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facelessxchurch · 1 year

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I wrote my thoughts down while reading HBL, plus some the-morning-after thoughts.

MASSIVE Spoilers for "Hell Breaks Loose" under the 'Read More'. These are spoilers for the entire book including the big twist, so read at your own peril.

Too much talk about Skulduggery. Even when he's not present he remains the focal point, I hate it.

So far Ghastly seems to be the only POV character.

Why the fuck are my Bois wearing wigs???

Honestly, no one on their right mind would send a special force with a leader that has a personal grudge against one of the people they are meant to protect. This is beyond stupid.

Speaking of beyond stupid. The notion that some rando assassin could kill Mevolent is ridiculous, he is a god amongst men. Would be nice if Landy would remember that and stop doing him dirty.

So Ghastly is crushing on the leader of the masked sisters. And Saracen is of course trying to fuck her. Only proofing my dislike of him right again.

Remember that part on the Grimoire that says one of the FO bloodlines was cut short during the war? Yeah, found the fucker.

That fight was complete bullshit.

Nice to see an FO follower making a point of herself not believing her side to be evil. But fucking hell that dialog feels forced.

Dear god's, too many people in this book like to blabber on. Also, first Skul is going on about dinosaurs and now this part about the earth's gravitational pull and ancient knowledge about this planet. This is just Landy feeling smart BC he skimmed over a few wiki articles for like five seconds. Move on with the damn story.

Huh, Mev dealing with the gate is pretty close to the fake cover I made.

Skul keeps getting praised as a genius but he keeps doing stupid stuff like running at three overpowered enemies surrounded by their soldiers without a goddamn plan

As much as I enjoyed Baron stepping in the way and beating the shit out of Skul while Nef watches, Baron and Mev abandoning him is fucking bullshit and exactly what I feared would happen :/ poor Nef just keeps getting captured

Aaaaand Skul's stupidity doomed the world

Ghastly's mother showed up.

"for a parley Mevolent will want to have Serpine back" THEN WHY DID HE LEAVE HIM IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE??? IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN A FLICK OF HIS WRIST TO HAVE AN UNCONSCIOUS NEF FLOAT INTO HIS ARMS

They really do like putting bracelets on Nef

The voice. I can't believe Landy ripped off the fucking mouth of Sauron, what the fuck. Everybody knows LotR. Then again the Luke Skywalker thing was even worse. How is any of this legal?

FUCKING TIME TRAVELING VALKYRIE CAIN WE CAN'T GET EVEN ONE BOOK WITHOUT THST FUCKING STUPID WORTHLESS CUNT even more annoying was people predicting Valkyrie would travel back to war times ever since time travel became canon. Also there is a whole long-ass fic about exactly that premise.

The story just got a lot more convoluted and stupid. But now I know why this book is meant to be read after phase 2.

And let me guess, since Val is an overpowered Mary-Sue, they don't technically need Mev anymore to close the gate and she will do it instead

This feels like an unpleasant mix of exposition dump and getting lectured and I'm not here for it.

Nef is such a dramatic little shit, I love him!

Aaaaand he's dead.

Ah fucking hell, one of the only reasons I bought the book in the first place just died and I swear half the dialogue in this book is just about Ghastly's love life. Just continue the damn story and resurrect my bastard snek man >:/

Huh, nice trap from Mev. That's why I love the man <3 guess he must have known Nef was dead when he wasn't at the meeting and didn't take too kindly to it.

"kill him twice" "prime him for death" this plot makes less sense by the second. also, called Mev no longer being needed to close the portal.

Needless animal cruelty so you know the bad guys are the bad guys (this is not referring to the faceless followers btw)

Fighting literal children.

The Italian guy Valkyrie needs to talk to is randomly able to speak English.

And Skul turned into Vile. The scene seems like a parallel to Val turning 'permanently' into Darquesse in LSoDM

His entire skeleton got disintegrated yet that fucker put himself back together with shadows. Landy really made his shitty self-insert immortal, huh?

Saracen and Dexter are canon now apparently.

Baron and Mev are back, but it's not the same without Neffie :(

I call bullshit on Mev not instantly annihilating fighting 3 Dead Men at once, especially since they are weakened and tired.

So Valkyrie still has the black lighting but only uses it on the goddamn floor and not on the overpowered enemy she had been fighting a minute prior

Mev losing to the necromancers AGAIN is fucking bullshit

Did Ghastly just beat Baron to death? While he himself was half dead? That too is bs

Now there are multiple timelines. The one we read about and another one where Val hooks up with the Dead Men (can't tell if she is joking or not) and one that might be the same timeline where she and Mev fight together and Mev seals the portal. Aaaaand she flicked him off before leaving. This is why no one likes you, Val.

Morning After Thoughts:

I don't think we actually know what Hopeless' discipline was. But since he was a Hidden Blade too I guess it's something similar to Tanith?

I'm still not over how we got drowned in dialogue when it came to the Dead Men, yet Mev and his nasties barely spoke, especially not to each other. I think the most interaction they had was Nef saying one line to Mev and Baron smiling when they ditched Nef.

Holy fuck, Nef was done so dirty in this. He got knocked out almost instantly, left behind, captured, poisoned and then torn apart. With each Nef scene I'm more convinced he's based on someone Landy doesn't like bc he just loved fucking up Nef.

He really enjoyed watching Mev just fucking annihilate the Sanctuary side eventho I call bullshit on some scenes like Mev not instantly killing the three very exhausted Dead Men at the end of the book and Baron managing to get beaten to death after he had essentially already won.

The part in the present fucking sucked and I call so hard bullshit on Mev losing to the necromancers again. They are like a mini cult, they would not have the numbers for that even after Mev is done with the Sanctuaries. It's probably bc Landy made Vile OP AF in this 🙄 Also, this future proves Mev right about mortals.

I'm in general VERY disappointed how Mev and his generals felt at times more like set dressing than anything else. Given the synopsis, this feels like a massive bait and switch :/ You want wartime stories? Whoops, it's Val again. Fuck you.

Btw it's really hard to root for Skul and the Dad Men bc their plan is always to just rush in and start hitting stuff. At least they got some well-deserved ass-kicking for that. Meanwhile, Mev is the only one that actually comes up with plans and successfully executes them. Once again, Mev feels more like the main character than the main characters do.

But at the same time Landy can't help himself but to make a parody of Mev, especially with this 'the voice' bullshit that made Mev just look ridiculous. Landy doesn't seem to know that a good villain can make or break the story. Just look at the recent Puss in Boots movie, the villains are so good, they are what most people are talking about.

Conclusion: This feels like a massive bait-and-switch. The synopsis promised wartime stories Mev and his generals taking a central role alongside the Dead Men. Instead, it was a mix between a romance story for Ghastly and a time travel story for Valkyrie. Also, everything gets reset in the end and what we actually read is just one of the timelines she messed up before finding a conveniently easy fix. So it's NOT a prequel story as advertised, it's an alternate timeline. So everything that happens there is non-canon bc it gets reset at the end of the book anyways. So once Val and her time travelling gets revealed (or at the latest point when Nef dies) there is no reason to be invested in this story anymore bc you can tell it's just gonna get reset anyways.

#SP Hell Breaks Loose #HBL Spoilers #long post

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johannwolfgangvongoethe · 9 months

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Further Umineko-ing. Again

episode 1, part 3

whenever battler is unavailable, kumasawa has taken the up the role of exposition and comic relief, which is nice. i like granny characters and id be interested to hear more from her perspective, since she is sly and nosy. being a maid really exposes you to a lot of dirty laundry.

a new plot point came up. i didnt initially take this one seriously bc of how stupid it sounds. apparently there is a SECRET FAMILY TREASURE OF GOLD hidden on the island somewhere. really not a direction i expected but suuuuure. physical 10t of gold somewhere. there is something deeply funny about the headship and possibly the pact with beatrice being tied to a little private family paperchase. fact of the matter is, kinzo is WAY too serious about being chuuni to lie about this. as unrealistic as having 10t of gold just sitting around somewhere is. its an almost cute touch that beatrice is the family's personal boogyman - an entity children get warned about so they dont stray too deep into the forest and stay out after dark. except shes real i GUESS.

well, thats ominous.

maria once again exhibits a scary amount of sincereness towards the topic, which on its own isnt that weird, since shes nine years old. she mentions she wants to grow up to be a witch as well. another thing to put a pin into.

(looks at krauss' hair colour) uh oh sisters

at the same time, the same discussion is happening between kinzos children. since it seems clear krauss has in the past misappropriated his fathers funds, his siblings are - loving as they are -, offering him a way out. they will not investigate further, should he meet the following conditions:

right, hideyoshi is there too. btw.

at this point its perfect to mention that eva's va, ito miki, is doing an amazing job. every word eva says drips with poison. and hideyoshi has a way of being extremely unyielding, while keeping a kind and sincere face and voice. probably explains while george is like that

worringly, krauss just accepts it instantly but remarks hes too poor to pay the 10% in advance. everyone hated that!!!! however, krauss did his homework too. evas husband is plagued by shareholders that want to dispossess him. rudolf somehow got himself in front of court, without the knowledge of his wife nonetheless. no idea what rosas problem is, aside from the fact that her siblings talked her into the contract and she has yet to make it. as it turns out. everyone is neckdeep in trouble and NEEDS MONEY RIGHT NOW!!!! (the game spells this out in caps) except for krauss. funnily enough. he would only need instant money, should he sign the contract.

so there is no upper hand to be gained or control to be had. they are ALL cringe.

