’re just being a dick to me because you fell asleep on the floor of the bathroom. You slept in pee.”

“Why would there be pee on the floor? Are you peeing on the floor?”

Stone-faced, White clicked to the next slide.

Next slide: “CONJECTURAL PRAXIS - NOW TO THE FUTURE”

“Praxis?” Billy asked flatly, “Really?

“It means ‘doin’ stuff.’”

An irritating buzz and the tinny clank of tiny gears grinding erupted from Billy’s mechanical hand. He poked around his index finger joint with the end of a ballpoint pen as White listed the next steps for their deception, “We need to get you a new ID, birth certificate, passport, and Social Security card with your doctored age. I know some guys.”

Billy looked up startled, “Don’t use my real name. An alias.”

“Why? Who cares?

Billy looked sheepish, “I don’t want my mother to find out. She has connections, she’ll find me.”

“Paranoid?”

He busied himself with the pen, driving it deep into a crevice between metal plates on his wrist, “Lots of Super Scientists work under nom-de-guerre.”

“Fine,” White relented, “What name do you want?”

“Whatever. Fuck it. Write ‘Quizboy.’”

“‘Billy Quizboy.’ A pretty big giveaway to your real identity isn’t it.”

“It was five years ago. That’s ancient history in tabloid time. No one even remembers that game show,” Billy pulled a mangled ‘resplendent' magnet from inside a joint.

“I think you’ll find it’s a beloved television classic,” White argued, insulted.

“Fine. Consider the name-change a memento mori. ‘Remember thou art mortal.’ Every time I see my name it’ll say ‘Remember thou once got kicked off a crappy game show for cheating even though it totally wasn’t thine fault.’”

“You really know how to wound me, pally,” Pete continued, going back to his to-do list, “Wardrobe and Styling – I can get the outfit, but you’re finally getting that damn haircut.”

Billy sighed, blowing his overgrown bangs out of his face.

“And you gotta shave.”

“No duh,” Billy said dumbly. He hoped he’d look older with a beard but it just doubled the ‘Where’s your pot of gold/gimme your Lucky Charms’ taunts shouted at him at the bus stop. Lucky the Leprechaun (created in 1963 and premiered in a 1964 television campaign by agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample) didn’t even have a fucking beard!

“No, I mean, you gotta shave.”

Pete slid a chunky pink plastic bottle over the conference/breakfast table. Billy read the label: “Hair-Off! Hair Removal Lotion/Chemical Depilatory”

“Oh no fucking way!”

Pete clicked one slide back – “BE THOROUGH!” – and pointed authoritatively, “You’ve got to… BE. THOROUGH.”

“I’m not going to be naked at the World Super Science Forum.”

“What if you get locked out of your hotel room, huh? You’re in the shower and a fire alarm goes off but unbeknownst to you a jealous husband was hiding under your bed because he mistook your hotel room for the Honeymoon Suite where his wife was having an affair with the vicar. So you run in the hallway wearing only a towel and its a red towel and a bull got loose in the hotel and chases you through a glassware exhibition attended by a group of nuns and —”

“I don’t live inside an episode of Benny Hill, White.”

“You don’t know that. Anything can happen.”

Billy crossed his arms back at him, resolute.

“If it was me, I’d do it. For the good of the company.”

Billy scowled harder.

“I’ve put bronzer places no man should,” White said, haunted.

to be continued ⟶

Prologue | Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 |

Author's Note

I've never drawn Grunge!Pete with his baseball cap off. ↑ That's probably the outfit he wears to work, but with different shoes. (Bosses use to be real hard-ons about wearing sneakers at work.)

If this was a script, this chapter and the last (and probably the next one) would be cut down to :30 of screen time (3-4 lines), but since this is prose I can dick around doing nothing for another 10 pages. I'm fully committed to: less action, more circular conversations.

Prologue | Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5

#rosencrantz and guildenstern of venture bros #ao3 fanfic #AO3 #illustration #master billy quizboy #pete white #microsoft powerpoint #1990s #powerpoint #writing #fiction #venture bros #venture brothers

[greyvvardenfell]

A for the whole Gang? 👀

A. Accent: What accent does your character have? Are there any words or phrases they use more often than other people? How good is your character at imitating other accents and sounds?

reyja: just sounds like me. midwestern american, on the deeper side, fast and choppy. constantly using filler words and phrases, top choices being “I mean...” and “like.” i’d like to think i’m a pretty good mimic so I’ll let reyja be one too. closest non-me vc is mayim bialik i guess?

yazakh: calm, deep, monotonous. either like.... angela bassett pitched down or jeffrey wright pitched up? they’ve been in vesuvia a long time so they don’t have much of an accent anymore. they do still speak hoktani though, and have picked up more than a bit of prakran from working with nadia (and Other Sources :3c). their voice is on the masculine side of androgynous. they never use more words than is strictly necessary, and see no point in speaking in a voice other than their own -_-

amalia: high-pitched, girlish. biting and mean. talks fast. she’s been speaking vesuvian since birth (it’s one of the three official languages of naigenkyst, the others being venterran and naigen), and trained herself out of any accent she might have had once she decided she wanted to be a fixture of the vesuvian court. not a good mimic and doesn’t try to be, unless she’s mocking someone. vc: lucy hale (or really any number of young white cis female american celebrities tbh)

otheron: always laughing. he speaks fluent prakran, and likes to show off that he speaks fluent prakran. he jumps between languages all the time just to prove he can. he *can* mimic people but usually doesn’t, because he would rather put an Otheron Spin™ on his impressions. vc: donald glover

noreis: shy and quiet. doesn’t speak much. his accent depends on which verse he’s in, because he lost his venterran accent after he died and had to learn to speak again, but kept it in all other aus. definitely not a good mimic; he gets flustered too easily. it took a long time for him to start speaking as a kid, and it still isn’t his favorite activity. no vc as of yet

eystra: heavy qalqinori accent. she does speak vesuvian but very slowly and hesitantly. deeper voice, but quiet. she went for many years without speaking, or being understood. she prefers to sign, if she communicates at all. she can be really poetic when she wants to be though. vc: this mongolian voice actor?

sterling: bouncy and loud and fierce and funny. constantly laughing and telling jokes, lightly teasing others. not as good of a mimic as she thinks she is. often starts and stops several sentences before she finishes one. sings a lot, and stims vocally. vc: julianne buescher, specifically as the violent female dwarf voice set in dragon age origins

#goddd i wish i had Perfect Voice Claims because i *know* what they sound like but finding examples is :C #rey's ocs #thank <3 #rey answers people #atypicalacademic

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Wandering Son, Episodes 1-4

And so we begin! In which I consider the challenge of discussing a trans-centric show as a non-trans person, the visual storytelling is top-notch, and I lavish some love on the Very Good(tm) central romance.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

One of the biggest “difficulties” of writing about entertainment from a perspective of privilege (for clarity’s sake, I’m a cishet white guy from a pretty stable financial upbringing) is that I’m inevitably going to run into a situation where my ability to fully analyze and talk about a show will be limited thanks to my lack of personal experience with the topics it presents. Anime, in particular, has a complicated relationship with trans issues that rears its head from time to time. I’ve tackled that particular problem a couple times before on this blog, with Haruhi’s dad from Ouran Highschool Host Clab and the character of Kyubei Yagyu from Gintama, but it’s never presented itself quite as potently as with Wandering Son. This isn’t just one character in a much larger whole, this is an entire show about trans issues, from a trans perspective, that explicitly comments on the experience of growing up and questioning the gender you were assigned at birth. However much I might try, my life experience limits the insight I can bring to this show in comparison to my other binges on this blog. So please, don’t consider anything I have to say about Wandering Son as any sort of definitive analysis; I’m not the guy to make those calls. All I can do is give my own experience of watching it and discuss how it was able to affect me, despite my lack of personal experience with the material.

