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thousandbuns · 1 year

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Oh yeah baby, it’s time for the unhinged, unscheduled and unstructured Ylthin rambles, today’s topic: loose thoughts on the overall structure of “Horus Rising” (based on my increasingly more faded memories so forgive me for any inaccuracies) and how it contrasts the first few chapters of “Flight of the Eisenstein”.

*cough*

So, in no particular order, and jumping around subjects a bit...

Remembrancers. I know you probably don’t care about them because they’re either annoying, forgettable, blatant writer self-inserts so that Graham McNeill can ogle some fictional women, or have the misfortune of competing for attention with Astartes and Primarchs, but... they are so goddamn important to the story structure, characterization and theming in “Horus Rising”. They are sheltered civilians and bohema-roleplayers fed mountains of propaganda before getting shipped off to create more propaganda about “our brave boys”... and they get reality-checked on multiple levels.

They expect glorious, refined, “peak of humanity” warriors - they get barracks filled with what’s at best scaled-up teenagers, and at worst actively hostile war machines. The Astartes typically dismiss them, avoid them, treat them as a nuisance - which is why someone like Mersadie or Ignace having direct access to Garviel Loken is such a big deal for both sides. They get to talk to a company Captain and Mournival member - and he doesn’t shun them. He’s actually a little sympathetic to them even if he doesn’t quite understand them. That sets him up to be a “good guy” type - an image that is then viciously (and forgive me for using a word so abused it’s lost all meaning) subverted, because...

Whisperheads. The Remembrancers perhaps expect the scattered strands of humanity to kneel before the majesty of the Great Crusade, then rise into a glorious new future - and then they see the reality of ruined cities filled with hostile locals and keeps lined up with mangled bodies. And remember - Luna Wolves don’t particularly revel in violence, they specialize in fast, precise assaults to decapitate the enemy. The action at Whisperheads isn’t a malicious slaughter. It’s an execution, a burst of gruesome yet detached violence, and its aftermath shocks the Remembrancers even before the supernatural gets involved. It has what may be one of my favourite moments in 40K novels - Loken calmly, yet callously dismissing a grievously injured soldier’s pleas for spiritual solace by calling them “superstition”, then mercy-killing him through a decapitation. This is our “hero”. This is a man we’ve seen cheering and fraternizing with his battle-brothers like a middle-school kid. This is a man considered to be a good leader, respected and liked by his men. This is one of the kinder, more mortal-friendly Astartes.

And then there are the others. Abaddon, who can be choleric and brash, but not a blood-addled fool or a sadist, whom we see frolicking with the rest of the Mournival and trying to ease Loken after the Whisperheads - who then gets into a vicious argument with his own Primarch, to the point of driving usually calm and fatherly Horus to throw his wine glass, command him out of the room, threaten demotion and only consider showing mercy if his First Captain comes back groveling and begging for it. All of it over Horus’ refusal to conduct a direct military action against the Interex clashing with Abaddon’s warmongering attitude and disdain for the “deviant” civilization. Torgaddon, the king of witty retorts and master of dad jokes, an “older friend” type to Loken - and yet you don’t see him fraternizing with the Remembrancers. Wish I could say something more about Aximand - but his silence and general withdrawal is also somewhat telling. You see their human side, yet they stay away from mortal humans and keep to their insular little coven of warrior-brothers instead.

“Horus Rising” succeeds at making its Astartes human-yet-dehumanized by having them interact with - or avoid - mortals, and all of it plays into the further themes - the intended nuance and tragedy across the loyalist-traitor divide. The doubt over the veracity of Imperium’s stated goal. The insidious nature of propaganda, the inherently repressive nature of this authoritarian state. The fallen idol of gold we see in 42nd millennium was standing on feet of clay from the very beginning, and the book isn’t subtle about it. Doesn’t have to be - nuance and subtlety aren’t inseparable - and shouldn’t be because the 40K fanbase is full of people like me, who need to be whacked over the head to understand something, and also people who wouldn’t get the memo even if it gave them a wedgie and stole their lunch money, like some of BL’s own writers.