(this is where hideyoshi finally cracks. he does not lose his temper but is visibly uncomfortable.)

the contract remains unsigned. also they got spied on. it turns out kinzo also tolerates kanon around him, if its to spy on conversations his children had. needless to say he finds this hilarious and he has other worries anyway. hes trying to resurrect beatrice with black magic fuelled by the risks hes taking in life.

this truly is like world's shittiest family get together over the holidays. except way more money is one the line. but the emotional exhausting and toxicity is very true to life. rich people probably live like this. horrid.

magic in this vn is built up on risks taken and wagers made. the smaller the possibility of success, the better. which is why kinzo encourages the gold hunt in the first place. the more people look for it, the more powerful he becomes. and then he can ??!??!? resurrect beatrice. im just accepting that. necessary plot device to keep moving.

nanjo has the kindest reading on the gold paperchase: kinzo might have put it together to force his children to work together in solving it, thus mending their relationships and becoming a happy peaceful family.

yeeeeeeaaahhhh no................. at least thats not his prime motive. it could still be a side effect though.

the riddle to get there is as follows:

KILLLLLLLL !!!!!!!! REND! MAIM!

so here we are. "my beloved home of old" might already be the island. or maybe its more metaphorical than that. it is currently october 4th in the game and i have read up to the afternoon. that COULD theoretically mean the a "first twilight" could happen soon. if that part of the riddle is already relevant at all. welp lets see

#seagullposting

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brigade-claire-opinions · 2 years

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Day 1: The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

Well, let's get this started. CW: RAPE So, before tonight, I'd only ever seen parts of this movie with my cousin over a decade ago. I'd never actually sat down and watched it in earnest. Since the October 1st movie during these marathons is traditionally something from Rikka's childhood, we decided to fill that slot with this one. Needless to say, there's an infamous scene in this movie that I was blissfully unaware of before I went in. The Hills Have Eyes is a 2006 Post-Atomic Horror film co-written by Grégory Levasseur and Alexandre Aja, with Aja in the director's chair. A remake of Wes Craven's 1977 horror classic of the same name, The Hills Have Eyes follows the the Carter family as they're on a road trip from Cleveland, Ohio to San Diego, California. Upon taking route advice from a gas station attendant who may not have had their best interests in mind, the family finds themselves stranded with blown out tires in the harsh New Mexico desert. It's soon revealed that their misfortunate occurred at the hands of some people mutated by nuclear radiation thanks to the United States military. I'll start with the things I liked: - Some of the cast members were very pretty - One of the dogs (the one who doesn't die) is a badass - Some of the violence is cool - There's some fun cinematography - There are some pretty funny and memorable quotes: "97% nationwide coverage and we find ourselves in the 3%." "I'd take my bullets over your prayers any day." "He's a democrat, he doesn't believe in guns." And, well, that's pretty much all I really have to say about the "good" in this movie. The early-to-mid 2000s marked a weird transitional period for horror cinema. The Hills Have Eyes is rife with the era's blemishes: stale, wooden performances, stilted dialogue choices that at times insult the audience's intelligence, fake-out jumpscares, flashy and noisy closeups and scene transitions that would put modern Bollywood dramas to shame... you get the idea. Let me actually elucidate that last point for a second: a lot of this movie was just ugly or otherwise unpleasant to look at, and I'm not talking about the characters that are unattractive for the sake of forcing the audience to hate them. There's one scene in particular where one of the ill-fated family members finds a corkboard with pinned newspaper cutouts that conveniently display all of the exposition we need to not think too hard about what's about to happen (since the flick thinks we're idiots). Instead of scrolling over or blinking through the headlines like a sane movie would, it instead flickers through them with annoying flashes and dramatic sound effects. I'm really glad we're past that in modern cinema. Like I said above, there are SOME inspired shots. There's one where the camera follows a mine track and speeds down a slope as if it's on a rollercoaster - that's clever! I kinda miss when movies would do that. But if losing awful transitions means sacrificing fun camera sweeps like that, then good riddance. So, I'm now going to talk about THAT scene. If you ignored my content warning above and are not comfortable with this topic, or you don't want to see me get on a soapbox, please leave right now. The horror genre can be a fantastic vehicle to explore taboo or uncomfortable topics and concepts. A good horror film can explore these things and make the audience experience the terror of these situations without crossing the line into exploitation. The Hills Have Eyes intentionally and maliciously flies over that line. It contains a rape scene that flies about as close to the sun as an R-rated theatrical release can. It revels in its gratuity. It's shock value for its own sake. It disgusted me and I had to pause the movie and step away for several minutes. I almost did not resume playing it. I almost intentionally failed this challenge before it even began. This, of course, is the scene where some of the film's villains tie the family's father to a tree and set it aflame. While most of the cast is pointing and screaming at the fire and clutching and shaking the bleeding heart liberal who's trying to put it out, the archetypical pretty white blonde teenager is left in the family's trailer with her sister's infant daughter. Since the rest of the family is occupied with the burning man, two of the villains break into the trailer and force themselves on the teen. They tear off her clothes, they cover her mouth so she can't scream, and they fight over who gets the pleasure of assaulting her. At one point, one character even runs in, grabs something, and leaves without noticing what's going on just a few feet away from him. I just sold some of you on the flick. That's fine. I hope you enjoy it. There's nothing wrong with doing so. I sure as shit didn't, though. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't find any enjoyment at all in the comeuppance that comes to Brenda's rapists in the final act, but I also just don't think that scene was necessary. At all. I know it was in the Wes Craven original, but... come on. And impaling one of them in the head with an American flag to an electric guitar rendition of the Star-Spangled Fucking Banner? REALLY? Look, if you like The Hills Have Eyes, more power to you. I don't. I really fucking hate this movie. Tomorrow's my rebirthday. Let's move on to something more pleasant, yeah?

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panncakes · 2 years

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oh no bad buddy is the type of show thats going to lead to dumb essay writing on my dumb blog lmao

anyway, here’s what i like about bad buddy; everything feels earned. it feels like they understand that for a story to be good and have a strong foundation but also have good pacing every scene needs to push the plot forward and add to the character arcs. you can have cute and soft scenes, you can have over the top fight scenes, you can even have ridiculously obvious ads but if you don’t use them to put things into motion they just feel arbitrary (and it’s so prevalent in bls to just throw in a shippy or music or angsty moment and have them mean nothing for the overall picture because they don’t seamlessly work into the story or the characters). they are also incredibly good in showing not telling; the exposition dumps don’t feel as forced or needless as they do in some other shows.

the established feuds both in their families and faculties are ridiculous but they make sense for the story because they use time in the series to show us rather than simply tell us and it’s used very well to move the plot when it needs to. the pull between pat and pran feels genuine because they show us how it has always been there even as kids and that in turn is used to move the plot forward and build upon to have them reach a new understanding. them growing closer feels genuine because we are shown why they grow closer other than ‘two hot guys have tension and look at each other’s lips sometimes’. of course pat is interested in getting to know pran better and hanging out with him aside from them trying to keep their faculties from getting in trouble; they were sort of friends once! they have been a constant in each other’s life since before they were born! they have literally been brought up to pay attention to each other and surprise! they actually kind of work really well together! of course that is intriguing and fun; but we don’t just get them instantly hanging out and being buds; we get pat actively working to be friends with pran and because of that we get to see why pran is in love with pat. it’s not just because the story demands it; they put actual time and effort in showing why they work well together and why someone like pran would fall for someone like pat.

and it leads to the angst in the last episode feeling earned as well. i dislike the ‘girl in bl means drama’ trope because it is always handled so stupidly; i hate a lot of angst in bl because it always comes down to bad communication without valid reason just for an excuse to be dramatic and have a sad boy moment. but again it makes sense here because they took the time to lay the proper foundations and move them forward to get them to this point. it’s heartbreaking to watch pran so crestfallen; but damn if it isn’t done wonderfully and satisfyingly so. we understand his emotions because they’ve been shown to us; we are also given the time to understand and see that neither pat nor ink are malicious or bad people and it makes it all hurt that much more. and you bet your ass that this isn’t just a ‘bump’ in the road to half-assedly overcome and never to look back upon; it’s going to be another thing to propel these characters forward further into their arcs and since this is a very character driven plot it will undoubtedly move the plot as well.

idk i just like good story telling even in silly shows; it makes the wonderful genuine acting so much more satisfying to watch. it’s not a perfect show by any means; but it’s really very good and the characters feel real and it takes all these tropes and doesn’t necessarily turn them on their heads but executes them the way they should be executed instead of using them for dumbass attempts at nothing.

#bad buddy the series #someone stop me i don’t want to get invested in a gmmtv university show #p l e a s e

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fabricated-misslieness · 3 years

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Miles Morales x artistic!villain!male reader

Alright, this might not be the typical villain reader fic you’re expecting. It will probably not be. I would love to write an exposition of this, like starting to date, but I really love this prompt and I find it funny.

Pre-established relationship

Reader is a traditional artist and enjoys classical music. His whole villain thing is acting like a 19th century british gentleman.

Requested: Yes

Word Count: 819

Warnings: suggestive kisses

Miles shifted in your arms to look up at you.

You raised an eyebrow in confusion, as he seemed to be sleeping before. While you didn’t hear his usual obnoxiously loud snoring, you assumed it was muffled by your chest. “Weren’t you sleeping?”

“No, I was thinking.” Miles replied. Something seemed to be off. He didn’t have much of a smile on his face and his eyebrows were knitted together.

You close your book and put it aside so you can focus on him. “Something--”

You’re interrupted by Miles, who grins brightly, “..about that one time you were laughing maniacally and then I knocked you out with one kick!”

You groan at the trick he’d pulled on you, and also the memory. “Really, Miles?” To be fair, he got bitten by a radioactive spider that gave him super-strength. That seems a bit unfair, doesn’t it?

“I’m sorry!” Miles laughs, “It was just so funny!” He wipes a joyful tear from his eye. “I hit you once and you--”

“Nuh-uh, Miles.” You stop him before he can embarrass you with that story further, but there are plenty more stories that would embarrass you, which Miles uses often.

“Do you remember that one time where you thought you were being real sneaky and--”

“Miles…” You only say his name, but you say it like a threat, telling him that if he continues there will be consequences.

However, these are consequences Miles is willing to take because what’s funnier than the stories is how embarrassed you get. “.. and I snuck up behind you and scared you.” He’d really scared the crap out of you in that moment. Your heart was already racing and then you just suddenly heard a sound.

Before you can say anything, he continues on with another one. “Oh! And that one time Scorpion was dragging you by the ear!”

It’s not your fault his super-powers also include super-strength. “I hate working for those six whatever guys.” You groan.

“Lemme guess, you prefer riding solo?” You roll your eyes at Miles’s comment.

“Yes,” As much as you wanted to deny it because of the way he phrased it, he was right. “now can you leave me in peace? This book isn’t finishing itself.” You gesture towards the coffee table.

“So you want me to leave?” Miles raises a playful eyebrow.

“No,” He laughs when he feels your arms tighten around him. “Just, stop talking or something.”

“You just told your beloved to shut up.” He expects you to either deny it or apologize, but it seems he’d dug into your nerves.

“I told you to shut up politely.”

“Like ‘stop talking’ is polite. Tell you what, I’ll shut up if you give me music control.” Up until then, your music had been playing. Who had control of the music switched every now and then. You’d developed a turn system over the months since your styles were very different.

He liked hip-hop, pop, all that stuff that never comes to your mind. You, on the other hand, liked classical pieces and old records you could slow dance to like cheesy old married couples. You think back to the first time you’d ever slow danced together. It was in your bedroom, the very first time he’d visited your house.