Empathy Through Animation

Thankfully, what I can say so far is that personal experience aside, Wandering Son is very damn good. The show does an excellent job getting you into the heads of its characters and helping you understand how their dysphoria affects them and the way they perceive themselves and the world around them. And a huge part of that is the animation and visual storytelling; this is a show where the space between words has as much to say as the words themselves, befitting a grounded setting full of still-growing kids who are still figuring out how to properly express themselves. Thus, the way the camera and editing communicate the character’s emotions become an essential part of the experience. The Pedantic Romantic has a great video breaking down the scene from the first episode where Nitori runs out into the street after her sister blows up at her, which you should watch here, because it’s how I first heard about this show and it’s fantastic (and I also totally cribbed the title for this section from that video, soooooo).

And there are plenty of other fantastic cuts throughout these first four episodes that hit their marks with aplomb. There’s a close-up shot of Chiba’s eyes as she focuses on Nitori writing to the right of frame, pulling our focus to her focus. There’s one in episode 4 where Nitori, having just spilled her guts to Takatsuki about the reasons she chose to write the play she did, comes out of the changing room presenting as a boy once again, after an entire scene spent with her in women’s attire, a wide shot where the punctuation of Nitori’s entrance comes as an unsettling shock. The washed-out feel of the people on the street during Nitori’s time outside presenting as a girl, the repeated image of the walk/don’t walk sign changing, the character intros by way of the characters talking straight to us in an otherwise empty classroom... there are so many wonderfully evocative shots that help square the gap presented by lack of experience and get me in the head of these kids going through a confusing, difficult time and trying to figure themselves out. That’s the mark of good storytelling; it crosses all sorts of differing walks of life and allows anyone to empathize with the story it’s telling.

Juliet and Romeo

Young relationships are hard. I should know, I was in a relationship in eighth grade that basically amounted to nothing happening for a space of two months before my partner called it off (we’re still friends, so no harm done). It’s hard to be comfortable sharing so much of yourself with someone else when you’re still not really sure who “yourself” is, or even if you really like the current “yourself”. Add awakening body dysphoria into the mix, and you can only expect things to get even more complicated. So it’s refreshing to see Wandering Son treat the many conflicting relationships among its cast with a level of empathy and maturity that anime doesn’t always provide. Don’t get me wrong, I live for the adorable ships of the world (Deku x Uraraka all the way, baby), but a grounded portrayal of kids trying to figure their way through such a complicated situation has just as much importance, especially to a story as steeped in ideas of communication and expression as this one. It captures that awkward middle school period where you still have the honesty of childhood in dealing with your emotions but you’re starting to better understand the effect those emotions have on the people around you. You’re not rally sure how to best connect with the people around you; you’re just sure that you want to.

Nitori and Takatsuki’s relationship is the backbone of this show; it’s the skeleton that pulls all other elements into its orbit and grounds them all in place. Watching these two navigate the complicated waters of discovering themselves and each other at the same time makes for an endlessly fascinating experience, especially as their developing awareness of their transness starts to take center stage. The idea to structure the story around a gender-swapped Romeo and Juliet play is kind of genius, as Shakespeare’s inherent tendency to play with gender presentation fits right in with what these two kids are experiencing. And the way they communicate these ideas to each other, slowly coming to terms with who they feel they are and who they want the other one to be, has the kind of refreshingly direct candor you can only really get at this filter-less young age. We’ve still got plenty of time before the show itself, so there’s no telling how this dynamic will continue to evolve. But I can say with certainty that I’m going to enjoy watching it happen.

Odds and Ends

-”Everyone seems so much more mature in middle school.” Yep, that was definitely my experience too. Just a metric butt-ton of new people who all look like grown-ups compared to the people you’ve stuck with since elementary school.

-”I can imitate the old man next door when he’s gumming rice crackers.” “We have no idea if that’s a good impression!” aksjdhakjsd

-”Chi is a fighter!” I really like Chi.

-I love that moment where Nitori and Takatsuki are both watching each other smile out of the corner of their eyes. That just feels very true to life.

-”When you get a bunch of boys together in one place, they stink.” I mean, you’re not wrong.

-”Don’t take it out on your lunch.” Bill Wurtz voice: “How ‘bout I do anyway?”

-”You should wear a bra.” *passes out* Fair reaction.

-Nitori’s sister reminds me of Kimari from A Place Further Than the Universe. That’s a good thing, to be clear.

-lol at Sasa’s primal growl of frustration following Chiba’s departure. I feel that so hard.

-”Soon we’ll reach that horrible time of puberty when our voices drop!” Let’s be real, this is worst time for every kid in middle school.

-I really like the detail of Takatsuki having an older trans figure in her life to help her through her own feelings. Kids need guidance on a lot of things, and it really helps the show’s realism to remember how important a role adults still play in kids’ lives.

-”When you get out of the water, your arms always feel so sluggish, don’t they?” Accurate.

-”The people in the mansion are committing mass suicide.” aksjdhakjsdh

-”Bikinis are not appropriate for school.” I really like Chi.

Man, this is going to be a fascinating experience. See you next time, and I hope I can do this show justice going forward!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #wandering son #hourou musuko

[gaytog]

“Lars of the Stars” and “Jungle Moon” Liveblog

(This ended up being really long.)

Okay so I know nothing about these episodes except from the previews. I’ve successfully avoided spoilers on my dashboard. The only thing I’ve picked up on is the fact that these episodes are apparently worth freaking out over. So here goes, time to freak out.

Uhhh wait, one more thought before the theme song ends. I read some good meta about how Connie is likely the dominant force in Stevonnie when they’re killing aliens 2survive, because Steven for his part is a staunch pacifist. So, time to classpect Connie maybe finally? Exciting stuff maybe! Okay okay let’s do this.

Well somebody’s entirely too aware of her plot armor and it isn’t Steven.