I’ll spare you the extended screaming match over “False Gods” killing all nuance, assassinating half the cast (for now figuratively) and taking a massive step towards an oversimplified “good Imperium vs. evil Chaos” storyline that misses the entire goddamn point and actively makes the whole series less entertaining. I’ll also fast-forward over “Galaxy in Flames” struggling to pick up the pieces as it has to rush forward and cover a major event without having the same amount of time and word count to flesh out some of the key players in it, and deepening or firmly rooting in the problems of the previous two books as a result. We’re now at “Flight of the Eisenstein” scrambling to flesh out Death Guard the way “Horus Rising” fleshed out Luna Wolves.

And I’m just 4 chapters in, about 70 pages out of 280-ish (discounting all the superfluous marketing/publisher crap inflating the pagecount of BL novels). Things could change. I could be wrong and full of shit, and I’ll be the first to admit it if the novel somehow corrects itself on the problems I have with it right now: namely that everything is once again so goddamn flat and simplified.

Remember the nuance with which both halves of the Mournival were written? Fuck that. Grulgor is a brash dick with no redeeming qualities, Garro is a saint of a man and Typhon is Erebus Mini. Remember how the Remembrancers served to highlight that even the kindest Astartes is still a cold, uncaring war machine at the core? Fuck that, so far the only mortal character - Garro’s housecarl - is here to show you that Grulgor is a dick and Garro is a saint. The divide between diminishing ranks of “watered and fed” Terran-borns and Barbaros Legionaries whose ancestors struggled in extreme conditions - and how it feeds into some really toxic mindsets (I’m not apologising for this awful pun) across the Legion - may as well end up being another botched “good-evil” binary, and I saw enough derision towards the “lows” of society (working class deriding the margins, working-ascended-to-middle class looking down at both, big city middle class sneering at them all) to feel afraid.

I’ll give it benefit of a doubt in one area for now - remember how “Horus Rising” focused mostly on conflict against “normal” humans - not insane technobarbarians, not deranged Chaos worshipers, but conventionally acceptable “civilized” worlds, some of which proclaimed themselves to be the Sole Human Empire In The Galaxy (what could Dan Abnett mean by this, I wonder) - and only introduced a planet of “hostile xenos” as a (forgive me for using this cursed word again) subversion to once again remind you with the subtlety of a brick through the window that the Imperium’s policies are horseshit across the board? “Flight...” opens with an assault on the world-ship of distinctly inhuman xenos who go as far as to implant combat augments into their “children”, which has potential to be another stab against the Imperium and Astartes... but unless it gets elaborated upon later, it may as well end up being a footnote in the story, a cool little setpiece to introduce the characters and little more - or worse, be repurposed into yet another pro-Imperial argument without a hint of self-awareness. After all, we’re already setting up an abridged rehash of “Galaxy in Flames” so we’ll have the basis for Garro turning against his Primarch, siding with the Emperor and flying the titular ship to deliver the news of the Heresy.

A story that could easily have the same nuance and message as “Horus Rising”, but that will most likely end up being boring “good guys outsmart the bad guys” drivel.

Wake me up when Heresy remembers what does “no good guys” actually mean again.

#warhammer 40k #40k rambles #horus heresy was a mistake #100% only reading TSons/White Scars/Space Wolves novels and maybe a handful of guaranteed quality recommendations after I'm done with FotE #because I'm not wasting time on aborted plotlines and Imperial bootlicking #SWs are only there because I need context for how they are in Heresy vs. 40K's present times #so I'll probably drop off after the first few novels #Russ apologists rejoice #I'll be reading about your favourite war criminal because I care too much about my own Fenrisian baby boy #and his dynamics with the 10.000-year-old evil wizard thembo #I'm not a Magnus apologist BTW #I'm his judge-jury-executioner because I love him and TSons but boy do they also fucking suck #imagine being a pick-me girl for the Imperium of Man

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macbethz · 8 months

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“Doctor who monsters are too scary for kids!” season 9 is about clara trying to kill herself