He sucked, it was as if he had two left feet.

You shake the memory off. “You expect me to read to hip hop?”

Miles shrugs, “You can’t?”

“I mean, I might be able to..” You pretend to think, tapping the top of your head. “What if you sweeten the deal?” You trail your hand up and down his side. The rhythmic movement sends shivers down his spine.

“Hmm, trying to barter with me?” He pretends to think as well. “I don’t know, what do you have in mind?”

“Free kiss pass, no matter where you are? Graffiti dedicated to me? I don’t know, darling.” You stroke his hair as you think, genuinely this time. “Hmm, I think I got something. How about you finally let me paint a portrait of you?”

“What? No… maybe. Maybe yes, maybe no. Who knows?” At first, he denied it only because he’d be embarrassed at the thought of you having a portrait of him. Over time he thought it was fine, but he decided to keep denying it as an inside joke.

“Plead all you want, but I won’t--” You cut him off with a kiss on the lips.

“C’mon darling.” You coax him with your seductive voice. He couldn’t resist it, it always helped you get something from him, apart from the portrait, of course.

It’s rough, which makes him let out an embarrassing moan from the surprise.

“Will that persuade you?”

He stares up at you with a cheeky grin, “I dunno, maybe another kiss will help?”

Needless to say, the deal was sealed and Miles got his favorite music genre to play.

#miles morales x reader #miles morales x male reader #spider-man x reader #spider-man x male reader #spider-verse x reader #spider-verse x male reader #fluff #spider-verse fanfiction #craving fic

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galaxysgal · 3 years

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Space Lullaby || Din Djarin

Pairing: Din Djarin x gn!reader

Summary: You turned to see Din smiling at you, his deep brown eyes softer than normal. He held out his hand to you, and when you took it he yanked you down into his lap. He buried his face in the space where your shoulder met your neck, inhaling deeply. There was something in the way you rocked that kid to sleep, it seemed to make his heart swell up in his chest, near to bursting.

Warnngs: none :) unedited, so typos probably

A/N: Nat ( @poesflygirl ) requested nose kisses w/ Din but im a dummy and deleted the draft with the ask :/ ut here is is! there’s a lot of needless exposition but there’s so much soft!din in this, i think it’s forgiveable. This takes place after s1 but before s2

Wordcount: 1.1k

xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

The kid had been crying for what felt like hours now. He was refusing to fall asleep while Din was still awake, but the little womp rat had been up for far longer than he could handle. You sighed, knowing the only thing he wanted to see right now is his father. "Alright you little monster," you murmured, struggling to climb the ladder up to the cockpit with one hand. "You got what you want, you can stop crying now."

His wails subsided as you entered the cockpit, and you heard Din chuckle. "He really does like you, I swear," he said, turning the chair around to face you and holding out his arms. The kid wiggled around in anticipation until he was handed off, cooing softly once he was with Din.

"Oh, you little traitor," you huffed, collapsing into the other chair. You slumped down and blew a strand of hair out of your eyes, watching as that little green bastard sat happily in Din's lap playing with the silver knob he loved so much. "Are you sure he likes me?" you asked softly.

Din's visor tilted towards you. "I'm sure." His voice was so steady and unwavering, you knew he truly believed what he was saying. "Do you remember the first time you held him? How he went to sleep almost instantly in your arms?"

You hadn't remembered. It was a few days ago, when Din came to pick you up from Tatooine. You had been working as a teacher at a small desert school there while Din figured out what to do with this kid. You hated being away from him, but you understood where he was coming from. He cared for you, and he couldn't have Gideon using you as leverage to get to him and the kid.

"I had forgotten that," you mused.

"Ah, but I hadn't," you could almost hear his playful smirk, "mando'ad draar digu, cyare."

A Mandalorian never forgets.

The kid reached one tiny hand up to the beskar helmet, pushing at it with a curious coo. Din pulled off his helmet and sat it to the side, holding the kid up so they were face to face. "What do you want, ad'ika?" Little green hands slapped down on Din's head, playing him like a drum and giggling. "Ow," Din mumbled, "you need to calm down, buddy. It's bedtime."

You chuckled at that, "the instant I take him out of this cockpit, he'll start wailing again. He's attached to you, Din."

"Why don't you just leave him up here? His pram is in the corner, he'll sleep just fine in there. That way you can get some good sleep, without having to worry about him." He bounced the kid gently on his knee, "maybe you can rock him to sleep? He's getting tired."

"I don't know, Din, he wants you-" But Din was already handing the kid over. You took him in your arms, rocking him nervously.

"He can smell your fear," Din joked, and you smacked his arm lightly. "Just sing to him or something, he'll go right to sleep." He turned the chair back around to face the windshield and started messing with the switches and levers on the dash, his way of telling you to get to it.

The kid started to nestle into your chest, cooing just loud enough for you to hear. He was getting sleepy, finally. You began to rock him to a more steady beat, singing a song your mother had once sung to you.

"Darkness falls, a favorite blanket that surrounds us all / A quiet ending to a busy day / Of noise and troubles we have put to sleep / You and I." It worked like a charm. By the third verse he was letting out the most adorable little snoring sounds, and you went ahead and skipped to the ending of the song. "Far away, I'm here beside you darling come what may / now that the night is crawling off to bed, lay down upon your pillow / Pretty head, to sleep, to sleep."

You whispered the last words as you laid him down in his pram, tucking the little blanket around him, "Lay down, down to sleep / To sleep."

“See,” the soft, unmodulated rasp that you love so dearly greets your ears. "He likes you."

You turned to see Din smiling at you, his deep brown eyes softer than normal. He held out his hand to you, and when you took it he yanked you down into his lap. He buried his face in the space where your shoulder met your neck, inhaling deeply. There was something in the way you rocked that kid to sleep, it seemed to make his heart swell up in his chest, near to bursting. His lips brushed your bare skin, his moustache scratching against you as he trailed sweet kisses on whatever skin he could reach.

"Hi," you whispered.

"Hi honey," came his muffled reply, face still buried in your neck.

You brought one hand up to pull his face away from your skin just a little, guiding his lips to yours. You shared soft, lazy kisses, eyes closed and hands resting against each other. Not pulling or moving around, just holding. There was a stillness to it, in the utter silence of hyperspace there was nothing but you and Din and the brilliant streaks of light illuminating the cockpit. There was reverence in the way he held you, like he had been away from you for too long and now that he had you he was rededicating himself to appreciating you, all of you.

His fingers found the hem of your shirt, ducking under and tracing all the lines of you. Your spine, your ribs, your shoulder blades, everything.

You hummed, "Din, sweetheart, you're gonna pull off my shirt if you keep at it," you warned softly.

"Mm, sorry." He pushed gently against your lips and moved his hand down from where it had been stroking between your shoulder blades. His large palm pressed flat against you, fingers splaying out across the small of your back and pulling you closer. "I missed you," he murmured into your mouth, "Missed you so much."

You brought your hands up to cup his face, his skin delightfully warm under your fingertips. You trailed your lips away from his, first kissing the corner of his mouth, then up across his cheeks to kiss the crinkles at the corner of his eye. "I missed you too," you pressed your forehead against his, feeling both his arms tighten around your middle.

When he pulled away he leaned up to press his lips firmly against your forehead, then moved down to press a light kiss to your nose. A giggle bubbled up from deep in your chest. "You're too cute," you whispered, and he blushed.

"Shh, no more talking." He kissed your nose again, lips warm like afternoon sunlight. "Just let me kiss you."

End.

Permenant taglist: @poe-djarin @tinyphantomsalad @poesflygirl

Fic taglist: @djarinsidebitch

#din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin imagine #din djarin #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #mags writes #hiiii nat hope you like this

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explodingcrayon · 3 years

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OKAY here are my Critical Thoughts about TLTTK which I still think is a really good, entertaining show and I kind of want to read the original book now... Obviously there are differences between the two as with any adaptation, but it’s a good story all the same!!

Major spoilers under the cut for the netflix series!!

Alright so my biggest issue is with the last two episodes, mainly with the last episode. Pacing was good the entire show until this last episode where they had to wrap everything up and end it. Which left it feeling like... weird? It felt “complete” but also there was so much that was left just empty?

I wish we had seen more Eviellan stuff (the place, characters from there, the actual conflict that they were suffering, etc.) but I guess I also understand why we didn’t, as Tiuri was the focus of the story? But considering the war was uhhh SIGNIFICANT to them, I wish that wasn’t glossed over as it was the more the story progressed. It kind’a makes me angry the more I think about it tbh LOL

His mom was locked up and that was a big thing in the beginning and then last 5 minutes we’re back home and everyone is being knighted and she’s just okay LMAO We don’t see her being released, reuniting with Tiuri, any moments or nods to Tiuri Sr. ... Idk, she was a tertiary character and that’s why IG

Honestly all the tertiary characters felt so empty at the end of the day LMAO The nobles in particular felt so pointless. Alianor gets caught by Viridian and then she just shows up fine in the epilogue. So like what happened to her??? Did he just knock her out or put her to the side or??? Why was she snooping anyway???? She accomplished nothing and was just sort of ~there~ the whole story. It made it seem like the alliance was going to be a bigger deal and then ended up being 100% irrelevant.

(Also with the alliance... this seemed so backwards??? Viridian, the son that was leading Unauwen’s army and fighting directly for it should have been given the throne, while Iridian was shipped off to ally with Dagonaut??? That makes way more sense??? But also seemed like it was going to be a bigger conflict than it was????? As in it didn’t matter at all????)

Likewise Iridian had no real role outside of his relationship to Alianor and his suspicions of his brother. And considering Alianor herself was p irrelevant in the plot, he could have been fine as a character without her. (And even then, his role in the story was minimal and he felt like milquetoast prince trope)

Bury Your Gays 😒

^But also like REALLY SUPER AVOIDABLE???? AND THAT JUST MAKES IT WORSE??? Tiuri survived with a stab wound for like 2 days at LEAST but Jisuppo dies 30 minutes later??? What, my boy’s not worthy of plot armor 10 minutes before the end??? Hate this shit ldksjfa

TBH I understand why they had to kill off all the coolest characters bc then it leaves Tiuri to be the protagonist, but also please stop killing the cool characters I want to see a story with them in it aaaahhh

I LOVED that we think Viridian is just a power-hungry general-prince until the last moment when we realize like. Oh. He was sent to conquer this other nation and being the one of the front lines with them, he’s pissed over how needless and cruel it is to both the Eviellans and his own soldiers. He wants to put a stop to conflict altogether, albeit in a really terrible way. He genuinely thinks he’s the hero of the story when instead he’s putting himself in the prophecy’s role of villain. That’s!! Super interesting!! He’s still not sympathetic as a villain, but I GET him. ...So it’d be nice if the epilogue had some sort of nod from the surviving King / upcoming prince Iridian that like “damn we fucked up with this whole war, maybe we should work harder to not be asshole monarchs and take care of our people + work towards peace and reparations.” Nope! Nothing of the sort.