...that is not a jab at the show, just to be clear. What I’m saying is Connie has apparently gotten so caught up in the magic of Steven’s story that she’s forgotten she’s made of meat. And that space can kill you, like, really quickly. Actually I’m frankly amazed that the gems are letting this happen.

Aaaand off into hyperspeed. Okay, I have seen all of this before but it’s been a while. Biggest thing that stands out is how well Lars has adjusted to his new life as outlaw-space-pirate-zombie. His confidence is off the charts.

Other smaller things: Emerald is playing the role of Team Rocket-level incompetent villain that was once, briefly, occupied by Peridot. Apparently green gems are just like that (/sarcasm). Also, I hope that we dive a little deeper into the off-colors soon; or at least one of them. I want to know what makes them tick.

Lars is a Thief! A Thief I say!!! Possibly a Thief of Void, although his undetectability is a situational power and thus not necessarily indicative of his aspect.

Confirmation that the place referred to as the gem’s Homeworld is just a single planet.

And they’re on their way to Earth! Yay! You know I thought Lars was going to keep having space adventures and Fight the Power(TM), but this is also good. I like much of the fandom cannot wait for the off-colors to get to Beach City.

If they do.

Still not sure how Steven and Connie get stranded.

Gulp.

“Really really good!” Oh... Steven. That was not what Lars wanted to hear. Even if it is the truth, and also good news.

OH NO LARS IS STILL KIND OF AN ASSHOLE

AND IT’S GOING TO RUIN THEIR CHANCES OF GETTING TO EARTH (AT LEAST FOR NOW, I’VE GOT MY FINGERS CROSSED FOR THE LONG RUN) AND THAT’S HOW STEVEN AND CONNIE ARE GONNA GET STRANDED

LARS YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER THAN THIS!

Fortunately it looks like Connie is about to set him straight.

(also classpect fodder maybe, re: Lars making all the decisions)

Because I love her. 

That’s what you’re going to say, right?

(While Steven and Connie hold hands.)

Okay I was wrong on both counts.

Lars you seem so surprised. Did you seriously not see the flashing warning signs or hear your crew having a nervous breakdown?

“Blow us into stardust like you’ve always dreamed of.” Lars is holding Emerald’s ship hostage. His course of action, his choice of words... I’m getting a lot of Void here. Kind of like Greg’s “It’s okay to bail,” except Lars is only faking bailing. Dangling his submission over her head while using the ship, the thing that she really values (Light) to his advantage.

“Wow Lars I missed you” Pfft. I personally didn’t? Not really? But oh my god am I loving this new space pirate Lars.

coughiwasindirectlyrightearliercough

“Wuzzat” Wtf I can’t stop laughing. Stevonnie has had two really good lines in a row.

But, also, wuzzat? O.o

OH NO THIS IS HOW THEY’RE GONNA GET STRANDED

And that was how they got stranded.

This abrupt ending reminds me of “Back to the Moon,” which begs the question: will Lars and the Off Colors rescue them, like the Crystal Gems rescued Steven in “Bubbled”? That seems like the most likely solution, but I have no idea what Stevonnie might find on the jungle moon. It could be White Diamond for all I know.

I mean, I would be very surprised if this show was able to pull off a second Portal Directly To Earth, one that Just So Happened to be on the jungle moon Because Reasons, in a way that didn’t cheapen the narrative. So either they’ll meet up with Lars, or the episode will end without them actually getting home.

Even if it’s just a repeat of “Bubbled” -- they do Some Stuff and almost die before Lars sweeps in for the rescue at the critical moment -- it will still be significantly different because it’ll be Stevonnie (and probably Steven and Connie at some point, unfused) rather than Steven & Eyeball or just Steven. No matter what happens or how they end up getting home, having them stranded together (slash fused) is at least an opportunity to explore the characters and their relationship.

Oh, okay, at least we’re getting some interaction with Lars before the crash.

“Oh, pretty much everything.” When, tell me when, did Stevonnie become a gold mine of amazing lines and can we please keep up this trend. Even when plummeting to their potential doom they can’t help but make a sarcastic comment. (I feel like they get this from Steven, maybe.)

Oh look, it’s the planet from the Rick and Morty pilot episode.

BUBBLE SAVES THE DAY. I was, uh, pretty nervous when I saw the ship wreckage. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is Stevonnie’s first instance of using the bubble? And the first time Steven used the bubble, it was to protect Connie from imminent death! This is a pretty cool moment! Too bad they’re unconscious.

“I’ll find the ship’s radio, and Lars will pick us right up.” Somehow I do not think that is going to go according to plan. Panic is stirring just below the surface. Stevonnie is deliberately trying to calm themself down. (Also I like how they switch between singular and plural pronouns.)

Holy shit those sure look like the remains of a planet that gotten Kindergarten’d to hell and back. Where is all the wonderful architecture that Peridot was so excited for? /:

Oh no, the radio is dead and hope is starting to die with it.

There’s the alien scene. (I think.) Not Actually Dead, and Stevonnie retroactively relieved. I wonder if they’re gonna eat the meat that fell off.

Yes. Yes they are.

The early survival scenes are cool and cute. I’m guessing that a lot of the technical know-how comes from Connie.

My my that is quite a use for Rose Quartz’s sword. (Designed the cut the hair off humans, but never the skin.)

And the meta was right. Steven and Connie are having an internal conflict about whether to eat meat that is probably not going to regenerate. I hope they don’t split up over this.

Oh, it’s the Thing! I wasn’t sure whether this episode was going to have a Thing of note besides survival and rescue, but there it is, simultaneously reminiscent of an injector and of the phallic tower moon base. Or maybe it’s just an injector? Although (a) we’re on the moon of a colonized planet and (b) this doesn’t look like the other injectors we’ve seen, unless my memory is just awful.

“Have I been here before?” Okay so this is definitely akin to something, I’m just not sure what. Besides the possibility of it being another moon base, the overgrown vines are making me think of the ship from “Friend Ship.”

“Goodnight, Stevonnie. Goodnight, Stevonnie.” Aww that was really sweet. I wonder if we’ll actually see them dream -- holy heck that would be cool.

Not just a dream, dream powers. At first I thought this might be about Connie’s pent-up fear of her mother resulting from lifelong abuse, but it looks like they’re just listening in on someone -- probably Emerald, or one of her superiors. I can’t imagine Lars talking like that.

Who is telling whom to destroy whom? Who in Homeworld’s ranks has qualms about destroying organic life? Who is about to get Kindergarten’d (based on context I’m guessing that “the surface” is not important to the speaker -- hence, she must have her sights set beneath the surface, on those juicy juicy minerals)? Are we witnessing a Diamond (or less-high higher-up) telling someone to prepare for an invasion of Earth? Does Emerald factor into this at all? If so, is she the speaker (unlikely, I think) or the one with qualms (liklier but not a given)?

Unfortunately this dream is, in fact, also about some unresolved mother-daughter issues and so Stevonnie has not figured out what’s going on.