#and it’s so good for no reason #like if we’re gonna complain. LETS LOOK AT THIS.#I tbink doctor who is also a family show btw she contains multitudes she is everything #unrelated but like man. as much as I love s9 with all my heart Danny got chewed up and spit out by the narrative for that to happen #like it is a very good plotline but like he is treated like shit pre death n I feel like it was just intended to be a ‘race blind’ story but #with his casting and the specific terms used and dws history it feels racial.#like he has to die tragically for s9 to exist. but it. hm #not a great look!#warlock wartalks

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transingthoseformers · 5 months

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On the other hand I've been busy making earthspark Fiasco a menace who keeps escaping GHOST custody and not telling his mom because he can do this on his own he's a grown ass mech

And besides

It's fun, and I'd say Slipbang is a bad influence but truly it's the reverse order

#transformers #maccadam #the fiasco plotline #i love this blorbo he's my menace who lives rent free giving ghost tge middle finger #i need to design him an earthspark design I've been having so much fun with this plotline since introducing earthspark into it #he's my nepotism man #fiasco #oc #tf oc #slipbang #he gets away with so much too #consequences will get him though

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mushroomjar · 10 months

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I just think Oshi No Ko could've been extremely good if it hadn't been written by a man

#not to be a misandrist but the potential was sooo there and it was thrown away bc the mangaka would rather write a harem for his mid #male protagonist which for some reason had to include incest???? between a 30-something man and his previously 16 year old patient #'wah wah now they're the same age' NOT MENTALLY. WE ESTABLISHED THAT IN THE FIRST EPISODE. DID WE ALREADY FORGET THAT #like i know they're trying to retcon that but baby aqua still behaved like a 30-something doctor and baby-ruby acted like a 16 year old. bc #THAT'S WHAT THEY WERE!!!#also why does the mangaka hate women. i thought this was aqua and ruby's story and yet ruby has 0 importance to the plot #of all the shows i had to drop to focus on my exams i'm glad i dropped this one #the way they handled the entirety of akane's plot was so weird too like :/ girl #the way they trashed kana's arc hurts me so much bc i've loved acting my whole life so i was so excited to watch a critique of that industry #but noooo then we couldn't add her to the list of girls who have the hots for aqua could we :/#cat rambles #not main tagging bc i'm scared #edit: i was willing to put up with the reincarnation plotline!! i was willing to put up with it if it meant a cool mystery story + criticism #of idol and acting and everything industries!! but nooooo!! the mangaka can't write an interesting mystery if he's too busy making a harem #for his uninteresting protagonist!!!

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stevethehairington · 4 months

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finished the terror show! and i gotta say — probably not a surprise but — i liked the book better. tbh i don't think the show was long enough. like the book was SO long and despite the slow moving pace it had SO much packed into it, and i think because the show was only 10 episodes it ended up having to smush a bunch of things together and skip out of others and that totally took away from it. don't get me wrong, it's a decent show! but i think it had the potential to be even better if they'd gotten to like, take the time to faithfully adapt the book.

also there was not enough tuunbaq!!!

#the monster scenes were some of the best in the book!!! and they SEVERLY underused that big dude in the show!!!#like removing him completely from the carnivale scene? Bad Choice!!#also i was absolutely not a fan of what they did with lady silence in the show #i feel like the changes they made to her character and the plotlines surrounding her character were HUGE changes that like.#fundamentally changed a significant chunk of the rest of the plot — to the shows detriment imo #ALSO for the love of god!!!!! bring back practical effects!!!!!!!#the creature would have looked SO much cooler if it was mostly practical effects and maybe a little cgi to help #what it ended up looking like was a WEIRD (neg) uncanny valley those-animals-with-human-faces-from-barbie-movies thing that LOOKED so fake #it was laughable really #it looked like a giant polar bear with a human face and it did NOT work #they had the chance to make that thing look TERRIFYING and they didnt and that is SO disappointing and SO upsetting!!!#OH also i feel like they made hickey WAAAAAY more pathetic in the show lmfao #like he was pathetic in the book too! but oh my god he was like a thousand times more wet rat pathetic in the show #and i think they couldve done better with his power trip like they couldve done MORE with it #(i will say tho. they picked an EXCELLENT actor for that role fhsjdid adam nagaitis has a LOVELY face to look at gjdkdk)#((and so does tobias menzies. somethin about that man in that hat was just 👌👌🥴😩))#N E WAYS #i liked the show but i could have liked it even more if it had been closer to the book #the terror #mack watches the terror