In general it feels like there’s no real overarching closure with half the subplots? Mostly the background stuff: the nobles, the war, Lavinia’s road & mom, etc.

Where did Jabroot go???? Was he killed?? Did he get to keep hanging out?? Arrested???

The twist at the end of episode 5 is literally explained with a throwaway exposition line at the start of episode 6. Paraphrased, “So the magic works like this bc of this!” ???? I MEAN GREAT BUT COULD WE NOT GET MORE DETAIL ON THAT SINCE IT’S KIND OF A BIG DEAL??????

I LOVED the twist and HATED it. I loved it bc I genuinely did not see it coming and that is so rare tbh... But I also hated it for a lot of reasons which I will detail below:

1. It feels very like. White Savior area. The deuteragonist white character is literally the shining white light to defeat the darkness when my boy Tiuri has been RIGHT THERE,,, THE WHOLE TIME,,, DOIN’ ALL THE HARD WORK,,, Tiuri was a great MC and hero and he should’ve been the one with the magic, tbh

2a. It’s literally not explained. “So the magic is all around us, it’s not in blood!” Except the people who originated and routinely use the magic say otherwise?? So a 10 yo knows more about it than a civilization and culture that essentially founded it as tradition??? (Who, btw, are the POC versus the White country HMMM)

2b. Okay so even given that,, weirdness,, The magic is something everyone can access, you just Gotta. So you still have to answer what makes Lavinia so special??? Has she always had these powers?? Did they first manifest in the abbey (or the fog leading up to the abbey)??? Why did they manifest?? Is it just through high emotions like she said? Did her mother have magic too?? Where did this come from??

2c. Tiuri DOES have SOME connection to magic, because even as they said, he was hearing voices and such from it... So how is his magic different? How does it work? WAS his birth father a Shaman or was the audience just meant to infer/assume that? His mother seemed to know all about this stuff going on, so??????? I’m????? So many questions?????

NOW I WILL SAY... I did not read the book, or see if this is a book series or just a standalone or anything like that. So I don’t know how the story goes exactly when compared to this Netflix adaptation — how much they changed, or how much they left out. Maybe the denouement and epilogue were more informative than what they had time for in the show. But after some really great episodes leading up to the final culmination...! It kind of left me feeling, “hm :/“

So I still recommend it as a show and form your own opinion (esp if you read the book and have full context to the story)! But those are my hm >:/ gripes with it

#tlttk #txt it #these are not just 'meh i hated it' i tried to be as comprehensive as possible lol #they're mostly critiques based on pacing and the usual challenge of like #adapting a book to a limited time format for a series/movie #which is understandable

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militant-holy-knight · 4 years

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Castlevania Season 3 Review: Ellis is Gonna Ellis I Suppose.

Warning: Massive spoilers ahead because I don’t give a shit anymore so scroll down really fast if don’t want to get spoiled

Being a Castlevania fan is pure suffering, man. Not only is the video game franchise being put on ice by Konami at the time of writing, but your only form of enjoyment is a hit-or-miss Netflix Original written by a guy who admits never playing the games. I tried to enjoy the first season despite it being only four episodes long, and same thing with the second one which was longer but had a plethora of issues. Now it’s the third season, which took a year-long break to be made, and I am absolutely sorry to say it’s the absolute lowest point of the show: not only repeating the issues from the previous season, but amplifying them and failing to do anything interesting with anything new that is given. I will elaborate why I think so in this review.

So after Season 2, Dracula has been destroyed, our heroes have split up with Trevor and Sypha going their own way while Alucard has stayed behind in his father’s castle overlooking the Belmont Hold. Carmilla and Isaac have survived and are preparing to build an whole new army, the former to establish a new empire and the latter to get his revenge on her for betraying Dracula.

Even though the stakes are lower than the possible extinction of the human race which was the (possible) outcome from Season 2 which never actually came into fruition, you’d imagine they would do something inciting with this new status quo... But you’d be wrong. This season as a whole felt like padding in all conceivable manners. Not only was the pacing atrocious (which I will get into a minute), but really, nearly all of the events that occurred could have been omitted and the storyline as a whole wouldn’t have been affected somehow.

The pacing was the worst problem in Season 2 since you had the protagonists locked down inside a hold to do research on how to kill Dracula and endless exposition among the bad guys that some defenders call “vampire politics’ which ultimately went nowhere. The pacing in Season 3 is even worse since not only is it longer (10 episodes this time), you have more storylines now but each of them move at completely sluggish pace with a disproportional large amount of exposition and comparatively few action.

The Castlevania games were level-based games which had you visiting several distinct locations whether if it was inside or outside the castle. An adaptation series of Castlevania would make more sense if it was episodic in nature, perhaps even with monster of the week formula. It would have been better off for it, but the show is attempting channel Game of Thrones with an over-aching arc with sprawling individual storylines whose episodes are build up for an epic confrontation at the end, but it fails in that regard.

Trevor and Sypha’s storyline was absolutely pointless - they have no idea of the larger threat brewing with two demonic armies about to clash against each other, but they are stuck doing what basically amounts to a sidequest, investigating a evil cult operating in a small town which takes a needless long time to conclude. They completely fail in saving the townsfolk from being sacrificed and end up discovering that one of the characters that has been helping them is actually a monster all along. This only serves to make their effort completely pointless and leave the pair absolutely bitter and angry.

Not that there is any urgency in stopping Carmilla or Isaac since they come nowhere near close to trading blows to one another. In fact, Carmilla doesn’t come anywhere close to achieving her goal of raising an army of demons with Hector (who has been enslaved by her for this purpose) and it’s actually one of her lieutenants Lenore that solves this problem at the end. On the other hand, Isaac gets the closest thing to an highlight in this season by experiencing something of an character development since he is questioned by several characters that maybe humans aren’t so bad as a whole. The problem is that his development becomes inconclusive since he doesn’t learn to be anymore different than he used to.

Alucard gets sidelined like you wouldn’t believe. He spends the entire season in his castle now with two new characters, Japanese twin hunters that seek to be training so they can free their people from the vampires... Aaaaand they try to fuckin kill him, which comes out from nowhere specially after an extremely uncomfortable threesome between him and the twins. And just in case you thought the previous season was depressing enough with Alucard breaking down in tears completely alone in his castle, this one ends not only with Alucard still alone, crying, but now emulating his dad by leaving the impaled corpses of the twins in the castle’s entrance to scare off any trespassers which is the closing shot of this season.

But for me, the biggest letdown has to be Hector. He was one of my favorite characters from the games, having starred his own entry Curse of Darkness for the PS2 where he actually turns on Dracula on behalf of humanity and pursues Isaac for murdering his wife. Here, he does absolutely fuck all during the entire season except being bossed around by Carmilla’s sisters. The guy had such cool powers of summoning Innocent Devils and wielding all types of weapons (including a lightsaber) is reduced to a whimpering slave, whom I have absolutely no hope of seeing in his absolute glory. The worst part is that it was very predictable - the moment I saw Lenore saying that both her and Hector should flee together, I knew she was gonna screw him in some way. The irony is that unlike the other storylines which pull some kind of mean twist in the last second, here you already can tell what is going to happen next.

The new characters frankly do nothing for the story. The aforementioned Carmilla’s sisters are pure window-dressing and only Lenore gets the shit done by herself might I add completely independent from the others and specially Carmilla herself (who does nothing). A video game character actually does get featured - Comte of Saint-Germain, who is some kind of magician in search of his loved one who got lost in another dimension. Another step down from his video counterpart who is a time guardian that preserves the cosmic balance (though it seems they were channeling the historical figure rather than the character that happens to share the same name given their ignorance for the source material).

There are of course those typical Warren Ellis moments like three mentions of bestiality (and one goatfucking as usual) and anti-Christian commentary, though it seems to be sending some kind of mixed messages this time: in one hand Sypha comment that while she hates God, she at least admires Jesus because of his sacrifice which can be considered one of nicest things that atheists can comment about Christianity... And then the next episode features an demon that used to be a Greek philosopher who lived during post-Constantinian Roman Empire and was persecuted by Christians because of his intellect. Oh dear. With that said, it’s rather odd this guy became a demon so maybe he had it coming?

Overall, this season is a lot more weaker and lacking than Season 2, which at least had the climax in Episode 7 which some people were willing to forgive the dullness from that season. But Season 3′s climax is completely unfocused, interlaced with unnecessary and uncomfortable sex scenes and doesn’t even feature classical music from the games, which was the saving grace from the last time.

So did it have any upsides? I guess so if you look hard enough like Isaac’s schizophrenic “should I hate all humans or not” dillema which goes unresolved. Hardly anything that elevates the season or make it redeemable in some way. To be perfectly frank with you, I don’t know if I have any interest in keeping with this show. It blew away any good will Season 1 and 2 did, it barely moved the plot forward (and that if it has an overaching plot at all), the protagonists being disconnected to the main threat at large and quite frankly, none of the antagonists are as interesting as Dracula, I just don’t care what happens next. Specially if the pacing and exposition remain in place. In theory, if the series was restructured to be episodic instead of trying to be Game of Thrones, my interest in the show would have been renewed but it’s too little too late.

I guess in retrospect I should be grateful that Season 1 was so short had I knew later ones would be so tedious. There is so very little to do with Castlevania: Dracula’s Curse when you already got rid of the main villain and you don’t move the plot forward. If they want to regain my interest, do a Leon Belmont season that is episodic or heck anything else, but I don’t see them doing this because they have to give closure to this story arc, which already grew past it’s welcome and wasted everyone’s time with a season that amounted to nothing more than filler. Well, my patience has been worn thin.