Hoo boy that is definitely Yellow Diamond talking. I would bet real actual money on it. The sheer exasperation of “I will not repeat myself” gives it away. Given her feelings about Earth, I’m surprised that she seems to be gunning for a normal Kindergarten-oriented invasion. That’s assuming she is talking about Earth -- but she has to be, right?

Oh, but here’s the million dollar question: Who is disobeying Yellow Diamond?

The eyes holy shit. She sees them. I wonder what it looks like from her perspective. Yellow Diamond is about to interact with Stevonnie holy shit holy SHIT.

Oh, and there’s the million-dollar answer: a character we’ve never seen before, Nephrite XJ-cut-763.

Or not? I guess Yellow Diamond doesn’t see them and this is still a dream, kind of.

Jesus that Priyanka-YD... fusion. That’s unsettling.

It makes me think of mmmmalo’s Homestuck theories wherein several nonhuman characters are mythological exaggerations of humans: most notably, Lord English as an extension of Grandpa Harley (who if you think about it is obviously the root of all evil in Homestuck).

What I’m saying is, Yellow Diamond as a mythological extension of Priyanka Maheswaran born of Connie’s traumatic, authoritarian upbringing and brought to life by the magic of the medium 2k18.

That was a half-joke, but both of them are authoritarian. (Imagine how much weirder it would have been to give, idk, Greg these lines instead.) On the flip side, Yellow Diamond is being likened to an overworked, overprotective mother.

JESUS Stevonnie you don’t just. Do that. You don’t just “hey yellow” Yellow Freaking Diamond. (Of course you do, and I love you for it.) They figured out what’s going on, which is good. Hopefully they’ll get something out of this.

I didn’t think it was worth mentioning because Steven’s dream-empathy has always happened in the present, but now it seems we might be viewing a past event: Yellow Diamond about to colonize the planet that Stevonnie laid eyes on earlier.

If so, I wonder how this conversation is going to pan out. Time travel is was and has always been a thing in this show, so it’s not impossible that Stevonnie is able to interact with YD in the past -- although I really don’t think time travel will influence the plot in any major way. (It’s hard to do well unless you specifically make your entire show about time travel ...and even then.)

Unless!! Yellow Diamond herself is dreaming!! Reliving the memory of colonizing the planet!! Overworked so hard that even she, a gem, has to catch some Z’s!! (An event for which there is precedent in “Chille Tid”!!) Allowing Stevonnie to witness the colonization, and interact with YD, without threatening the integrity of the timeline!!

Now that would be exciting!

...never mind, Stevonnie is still not cognizant of what’s happening. It looks like we’ll have to wait for them to wake up before they process this.

Their behavior here reminds me of theories that Pink Diamond was the youngest of the Authority, evidenced by her comparatively small number of colonies in the moon base murals.

The pink diamond disappears right before the logo goes away.

Oh. So. Those theories were just right on the money. Okay then. (Pink Diamond may or may not actually be younger than the other diamonds, but she is certainly acting in a way that is stereotypically ascribed to youth.)

IMAGERY OF PINK DIAMOND SHATTERING HERSELF LADIES AND GENTLEMEN ET AL

...then again, if Pink is actually Rose, she really changed her personality after coming to Earth.

.......then again, you know how Rose was; she always did what she wanted. Plus one of the themes of this show is how Earth is magical and it changes aliens in ways nobody expects.

.....................what I’m saying is Rose Diamond theory remains very much up in the air and I don’t know what to think.

Hey, I was right. It was a moon base.

Yay Lars!

...oh shit with the dramatic music I thought a Diamond was about to walk in. It’s just the bird.

Well that’s one way to fly.

Hey Stevonnie where’s your sword?

The end.

Wow there was a lot to unpack with that episode. I can’t wait to read everybody else’s Tumblr posts.

#steven universe #liveblog #lars of the stars #jungle moon #su spoilers

[denizenhardwick]

Okay. So I just finished reading The Young Elites by Marie Lu, and I have a lot of Thoughts(TM) so here we go.

I should start off by saying that my dad bought me this book for Christmas last year, which is basically the only reason I picked it up. I couldn’t go to the bookstore until I finished one of the books he got me, so I chose this because it was the shortest.

At first I really didn’t like it. I never hated it, but I didn’t think it was good, either. Mostly because of the prose, which is just... bland and entirely devoid of any emotion. The progression of events was distractedly simplistic, and Adelina seemed to have no response to anything. It really bothered me for a lot of the book, and for about a third of it, I felt literally nothing toward anything that was happening.

There was so much exposition. I don’t really like the “show, don’t tell” advice because there are times where telling is absolutely more appropriate, but for the love of God, don’t just tell the reader everything in the first couple chapters though ridiculous exposition dumps!

So many things were overdramatic and kinda cringy. Like... chill. Just chill.

There were some pretty goddamn excessive descriptions on some characters, while others were left too vague, which was an annoying inconsistency.

The plague markings really bothered me. I don’t consider Adelina’s missing eye a mark, so it grated on me that the main characters who were malfettos seemed to be only marked in ways that made them supernaturally pretty. Like, you have color-changing silver hair, or dark red hair, or heterochromia plus sapphire hair streaks? That’s fucking gorgeous, how is any of that bad. I dunno, it was annoying because it just seemed like an excuse for the main characters to have unusual attractive features.

I have mixed feeling about Raffaele. On one hand, having a casually bisexual major character was wonderful. But, like... really? We’re gonna have the one LGBT+ character be a prostitute, feeding into the stereotype of bi people being promiscuous? Really? Admittedly, as of the end of the book, the impact of this has dulled a bit since he was treated exceedingly well as a character, no comments were made about his sexuality and his being a consort, and it turns out there are other LGBT+ characters, including a major one... but this still really got under my skin.

On that note, there were multiple gay and bi characters! And very few white people! And the main character had a missing eye! The diversity in this book did not go unnoticed, trust me. I appreciated and loved it, so much. Sign me up for all of the diverse high fantasy please!

The turning point in this book for me--when I started genuinely enjoying it and essentially stopped reading it ironically and because I had to--was when we got worldbuilding. Because hoo boy, this world of this book. It’s so interesting, with the plague and the magic system and the high fantasy setting itself! It was fresh and original and unique, and is still probably one of my favorite parts.

You have to realize that at that point, I literally forced myself to like this book. Because it had so much going for it, and such a cool setting, and I wanted to enjoy it. And man am I glad I stuck around because the second half of the book was way better.

There were a lot of refreshing things about female characters in this book.

The fact that Adelina knew she was beautiful.

The friendship between Adelina and Gemma? Like that could have so easily been written as hostile, but even though Adelina was jealous of Gemma’s close relationship with her father, she didn’t hold any resentment toward her for it. They were friends, and they were close, and Gemma gave Adelina her gold necklace and everything! It was super sweet, and a great female friendship.