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catboybrain · 5 months

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sniffles sadly. every day im so sad that fnaf didnt go with placing vanny into aftons role.... god forbid women do anything ! ! !

#just saw gtlive finish the first ending n like. urgh #maybe if i liked eclipse more i wouldnt mind how prevalent they r but woof man #like i get it its charlie and evil baby or whatever in the same body but come onnnnn #that and the candy cadet stories just bashing the same kid going into woods framework into the ground #i miss when it was like. this dude sewed 5 kittens together! this lady melted 7 keys! stuff like that yk that was different and scarier #i do rlly think the series is going toward this like polished marketable thing instead of the grimy sludge i liked .... </3 and the AI stuf #is sooooo boring like fuuuuck its so boring. i wouldnt mind if its charliebots bc at least theyre interesting !!!!#but mimic as the new villian? bro. dude. thats so boring come on... afton was interesting bc he was fucked up severly #and robots r just like. theyre just robots dude its not even scary its just a thing being programmed smh #without the afton behind it its kinda just ..... bleh #honestly i wish they would cap the story? like make vanny take aftons role; do some shit; end it in a tragic but cathartic way #and then if they want to make more games do either other families in universe (like fazbear frights) or prequels/ world building shit like #something set in circus babys pizza world or w/e .i mean you could argue its about cassie now but if her dad is bonnie bro we're still stuc #in the afton central place. and i dont like that hteyre moving on without wrapping up the 102938120 loose ends they already made URGH ! !#is it too much to ask for a fnaf game thats crusty round the edges and really metaphorical for theorists to dig into but logical enough it #can be solved and also creates a good plotline . yeah i guess hell will freeze over before that #d.txt #sorry im sooooo normal about fnaf <- is abnormal. fuhnaffs theories r GREAT thoguh i love that guy he makes me happy about the franchise :o

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braidwoods · 5 months

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reusing serafine for wren is exactly the kind of expected laziness pb always resorts to. i dont think its fair to compare the asset recycling to tyrils family or imturas mom though because yknow. theyre not humans. of course editing an existing sprite wouldve been the same amount of work to just make a brand new one for entirely different races

#they couldve changed her clothes but ngl im not mad about it when a b3 is extremely unlikely and shes barely even a side character #ever since wb ended and i stopped playing until cop2/bolas2 i always forget about this blog rip #besides the pacing and wasting aerin/valax by having them be completely absent from so much of the book i like b2 #i dont hate what theyre doing with mal but its absolutely bc they had to make room for aerin/valax at the expense of the actual lis #imtura last chapter got more than i was expecting tbh i was just assuming she wouldnt have any plotlines like in b1. thats it for her thoug #i guess i dont see much of a point in how theyre handling aerin/valaxs arcs. both romance wise and general plot wise #neither of them are there for long enough to make their romance routes meaningful and when there is actual development theyre just #written out for a few weeks until they waltz back into the narrative. its a waste to have antagonists turned lis when theyre never there #id love to see an alternate b2 where aerin and valax arent shoehorned into the party solely bc i wanna see what theyd do with mal and imtur #without having to give up so much for two new barely fleshed out romance routes #oh id also wanna see nia pissed about aerin too. i get that when he was there she needed to believe he wasnt just shadow as hope for her #but no!!! let her go apeshit on the man who kidnapped her lead to her being possessed and killed by mc!! her best friend or partner!!!!