#Castlevania #reviews

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nekomajo · 4 years

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They all deserved better

My actual review/rant of TROS. Needless to say SPOILERS and this movie pissed me off. They threw in anything and everything in an attempt to please as many people as possible. But this has never worked and I don’t know why they bothered. (Also sorry if this is all over the place) Hux and the FO Out of all the characters that have existed since TFA, I feel Hux was the biggest missed opportunity. He had the potential to be an amazing and formidable villain, without being a powerful Sith Lord. He’s been shown to be clever and underhanded, using any means to get to the top. What we got was a Hux that was just there for a ‘twist’ and then die like a bitch. The First Order as a threat could have created technology to block out the Force and maybe even supress it. They could have gone the way of like witch hunting, searching out Force Sensitives and trying to take their powers away. This could have been their goal after Snoke was killed since Hux never cared for Space Wizard. I personally find that more frightening than some wrinkled old coot in a dark cave. Poe He was never in my top five favourites, but I still enjoyed him and his shenanigans just fine. However, this movie somehow made me not care about him at all. His inspiring speeches and witty quips were hollow and I was just counting the seconds until his scenes were over. Rose I can’t really express my anger in words at how she was side lined. This poor girl who lost he sister, but still pushed through and was determined not to lose anyone else. She was barely there and her importance to other characters was almost none existent. Finn What happened with this character actually hurts me. I always used Finn as an example of why the ST was going to be good. For the first time in these movies and Stormtrooper was shown as a human. They were nothing but faceless canon fodder in the OT and in the PT they were show as mindless tools that only followed orders. Finn being a defected Stormtrooper gave a new point of view and it could have been used to further the story. My ideal outcome for Finn was if he reached out to find other’s like him and perhaps bring down the First Order from within. The message that you are more than what others try and make you believe and that you can always choose your own path. But instead he was reduced to a one-note hero whose backstory means nothing to his goals or character. Skywalkers I didn’t think it was possible for me to ever dislike Leia and Luke, but this movie pulled off a miracle. With the other two movies I could understand that they made mistakes, because everyone does. But the hypocrisy and just down right mean spirited way they treated their own family in favour of someone else makes me sick. Also CGI Leia galore! The Romance There were a few very good bits with Rey and Ben, but they were sort of drowned in unnesesary exposition and bad dialogue. I felt like there scenes were taken from two different scripts, one where they are in love and another where it feels one sided? It was not fun watching Rey flip between being cold and sometimes hateful to Ben and then revealing that she has deep feelings for him. Also, for her to not be shown mourning him, even for a few minutes made me cringe. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the romance was acknowledged, but I just wish they’d pick a consistent tone. The kiss was sweet but really bad, when Ben just keels over and dies right after. It was shown as a ‘happy we’re together kiss’, but then it’s revealed to be a ‘goodbye kiss’ all along? Like damn, that’s really shitty. I probably could have dealt with him dying if it was done better and his sacrifice was at least acknowledged. But it was like the happy ending was dangled in front of us and snatched away, with no lasting impact on Rey. As I said before pick a friggin’ tone and STICK WITH IT! Giving your audience emotional whiplash isn’t good story telling! Rey Oh boy… I had such high hopes for Rey. A lonely little girl from nowhere who became something amazing on her own, should have been so easy to accomplish. But no, instead we got a girl whose traumas and flaws are glossed over and covered up with bad writing. Sheev Palpatine being Rey’s grandfather takes away any quality to her character. Making her abandonment an act of ‘love’ just allows her to shrug off the years of loneliness with no repercussions. She was only able to defeat the big baddie in the end, because a bunch of ghosts helped her. She only lived in the end because someone gave their life for her. She was only strong because of other people and never on her own. Kylo Ren/Ben Solo By far the most amazing thing in the messed up movie and probably the whole trilogy! If you think that Rose being side lined was bad, the shit put on Ben made my head spin. Apparently, his mother and Uncle knew all along that he was in danger of falling to the dark before he was born and still did nothing to prevent it? Because he was Vader’s grandson, he deserved to be tossed aside? Any remorse from Luke and Leia seem to be minimal at best, while they fawn over pseudo children. The only one who ever seemed to give a crap about him was Han. Ben was twisted and pulled around on a string by Palpatine and his family let it happen. When Ben turns, we see the sassy, light hearted rouge he should have been all along. He literally fights his way to Rey’s side, gets thrown into a pit and crawls back out with broken bones, before restoring a life with the Force. He accomplished all this without anyone’s help, accept the memory of his father. It’s ironic that despite being the heir to the Skywalker line, Ben was more powerful without them, while Rey unfortunately is unable to do anything unless other’s help her. This is why more fans like Ben than Rey in my opinion. Every single character and relationship was done dirty in one way or another. They all deserved so much better. The worst thing about it all is that I could see a potentially good movie and it’s sad it turned out this way. Of course, if you enjoy TROS, please don’t let what I or anyone else thinks diminish that for you. This is just how I feel.

#Star wars #TROS #spoilers #reylo #my thoughts #rey of jakku #kylo ren #ben solo #they deserved better

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averagesmw · 5 years

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Penny Haywood x MC (3)- It's always you

Game: Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery

Things to note: The finale for this wholesome little series Do let me know if you wish to see something with Merula, tulip or another scenario with the lovely Penny Haywood!

____________________

It's always you

The train had stopped moving, I had arrived at my destination, Hogsmeade. Apparently, Hogwarts was sometimes too exotic for its own good, I was still missing some of the ingredients for the soup I needed, so I asked Chiara to stay behind and take care of our mutual friend while I settled this down

I stepped down and headed into the cold, but cozy streets of this village. To Think Penny and I were just yesterday, to stop right in front of Hogwarts for a snow fight...come to think of it, that little adventure of ours was the reason I was here again in such short notice

Once in Hogsmeade, I took out a small note, detailing the ingredients I still needed for-

"Y/N! WATCH OUT!!"

I quickly looked away from my note and managed to duck just in time for a fanged frisbee to fail in decapitating me, just my luck. I then studied where it came from, and sure enough, I found a girl with short, spiky pink hair.

She was Nymphadora Tonks, a prankster, and friend I did near the end of our second year, quite an interesting addition to Hufflepuff if you ask me. Wait, how come every friendly face I've found so far is a Hufflepuff? Note to self, investigate later

"I'm so sorry, Y/N! I didn't see you just standing there! I knew that testing that frisbee out in the open wouldn't be much of a good idea"

She ran to me and helped me up while explaining herself. I found it hard to be mad at her, at least she warned me this time

"Well, I wouldn't exactly describe Hogsmeade as "out in the open", you know?"

"Huh...another point to you"

I could tell she had not quite thought about it that way, perhaps she was so anxious to test her new contraption that she forgot about the safety of everybody else...why does that sound familiar?

"Anyway, what brings you to Hogsmeade?"

Her tone softens as she makes that question, and sure enough, caught my attention again

"I'm looking for some ingredients, it's important"

I handed her the note I was reading before our...err...encounter, she came up with an idea surprisingly quick

"Say no more, I think I saw a place on my way here, c' mon!"

Tonks started to lead the way without even asking me, she just threw herself to help me. I swear I'm ridiculously lucky to have friends like these sometimes

And so, we went deeper into the streets of the village and under Tonk's guidance, we found a place called "Dogweed and Deathcap", not exactly what I was looking for, but it would have to do

We approached the building, I held the door open for my friend, who thanked me with a smile before we both got in. The man working there greeted us and asked if we were looking for something in particular, to which I answered by explaining the ingredients I needed for my...potion, yes, it would be best to call it like that for the moment

Fortunately enough, they had the components and pointed us to the direction of where they were placed. This was going better than I thought, yet I could not feel my concern for Penny get any weaker if anything I was cursing myself for taking so long

"Wotcher, Y/N! I've never seen you so focused before! This potion must be quite important to you"

She was definitely referring to the notable absence of jokes or comments on my behalf, truth to be told, I could hardly think of any at the moment

"As a matter of fact, it is" I answered while placing the things on the counter, waiting for the

employee to charge me what was needed

There was silence after that, I handed the money and we took our leave, however, as soon as we left the store, I heard my companion's voice yet again

"Oi, Y/N, can I ask you something?"

We didn't stop walking since time was of the essence, but she certainly had my attention

"Go ahead"

"I'm not Snape to know every potion in existence, but I don't think that what we gathered were ingredients for a potion..."

Bugger, she was on to me

"...Is it for Penny?"

Out of pure surprise, I stopped walking to look at her, miserably failing to mask my surprise

"How do you know?"

A smirk decored her face for a couple of seconds, proud she deduced my schemes

"Word is she might have had too much fun yesterday and got sick. If anyone would be to brew her something to feel better, it would be you, Y/N"

I couldn't help but smile myself at this, Tonks was indeed full of surprises

"Since when did you become so good at deduction?"

"Nope, I just know my friends"

We shared a laugh after that statement, there was the Tonks I knew

"All too well, I might add"

While we were having fun at the moment, I still had a task, and we continued to walk back to the train station

"C' mon, I'll explain it to you on the way back"

We paid for passage and now on board of the Hogwarts Express, we started our journey back. In the meantime, I kept my word and told my prankster friend about my shared adventure with Penny the day before

...Keeping out some personal details, of course

"...That was quite the story, no wonder why Penny talks so greatly about you, Y/N"

Now that statement caught me off guard, I normally hated the attention, but coming from her? That was another story entirely

"She does?"

She couldn't help but chuckle at this, I might have sounded just as confused as a first year

"You should know by now. So, then your ingredients, what are they for?"

I could feel myself getting slightly more serious at this question, but not enough to kill the already happy mood Tonks set with me

"I'm going to trust you this small detail, Tonks. I owe you that after helping me today"

"It was nothing, Y/N, but I appreciate it"

She smiled kindly at me, but I just nodded before I prepared my exposition about the importance of this particular dish regarding Penny and a few more extra facts

"You see, back when I was a kid, my brother Jacob and I would sometimes fall sick because we wouldn't listen to mum's advice, who would have guessed that playing under the rain or the snow could get you sick? We certainly didn't, or didn't care enough to stop"

I heard her chuckle at this part, I found it quite charming myself, reliving those moments of my childhood was always a pleasure

"So every time we felt under the weather, she would make this special dish, chicken soup to help fight the symptoms and cheer us up in the process, you can't go wrong with that"

Then, feeling unable to stop, I kept telling that story, even the not so enjoyable parts

"So when my brother went missing, my mum...let's just say she didn't take it well. I recalled those times she helped us with that soup, so the first thing I learned to cook, or brew for that matter, was that soup"

"To cheer her up?"