The balance between Adelina’s relationships. She has her love interest, but her friendship with Raffaele was actually more important, and her other friendships were not ignored or downplayed at any point in the book.

Oh, yeah, the romance. Dear God, that was such a breath of fresh air. There was no romance for like the first half of the book, then when it came, it didn’t overshadow the plot, it was just one of Adelina’s relationships. THANK GOD, I AM SO SICK OF YA FANTASY ROMANCE, SORRY.

Adelina and Violetta. Adelina and Violetta. Important fictional sibling relationship that motivates the main character. I wanna cry, that was so good.

The ending, and Adelina’s falling-out with the Daggers, genuinely broke my heart. Though at first her darkness and just general being-a-shit-person felt a little contrived, by the end... yeah, I just read a villain origin story. And it was spectacular.

They had the guts to kill off not one but two major characters. Admittedly, I suspect one of them won’t stay dead for long, but still. Wow. I did not expect that.

At the end of the day, I liked it. I really did. The beginning was rough, but it improved. There was a lot of good in it, but it had a lot of flaws, too--mostly, the writing style, and the fact that it didn’t click with me for a while. It had a ton of potential, the concept was used so well, and once I got into the story, I got really into it.

I can say this: I do want to read the sequel, and I didn’t when I first started reading, so we’ve come a long way.

#the young elites #i've been ranting to my sibling near-constantly for the entire two days it took me to finish this book #and they frankly don't give a shit and i'm also too embarrassed to admit that i actually unironically like the book now #so i'm ranting about it on here

[katealot]

Hello Hi Yes I come bearing the Heathers x Be More Chill crossover no one asked for and someone else probably already did, but whatever.

And hey, why not focus on everyone’s (least) favorite psychopath, Jason Dean. Also WARNING MENTIONS OF SELF HARM AND SUICIDE ATTEMPTS

·         Ok so first of all, let’s chat about underclassman JD

·         Freshman year, he goes by Jason and shrinks into his seat when teachers call him Jason Dean during roll because “Jason Dean is such an old white dude name”

·         Anyway, ya boy has hella self esteem issues. and abandonment + dependency issues cause of his Dad™

·         Flash forward to an unlikely encounter: after getting shoved down in the hallways by a certain Kurt and Ram, a friendly face appears and helps him up and then turns and yells down the hallway.

·         “WAIT TO SHOW MATURATY, ASSHOLES!”

·         BAM Duke and JD are inseparable.

·         JD helps Heather with her self esteem regarding her weight and they are totally Book Club Budies™™™

·         Unfortunately, in a moment of weakness, Heather is talked into taking a, um,, grey, oblong pill from Japan

·         Over the course of a few weeks, Heather starts brushing off our poor lonely boy until she ‘becomes a Heather’

·         That’s when she finally shuts him out for good.

·         “Get out of my way… loser.”

·         I’m not crying, JD is crying!

MORE UNDER THE CUT, AGAIN WARNING! MENTIONS OF SELF HARM AND SUICIDE ATTEMPTS

·         So going into his sophomore year,,,,,, JD starts self-harming

·         It gets really bad and he attempts…. multiple times……… :,((((

·         After landing himself in the hospital for the,,, third time he gets an anonymous package sent to his room

·         There’s a note, it’s not signed, and it says “take it, numbs the pain”

·         Inside there’s a single pill and a bottle of Mtn. Dew????

·         W̛̠̑̎͆ȩ͍̹̪̏͌l̜̤̫̙͉͈͐̌c̰̼̯̙͉͌ͮ͊ͦ͟ͅo̮͋̃͗ͥ́̄ͩ́mͣ͛͒̋͏̝̪̥̤̮͓e̡̙̯̟̝̪̬̾ͫ̀̽̄͋ͅ ̘̯͔̻̤͊ͫt̠̽o̜̪ͣͤ ̡ỵ͉ͨ̈͡ö̟̰̦͖̞̾ͅu̺̣̦̽ͤ̎ͤ̚r̴̹͓͍̜̥̫̘̓̌̉̍ͧ̂̿ ̯̘̭̱͈̘̈S̘̰͌uͭ͑͊ͭ͏̣̞͕p̐ͪ́eͩͥ̄̅ͤͩ͋҉̘̱͎̥̯͖ͅr̥̪͔͓ͩ̏̓ͨ͂ͧͥ͘ ̳̫Q̭͠u̼͎̭̎͟a̭̦̪̬̭͠n̝̼̟̲̯͚͍͢ẗ͉́͒̅̀u̟͍̳̩͎͗ͩͅṃ̧̭̼͇͓͙ ̖͊ͤU̧̖̬̭̥̎̿n̸̤̞̦̫̙̤̠ͣ͗ͨi̥̖̱͖̍ͭͤ̆͘ͅt̵̺͌̓͊̿ ̥͇̻̥̖̥ͯ̿̈͠ͅI̮͙̮̐̀̐͊̒̽̏͘n͑̇̆͏̗̹̪̣̳t̨͔̞͙ͫ͐̉̇ͬ͋́e͌ͦ̄ͦ͑͂l̵̞̙̝ͥ ̞̞̐ͫ̐̿̈̽Ṗ̲̤̲r̖̔ͦ̔̋͊̓oͨ͏͔̭̲̲̬̠̣ċ̘͎͈̦ͯͧ̏̓̈é̐̍̊sͤs͎͔̥͂̂͆ͯͤo̷͙ͯ͂̂̚ŗ̖̫̝̫̤̗͆ͅ ̬̻̥̟͈͖̠

·         He starts crying as soon as his SQUIP’s projected figure appears because

·         It looks exactly like his Mom

·         His SQUIP assures him that it isn’t his mother, just a super computer taking a form similar to her, BUT also imputs in it’s data base that his ‘Mother’ has the potential to be very i n f l u e n c i a l

·         The goal he sets for his SQUIP is to get back at Duke

·         [Enter the age of Musical JD]

·         So, he proceeds to disappear from his school’s social map while he and his SQUIP *scheme*

·         *S E N I O R Y E A R*

·         He starts getting impatient and insisting that they get their plan in motion

·         [Enter Verooonicaaaa]

·         Change of goal: get her to fall madly in love with me

·         The fight? The book referencing? All (scripted) calculated choices.

·         And also yes hi he gets exclusively Mtn. Dew flavored slushies ok back to the Plot™

·         Dead Girl Walking…………… guess it worked

·         He accompanies V to Heather’s to apologize bc he’s (v̶̗͖͆ų͛ͮ͐̅̊l͇̓̓̀ͩn͈̹̭̝̽e̖̖̲͍r̲̭̞̥̳̥̤ͥ͝a̪̳̝͙̝̲͗̓̃ͦͫͣͭ́b̗̥̗̱̙̣̠̂ͩ̍̊̊l̰͚̰̬ḙ̰̪̭̩̏̉̓̿ͣ̄͟ ) head over heels for this girl and wants to be Supportive™

·         And then the voice in his head pipes up after being silent for a long time.