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infizero · 1 year

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ok im done with scar’s pov. it was so awesome i totally dont feel sick to my stomach or anything ^_^

#nothing makes me sadder than thinking about life series gtws. IN ANY SEASON #you cant escape scar angst in any season #3rd life's tragic yet bittersweet ending #last life's crippling loneliness #double life's cheating plotline #and now limited life's sudden end in a moment of vulnerability #not to mention the little things he'd say like getting flashbacks to grian being mad at him in double life or just needing love or it being #rare he gets compliments or saying that being alone forever is the story of his life #scar stop casually saying the saddest things ever CHALLENGE (IMPOSSIBLE)#ohhhh he makes me so fucking sad i love this man so much he deserves everything im so happy he got ppl who loved him this season #lets keep it going into next time please. if he ever has to go thru a season like last life or something again im gonna start killing #serena.txt

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doodledex-project · 1 year

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Doodledex - #898 Calyrex

If I remember correctly, I had a hard time fitting the lore for the other two Legendary Pokemon who changed forms by fusing with other Pokemon in their posts without making it absurdly long, so let’s see if I can get the cliffnotes version in here for Calyrex, whose whole existence in the DLC is just dripping with lore. *ahem*

A long time ago, Calyrex was regarded by the people of Galar as the King of Bountiful Harvests who ruled over the region and helped crops grow in an instant, traveling the land with its mighty steed. (Which is either Glastrier or Spectrier depending on what you do in the story... or, if one theory is to be believed, both were the same horse who had since froze to death. Morbid!) In recent years, its power has diminished due to it being separated from its steed and the people of the region forgetting it existed at all, thinking of Calyrex as just a legend. You’re able to change this in the Crown Tundra DLC by proving it exists outside the local folklore of Freezington! (There’s of course more to this, but like I said, we’d be here all day if I tried to go into more detail about the King and its MASSIVE NOGGIN.)

#pokemon #doodledex #calyrex #glastrier #spectrier #(tagging those two because they're here too)#that 'MASSIVE NOGGIN' bit is tribute to the guy ever peony #i finally got around to finishing the dlc while working on calyrex #(which took a while due to a bunch of untimely internet-related delays.... this year's the worst its ever been)#and i love peony so much. he's so stupid #the man sees a hunk of wood (that is actually the crown of calyrex's statue) and decides it would make a nice pillow #let me repeat that. he didn't have a pillow. saw a big bulbous HUNK OF WOOD. and thought 'welp there's my pillow problem solved'#i love this fool. i'm also glad his role in the calyrex plotline is to be its mouthpiece #the poor guy never remembers that a grass/psychic legendary just. hijacks his body to speak through him. multiple times

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cutemeat · 2 years

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see if rcg dont do a macden sex tape arc next season… i’ll be confused n appalled cuz itd just be SUCH a wasted opportunity !!!

esp cuz Charlie mentioned the Pam & Tommy shit on the podcast (which is Already a Hulu original aka part of the house that pays their bills so that makes me 👀) to segue-way into the whole Penaissance convo which exactly mirrors the Thunder Gun 4 shit 😭… n also cuz s15 was just “The Gang Does National Lampoon’s European Vacation” and in that film the parents , before going on their vacation, make a sex tape… and thats like a thing that they forget abt but gets brought back up again later (and then i think they totally just dropped the plotline but whatever LOL).. and the references to porn and PETER NORTH in Frank’s part of the 2020 in Review ep… and in that same ep mac and dennis “making music together” w dennis’ bedroom door open (which it hasnt been in a while now) in the BG of that shot with of them in the foreground on the couch… and all the Brokeback references … come on. i wanna see a whole drawer of macden sex tapes lets GO!! itd be such a fun gimmick. and they could skirt around the network n Middle America bs by making it some sort of BONUS feature if u will … set up a site for it.. break the fourth wall a little more come onnn..