"Exactly"

"Ahh...I see, so you're now doing the same for Penny by making this" Tonks was handling it better than I thought, she was invested in the tale herself

"I mean, it's pretty much my fault she got sick in the first place, it's the least I can do"

"Well, I think that is very sweet of you, Y/N. Let me know if you need help with anything"

"Now that you mention it, I might need your help to get into the potions classroom to prepare this thing" I motioned to the bag in my hands

The Hufflepuff grinned, nodding as an idea had already popped in her mind

"Perhaps I can test my fanged frisbee again. You know, without hitting you"

I laughed at this, admiring her enthusiasm. If that was her plan, I would allow it, as long as nobody would get hurt, of course

Nymphadora Tonks and I might not have been together for long, but we could coordinate without any problem when we had a common goal, so by the time we got back to Hogwarts, we already had a plan

Sneaking our way into the dungeons, stopping only for me to gather the ingredients I already had, Tonks and I took cover behind a wall. We nodded at each other and she put on her handler glove before picking up her fanged frisbee and walked towards the hall

She wound up and threw the frisbee as far as she could, catching the attention of the prefect immediately once he saw the device in the air and the pink-haired girl running away in another direction, it was now or never

The entrance to the classroom was empty, so I ran inside, placed the ingredients in a table and got to work. Chopping the vegetables, getting some water in the cauldron, all those things brought back the memories

Back to a simpler time, a time in which I was happy and I didn't know it, with Jacob, mum, and dad trying to make our way in the world...Oh how would give anything to see mum alive again...or getting to see dad again

...Or Jacob

...What the, when did it become so difficult to see? Bloody hell, I'm letting myself get carried away, focus, Y/N!

Think, what would Snape do in a situation like this? Oh! I got it

"Y/N, you incompetent fool, stop crying over my cauldron or I'll make you clean every single thing in this room for the rest of the year"

Yeah, that's more like it. Thanks, Professor Snape, maybe I'll-

"How's everything going, do you need any help?"

Needless to say, I was not expecting another voice in this room, especially when I'm not supposed to be there, so my reaction was what you would expect

"BLOODY HELL!!"

I nearly fell down thanks to this mysterious voice, who gasped when she saw this and helped me keep balance. When I looked back at her, I discovered that it was Chiara

"I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you like that!" She was clearly as startled as I was, but for both our sakes, I had to keep it quiet, or else this plan would fail

"It's alright, but what are you doing down here?"

"Tonks told me you were back from Hogsmeade, I thought you could use a hand to prepare this thing" She replied with that kind (still a bit scared) tone of hers

"Fine, I'm almost done with this anyway, please fetch me some bowls so we can bring this to Penny"

"On it" She went back and searched for the bowls, which were on the table as well, I came prepared so I brought them with me to avoid having to sneak into the kitchen as well

Once she had them in hand, and I confirmed the state of my soup, I concluded that it was time for the next phase of the plan

"Quick, let's get this to Penny. I'll bring the cauldron and you take the spoon and the bowls"

She did just as I asked and with a bit of effort from my part, I was able to carry the cauldron with me. Had to drink a potion to avoid getting myself burnt by holding it

Chiara made sure there was nobody watching before signaling me to follow her and so we did, sneaking out of the potions classroom and into the Hufflepuff dorms, which fortunately for us, were literally next door. We walked into the stairs, I was at first looking back at my partner in crime to make sure she was coming along

"Come on, time is of the..."

I stopped both talking and walking when I saw the last thing I hoped to find in the stairs: Penny Haywood herself, still sick and stumbling her way down, exposing herself like this, the girl could barely stand!

"Penny? What in the name of Peeves are you doing up!?" I whispered to her, in my best attempt not to raise the tone of my voice

"I...I can h-help..."

Was all she could say before losing her grip on the stairs, thus failing to stay still and now, she was about to crash into me...wait, what?

No second thought was given as the space to react was paper thin, I threw the cauldron to the side, soup included, and extended my arms, reaching out to catch a falling Haywood, it all happened so fast, the next thing I knew was that I was on the floor, with Penny in my arms and the broken cauldron on the floor

...So much for that plan

"Hey, PenPen, you alright?" I asked her in a mellow tone, only getting a slow nod from her as a reply

I sighed upon confirming her state, then I spotted Chiara with her hands on her mouth, eyes wide in shock. She tried her best to remain calm. I can't blame her for reacting like that, this was so sudden, guess I had the duels to thank for sharpening reflexes

"A-Are you alright? You fell down the stairs too, Y/N!" Despite the shock, Chiara too was trying her best not to scream, the broken cauldron was loud enough as it was

...wait, the cauldron

"I'm fine, please get her back to her bed while I repair this cauldron before someone else comes"

Following my example and regaining her composure, the silver-haired girl rushed in our aid, took Penny from my arms and helped her get up. Displaying care rivaling that of Madam Pomfrey, Chiara got Penny to walk back up the stairs, now it was up to me

"It came from over here" I heard an unknown voice say from the distance, it was now or never

Getting my wand out, I focused on the cauldron, the soup contained within it and sealed the spell with some of my own memories before a single word came from my mouth

"Reparo"

As if it was in reverse, the cauldron pieced itself back together, with the soup getting back into it and recovering its warm state within seconds. I know it's as good as new, but now I'm not as confident in my soup

I still picked it up and as fast as I could without spilling it again, I got back up the stairs and put the cauldron on a table nearby before closing the door immediately after my arrival, fortunately, we didn't leave any clues as to what had happened...aside from a loud series of noises

I leaned against the door, sighing in relief, with my hands covering my face as I heard the voices retiring from the scene just as quickly as they approached it, a problem was avoided. Once that unpleasant surge of stress left my body, I was met with an appetizing smell, the soup

"Y/N, over here!"

Without wasting any more time, I grabbed the cauldron and followed Chiara's voice. This place was much less populated, which was amazing for the plan, not a single soul to gossip about what I was doing there, for once

Shortly after, I entered the same room I first encountered Penny when she was sick, it was pleasant to find her back in bed and Chiara sitting on a chair next to it. She was still apologizing for leaving the blonde's side for as long as she did, but I told her it was no biggie

I mean, it was, but I was not going to call her out in front of Penny, especially in her state. I placed the cauldron on a nightstand nearby and asked Chiara to help our common friend drink a bit of water while I prepared a bowl of chicken soup

"Alright, Penny. I prepared something for you, this will definitely help you combat this flu. Be careful, though it's still hot"

I handed her the bowl, with a handkerchief under it to keep her from burning herself. At first, the young Haywood was surprised, she inspected the soup and smiled at me

She might not have been able to speak well at the moment, but that smile said so much in her absence, she was genuinely moved by this gesture and with the spoon handed to her by her fellow Hufflepuff, she gave the soup a try

I don't know why I found myself nervous when I saw this, it was like a chef waiting for the critic to review their latest masterpiece. The thing was, I'm hardly a chef, and I'm only giving soup to a...a very important person for me

That would explain why did I feel my heart flooding with joy, relief, and whatnot when I saw her reaction to the dish. She hummed in approval, her eyes were surprised by the taste

She loved it

"Wow, is it really that good?” I thought to myself, Chiara noticed this too and asked me if she could try some of it too

I agreed to it, that was the reason why I chose to use multiple bowls. As a Ravenclaw, I like to take precautions for everything, although I have to admit, sometimes it feels a little...unnecessary

A-Anyway, the girl served herself a bowl of soup and tasted it as well, the same reaction as Penny

"My goodness, Y/N, this tastes amazing!"

"But...it's just chicken soup" I stated, as confused as one could be

I mean, chicken soup was not known to be godly in taste, just for its effectiveness. While I was too busy with my own thoughts, Penny fetched a notebook and a qill, using magic to gather them closer, and she started writing, then she showed me what she wrote

"You should dedicate to making food like this!"

"I agree!" Chiara added and they shared a laugh

Honestly, I never found someone so amazed by this dish...well, aside from me, of course, but watching them, it felt...

This is what mum must have felt whenever Jacob and I enjoyed her soup

Hours passed and Penny seemed to be getting better by the minute, her ability to speak, while still recovering, was far better now, enough to fully articulate a sentence. We never left her side, even Tonks miraculously managed to sneak her way back into the room, I knew I could count on her

Together with the Hufflepuff ladies, we came up with so many things to do to help make Penny's day less boring and in fact, we played all kinds of games, from gobstones on top of the nightstand to a couple of quizzes of random things!

It was one of the best days I've ever spent, easily

With a world as wonderful and eventful as ours, it was so easy to forget the countless adventures one could have in their very room, as long as they're in the right company. And all it took was a snowball and butterbeer

So much fun that in fact, I didn't even notice the time, way past curfew and I was still in a house that was not my own. Filch would jump at the opportunity to punish me for something like this and now thanks to my own clumsiness, he could

Currently, I was alone with Penny, Tonks had sneaked out to pull some prank and Chiara left to feed the magical creatures she was supposed to take care of. When we were alone, we acted...different

What do I mean by this? Well, I was sitting on Penny's bed, with her resting her head on my lap. None of us seemed to mind this, not at all

Penny was quite comfortable with my visit, but when she caught me staring at the window, she soon realized the same thing as I did, changing the atmosphere of the room into that of worry, something I did not intend to do at all

"Do you really have to go?..."

She asked, voice weak but still cute enough to pull my heartstrings, a smile remained on my face, full of sympathy for that Hufflepuff girl who would never hear a no from me when asking for help

"I'm afraid so, it's past curfew"

Her gaze saddened, like a child that realizes that playtime is over, and now it was time to rest...wait, that gave me an idea

I leaned closer and with that same playful smile I showed whenever I was about to commit mischief, I whispered to her

"But that doesn't mean I can't do one last thing for you, though?"

"Like what?" Her eyes showed curiosity, intrigue

I chuckled and ran my hand through those golden locks of hers, much to her surprise

"Just trust me, this'll help you make it through the night"

Suddenly, the lights illuminating the room became weaker thanks to my wand, and soon enough, a gentle hum would leave my mouth

I started to hum a song for Penny, one that, like everything else I had done today, had a deeper meaning. This one was one of my personal favorites, from a decade long before I was born, yet I found the lyrics to be so special

But I never had a reason to sing it, until now, of course

"Whenever it's early twilight

I watch 'til a star breaks through"

I began to sing whilst looking at her, that purity in her eyes, full of wonder and curiosity gained a smile from me, without stopping my song

"Funny, it's not a star I see

...It's always you"

I could have sworn I saw her blush by this, yet, I kept going, stroking her hair in an attempt to soothe her

"Whenever I roam through roses

And lately I often do

Funny, it's not a rose I touch

It's always you"

Immersing myself into this melody, I closed my eyes, looking away as those words left my lips, sang with gentle care. I could feel Penny relax against my touch, even leaning closer to get comfortable

"If a breeze caresses me It's really you strolling by"

If I hear a melody

It's merely the way you sigh"

Tonks entered the scene, only to be silenced immediately by Chiara, who motioned her to be as quiet as possible, as they both peeked over to one particular room...