·         “this is your chance” ‘You want me to…. poison Heather Chandler?’ “d̐ ͖̮̼̯̻̍͋̿̈́a̮̩͇̝̦̭̼ͦ̒͊̿̇̀̓ ̪͉̬̭̹̈́͋̊̒r̜ ̳͕ͫ̾ĺ̞̱̹̩͍͙̀̚ i͙̣̦͊̊͒̇͗ͩ ͔̥̺̯̝n̦̪͓͕̙̳͔ ̞̪͑̌ͫ̎͂g͉̣͔̟̤̙̉̃… it’s the only way to achieve what you want.”

·         Miss Chandler? Miss Chandler? Oh my fuckin god she fuckin dead.

·         JD is lowkey disturbed by what he helped do but his SQUIP assures him it’s all a part of their initial plan

·         eliminate her army of skanks wait w ot

·         So everything goes back to normal until

·         The incident with Kurt and Ram happens and the moment he sees the tears in Veronica’s eyes the red fog settles in and he hikes Ram and Kurt up the list fUCK

·         W͕͉̔̌̓̆eͪͧͥ ͓̹̠̦̬̲ͥg̟̟̯̫͒͆ͅo͔̬̞̿̄ͤt̟̐ͤ͆ ̖̳͈͍͉̟̃̽̂̒͐ͅa̳̺̱̺̭̮̓ͥͅ ̫̱̓̂͋p̗̤̯̅̅l̺͎̭̪̤ͥ͗͐a̺̟̺͖̗̽̉ͅn̲̼̟̣̗͇ͨ̓̇̚,͙̂ͩͥ̚ ̻̤̩̲͎ͯ̐͐͋n̝̙̒͒̓̂ͥ̍ͮo̲͉̯̳̥̭͒ẅ̥̳̝͎͍́͑͆̈̉͆ ͖͍̱ͫb͈̻̣̂ͥͨͪͯͭͪḗ̫̺̞̣̯̼͊ ̮͉͖͙̲͕̤͛ͨ̓͆a̱̍ͧ̈́͋ͧ̃ ͥͪͅm̤̫͖̻̟̜̝̿ǎͯ̀́͋̅̚n͓̿ͨ͐̂͋̇!̓̔ ͕͚̖̼̣͇ͨ̌͂̄ͯ̽Ý͍̄̀o͛̈́̍͐͛ͯͫȕ̮͎̮̻̓ͦ ̖̭ͫ͛g̜̩̤̱̫̝͔̿̂̈́͋ö͒͋͐͛̀ͧt̮̻̥̺͚ṫ̈́a̜͙̣̫̰̞̔͊͊̆ͯ ̞̞̘̯ͩ̄͋́t̜̘̤̣͍ͨͬ̾͂̉a̔̈ͪ̀k̊e̹͓̰͐̔ͧ̿̉ ̻̼͙̺ͫ͑ͧ̆̽t̻̱̘̋̀̓ͫͮ̃hͨ͗̅ͬ̚e͂̒ͬͩ̆ͥ̈  ͉̖͈̖͒̊ͦ̏͛u̘̓̂͂ ͉̩̻̻̪̦̪ͪͫͩ̑ͩ̽p̞̰͙̥̰̖̔̊͒͐̒ͅ ̹̞̟̦̠́͊ͦ̈g̩̥͉͓̏̏ ̜̪͚͙͇̺̜r͔̆̇̏̄ ̹͕̮͎̪̗̽͛̒ͣͥȧ͓̼͎̅̏̌̏ͫ̈́ ͂̚d͔̼͇̔̉ͦ ͍͚̐̆̐͗ͅe

·         Achievement unlocked: Manipulate your girlfriend into being an accomplice in M U R D E R

·         Oh shit now Veronica is upset fuckfuckfuckfuck

·         Veronica is making him,,,, question his plan. Maybe,, maybe he doesn’t need the SQUIP anymore? I mean he has Veronia…. I think I heard something about Mtn. Dew Code Red being- FUCK DID YOU JUST SHOCK ME

·         “Spinal stimulation. S͊́̏w̩͖͈̣͖̲̰̓̃͊ͨ̎ͨe̬͈̩̓̊ͧ̋̽̍̆ĕ̜̜̼̀ͭͣ͂ͩt̻́́͐͂̑͛̃h̏e̠̘̯ͨͭa̹̪͖͙͚͍̬̽͊ṙt̓͌̆ͭ̅̈ͅ, I’m going to improve your life…. Now, h͑e͎͇͐r̉̈́̅͊́ͣ̋e̠̬̹̣̪̥’s̳̰͆͋ͤ̒ͦ̚ w̗̬̘͕̣͓ͅh̳̞̭͕͇̙̿̾ͅȁ̞͎̞̮̏ͬͨ͒t̘̝̻̔̔ͤͤ̈ ̩͕w̲̩͉eͮ͋́̈́̅ͧͯ’̘̐͐ͫ͛ͮr̞̤͎̙e̘̟ ͚̬͈̹̥̞̍̊͗̇̃̈g̏̂̓̿o̙̱̪͕ͧ͐ͅi̞͊ͮ͌̅ṉ̩͙̿ͫͤg͍̱̬͙̬̱̗ ̤ͭ͊̂ṱ̤͈̳͇͆o͔͍̳̟̘ͬ̀ͫ͐̈́ͅͅ ͖̝̺ͫ̇̋̄͆d̮̗̖͚̟̊̈́̋ͯͩͩͩô̻̥̮͎̲̋̃̍͑ͦ͑ …”

·         “All is forgiven, Baby! Come on, get dressed, ÿ̗̠͓͋̌̈́͌ͧou̥̻̟͖ͅ'͚r̦ͩ̒ͫͯe̮̻͉̬ͮ́́ͅ ̫̪̗͙̈͊m̯̈ͦ̂̔ͫ͊ͅy̙̙̗̹ͅ ̳͍̤ͪͭ̈́͆ͩd̖͇̍͌̾͑ͪ̂̚a̙̱̞̞͕͙ͫẗ͕́͒͆̂̌e͇̫ͯ̂ͩ̄͛ͣ t̻͓̹͍͎͈̬̂o͙̜͉ͯ ̠͔̺̠̝̗̹̅͂̑t̰̹̽͐ͩͣ͛̽h̹͎̮̼̺̣̄ḙ͙̫͖̉ ̤̮̖͕̘͔̅ͬ̏̑p̭͈͉̹̠̦͓͆ͨe̹ṗ̪̘ͪ̀ ̥̬̳̫̤̃̓̇̆͗̊̂r̍̿̌ͯ̽ͥ̊a͚͎̟͎̠͓̤l͉̑ͥl̙̙̬̥͔̠̄̄͌͗ͅy͕̪̻̳͚͖̘̍̎̓͌ͩ ̜̙̾͗ṫ̙̲͖͉̬͒ͫŏ̠̱͈͈̬͔̞n̲͈̥͍͙̓̍͆í̯̲̪̯̮̲̰̊ͦ́ͫ̈́g̺͓̩̺͆͌h̫̫̲͂̑t̥ͫͥ͐ͧͩ̅̚!͙͈̣͒ͮͭͤ͐̊́”

·        

·         “Oh my God… No! Veronica!”