#like its an Obvious plotline but its still GOOD!!!!#n theres so much potential for add ons that cna make u more money if thats the angle the studio needs 4 it #i’d pay listen… they donate the funds to some LGBT charity for PR #they sell the macden sex tapes itd be EVERYTHING #*NOT as an NFT …. Rob & Keyonna 🙃🙃#i loved LW7 im rlly sad she got into all the NFT/crypto shit too 😭😭 oh well. no one in Hollywood man no one in Hollywood…#shes still so funny tho i hope she comes back for s16 #anyway back to whatever this is #hmmm wehre was i…#oh YEA charge me actual money n i’d pay #i’d actually maybe pay an insane amount.. no crypto but an insane amount #if the bros with cash will buy their $999 whiskey… my version of that is the Macden sex tape #dipped in gold or whatever.. they cant hav an emmy but they can sell a gold sex tape cmon #yeah i’d find a way to pay . listen… im just *saying*#honestly they could still get the Boys to buy in i bet .. for the collectors limited edition value or whatever #yknow what. u can sell it as n NFT if u Must for them but gimme the option of a physical copy #they can waste their money but i dont wanna. gimme #they hav such a cult following of an audience n that was proven with the whiskey #god also i need a Sunny boxset more than anything #ok back 2 s16 stuff #they can tease the plotline in the promo by doing the Prom PSA tapes … again i hav a whole promo campaign.#they do those PSAs in the style of 80s ‘no drinking n driving’ videos they used to make 4 the teenz before prom… come on.#‘USE PROTECTION’ 😭😭😭#sunny abistenence PSA tape… the irony… even worse would be the no drinking n driving PSA from The Gang of all ppl…#COME ON I LOVE CHEESY PROMO #LIKE COME ON THE BEST PUNCHLINE WOULD BE A NO DRINKING N DRIVING PSA ‘from your friends at Paddys Pub’ LIKE #itd be a Mac n Chalrie Die Callback LIKE THEY HAVE FOOTAGE GROM THAT TAPE CLIPPED INTO ONE OF THE PSAS THATD BE FUNNY #listen i Know i am setting myself up cuz my expectations for s16 are so unreasonably high but i will still be disappointed #the breaking the fourth wall thing of the whiskey not being the set up for the punchline of s16 getting more homoerotic/depressing #not doing the prom themed promo.. not doing the macden sex tape arc… sighhhh

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thatone-highlighter · 2 years

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since I have asked ab the other 2 I might as well do the other soooo, elementals !!! Hand me your thoughts or else,,

Elementals is funky i like it

It was literally just What If We Made Finn Experience The Horrors again. The writters Can Not give this kid a break legit

I thought the choice of candy, slime, ice and fire (and lumps) were interesting choices for the base elements. I get the candy ice and fire because they’re all elements that have major roles in the show and the characters that have dominion over them are important characters with large roles. and then theres just slime which almost feels like they just needed a fourth element and slime worked best with what they had

I liked the Simon and Betty stuff as well it was rlly interesting. Theyre very interesting to me in how they parallel each-other and like, theyre both kind of a part in the other’s decent into insanity? I dont remeber i think its from earlier in the series but a few times Simon calls Betty his princess and then his whole thing is trying to kidnap and marry a princess and those parts feel connected to me

It is Completely insignificant but i liked the sky hooks a lot. They were just kinda funny and 100% a plot device exclusively but i just liked them every time they came up it made me smile

Im finding it hard to find things to talk about because i did post alot about elementals as i was watching it and i dont wanna go too much i to what i already said

Oh and also its not Technically part of elementals but the episode after with bmo and marcy where she tells bmo the story of what happened on ooo while islands was happening is just such a nice episode. Its so nice its up there with the snowman and the fire pup episode for me

#elementals was vibin even if literally the engire thing was just forcing finn thru The Horrors #thats like every episode tho so like #man poor finn #i thinn i like elemntals a Lot more thani like islands but still less than stakes #its funky and got those character moments i like and feels more like cohesive?#i think thats my main problem with islands actually stakes and elemntals feel like one big thing but theres so much going on in islands #its hard to keep track of it all it feels more like 8 loosely comnected episodes than one cohesive plotline #Tree Man Posts #asks #love how basically the entire ask tag is ur adventure time asks #10/10 #and so the adventure time live blog continues

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