"Wherever you are, you're near me

You dare me to be untrue

Funny, each time I fall in love..."

I opened my eyes to look down at the beauty I had near me, her eyes closed in peaceful sleep, she earned one last smile from myself as I leaned closer to give her a gentle kiss on the forehead, making her smile without knowing

"...It's always you"

#penny haywood x mc #penny haywood x jacob's sibling #hogwarts mystery #mc hogwarts mystery

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legionofpotatoes · 4 years

Photo

Okay then, since both of y’all are just delving in I’ll try to keep things (relatively) spoiler-free and stick to story sense and semiotics! Few caveats:

Have not had prior experience with Kojima’s body of work and if that’s a prerequisite in how I “should feel” about it then yike on a bike (just getting this out of the way based on what I’ve had talked at me)

My read excludes the entire context of moment-to-moment gameplay; I basically watched chronological story cutscenes stitched together with NPC interaction vignettes sprinkled in-between. 9 or so hours in total.

I did this because the gameplay does not interest me at all - and not in protest of chill social games (I adore both No Man’s Sky and thatgamecompany stuff, for example, and try to champion anything without Gun in it), but because the setting and length did not align with my expectations for something to invest so much time into. Still, I was super intrigued by the story, and, to a lesser extent, the plot.

also I have a hard time writing in condensed English, so this may run quite long. I’ll put the rest under a break. Second language, sorry!

I’m trying to think of a good way to start this. Like I said, the story, or what the thing was ABOUT, was infinitely more interesting to me than whatever wacko packaging Kojima thought up for the narrative. Which was a complicated, thought-out piece of fiction shattered into many disparate pieces and fed to us in a mystery-box-filmmaker kind of way, making us reverse-engineer what essentially was a rather simple interpersonal uhh. family tragedy, I guess.

But to its credit the lore is visibly built solely to support whatever thematic messaging Kojima would want to weave in there - something I can respect. Meaning it gets as wacky and as nonsensical as it needs to be in order to reflect the high-concept allegories at play, aaand then it does so to a fault. I adore works of fiction that don’t give a shit about “tone” - I hate that word more than anything in modern media - but effective symbolism in storytelling, IN MY OPINION, requires a deft hand, nuance, strong authorial position, and a good grasp of social context.

I want to like, go through these four points individually and nitpick my problems with the game in their lens, because I think they cover pretty much everything I feel like saying:

1. A deft hand - to me means to selectively dramatize correct themes and plot points as you go so that shit makes sense in the end. I felt this was incredibly lacking here. It was like a symphony going for hours without a crescendo. The absolute wrong bits of soulless exposition would be reiterated THRICE within a single cutscene while necessary context of, hell, character motives or even plot geography would be left vague. Intentionally vague, some would argue, but their later function would never arrive. Other times, what would visibly be conceived as wink-and-you’ll-miss-it foreshadowing could overstay its welcome to the point of inadvertently spoiling a later plot point. My girlfriend sniped the (arguably) most important reveal of the game, which is left for the tail end of the final epilogue (!), in the first hours of watching. The symbolics and allusions were just too plentiful where they should have been more subdued. I am DYING to provide examples here but I’m keeping it spoiler-free. Again, if this is a Kojima-ism, too bad; but it’s not a catastrophic failure of storytelling by any means. There are very few masters of this thing working today. But what can be easier to navigate, I think, is...

2. Nuance - this kinda goes hand-in-hand with the upper point but is a bit more important to me and applies to what SPECIFICALLY you decide to heighten in order to slap us across the face with your deeper meanings. Certain characters - not all of them - feel like caricatures. The silly names and overt metaphors (wearing a mask means hiding something! connected cities all have ‘knot’ in their name!) are honestly, genuinely FINE as long as their function isn’t betrayed, but the lean into metaphor worship can sometimes wade into SERIOUSLY shitty territory as contemporary implications are ignored altogether, and that ties into my fourth point, which I’ll address before looping back to the third; needless to say, approaching sensitive subjects with broad strokes is not exactly the way to go. But broad strokes is almost exclusively what this game does, forgetting to incorporate...

3. Social context - and I feel like avoiding examples here will be difficult lest I end up sounding like a dogmatic asshole; but there is a right thing and a wrong thing to do when co-opting IRL concepts to fit fictional messaging/storytelling. I feel that a character “curing” themselves of a phobia by experiencing emotional growth that vaguely corresponds to what the disorder could have symbolized is a wrong thing. And I don’t even want to get into all the wacky revisionism the lore ended up twisting into, which was mostly honestly entertaining (the ammonite will be a good hint to those who’ve played it), until it decided to, again, lean a bit too hard into painting today’s reality as a crisis of human connection and imply some questionable things about why, uh, asexual people exist, for example. Yes it makes some sense within the context of the lore and what’s happening in the plot, but it’s completely lacking in social know-how of the here and now. In other words: a Bad Look. To me, this type of wayward ignorance is a much more serious issue that can historically snowball any piece of writing into a witless disaster. I don’t know if it quite does it here, but it’s not really my place to say. Still, you can have wacky worldbuilding that has no sense of dramatic tension, nuance, or awareness towards the audience, and yet containing one last vital glue holding it all together, and that would be...

4. Strong authorial position - or intent I guess, to speak in literary terms - and I still have trouble pinpointing how and where this exists in this game. A bullshit stance you say, and I hear ya; cause this here is a video game very pronounced in its pro-human-connection messaging, painting the opposite outcome as an apocalyptic end to our species. And as I understand the gameplay is all about connections too - leaning into that theme so hard it even renders itself unapproachable to most capital-g Gamers. I honestly respect the balls of that. But really, as an author who headlined the creation of this thing, what was it really about? What were you trying to say?

And beyond “human connection is real important to beat apathy” I got nothing, and I think that’s because of points 1 and 2 failing in succession, and then point 3 souring the taste. It just had to be apparent the moment the curtain fell, is what I find. You just have to “get” it immediately, get what it was trying to say, but that will happen only if it’s been articulated incredibly well up to that point. Maybe the entire punch of that message REALLY depends on you spending dozens of hours ruminating on the crushing cost of loneliness as you haul cargo across countries on foot and connect people to your weird not-internet? If so, I’ve missed a vital piece of context, and with this being a videogame and all, it’s honestly a fair assumption. But otherwise.. it felt like a hell of a lot of twisting and turning and plot affectations that only led to more plot affectations and sometimes character growth (which had its own bag of issues from point 3) and not a hell of a lot to say about human connection beyond the fact that it is. good and useful. It felt like a repeated statement instead of being an argument. Does that make sense? I understand the story optics here are zoomed waay out and set on targeting the human condition as a whole, but like.. if you’re committing to a message, you have to stand by it.

Why is connection good? it’s a dumb question without a DOUBT but since the game has set out to answer it then it.. should? Did I miss the answer? I may have, I honestly can’t exclude the possibility. My lens was warped and my framework of consuming storytelling is a bit rigid in its requirements (the four points I mentioned), so maybe I’m just too grouchy and old to understand.

I just think Pacific Rim did it better and took about 7 hours less to do it! And yet, it, too, involved Guillermo Del Toro. Curious.

If you made it this far and are interested in my thoughts on the technical execution of it all as well, uhm, it’s pretty much spotless? Decima is utilized beautifully, the Hideo vanity squad of celebrities all do their very best with the often clunky dialogue, the music is great, the aesthetic and visual design is immediately arresting, and it certainly does an all-around great job at standing out from the rest of the flock. I fell in love with the BB a little bit. It is also a game that is incredibly horny for Mads Mikkelsen, which almost fully supplants the expected real estate for run-of-the-mill male gaze bullshit. It is. A change.

That’s all I got folks

#death stranding spoilers #reference

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theskyexists · 4 years

Text

The Timeless Children

I hated everything about this.

Like - EVERYTHING.

1. The companions had nothing to do with the Doctor the whole episode and contributed literally nothing to her story - they didn't even SAVE HER BECAUSE SHE SAVED HERSELF. They somehow find her in the centre of the ruins after they have a ‘touching’ moment about willing to risk their lives to save her - but they come into the room JUST after it’s become completely irrelevant - it was like a fucking PARODY. They never even learned what the fuck was up with her. Yaz gets nothing in return for her classic faith in the Doctor - this is worse than fucking Martha. And still no hugs - loveless. COMPLETELY LOVELESS.

2. There was zero suspense. Zero. Who CARES about the mystery of the Timeless Child and their society if the Time Lords are fucking dead. Who CARES about the companions being in danger when they’re in a completely separate plot - like - COMPLETELY. I thought the Doctor trying to bargain her life for theirs was a juicy line - too bad it meant NOTHING - had NO impact whatsoever. Half of this episode was pure exposition dump?

3. Why was this the Master show? - he just talked for 30 minutes (I think it might genuinely have been 30 ACTUAL minutes) while the Doctor said NOTHING - even Sasha Dhawan can’t carry that off???? I can’t believe that Chibs had me get bored of Sasha’s performance???? HOW. It was so repetitive - truth truth truth. I’m so weepy - I’m so mad - I’m so clever. Oh I’ve broken you - yep I’ve broken you. Why is there even the fuckin assumption?? I could not parse why this would be SO devastating to anyone that Chibs would hang the whole plot and emotional arc on this. Literally immobilising the Doctor and making her mute K.O.’d their INCREDIBLE chemistry. JEzus Christ.

4. This episode went: weapons are good though. Use bombs and guns!

5. ‘You can’t pretend to be cybermen for ANY amount of time’ - yet somehow they manage to masquerade as cybermen to such an extent that they can join a platoon, teleport down, shoot at people, and kill the cybermen remaining. Well why didn’t anyone else think of this???

6. Reduced cybermen down to - armour that you can fuckin PUT ON?????

7. NO attempt at body horror was made even when there was the opportunity. Human remains? we see nothing of the Cybermen’s previous humanity and their nature as victims. No threat of conversion for any of the companions. This was possibly the least scary chib episode yet and that says something.

8. If Ryan had lobbed a bomb at Yaz and Graham they would have been DEAD.

9. Why kill that girl when she should know that Cybermen don’t even falter at gunfire so how can she provide ‘cover’ lol

10. Needless explanation and repetition resulting in ZERO suspense. The Master explaining that he sent the Doctor those visions - useless minutiae. The Doctor retreading everything the Master has just told the audience - making her seem dumb and making me FEEL like he thinks I’m fuckin dumb.