·         “Please…. I can’t do this alone- GAAAAAHH!!!”

·         “…….S͓̱͓̖̰ͪ́ͅt̠̦̼̦̼̼́i̻̗͚͇̺̊̐l̲͖̱͖̥̥̱͊ͣl̝̥̤̘̪̃̂ͅ ͔̗̲̇I ͖͍̝͕̺͌̌́ͪ͛͑w͎̲̮̘ͫ̅ͧi̳̯̼̿ͪͧͅl͇̘̦̥̱͒ͧ͑l͙̦ ̪̞͓̖̗͈̄̿̿ỉ̤f̅ͧ ͓̜͇̙͎͊ͦ͋̄I̩̮̖̗͋ ̤̗̻͌ṁ̙͕͒͌ͤͫ͂̅u̬̰̫̻̲̝̹̎sͦͮ͆t̯̱̺͕̯͖ͯ̓̄!͉͖̝̗̹̥̃̄ͭ͗̀”

·         ‘He’ is ready to blow them up, blow them all up, “IF MY VERONICA CAN’T LIVE, NO ONE CAN!”

·         And then……… she’s there. S-she’s alive…

·         “Veronica?”

·         He starts to regain access to his own thoughts but he can feel his SQUIP…. It’s powerful and it’s not going down without a fight.

·         “I am damaged…. far too damaged. But you’re not beyond repair.”

·         “…..Say hi to God.”

·         I’m not c-crying…. OKAY I AM ALRIGHT FUCK ME GENTLY WITH A CHAINSAW

·         Haha the end sorry it was so long

#Heathers the musical #Be more chill musical #Squipped!JD AU #Jason Dean #Heather Duke #The Squip #Veronica Sawyer #tw suicide attemps #tw self harm #crossover

[comiccrusaders]

It’s official: Dynamite Entertainment and Joseph Michael Linsner’s DAWN statue Kickstarter is a runaway success! With SIX days to go, the campaign—gearing up toward Dawn’s 30th anniversary—has raised four times its original goal, funding in six hours and crossing both stretch goals by day two. Due to its incredible momentum and hitting these stretch goals, there are now three versions of this gorgeous statue available, as well as brand-new rewards: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dynamiteent/dawn-statue-by-joseph-michael-linsner?ref=9rmfl8

The success of this statue reinforces what Dynamite already knew: 30 years after her creation, the Goddess of Rebirth is more beloved than ever, with a devoted fanbase eager to get their hands on exclusive rewards like signed comics, sketchbooks, and prints. In fact, fans were so enthusiastic, the $500-level rewards sold out the very first day! This spurred Joseph Michael Linsner to up the ante, offering two new rewards: a limited-edition Dawn Vampirella gold foil hardcover with an original sketch at the $400 level, and an original 11” x 17” art board illustration of Dawn at the $1,000 level.

“We’ve been working with Joe for over 20 years, and our close relationship has led to some great collaborations. He’s a great talent, actually one of the most talented in the industry. Joe’s attention to detail is incredible, and we worked on this statue for nearly a year till he felt it was perfect. I feel blessed to be able to work with him as often as we do,” said Dynamite Entertainment CEO/Publisher Nick Barrucci. “Being able to work closely with Joe to create this statue in advance of Dawn’s 30th anniversary was an exciting idea for me, and we’re thrilled about the results. Our designer, Georg Brewer, continues to impress us with the work he does, and he continues to bring our work to the next level. We have no doubt Dawn fans will agree when they see it for themselves.”

Dynamite’s hand-painted statue measures 12” tall and is the perfect piece to honor Dawn’s upcoming 30th anniversary. Linsner has worked closely with Rvckvs International and Georg Brewer—the talented artists behind the sensational Women of Dynamite Statue series—and it shows. The final result reveals their incredible attention to detail, from the three tears running from her left eye, to the skulls along her famous curves. Plus: in addition to the standard version, there are now “Black and White” and “Costume” variants to choose from!

“I’m very excited about Dynamite’s new Dawn statue,” said Linsner. “Dawn has many different looks, but this may be her most popular outfit. I think it is the one which I have seen cosplayed the most.”

There are still fantastic goodies available to fit any budget, starting at just $10, but time’s running out—you have just six days to back the Dawn 30th anniversary statue and complete your collection, so don’t delay:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dynamiteent/dawn-statue-by-joseph-michael-linsner?ref=9rmfl8https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dynamiteent/dawn-statue-by-joseph-michael-linsner?ref=9rmfl8

About Dynamite Entertainment:

DYNAMITE was founded in 2004 and is home to several best-selling properties, including The Boys, The Shadow, Vampirella, Warlord of Mars, Bionic Man, Game of Thrones, SEAL Team Six and more! In addition to their critically acclaimed titles and best-selling comics, Dynamite works with some of the highest-profile creators in comics and entertainment, including Kevin Smith, Alex Ross, John Cassaday, Garth Ennis, Jae Lee, Marc Guggenheim, Mike Carey, Jim Krueger, Greg Pak, Brett Matthews, Matt Wagner, and a host of up-and-coming new talent!

About Joseph Michael Linsner:

Joseph Michael Linsner is most well-known for his creation DAWN © & ™, his personal Pin-Up Goddess. Since her debut appearance on the cover of the first CRY FOR DAWN © & ™ in 1989, Dawn struck a chord with thousands of fans on an international level. She is currently published in six languages and has come to life in the form of statues, action figures, t-shirts, lithographs, lunch boxes, and trading cards.

About Rvckvs International:

Rvckvs creates authentic merchandise in close collaboration with brand owners and content creators in gaming, media and entertainment to support brand expansion beyond the screen or page.

Joseph Michael Linsner & Dynamite Entertainment’s DAWN Kickstarter Earns Four Times Its Goal! It’s official: Dynamite Entertainment and Joseph Michael Linsner’s DAWN statue Kickstarter is a runaway success! With SIX days to go, the campaign—gearing up toward Dawn’s 30th anniversary—has raised four times its original goal, funding in six hours and crossing both stretch goals by day two.

#comics #dawn #Dynamite

[corvuserpens]

Heyo I’mma talk AC movie spoilers below the cut because I’ve been having SO MANY THOUGHTS AND FEELS ABOUT IT so heads up while I happily rant.

ok so there were 2 instances in the movie that REALLY got to me and those were:

The part at the beginning, when Cal is about to be executed. Until the very moment he’s strapped in and laid on his back, he shows no sign of fear. The way he talks to the priest coming to repent his soul is calm and relaxed. “Sit down; you’re making me nervous.” When he’s asked for last words, they’re a serious and embittered form of mockery. “Tell my father I’ll see him in hell.” Like he’s not afraid. Like he’s ready to die. But when Cal is laid on his back and injected, when he sees that needle being inserted into his arm, his breath becomes shallow, there’s even some panicked little sounds he makes. There’s tears in his eyes. He’s scared shitless. He is not ready to die. He was condemned for murder, sentenced to death, and he’s fucking afraid of Death. It’s amazing that in the span of a few seconds, his character develops just like that, and it broke my heart.

The scene after he enters the Animus voluntarily. After he finds out where the Apple is, after the Leap of Faith (I think? Details are already fuzzy). When he “sees” Aguilar in the room with him, then one by one his ancestors, all from different time periods, show up and surround him until one particular figure stands in front of him: his mother. That was the moment when I finally understood exactly why Cal’s father had to kill her at the beginning of the movie, during the small scene about Cal��s childhood. It’s because she was a descendant from Aguilar. For some reason, I thought it was his father (movie tropes usually give an important detail like that to the main character’s father), but nope. It was his mother all along. That’s why she’s there. But the most important part of that scene was her words to her son: “you’re not alone, Cal. You never were.” It moved me because you can tell from very early on how important Cal’s mother was to him. At one point, she was everything to him, his whole world (something I deeply relate to bc my own mother is my best friend and I honestly don’t know what I would do without her), and she was so brutally taken away from him when he was so young, forcing him into foster care and inevitably landing him in juvie hall and jail, all alone in the world, and he never understood why. And this is the moment when he FINALLY gets his answer because “your blood is not your own, it belongs to the Creed” is not fucking enough for him. He didn’t yet understand the meaning of the Creed, so it meant nothing to him (no fucking wonder he was so ready to shit on it all for vengeance on his father, I mean, what kind of explanation is that??? Fuck you dad?????) But seeing his mother there with his THEIR ancestors, Cal sees the true reason: his mother died for something greater than herself; for the Creed, but also for the world. For all humanity. For him. This is Cal’s turning point because that is when he realizes what he’s doing and what consequences it will reap. If he allows the Templars to get their hands on the Apple, his mother’s sacrifice will be for nothing. And he cannot fucking have that.

By the Gods, I could talk and talk and talk about this movie and never shut up. IT’S NOT PERFECT OR AWESOME OR FLAWLESS. But it’s a dang good film. It has some good pros like none of the non-white characters dying and the solid female characters (con is two of them die, both to a) further the main character’s plot, or b) to cause Male Pain™ which I fuckin hate). Also, no unnecessary romance between Cal and Sofia (there’s some tension, but goddamn that plot twist at the end when she fucking vows to take revenge on him for killing her douche bag of a father) AND THE SUBTLE ROMANCE BETWEEN AGUILAR AND MARIA WAS THE SWEETEST???? LIKE???????? IT WAS SO INTENSE WITHOUT IT ACTUALLY BEING INTENSE??? 

Seriously, NO kissing, NO hand holding, NO hugging or teary goodbyes or mushy ‘I love you’s’ or what not, and yet it was one of the most romantic pairings I have seen in film and the SECOND I realized they had a thing I shipped them. I shipped them so goddamn hard I actually whispered to myself ‘THIS SHIP HAS OFFICIALLY SET SAIL AND IS NEVER COMING BACK.’ Oh my Gods, this ship. This ship was so great, it was so good because in all the scenes involving it, Aguilar and Maria were represented as equals. In all the long chase scenes there is ONE instance of Aguilar helping Maria escape and that was because she failed a jump and nearly fell to her death, but instead of imposing a lame corny mini-scene of Aguilar pulling her up and saying something like ‘u owe me one’ or some shit, NO. He pulls her up and they just. Keep. Running. Like they’re used to it. Like they trust each other. Like more than lovers or friends, they’re partners. It was so refreshing. 

When they’re chained up together waiting to be executed, they’re not desperately professing their love to each other while they still can, they’re talking about the importance of the Creed, which is their life. Their life together. Aguilar says “the sultan is weak” and Maria replies with “love makes us weak”, and there’s that pause where they just look at each other. No real significance behind it, really. They’re just looking at each other and it makes me think this was a conversation they’d had before and had settled on already, so there’s no more room or even need for argument or rebuttal. ‘Love makes us weak.’ ‘Indeed, it does.’ It’s like a silent exchange between them, and then... then they lean their foreheads together and close their eyes and GOOD FUCKIN HEAVENS that was more romantic than a passionate kiss. Personally, to me that gesture felt like it was a way to show that those two were synchronized, not just in that moment before they get to die, but in everything. They fell in love and even with the Creed and all it involves, all the dedication and priority it demands, they made it work, again, because the Creed is their life. “When I die, don’t waste your tears on me.” “For the Creed.” It was their life and their love was a part of that life, it didn’t exist despite it, it existed as an addition to it. It was fuckin intense and I’m gonna ship them ‘til the day I’m gone.

This fucking movie, dude. It’s wasn’t the best, but it was damn good. Really, the only thing I’m not ok with is that two women die (considering there is what, 5 female characters for 9 male characters?) but apart from that, this movie is good because it caught me by surprise multiple times in a positive way. It was never too predictable like most films of this type are. When I expected something, the opposite happened. The chase scenes were a treat to watch, they weren’t boring at all. They left me breathless and on the edge of my seat, where I was so determined to catch every detail I couldn’t even subconsciously make myself eat popcorn. The music, oh boy, the music is SO perfect, never overly fast paced or “try hard” hardcore and energetic. Most of it is very somber and dark and mysterious, fitting the setting of incredibility and wonder surrounding the Animus and the Apple of Eden, or the horrifying and downright creepy feeling of the Bleeding Effect, when Cal is literally being stalked and attacked by the ghost of his ancestor. It’s perfect for giving meaning to the whole “there’s something bigger than all I’ve ever known at play here” vibe coming from Abstergo and the centuries old war between Templars and Assassins. And of course I’ve already mentioned what a delightful surprise it was to see all the characters set in 1492 Andaluzia speaking Spanish, including Michael Fassbender!!!, who nailed it pretty well, lemme tell you. As a person used to have A LOT of Spanish tourists visiting my country all year round, I can say with all honesty, when Michael talked in Spanish I didn’t need the subtitles to understand what he was saying. While his pronunciation is a tad bit off in some words, most of it was perfectly understandable. For that, he has my respect. The Gods know one of my biggest cinema pet peeves is movies set in a foreign country, but everyone speaks impeccable British English.

*Deep breath* I fucking loved the Assassin’s Creed movie and if my wallet allowed it, I’d go watch it again.

#rant #THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SHORT BUT GOT LONG AF WOW #assassins creed movie #spoilers