11. Completely anticlimactic end for the Lone Cyberman.

12. The Doctor did not start out a rebel - did not start out looking at the stars going: ah....I want to go there. They interfered because they had been primed for it by years of working for the ‘Division’ - they weren’t a rebel who wanted to see more and then realised they could actually do good - in defiance of the conservative society they were part of. No. They’d been the Doctor even before Ian called One that. Well that cool and wonderful theory of being Named and taught by humans can go out the window.

13. First, the particle would destroy all life in the universe. Then - suddenly - as though they rewrote the script while they were filming - it would only destroy all life on the planet. Right.

14. Why even MENTION that nobody can enter the TARDIS in this very series if you end it on the fucking JUDOON!!!! JUDOON!!!! teleporting in.

15. It was repeatedly said that the Cybermen can ‘read’ human lifesigns but not uhhhhhh when it’s inconvenient I guess.

16. Is Tec-Teun Rassilon? Because I didn’t get the sense that the Time Lords’ rise to power on the back of their seemingly harmless genetic splicing was presented as a bad thing per se. So what the fuck is the issue. The Master was just mad that the Doctor was essential to the creation of his being. Ok. I guess there was no moral argument behind it or anything. They didn’t deserve to get wiped out - it really was just a lunatic who somehow gained the power to destroy one of the greatest civilisations ever (which is certainly also never explained).

17. Still no idea where Missy and her character development fits in this. Apparently this Gallifrey destruction wasn’t because of anything clever like that the Master learned from the Doctor and obliterated the Time Lords for being quite particularly evil by their new rules - no he just...... killed them because his ego got hurt? right.

18. Somehow not a single cyberman notices them disassembling 5 cybermen making a lots of noise - not even the fucking CYBERIUM - the hub of all strategic fuckin cyberknowledge or whatever - apparently they haven’t thought of sensors and AI interfaces being able to use them when plugged into a damn ship yet in the far future. Nobody notices them boarding, planting bombs, running away. None of the Cybermen can shoot straight. What a fuckin threat.

19. The Doctor really just needed a goddamn peptalk from her way more Doctor-ish past self to blow the Matrix out? That sequence was pretty fucking shit-looking. And then the emotional resolution is that she’s totally ok with being more than she remembers? Oh ok. ‘You’re afraid - not me!’ OK?? Why? Why? Would the Master have expected the Doctor to respond like it’s some awful truth. Ok the founders lied bc the Time Kid got out of control but then they lost track of them again? I mean yikes they suck. Isn’t the goddamn emotional punch really that their people are dead - again?? Dead??? forever??? what about its children??? what about the horror and the guilt and - does none of that matter any more? Guess we have another Dimension to travel to to see where the Doctor actually came from. Old conflictual but significant relationship with ‘home’ ended- mysterious dimension is the Doctor’s home now.

20. The end implies that the Doctor wasn’t hesitating to kill the Master, the last remains of the Time Lords and every single living thing on her home planet - she was just hesitating to kill herself. I said Chibnall had no moral intelligence but - he truly does not understand the Doctor in any way!? I cannot express how much I despise this. This was worse than mediocre it was fucking CRIMINAL. And it wasn’t even a triumph - it wasn’t even a defeat of the fuckin Master either (and who even CARES about Ko Sharmus????).

I lied I liked four things:

1. Graham and Yaz having their heart to heart.

2. Ginger-haired Brandon being the Doctor. That was a great visual parallel.

3. The overall backstory to the start of the Time Lords was like - fine. I prefer mythological backstories to be nebulous. But alright. Put the focus on the ability to regenerate instead of time travelling - ok, that makes sense - sure - whatever. All the diversity was pretty beautiful too.

4. At least the Master got choked this time (jfc chibnall - can you write NO other shorthand for the willingness to use deadly force???)

#yknow what i think would be good for chibs scripts?#them having to be shorter #scrap scrap scrap #kill all you fucking useless darlings #dw #ok so uhhhhhhhhh #spoilers #the timeless children #i hope my first sentence gave enough warning about my negativity #SALT #im a fuckin salt pillar blowing away in the wind #this is TV CANON #goddamn #GOD #damn #my stuff #vidi

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writingquestionsanswered · 5 years

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Ooh I have a paragraph question. When you paragraph switch to jump from present narrative to exposition and then back again, but people get confused like "wait is this present day again?" how can I make the transition more clear, more than just a new paragraph? "I walked into the party and saw that they were serving cheese. I hate cheese. ¶ That cheese I had that one time was so horrible. It was green and gave me nightmares. ¶ I walked away from the cheese table and made my way to the fruit."

Paragraphs and Memories

It looks to me what you’re describing is a character recalling a memory, and that’s not the same thing as the narrative actually jumping forward or backward in time. The character is just telling the reader, “Hey, this is a thing that happened once.” So, in that case, you really don’t have to worry about changing to a new paragraph unless it works for some other reason. Instead, you just find a way to phrase it that makes it clear the character is thinking about something that happened before the event being described in the present narrative:

I walked into the party and over to where the food was set up, noticing right away that Ted and Amy had put out an entire table worth of different cheeses, breads, and crackers. I hate cheese, owing to the fact that I once ate several slices of some gourmet cheese before realizing it was covered in green mold. It had made me so sick it gave me nightmares. Needless to say, I walked away from Ted and Amy’s fancy cheese table and went straight to the fruit and veggie platters.

But, if your actual narrative was flashing back to an earlier or later time, you’d switch to a new paragraph if not a new scene or chapter. :)

#writing #writing tips #writing help #writing advice #wqaadvice

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bpd-seishi · 5 years

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What do you think about the plot/spoilers of drrbv?

okay i wasn’t sure when i was gonna answer this but i got all worked up and upset again so i guess now’s a good time as any lol

not sure if i’m allowed to post the spoilers doc so if you wanna see it just dm me and i’ll send you the link

putting this under a cut cuz spoilers and also this gets kinda venty and long

okay first off, disclaimer. nothing against the voices team, even though i am really upset. please don’t send this to them, or harass them, or anything like that. i trust all of you not to do that anyway, but i felt like i should say it anyway given my,, feelings. also second disclaimer i’m just going off what i remember reading because i refuse to look at the doc again, it genuinely makes me nauseous.

so, uh, i guess that answers your question, lol. i hate it. i really, really do hate it.

there’s just,, a lot here to be honest. i guess i’ll go ahead and start with the obvious source of upset here: seishi’s whole character arc. we all know how i feel about him i mean it’s pretty obvious that his fate would come into play here

it’s not even just the fact that he dies, it’s.....well, there’s a lot here that i fucking hate. first off, i straight up refuse to accept the fact that marin killed him lol. even if it was just an accident, like,, marin isn’t stupid. why would she put her hand over his mouth if he was suffering from poisoning? and even then, wouldn’t narumi technically be the killer because she was the one who poisoned him in the first place? i dunno if that’s the point like marin was just supposed to be a scapegoat or something, but either way it’s fucking bullshit. and....mikoto?? cutting his head off?? to hide evidence??? unless i misread that???? first off, why the fuck would she do that, and second off, that’s just....too much. i don’t think you could show that in an actual danganronpa game, ffs. they had one character who was dismembered, and he was a robot, for god’s sake. now, i will admit to not finishing v3, so forgive me if i’m mistaken in assuming this, but still it’s just. yikes??

and onto another thing with seishi, they really said fuck seiyumu rights here, huh? ngl i guess this is pretty biased since it’s such a huge comfort ship for me but i really do think it’s shitty, manipulative writing to tease the ship like this and then suddenly yank it away and have him try to kill ayumu anyway. even if it wasn’t a ship i cared about so much i still would be upset about them doing that it’s such a cruddy thing to do, like. they evidently were going to share a kiss scene and everything, and didn’t they even confirm seishi had romantic feelings for ayumu?? i don’t understand why they would have all that and then continue with the assassination plot unless it was just to make the whole plot more “edgy” and/or like,, try to show how evil and bad seishi is. which is honestly pretty stupid when they wrote him to be the biggest dork ever but what the fuck ever i guess none of that actually matters in the scheme of things. fuck characterization, who needs it?

IN SPEAKING OF THEY REALLY SCREWED OVER A LOT OF CHARACTERS HERE, HUH. i really thought they’d let saiji live because i remember seeing that miwashiba originally wanted him to live in their version until his va dropped out, but they decided to toss all that out the window. and, hey, his death/arc could’ve been interesting anyway, i would’ve been sad but not this upset if they actually did something with him, but they instead decided to make his whole fucking arc rely on maiko which. just isn’t fair to either of them. maiko deserves better than to be “fridged almost gf that causes saiji to kill” and saiji deserves better than to be “guy who only thinks about maiko and his guilt over her death to the point where it overrides every other bit of his characterization”. that whole murder plot/chapter motive didn’t make a lick of sense anyway. just. fuck.

i also really think they screwed over mikoto in having her be a killer, to be honest. her whole character in miwashiba’s original version was that she hated needless killing, and, idk, it just seemed weird to me that they decided to completely ignore that. and they made her spoiled and bratty like??? i don’t know it just rubs me all the wrong way. i also take issue with narumi being the mastermind to be honest. i feel like it could’ve worked, if they’d set it up better, and i dunno, maybe it would’ve been if they’d been able to continue, but her reasoning for doing it is just......it’s another thing i take issue with. that whole backstory is convoluted, and i can’t get through the exposition part of the doc without getting a headache. you can say what you want about miwashiba’s version, but it’s at least cleaner, and it makes more sense. and i don’t even wanna talk about akira’s involvement here i still don’t understand it.

i’m starting to run out of steam and i’ve probably gone on long enough anyway (lord knows me and my friends gone on extensively about this) but it basically for me boils down to a lack of awareness over their own characters, too convoluted of a plot, and a lot of pointless edginess and what feels like twists for the sake of shock value (like what is the point of changing the pot as a weapon in chapter one to an acid squirt gun???? who asked for that????), and i know a lot of my friends feel the same, too. i really wish i could find something to be excited about for it, i mean, apparently they were going to have an arc about kazuomi being gay and i guess that’s neat but like. fuck. everything else kinda spoils it for me.

most of this probably won’t affect the way i interact with the series much since voices is just an au of the og rebirth and i tended to prefer the original anyway when writing fanfic for it but,, the whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. reading the epilogue bits made my stomach sink, and not in a good way that i think they were going for.

and of course, it’s fine if you disagree with me, but it really upset me and i had to get it off my chest and i’d really like it if we didn’t discuss it too much on this blog, please. i can’t even pretend to be excited about it, it’s got me that fucked up.

#seishi answers #not gonna tag it cuz it's just me ranting but #ugh #i'm almost kinda relieved that we didn't see this play out onscreen because i really do feel like i would've thrown up

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